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r any specially hard case which the removal may show. But stay and be plague-stricken we will no longer; nor are we disposed to spend our whole income in burning sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal to keep out infection. And certainly, when by neglect to pay ground-rent, or other illegality, the owner of our nuisance has forfeited his right to stay, no mortal can blame us for taking the strictest and most decisive steps known to the law to remove him.
AGNES OF SORRENTO.
CHAPTER XXVII
.THE SAINT'S REST.
Agnes entered the city of Rome in a trance of enthusiastic emotion, almost such as one might imagine in a soul entering the heavenly Jerusalem above. To her exalted ideas she was approaching not only the ground hallowed by the blood of apostles and martyrs, not merely the tombs of the faithful, but the visible "general assembly and church of the first-born which are written in heaven." Here reigned the appointed representative of Jesus,--and she imagined a benignant image of a prince clothed with honor and splendor, who was yet the righter of all wrongs, the redresser of all injuries, the friend and succorer of the poor and needy; and she was firm in a secret purpose to go to this great and benignant father, and on her knees entreat him to forgive the sins of her lover, and remove the excommunication that threatened at every moment his eternal salvation. For she trembled to think of it,--a sudden accident, a thrust of a dagger, a fall from his horse might put him forever beyond the pale of repentance,--he might die unforgiven, and sink to eternal pain.
If any should wonder that a Christian soul could preserve within itself an image so ignorantly fair, in such an age, when the worldliness and corruption in the Papal chair were obtruded by a thousand incidental manifestations, and were alluded to in all the calculations of simple common people, who looked at facts with a mere view to the guidance of their daily conduct, i