drum-beat greeted the rising sun around the world. Her capitalists have covered Europe with railroads, and she has made laws to millions in Asia. She has her colonies in Africa, America, and a rising empire in Australia. What the United States are effecting in the Western Hemisphere, she is accomplishing in the Old World. Within eleven years, Spain effects the subjugation of Grenada, discovers and conquers America, and establishes THE INQUISITION! At the summit of prosperity in the fifteenth century, behold her in the nineteenth! See that spectacle of agony which cannot come to an end; that all-pervading confusion to which no term can be assigned; the certain and progressive ruin of a nation that, for a whole century, dictated laws to Europe; that inhabits the richest and most fertile soil, perhaps, under heaven-but a nation so disheartened that it feels itself perish, and watches its own decline with the resignation of a fatalist!

The clergy possess nearly one-third of the entire surface of Spain. As a consequence, one-twelfth of the inhabitants earn a livelihood by smuggling, robbing, and begging; and it has been estimated that three million Spaniards wear no shirt from want of money to purchase one. There are forty classes of vagrants, each class with a specific, recognized name. There is an assassination for every four thousand of the population. Education is scarcely known, and there is but one pupil to every three hundred and fifty inhabitants. Internal navigation, agriculture, and manufactures are at a stand-still. Such is modern Spain, once the first, now the last of nations! What is the cause of this? what the origin of such utter misery and helplessness? Tyranny, answers the politician; Romanism, says the Protestant; the Inquisition, replies the historian. But these three are one. Tyranny and the Inquisition!-foul offspring of blighting Romanism!

During the past year, the Queen of Spain having presented to the Pope a magnificent tiara of diamonds, the Pontiff returns an allocution to the "Catholic Sovereign," and the gift of the body of St. Felix! Thus has it ever been. Spain parts with her wealth to Rome,

and receives in return bones, putrefaction, and rottenness! But Rome has borne sway there too long. The Spaniards are now rising against this frightful spiritual and civil tyranny; the dupes and tools of the priesthood have fled the country like malefactors, and the sovereign herself obeys the dictates of her subjects. Rome is no longer to hold Spain as her property, to farm and pillage it to benefit the Papal treasury. She has fattened on it too long, and has left it, poor, weak, uneducated, superstitious, low in civilization, the prey of countless factions. But Spain is ridding herself of the cause of her misery— may we not hope, forever?

We address to the reader's conscience this twofold question: First, is it not true that Spain, favored with the finest climate, placed at the head of Europe, enriched with a world, but remaining Romanist, has continued to decline and grow poorer, sinking at last into ignorance, misery, and immorality? Secondly, is it not true that England, with a sterile soil, a cloudy sky, and starting from the lowest rank among European nations, but having embraced Protestantism, is now prosperous, enlightened, moral, and at the head of the civilized world?

We find the relative influence of the two creeds fully developed in the Republic of Switzerland. The Protestant cantons are more populous than the Romanist, and carry on a far greater trade. The latter are obliged to keep many holidays besides Sundays, and thus agriculture is much neglected. The Cantons of Zurich, Basle, Geneva, Glaris, and Neufchatel, all Protestant, are distinguished above the rest for their industry and manufactures. The people are not so well educated in the Romish as in the other cantons. There are but twenty-two presses in the former to eighty in the latter. Ten Protestant journals are printed to three Romanist. In the Papist cantons, ignorance and misery go hand in hand, and distress the eyes of the traveller. The taste for processions, pilgrimages, and other acts of devotion introduced by the monks, has encouraged a spirit of idleness which is the bane of trade and agriculture, and augments the numbers of the poor. In the cantons where the peasants bow the

neck to the yoke of the clergy, men have lost all their energy, all elevation of mind. Servile and taciturn as slaves, they have forgotten their rights, and know nothing beyond the performance of a mechanical and unreasoning obedience. The Canton du Valais is celebrated throughout Europe for its filth, superstition, and wretchedness. "Mangè pas les puces et les Prètres" (eaten up by lice and priests), is the proverb applied to its inhabitants throughout Europe. The population is behind the other cantons even in regard to agricultural operations and the management of cattle. They are inferior in education, knowledge, and science; and are specially idle, negligent, and dirty. In the villages, at every door are seen horrible crètins, sickly, wretched, languishing, with an enormous head, lost in an immense goître, their faces swollen and livid, the eyes sunk under the thick and heavy lids; the flabby cheeks, the half-opened lips, with the tongue hanging out, and a filthy saliva round it. Some, scarcely covered with rags, lie warming their limbs in the sun; others, seated on the laps of halfcrètinized old women, resign their beards and heads to their inspection, or moodily count their beads, muttering Aves and Pater Nosters. Medical men are decided that the causes of this deformed idiocy, crètinism, are moral as well as physical; the neglect of education leads to their imbecility.* Children are left to themselves, and exist like beasts. They wallow in the mire, seizing and devouring all they find there. In winter they pass whole days stretched in a room warmed by a stove. Drunkenness is the prevailing vice, and the population is universally superstitious, insensible to their own interests, intractable and obstinate.

Romanism had a hard battle to fight in Germany at the time of the Reformation. The North, represented by Prussia, became Protestant; the South, under the influence of Austria, remained Romanist. In the latter, two powers, the government and the clergy, have united in working the nation to their mutual advantage. The clergy, at first, strove to govern both the people and the nobles; but

*Raoul Rochette, Vol. III. p. 392. Lautier, Vol. II. p. 204.

these resisted, and took the place coveted by the clergy. The civil power is therefore master, only it reigns in the nation by the means and tutoring of the Church. A compromise exists; the Church is the instrument, the Government is the hand; but the instrument acts according to its own aptitude, so that a harmonious concurrence exists between the two powers. Rome has fashioned Austria, although Rome obeys Austria, and the two forces have successfully enthralled the nation, by depriving it of liberty and education. Freedom of thought does not exist: there are twelve offices for the revision of books, and as many censors, at Vienna, Prague, and Milan. The advance of industry is stopped by an exaggerated prohibitive system; her commerce in nowise answers to the extent of her monarchy, and her internal trade is scarcely half developed.

There is no individual liberty; the subject is a simple tenant; he cannot be more. The lords judge between their own subjects; they may even judge in their own cause. Up to 1846, except in Hungary, no peasant might emigrate, buy, sell, make a will, or marry, without authorization; he was, in fact, a minor, kept under by perpetual legislative guardianship.

Gallicia, a country possessing all the elements of wealth, has remained barren, and frightful indigence bears sway. In the wretched and repulsive-looking villages, narrow huts, formed of branches of trees rudely kept together with osier bands, and covered with straw and clay, surround a church. The other provinces of the empire are in similar condition; religion and misery go hand in hand. There is, as we before observed, no liberty of thought, no liberty of commerce, no individual liberty; but instead, drudgery for the peasants, beating for the soldiers, humiliation for officials, and a villainous system of secret police.

The different professions are enrolled to serve as spies, as also are the hackney-coachmen. Servants are called upon to tell what they know of their masters and households; door-keepers, tradesmen, and clerks render the same service. One-half of the people are spies upon the other half.

Thanks to this abominable tyranny and vile superstition, Austria is falling daily in opinion; the distrust and discontent which the government excites, germinate like fertile seeds, and will one day bear bitter fruits.

Whilst Austria extinguishes the light of knowledge and forbids liberty of thought, Prussia, on the contrary, governs by means of that light and liberty.

Prussia is a state in which instruction is very generally diffused and watched over with the greatest care: the number of schools increases annually. There is no country where science and learning are more encouraged, or cultivated with greater success, and the inhabitants have reached a high degree of moral and intellectual attainment. The government pays the greatest attention to public education, and the advancement of the arts and sciences. Freedom is granted to all religious denominations.

The result of Luther's reformation in Germany was liberty of thought and opinion. No distinction was made between theological and philosophical truth, and public disputations were held on all subjects without opposition. Nowhere has the human mind been permitted to expand or express itself more freely than in Northern Germany: Liberty of thought and Protestantism are there united by strong ties, and German Philosophy is the daughter of the Reformation. The language even has felt the benefit: Protestants were the first to write it with intelligence, and this pure style is, in the countries subject to Austria, called Lutheran German.

Agriculture is improving, manufactures increase, and trade flourishes. In fifteen years, Prussia has expended a capital of fifty-four million dollars in roads and railways. Throughout the country, beautiful villages spring up on every side; the houses are well built, and almost concealed by the thick covering of vine leaves. The villagers universally wear bright, happy countenances, and their courteous manners and picturesque costumes all bespeak the contentment and comfort which reign among them.

Such is Germany. In the South, Austria and her band of Romish