kindness, and treated with tenderness. Vagrant, vagabond-no epithet is too strong for the English or even American beggar. Is not this but too often the case amongst ourselves? And yet, are our Protestant brethren generally uncharitable? We do not say so. The fault is more that of society than of individuals; more that of their religion than of any natural hard-heartedness in its professors. Protestantism, we repeat it, necessarily fosters a spirit of isolation, of individualism, of selfishness, of pride; and it was only Protestantism that could have made generally current the popular maxim: "Every man for himself, and God for us all!" In Catholic countries, the social feeling is much stronger, and such a maxim would grate harshly on the popular ear; its general acceptance would be impossible.

Mr. Laing not only asserts, but proves, that the Catholic population of Prussia is more industrious, enterprising, and wealthy, as well as more free and enlightened on their rights and wants, than the Protestant population of the same kingdom. He also shows that this superiority is fairly traceable, not only to their position on the Rhine and in the vicinity of France or Poland, but also to their principles as Catholics, exempting them from the iron religious supremacy of the Prussian monarch, and placing their spiritual rights under the special guardianship of the Roman Pontiff.' He says:

"Her Rhenish and Westphalian provinces are not only wealthy and manufacturing; they are liberal, and hang very loosely to the autocratic principle of the Prussian government. They retained, when they were handed over to Prussia, their former laws and law courts .... and have nothing in their laws or courts in common with the rest of Prussia; suffered no revival or intrusion of the old feudal or the Prussian jurisprudence and tribunals, and have very clearly indicated that they would not suffer it. They have shown, in their support of the Catholic bishop of Cologne arising evidently not from a blind spirit of fanaticism, but from a spirit of opposition to despotic sway- that they are not a population to be governed, like military serfs, by the will or caprice of a cabinet. It is from this population of about 4,000,000 that the impulse has been given to the great movement of the German people in the German league."2

"This population, living under French law, is the very kernel of the Prussian kingdom· a concentrated population of from three to four millions, the most wealthy, commercial and manufacturing, and the most enlightened upon their rights and wants, of any, perhaps, in Germany. In the province of Posen, again, at the other extremity of the kingdom, the French administration, by justices de paix and by open courts of justice, and open examination of witnesses, prevails over the general Prussian administration."3

That the Prussian Catholics were disposed to range themselves on the side of popular freedom, in consequence of their principles as Catholics, is avowed and proved in the following remarkable passage:

"The principle that the civil government, or state, or church and state united, of a country is entitled to regulate its religious belief, has more of

1 Pp. 155, and 230-32.

2 Laing, p. 155.

3 Laing, pp. 230-31.

intellectual thraldom in it than the power of the popish (?) church ever exercised in the darkest ages; for it had no civil power joined to its religious power. It only worked through the civil power of each country. The church of Rome was an independent, distinct, and often an opposing power in every country to the civil power; A CIRCUMSTANCE IN THE

SOCIAL ECONOMY OF THE MIDDLE

AGES, TO WHICH, PERHAPS, EUROPE IS

INDEBTED FOR HER CIVILIZATION AND FREEDOM- -for not being in the state of barbarism and slavery of the east, and of every country, ancient and modern, in which the civil and religious power have been united in one government. Civil liberty is closely connected with religious libertywith the church being independent of the state. In Germany the seven Catholic sovereigns have 12,074,700 Catholic subjects, and 2,541,000 Protestant subjects. The twenty-nine Protestant sovereigns, including the four free cities, have 12,113,000 Protestant subjects, and 4,966,000 Catholic. Of these populations in Germany, those which have their point of spiritual government without their states, and independent of them - as the Catholics have at Rome-enjoy certainly more spiritual independence, are less exposed to the intermeddling of the hand of civil power with their religious concerns, than the Protestant populations, which, since the reformation, have had church and state. united in one government, and in which each autocratic sovereign is de facto a home-pope. The church affairs of Prussia in this half century, those of Saxony, Bavaria, and the smaller principalities, such as Anhalt Kothen, in all of which the state has assumed and exercised power inconsistently with the principles, doctrines, observances, and privileges of the Protestant religion, clearly show that the Protestant church on the continent, as a power, has become an administrative body of clerical functionaries, acting under the orders of the civil power or state."

We must give yet one more passage of a similar import, in which the author acknowledges, with his usual candor, that the German Catholics, in the late controversy regarding mixed marriages, took the liberal side, stood on the most popular ground, and struck a successful blow for liberty:

"The popish (!) priests stand upon the defense of acknowledged spiritual rights, which—if taken away by a royal edict, without any concurrence to it through a constitutional representation, and a law or act to which the people are not parties-would lay open all rights, as well as those claimed by the clergy, to the arbitrary interference of the civil power. Independent altogether of superstition or church influence, the Catholic clergy have here a support from this connexion between their cause and the cause of liberal constitutional government, as opposed to a government of arbitrary edicts and irresponsible functionaries. Between submission to the Pope in all the questions with the Catholic Church, and a representative constitution sanctioning by the voice of the people themselves the supremacy of the state in those questions, no third way is opened to the Prussian government. It seems a decree of fate in social economy, that representative governments, parliaments, shall spring up in every age from collisions between the civil and ecclesiastical powers.'

all

2

Listen to these avowals of an enlightened and candid Protestant writer you who have been crying out for these last three centuries, that ali the liberty is on the side of Protestantism, and all the slavery on that of

1 Laing, p 194.

2 Laing, p 198.

Catholicity. Listen to them, all you who represent the papacy as the very nucleus of spiritual despotism.

But we must here advert to another very striking feature which existed in the social economy of Prussia up to the beginning of the present century, a peculiarity which, we believe, was also found until lately in .Denmark, and in several other Protestant kingdoms or principalities in the north of Europe. We allude to the feudal or serf-system, which degraded the mass of the population, into the veriest slaves that ever drew the breath of life, slaves who were mere fixtures on the soil, and were bought and sold with it according to the interest or caprice of their masters. This horrible system of thraldom does not, we think, now exist in any European country, except Russia, and Poland, the poor crushed victim of Russia, it certainly has not existed for centuries in any country where Catholicity was enabled to exercise its influence, untrammeled and uncontrolled. But the genial influence of the Catholic Church, to which society was indebted for the gradual removal of this evil, had been slow to penetrate into the cold regions of northern Europe; it had not penetrated at all into Russia, where the papacy was despised, and its declarations treated with contempt.

--

Such being the facts of history, be it ever remembered, that Prussia and other Protestant kingdoms of northern Europe actually riveted the bondage of the poor peasantry, and retained, or rather renewed, the degrading serf-system, from the first dawn of the reformation down to the beginning of the present century! At the commencement of the reformation, the German peasants had risen in mass, and had struck for their civil and political rights. The German princes, at the instigation of Luther himself, and of the other principal reformers, had crushed their revolt by main force, and had drowned their cries for liberty in their blood! For almost three centuries from that date, the condition of the peasants was worse than it had ever been before; and the reformation, which talked so much about its love of human liberty, and inveighed so loudly against the enslaving tyranny of Rome, actually kept the mass of its own followers, for almost three centuries, in the most galling and degrading of all servitudes! That such is the fact, will appear from the following testimony of Mr. Laing:

"If the serf deserted, he was brought back by the military, who patrolled the roads for the purpose of preventing the escape of the peasants into the free towns, their only secure asylum; and was imprisoned, fed on bread and water in the black hole, which existed on every baronial estate, and flogged. The condition of these born serfs was very similar to that of the negro slaves on the West India estates during the apprenticeship term, before their final emancipation. This system was in full vigor up to the beginning of the present century, and not merely in remote unfrequented corners of the continent, but in the center of her civilization, all around Hamburg and Lubeck, for instance, in Holstein, Schleswig, Hanover, Brunswick, and over all Prussia."

1 Page 104.

Our readers may now perceive, who have been the real friends of the poor, and the true champions of human liberty, the Protestants or the Catholics. While the former have talked and boasted much, they have really effected little, or rather their actions have but too often sadly belied their professions. The latter, on the contrary, have said little, but have done much. And the result of these two opposite lines of conduct is plainly traceable in the present condition of the poor-the bulk of the population-in most Catholic and Protestant countries of Europe.

We have yet much more to say on this most interesting subject; we have still to speak of the social condition of Northern Europe, Switzerland, and Italy; and we have to institute a comparison between Catholic and Protestant countries in regard to the moral and religious conditions of their respective populations. But we must defer the treatment of these topics to our next paper.

XXVI. CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT COUNTRIES.*

ARTICLE II.- -GERMANY AND ITALY.

The Catholic and Protestant cantons of Switzerland-An "enlightened self-interest "-Why the Protestant cantons are more prosperous-Material condition of Catholic Italy-Italian and Scotch holy days-Mr. Laing's theory for explaining the alleged social inferiority of the Italians-Italy in ancient and modern times-Influence of climate on popular industry and activity-The Italian poor compared with those of England and Ireland-Mr. Laing's testimony-The garden-like culture of Italy-Comparative cheerfulness of Protestant and Catholic nations-Taste for the fine arts-Politeness-Temperance-Testimony of Robert Dale Owen-Comparative moralityMoral condition of Sweden-Popular education in Catholic and Protestant countries-The common school system in Austria-Liberal policy-Relative instruction of English and Belgian operatives— The Prussian common school system-Religious condition-State of religion at Geneva-Deplorable defection-Protestantism in other European countries-Mr. Laing's theory to account for the admitted religious superiority of Catholic nations examined-His honorable testimony to Catholic faith and piety.

THE twenty-two cantons, composing the Swiss confederation, are nearly equally divided between Catholics and Protestants. Mr. Laing gives us the following view of the comparative religious and social condition of these two classes of the population:

"The Swiss people present to the political philosopher the unexpected and most remarkable social phenomenon of a people eminently moral in conduct, yet eminently irreligious; at the head of the moral states of Europe, not merely for absence of numerous or great crimes, or of disregard of right, but for ready obedience to law, for honesty, fidelity to their engagements, for fair dealing, sobriety, and industry, orderly conduct, for good government, useful public institutions, general well-being and comfort-yet at the bottom of the scale for religious feelings, observances, or knowledge, especially in the Protestant cantons, in which prosperity, well-being, and morality, seem to be, as compared to the Catholic cantons, in an inverse ratio to the influence of religion on the people. discordance between their religious and their moral and material state to be reconciled? It is so obvious, that every traveler in Switzerland is struck with the great contrast in the well-being and material condition of the Protestant and Catholic populations, and equally so with the difference in the influence of religion over each. This influence is at its minimum in Protestant, and at its maximum nearly, in Catholic Switzerland; and the prosperity and social well-being of the people are exactly the reverse."

How is this

In attempting to explain this "remarkable social phenomenon," Mr. Laing suggests that, in the Protestant cantons, as among the ancient pagan

*Notes of a Traveler on the Social and Political State of France, Prussia, Switzerland Italy, and other parts of Europe, during the present century. By Samuel Laing, Esq. author of "A Journal of a Residence in Norway," and a "Tour in Sweden." From the second London edition. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1816. Ivol. 8 vo.

1 Pp. 304-5.