We have at length returned home, and find ourselves, not displeased if somewhat fatigued, in GREAT BRITAIN again. It is but a unit in the account, but one that surpasses in magnitude the aggregate of nearly all the rest. Circling the wide globe with its dependencies, embracing under its sway some portion of every quarter of the earth, its 160 millions would outnumber the inhabitants of all the states that own Roman Catholic rule. Its free institutions are therefore of incalculable value to the progress of the human race, and its scattered possessions are centres whence a kindred spirit may diffuse itself amid surrounding oppression. It, therefore, fitly closes our list of tolerant states, and enables us to pause and view the general result.

Out of eleven Protestant countries we have found but one intolerant, and not one such as we have called above "exclusively intolerant," or wholly forbidding the profession of any but the established religion.

Out of twenty-two Roman Catholic, we could detect but seven tolerant, and there were ten "exclusively intolerant."

Thus the in-tolerance of Protestantism is one-eleventh, and the toleration of Roman Catholicism is but one-third of their respective numbers; or, to reduce them to a common standard of comparison, Roman Catholic intolerance is just thirty-three times more general than Protestant!

We write not the words in triumph, or in any spirit of self-laudation; it is a fact that suggests much to both sides

a fact elicited not by any one-sided examination, or by any advocacy of argument; it has flowed inevitably from a simple statement of things as they really exist. Let those ponder well on its significance, who stir up the wild passions of the ignorant by vague declamation on fancied persecutions, and on an ideal freedom. If they be sincere in their Utopian aspirations, let them expand their sympathies, and find in Protestantism their best friend-that which first developed in the world the principle of toleration, and fostered the growth of rational liberty. If they but raise a senseless clamour to extort further civil concessions, let them learn by the contrast of what they

have allowed to others, to value what they possess at home.

What is there for the legitimate objects of their religion, that they do not amply enjoy? Their churches raise their stately fabrics in our most frequented streets; their towers and spires fling forth the pealing summons to prayer from the yantage ground of the most conspicuous hills; within the heart of London rises a cathedral destined to revive in mimic grandeur the colossal fabric of St. Peter's. Could the early Christians look forth from their tombs, they would gaze in wonder to see the simplicity of their faith enshrined in such temples and ceremonial pomp, and would justly pause to question its identity.

Nowhere are the signs of oppression or degradation. Their ministers freely teach, and freely preach, and draw their education from the bounty of the state. Their hierarchy almost rent the kingdom with the outburst of their indignation, because they were asked to prefix the words "Roman Catholic" to their title, or else state that they were bishops not "of," but "acting in," a particular diocese. Even this law they are freely allowed to violate; but the outcry it raised proves plainly how light their grievances must be when this was one of unparalleled magnitude. Their writers attack the dominant faith with every effort of argument-load it with every abusive epithet, and too often seek to degrade it by unscrupulous misrepresentations. They freely propagate their own faith, and too commonly reply to the like efforts of Protestants by boldly crushing them in the violence of popular intimidation. Their ecclesiastics fling themselves into the troubled waters of politics-deliver from the hustings exasperating speeches against Protestants and governments, and often wield the spiritual weapons to rally together voters against both; yet both government and Protestants make no laws to restrain such violence that would not equally affect themselves. They gather public meetings unchecked, and wax eloquent in defence of principles which here, as Roman Catholics, they can safely propound, but which in Rome would soon consign them to the dungeons of St. Angelo.

There, who would permit it to be

taught that any but the one religion— the true one, of course, for such each man thinks his own-should be publicly tolerated? When will a Protestant church raise its head in the Corso or the Ripetta, proclaiming the existence of a heretic sect, or rather its permission, for its wide-spread growth no Italian doubts? True, the English are permitted to worship in a room— their creed demands no more ostentatious temple; but if this were not connived at they would not reside at Rome. The government proclaims the principle, but makes an exception in favour of our advantageous wealth. Our travellers fill the half-deserted palaces, and purchase the treasures of Italian art. English gold is scattered freely, and therefore a solitary exception is made in their favour. Lest, however, it should be turned into a precedent, or cited as a breach of the sacred principle of intolerance, it is an exception not avowed; and the ubiquity and piercing eyes of the Roman sbirri are supposed not to be aware of so grave a breach of discipline. The answer to an application for compensation for damage done in the revolutionary tumults was, that his Holiness was not aware of the existence of any Anglican chapel, and could not permit its continuance if any such came to his knowledge! We fear, therefore, this is the exceptio quæ probat regulam, and can hardly be cited as a set-off for the chapels that freely rise here at home.

We have as yet said nothing of the civil disabilities that are imposed throughout the world by the dominant religion on the minority. This is a question fraught with practical difficulties, and on even whose fundamental principles there is no general agreement. It is one thing to permit to each all that his conscience teaches him is necessary for the exercise of his religious belief; it is quite another question how far the state is to afford facilities or encouragement for the teaching of what it conceives to be error. This will be at once seen by pushing the supposition to an extreme

case.

If a number of persons were to establish a sect of Atheists, no one would propose to imprison or hang them, nor should we vainly endeavour to change their unbelief by resorting to violence; we should leave the sect to die out in its impotent scepti

cism. But it by no means follows that they should not feel the weight of public opinion. The nation is not so far to sink into indifference, under the semblance of a false liberality, as to promote them to places of honour and responsibility as readily as its other members. We are not bound to seek among them our legislators or our rulers those who are to dispense the laws of education, or to watch over the purity of morals. The limits of civil toleration for it has limits-we have not blended with the subject of this paper; the one is often confounded with the other; but, to arrive at any sound conclusions, the two questions should ever be kept apart.

We have seen that religious freedom is sheltered under Protestant rule, and withers in those Roman Catholic countries where the overweening power of their ecclesiastics is suffered to crush the independence of the laity. All per secuting national laws first flowed from admitting the principles of papal usurpation. pation. Its code sprang originally from its pretensions to temporal power, and is too apt to be upheld by a priesthood who fancy they descry in the splendour and power of their order the best guarantees for the progress of their religion. It is to the Roman Catholic laity, then, we must look to check the assumption of their ecclesiastics, and to prevent a return to their antiquated tenets. It is they who must-as they often did of yore-smite down the extravagance of their spiritual rulers. It is they who should extort a clear declaration of their principles, and not lie under the imputation, before their fellow-men, of being blindly linked to a system of utter intolerance, that in their hearts they detest, but have not the courage to overthrow. The honourable manliness of some isolated few will not suffice; the timid silence of the many, the ominous reserve of their leaders will more than counterbalance such scattered protests. If they would for ever silence the calumny, they must disprove its truth; they must either, by a public movement en masse, separate themselves from the political principles of their clergy, or they must compel their clergy to renounce, in an authoritative form, the intolerant doctrines that they so long permitted to pervert and degrade Christianity.

Ir some one of those, who, a few years ago, broken in fortune and bankrupt in hope, had fled from the famine, and the pestilence, and the poverty, which, like dark spirits, brooded over this his native land; if some such one were now suddenly to return from a distant clime, and find himself placed on the western side of Merrion-square, we can fancy many of the sensations which he would experience. Possibly, he would first rub his eyes, and give himself a shake or two in order to discover whether he was in a state of wakefulness or somnambulism. Then, finding that he was really awake, the thought would, for a moment, cross his bewildered imagination, that, like Rip Van Winkle, he had been reposing in some "sleepy hollow" for half a century or so, and had now opened his eyes upon a world that had played him a trick in his sleep, and gone a-head of him and his generation. But this phantasy, too, would quickly pass away, for he sees much around him just as he left them: the houses do not look an hour older, nay, he thinks they look a year or two younger and smarter; the windows are all particularly bright and cheery, and have quite a wide-awake air; the wood-work has the cleanly look of recent painting; and the whole external appearance is very much that of a man who has just got a suit of new clothes, which he is ostentatiously ventilating in public. And the people themselves are dressed much in the same fashion as when last he was in the metropolis; neither do they look upon him, as they pass with ill-suppressed astonishment, nor put their hands to their chins and stroke down imaginary beards. But his per

VOL. XLI.-NO. CCXLVI.

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plexity would not, for all this, be a whit the less, nay, it would be the greater, as he misses many a familiar object. Where is the pleasant solitude of the thoroughfare, wherein he used to enjoy, undisturbed, his own sombre thoughts? Where is the luxuriant spring of tender grass-blades that, in this sweet month of May, was wont to shoot between the pavement, checquering its whiteness with a refreshing green, and making the walk along the iron paling look like mosaic work? Where is the shabby dwarf wall that fenced in the fine lawn of the Royal Dublin Society, by the side of which, in by-gone days, the old blind clarionet player, so often wearily marched to and fro, performing some incomprehensible melody, every note of which his asthmatic breath converted into a spasmodic shriek, and his trembling fingers into an endless shake? Where is the little old man, with the white apron and the tray of oranges, whose voice, as he proclaimed his merchandise to the half dozen people who thronged the neighbourhood, was "Vor clamantis in desertis," as the voice of one crying in the wilderness? Where, oh where, above all, is that stately and classic building, fronted by its ample verdant lawn-that building, of which every Irishman, and, above all, every Dubliner, was justly proud-the House of the Royal Dublin Society? Gone, all gone! At least, so far as the eye can discover. And what sees he in their place? A vast pile of building, novel in its character, having little in common with the longestablished styles of old-world architecture, yet not without a beauty of its own, and a magnificent lightness that savours

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