This was launched against the vernacular version of the New Testament in use among the Waldenses. So recently as last year a Bible lecture and prayer-meeting, held in a schoolroom at La Tour, was denounced by the prefect and discontinued in consequence of his prohibition, although it was solemnly conceded to the Protestants of this commune in 1664 "that religious exercises of any kind should be tolerated in La Tour;" and the concession was renewed and guaranteed in a treaty with England in 1690: "Permettiamo alli medesimi il libero esercitio della loro religione, e libertà di conscienza in tutti li luoghi nelle precedenti concessioni compresi. "These are the wrongs of the Waldenses (says the author of "The Crown or Tiara'): these are violations of the eternal laws of justice, wisdom, policy, and humanity, in which every member of the social compact is concerned. It is not a religious question merely, and we should be sorry to discuss it in a manner likely to give umbrage to any reasonable creature. It is in vindication of the inalienable rights of man in a state of civil society that we plead for these sufferers. Had the Waldenses been a turbulent community, or a fanatical race, or a people against whom any charge of offences against religion or morality could be brought, or had they made a bad use of their civil liberties, when they were for more than twelve years in the enjoyment of them, we must have been silent. But they are not dangerous, either from their numbers or their principles: they make no proselytes, nor do they dogmatize they offer no disrespect to the worship or observances of the Roman Catholics among whom they dwell. :: "They are not a new sect: they have professed the same religion time out of mind, in the same territory. They practise no superstitious rites: they do nothing to shock the prejudices or to wound the feelings of their fellow-countrymen. Not a breath can be raised against them, except as professing a different form of the Christian religion from the majority of the Piedmontese. The yoke at one time was taken off their necks, and when was it replaced? At a season when all Europe was enjoying a jubilee, and commemorating deliverance from the iron sceptre of a despot.* Is it, then, the act of a wise Government to make the Waldenses lament the restoration of a legitimate monarchy, and to wish back the days of French domination? Is it politic to keep up animosities between Roman Catholics and Protestants, and to leave a sore place constantly unhealed? Is it gracious, or consistent with bona fide treaties and close amity, that a sovereign should permit injustice to be done to a people in whom his allies take a warm interest, for no other reason than that their religious worship is denounced at Rome? The celebrated treaty of 1814 spoke of the "equal desire" of the great European powers 66 to terminate the long agitations of Europe, and the sufferings of mankind." "We leave these questions to be considered by those who are competent to take a just, wise, and humane view of the subject; and we ask again, in the spirit of Christian sympathy, shall the feelings of humanity continue to be outraged; shall faith in treaties, and compacts between states, and bargains between man and man, continue to be violated; shall industry be checked, property be deteriorated, and the rights of conscience be disregarded, whenever a council, called The Holy Congregation of Rome,' takes upon itself to advise such contravention of the eternal principles of equity?" (pp. 36-38). We have every reason to hope that the grievances of the Waldenses have been brought under the notice of the British Government, in a manner which will operate favourably in behalf of a community, whose civil and religious rights we are bound by treaty to secure. The existence and validity of that treaty, signed and ratified in 1690, and afterwards confirmed and renewed in 1704, were made the subject of a motion in Parliament by Sir Robert H. Inglis, in 1832 (Jan. 24), and a copy of it was laid on the table of the House of Commons in the May following. The attention of her Majesty's Ministers to the relations which exist between the crowns of Great Britain and Sardinia, for the protection of the Waldenses, was again directed to this vital question last year; and we conclude our remarks on the subject by transcribing from the last printed report of the Vaudois' Committee, a document which, having the signatures of the Archbishop of Canterbury and two other such prelates as the Bishops of London and Winchester, may be considered to express the interest which the Church of England takes in the destiny of the Church of the Waldenses. COPY OF THE MEMORIAL ADDRESSED TO LORD ABERDEEN, HER MAJESTY'S PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS. "Winchester House, St. James's-square, April 9, 1842. "MY LORD-We, the undersigned, members of the London Committee, instituted in 1825, for the relief of the Vaudois of Piedmont, earnestly request your lordship to submit to her Majesty the Queen our humble entreaty that her Majesty will be graciously pleased to intercede in behalf of that ancient community with their sovereign, the King of Sardinia. The sufferings of the Vaudois have often excited the sympathy of this nation, and our sovereigns have, from time to time, been pleased to exercise their beneficent offices, when the privileges and rights of the Waldensian Church have been threatened; and this they have done, not only out of compassion for the afflicted, but in virtue of treaties which give to England the right of intervention for the protection of the Vaudois. "Among other grievances, it has been represented to us, that the Vaudois have now to complain that children are taken from their pa rents by the priests and local authorities, when one of the parents is said to be a Roman Catholic, under, the pretence of their being illegitimate; that their religious services are interrupted; that their intercourse and traffic with their fellow-countrymen, beyond certain limits, are placed under grievous restrictions; that some of them are deprived of the means of subsistence, being forbidden to purchase, to farm, or to cultivate lands, except within boundaries too narrow for their population; and that others, to their great disadvantage and detriment, have been ordered to sell property, which they have legally acquired beyond the territories to which they are confined. "If these alleged severities were inflicted on the Vaudois for acts of turbulence, or dangerous fanaticism, we should not presume to entreat her Majesty's gracious interposition; but it does not appear that anything can be laid to their charge, except the profession of a religion differing from that of the Roman Catholic Church, and similar in many particulars of faith and discipline to the Reformed Churches in Europe. "Believing, therefore, that the measures adopted in regard to this suffering community are at variance equally with the principles of Christianity and with the eternal laws of justice; that they are at variance likewise with the treaties which unite the British and Sardinian Governments; and also with the present understanding, sanctioned by the treaties of 1814, which exists between civilized states, 'to terminate the long agitations and sufferings of mankind' by a general improvement of the social system: we earnestly hope that your lordship will receive her Majesty's gracious commands to cause due enquiry to be made, and, if necessary, to mediate with her Majesty's august ally, the King of Sardinia, and to remonstrate against that treatment of the Vaudois with regard to civil disabilities and penalties on account of their religion, which is likely, by embittering, or perhaps by engendering, animosities between Protestants and Roman Catholics, to bring disgrace on the holy cause of Christianity. We are the more anxious to bring this subject before your lordship, from our conviction that the present vexations of this people are not inflicted upon them with the entire consent of their sovereign; for it is but justice to say, that ever since this Committee have taken an active interest in their behalf, we have had repeated proofs of the favourable disposition of his Sardinian Majesty towards them; and we are confident that his own feelings of justice and benevolence, if unbiassed by the misrepresentations of their enemies, would ensure to them his Majesty's protection and favour, since all the records of their history for more than a century prove them to have been a faithful and loyal people. "(Signed) W.CANTUAR. C. J. LONDON. C. R. WINTON. W. R. HAMILTON. ART. IV.-Past and Present. "By THOMAS CARLYLE. London: Chapman and Hall. and Hall. NEW-YOR 1843. THE present condition of England affords great matter for the most serious and anxious reflection to every private individual, no less than to the professed politician. The consideration of it forces itself upon the notice of each of us; for it presents phenomena which come home to our bosoms, and affect us in our most private relations. On every man, not only in his intercourse with the great world abroad, but also in each branch of his domestic economy-in his buying and selling-in his business and his pleasure-as landlord and as tenant-as father and as son as governor and as subject-in every point of that complicated mass of interests by which he is connected with his fellows, is the truth proclaimed, in startling tones, that it is no longer another's business which he is doing, but his own; that his house is on fire, and that the time is come when he must actively and heartily exert himself, if he intends to preserve his own existence. With much that is comforting, there is far more in the prospect which meets the looker into the events of the day calculated to appal him. On the one hand, are wealth and resources almost inexhaustible, with energy and intellect to make the fullest use of them; on the other, the deepest misery and most abject poverty. The inevitable contest between wealth and numbers, which must at some time occur in the history of every political community, seems to be now approaching to its crisis. It is the beginning of the end; it is, in fact, the most hazardous point in a nation's progress, and is rarely passed without commotion, not always without revolution and bloodshed. In England, indeed, circumstances have contributed to impart to this period of her progress some peculiar features, which have not belonged to the corresponding changes in other countries, and by which a character of greater mildness has been given to the struggle, so far as it has proceeded. Perhaps the most remarkable difference arises from the imperfect overthrow of the old aristocracy of birth, when it was subdued in the seventeenth century. In the republics of Greece and of Rome, the nobility of birth, when, in obedience to the natural course of events, it fell from its supremacy, was subdued by an influence bound to it by no ties of common interest, but alien in habits, in thoughts, and in general pursuits. In Rome the patricians were for a long period an exclusive body, into which there were no means of enteringpossessed of privileges which acted as an irritating and a galling burden to those who were by birth shut out from the enjoy ment of them, and surrounded by a strong fence of rights and powers, which, if communicated to others beyond the pale, must thereby be destroyed. If not exclusive, they did not exist at all. And when at length the growing importance and wealth of the plebeians wrung from the unwilling grasp of their opponents, one by one, their peculiar and dearly-prized privileges, the victory was only the necessary result of a long-continued strife, in which the spirit of party had arisen, and with it all the unscrupulousness which it never fails to engender in times of excitement. Hence there could be no cordial union between the contending parties; the elevation of the one was the necessary degradation of the other. True, these contests are not to be characterized as bloody, but they rendered the later progress of the state tumultuous, and tainted it with a murderous ferocity; true, they were, to a great extent, openly mild and conducted in peaceful agitation, but they produced feelings and opinions destined to bear other fruit. Every advantage gained by the plebeian added to his pride and arrogance, for it seemed to him the result of a hard-fought battle, while to the patrician the loss appeared a shameful defeat, in which he suffered both as an individual and in his collective capacity. Each 'successive communication of privileges, therefore, while it outwardly cemented the bond of union between all the citizens more closely, in reality embittered their actual animosity, and prepared the way for the savage wars of Sylla and the Triumvirates. The changes were made too late to be made in peacefulness. The power of birth had fallen, but in its fall it had estranged itself from the power of wealth, which, in the order of events, is its successor; and when the new element-numbers--came to take its part in the history of the state, the effects of the imperfect amalgamation of the older forces made themselves felt in the bloody and destructive commotions, which ended in the subjugation of all under the unhealthy and deadening influence of a despotic sway, supported by military power. At Athens, on the other hand, the gradual development of the constitution, according to the natural progress of events, prevented a similar crisis. The timocracy of Solon, by which the old body of the Eupatridæ lost its exclusive privileges, was succeeded by the democratic institutions of Clisthenes; and political preponderance given to numbers before the struggle had reached a dangerous height. The party contests at Athens were therefore not marked by any dangerous revolutions, such as in other places accompanied the change in question. But a perfect illustration of the evils to which it may give birth is furnished by the graphic and most instructive account given by Thucydides |