"Last night it was decided that the king should leave immediately; at midnight it was deferred, but only deferred. The throne has well nigh fallen."
The following Address to the Clergy of the Kingdom was issued by the Ecclesiastical Committee of Union:
"Viva Italian Independence!
"Viva Victor Emanuel!
"Viva Giuseppe Garibaldi!
"PROGRAMME.
"Italianism, Activity, Catholicity—these are the duties demanded of every good Neapolitan Christian, whether priest or layman; these he is called upon to practise both in thought and action for the benefit of the country. Such, in fact, is the speculative and practical principle which in Naples animates the Union Ecclesiastical Committee in order to arrive at the most holy object of independence, in the noble undertaking of Italian redemption. For these reasons the committee are intent on the union of ideas with facts; they profess it to be their indispensable duty to labor unweariedly, so as not to go in opposition to the orthodox faith, which rests in Christ and his vicar on earth—in Christ as God-man, in his vicar as the first religious and the first civil power of the world. Hence, taking its stand on these axioms, the committee declares its intention of realizing the evangelical maxim that spiritually the state is in the church, as temporarily the church is in the state; and so it labors to establish the unity of Italy in the order of religion and civilization; in the order of religion, of which the pontiff of Rome is the œcumenical moderator; in the order of civilization, of which Victor Emanuel is the only regulator in the Italian kingdom."