turned by skill and industry into gardens, and can boast of a
long list of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and poets.
Whoever, knowing what Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what,
four hundred years ago, they actually were, shall now compare the
country round Rome with the country round Edinburgh, will be able
to form some judgment as to the tendency of Papal domination. The
descent of Spain, once the first among monarchies, to the lowest
depths of degradation, the elevation of Holland, in spite of many
natural disadvantages, to a position such as no commonwealth so
small has ever reached, teach the same lesson. Whoever passes in
Germany from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant principality, in
Switzerland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant canton, in
Ireland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant county, finds that
he has passed from a lower to a higher grade of civilisation. On
the other side of the Atlantic the same law prevails. The
Protestants of the United States have left far behind them the
Roman Catholics of Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. The Roman Catholics
of Lower Canada remain inert, while the whole continent round
them is in a ferment with Protestant activity and enterprise. The
French have doubtless shown an energy and an intelligence which,
even when misdirected, have justly entitled them to be called a
great people. But this apparent exception, when examined, will be
found to confirm. the rule; for in no country that is called
Roman Catholic, has the Roman Catholic Church, during several
generations, possessed so little authority as in France. The
literature of France is justly held in high esteem throughout the
world. But if we deduct from that literature all that belongs to
four parties which have been, on different grounds, in rebellion
against the Papal domination, all that belongs to the
Protestants, all that belongs to the assertors of the Gallican