are we to explain the fact, that for two hundred years after its establishment, Spain was the first country in Europe? The decline of Spain may be traced, with greater probability, to other causes. The emigration of her people to America, the influx of wealth from her colonies, and the consequent decline of industry among her population, contributed, with various. other well known causes, to lower her in the scale of European nations. We often hear of the number of victims who were immolated by her Inquisition, but we are not told of the far greater number who fell in the various religious wars by which Germany, France, and England were convulsed, while Spain was secured by this institution from the acrimonious controversy in which those wars originated! Where the Spanish Inquisition immolated one victim, the Moloch of religious dissension has immolated whole hecatombs! We cannot think that Mr. Prescott would have hazarded many of the aspersions on the Catholic Church with which his book is filled, had he been fully aware of the facts above stated. He might have learned a lesson of moderation in this respect from his illustrious countrymen, Bancroft and Irving, especially as the Inquisition, the cause of his indignation, no longer exists. We regret still more the faults of his book, because it will descend to posterity as a standard work of American literature, of which his country may justly be proud. It is time for all of us to learn the lesson of forbearance taught by the Gospel, and confirmed by the bitter experience of the past. Have the Protestant sects been immaculate on the score of religious persecution, in regard to the mother Church, or even in regard to each other? If they have, then may they rail at the Spanish Inquisition! But if they have some misgivings on the subject, then would we say to them in the language of our blessed Lord addressed to the Scribes and Pharisees, who sought the death of the woman taken in adultery: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone." 6. 1 See Muzzarelli, Il buon uso della logica," etc. vol. v, p. 108, for a beautiful passage on this subject. XII. THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND.-BERNESE INTRIGUES.* The late religious war in Switzerland - Policy of France and Austria-Intrigues of EnglandCharacter of the War-Whence the liberties of Switzerland-Analogy between the late struggle, and that preceding the Reformation - Berne the centre of operations-M. de Haller's point of view His character as an historian - His authorities - Wavering of Berne- Tortuous policyHow she embraced the Reform - The bear and the pears - Treacherous perjury of Berne — Zuinglian Council - Its decrees - Religious liberty crushed-Riot and sacrilege - Proceedings of Bernese commissioners - Downright tyranny - The minister Farel-His fiery zeal — An appalling picture - A parallel-Priests hunted down- Character of the ministers - Avowal of Capito The glorious privilege of private judgment - How consistent! - Persecution of brother Protestants Drowning the Anabaptists - Reformation in Geneva - Rapid summary of horrors -The Bernese army of invasion - The sword and the Bible - Forbearance of Catholics - Affecting incident at Soleure- - The war of Cappell - Points of resemblance - An armed apostle - A prophet quailing before danger - Battle of Cappell - Death of Zuingle - Triumph of Catholic cantons — Treaty of Peace. THE exciting occurrences which took place in Switzerland a few years ago, caused the eyes of the whole civilized world to be directed to that most interesting country. All Europe stood looking on with the most lively interest, while those scenes were enacting; and France and Austria, with their powerful armies, hovered over the Swiss frontiers, ready to interpose in case of necessity;-whether to stay the onward progress of anarchy and civil war, or to turn the course which events might take to their own advantage. And these two great Catholic powers, after witnessing the noble heroism with which the Catholic Swiss at first successfully repelled the army of invaders, which came to assail their dearest rights, and to pollute their very firesides, could calmly look on and see those same noble heroes finally succumb to overwhelming numbers! Without striking a blow, or even entering a serious protest, they could see the ancient liberties of Switzerland crushed in the dust, and its brave defenders bowed down under the yoke of a most degrading slavery! The vile intrigues of England gained for her the diplomatic victory; and the Catholic cabinets, at her bidding, consented ignobly to sacrifice the cause of right and justice to that of mere political expediency. The spirit of chivalry had fled, and the weak, nobly struggling for their altars and their liberties, were permitted to be overwhelmed by the strong; might thus gaining the day over right. * Histoire de la revolution religieuse, ou de la reforme Protestante dans la Suisse Occidentale. Par Charles Louis de Haller, ancien membre du conseil souverain, et du conseil secret de Berne, chevalier de l'ordre royal de la legion d'honneur, et de celui de Charles III. d'Espagne, &c. History of the religious revolution, or of the Protestant Reformation, in Western Switzerland. By Charles Louis de Haller, former member of the supreme and of the secret councils of Berne, Knight of the royal order of the legion of honor, and of that of Charles III. of Spain, &c. 4th edition. Paris, 1839. ! vol. 12mo, pp. 436. It is admitted on all hands, that, in the disturbances to which we allude, the Protestants were the aggressors, and that the Catholics acted only on the defensive. Lucerne, the principal Catholic canton of the confederacy, claimed the right of managing her own educational concerns without the interference of her neighbors; this right was clearly guaranteed to her by the fundamental articles of the Swiss confederation; and she resolved to maintain it at all hazards. If the Catholic Lucerners thought proper to entrust the education of their children to the Jesuits, what right had the Protestants of Argovia, Berne, and Bâle Campagne to object? What right had the latter to say to the former, you shall not employ these teachers, but you shall employ such as may be agreeable to our taste? Yet they did thus wantonly and rudely interfere with what was clearly not their business; but they received a lesson which may serve as a warning to all busy meddlers in future. In the late desperate attempts to subvert the constitution, and to crush the very independence of Lucerne by force, this brave old Catholic canton, assisted by its faithful allies of Schwytz, Uri, Zug, and Unterwald, proved to all the world that it could fight as well as pray; and that Catholicity, far from enervating, had strengthened its primitive vigor and courage. The old Catholic cantons proved themselves worthy descendants of those noble patriots who had fought at Morgarten, under the victorious banners of Tell and Fürst. These Catholic heroes had laid the foundations of Swiss independence, in the beginning of the fourteenth century; and with their watch-word, LIBERTY, they had ever proved terrible to their foes, and unconquerable in battle. The fierce Gorgón of despotism had not dared, for centuries, to desecrate, with his foul footsteps, the soil beneath which rested the mortal remains of those soldiers of freedom; nor to pollute, with his pestilent breath, that pure and bracing air of the mountains, which was itself the most appropriate emblem of the pure, and lofty, and untrammeled patriotisın, cherished as their own heart's blood by the brave, sturdy, and enthusiastic Swiss mountaineers. How could the Protestant reformation hope to pervert such men as these? It might easily gain over to its standard the comparatively effeminate, and the far more worldly-minded and corrupt inhabitants of the plains; it could never proselytize the unsophisticated children of the mountains. These prized their religion as dearly as they did their ancestral glory; in fact, the two were intimately associated together in their minds, as they had ever been in the heroic period of their history. It was the Catholic religion which had inspired the ardent patriotism, stimulated the noble courage, and nerved for battle the brawny arms of Tell and his associates it was the Catholic religion which had crowned the victors with laurel, had celebrated the triumphal disenthralment of the country by its splendid services of thanksgiving, and had erected the public monuments which commemorated the victory. Bending reverently before the altar of his God, and falling prostrate before the Lamb offered up thereon, the Swiss hero had prayed with confidence for victory; and he had there, too, returned ; his fervid thanks to God, when victory had been finally won by his good sword blessed by heaven. No wonder, then, that Lucerne and the other Catholic cantons could not brook to be dictated to by their neighbors, in matters involving the free exercise of their religion. No wonder that they were willing to shed the last drop of their blood, rather than have the bright jewel of faith torn from their bosoms, or than wear, riveted upon their necks, the galling yoke of a religious despotism. The late war in Switzerland was a religious war, in which one party was struggling for its religious independence, and the other, for the establishment of a religious ascendency. That such a struggle should have happened a hundred years back, would create little or no surprise; but that it should have occurred in our own day; in this enlightened and tolerant nineteenth century; in this enlightened age of dollars and cents, in which almost every thing else is valued more highly than religion; is indeed not a little astonishing. It might even seem that this age was awaking from its lethargic stupor of indifference, and was putting on once more something of that religious zeal and enthusiasm which whilom animated the crusaders. But such was really not the case. The awakening was only local, partial, and fitful; it was but a momentary outburst of a religious bigotry as blind as it was hateful, on the one side; and of a religious enthusiasm for self-defense, both deep and determined, on the other. It was a fitful war of two great conflicting elements in society-anarchy and order. Order at first triumphed; but anarchy finally gained the day! There is no It would be but a very imperfect and short-sighted view of the subject, to consider the late Swiss disturbances as merely isolated events, unconnected with the past history of Switzerland. To understand them aright, we must look back three hundred years, to the period when the great religious revolution, called by courtesy the reformation, swept over that country, scattering broadcast upon its once peaceful and happy soil the prolific seeds of dissensions, and divisions, and civil wars. more doubt that all the evils, all the bitter feuds, all the rancorous civil broils, and nearly all the bloodshed of Switzerland during the last three centuries, have sprung from the reformation, than there is of this other fact, that all the previous liberty, and peace, and glory of the country, had sprung from the great political revolution effected by Catholics in the beginning of the fourteenth century. These two great revolutions are the starting points of Swiss glory and of Swiss disgrace. It is with this view that we now proceed to present some of the leading facts in the early history of the Swiss reformation; a revolution, as we sincerely believe, pregnant with infinite mischief of every kind to the Swiss confederation. Zurich was the first city in Switzerland which embraced the reformation; or, as M. de Haller expresses it, she was the mother and the root of all She was nearly religious and political Protestantism in Switzerland." 1 Page 434. eight years in advance of Berne in the race of reform; and it was through her influence mainly that the latter at length consented to accept the new gospel. But once Berne had embraced it, she far outstripped her preceptor in religious zeal or fanaticism; and she took the lead in all the subsequent religioso-political affairs of the country. Her central position, her rich and extensive territory, her untiring industry, and her adroit and unscrupulous diplomacy, gave her the ascendency over the other Protestant cantons, and made her the leader in every great enterprise. It was through her intrigues that Geneva was induced to receive the new doctrines; it was by her triumphant physical power that the reformation was thrust down the throats of the good Catholic people of Vaud. Bernese preachers, escorted by Bernese bailiffs and spies, traversed all the north-western cantons, scattering dissension wherever they went, and establishing the new gospel, either by intrigue or by force, wherever they could. Cautiously and cunningly, but with an industry that never tired, and a resolution that never faltered, Berne pursued her Machiavellian policy; until, by one means or another, about half of the Swiss confederation was torn from Catholic unity, and bound at the same time, by strong political ties, to herself. Thus she became the great leader of the Protestant, as Lucerne has ever been that of the Catholic cantons of Switzerland. It is from this elevated point of view, that M. de Haller looks down upon the history of the Swiss reformation. Himself a Bernese, and, until he became a Catholic,' a Bernese counsellor as high in power and influence as he was in wisdom and talents, he was eminently qualified to write a history of the religious revolution in Switzerland. Candid and moderate by nature, of an enlarged mind and comprehensive genius, his scrupulous veracity has not been denied even by his strongest opponents; while he certainly had every opportunity to become thoroughly acquainted with the events he relates. He assures us in his preface, that his history "cannot be taxed with exaggeration, for it has been faithfully derived from Historical Fragments of the city of Berne, composed by a Bernese ecclesiastic (Protestant); from the History of the Swiss, by Mallett, a Genevan Protestant; from that of Baron d'Alt, a Catholic, it is true, but excessively reserved upon all that might displease the Bernese; and above all, in fine, from the History of the Reformation in Switzerland, by M. Ruchat, a zealous Protestant minister and professor of belles-lettres at the academy of Lausanne, to whom all the archives were opened for the composition of his work." 2 This last named writer, whom he quotes continually, was a most violent partisan of the Swiss reformation; and yet even he was compelled to relate a large portion of the truth, mixed up, as usual, with much adroit and canting misrepresentation. Thus he asserts, among other things, "that the Catholic religion is idolatrous and superstitious, and that it cannot be sustained but by ignorance, by interest, by violence, and by 1 For having become a Catholic, he was expelled from the council, probably in order to prove Protestant love of liberty! 2 P. ix. |