ught to
think; and that thinking power he applies to all other subjects. His
habits of life teach him to ask for reasons, and to accept of opinions
only on evidence. The mind of the latter lies dead. Were Italy filled
with a race of men like the first, the papacy could not live a day. Were
trade, and machinery, and wealth to come in, the torpor of Italy would
be broken up; and--terrible event to the papacy!--mind would awaken.
What though the Pope reigns over a wasted land and a nation of beggars?
he _does_ reign; he counts for a European sovereign; and his system
continues to exist as a power. As men in shipwreck throw overboard food,
jewels, all, to save life, so Romanism has thrown all overboard to save
itself. Nothing could be a stronger proof of this than the fact that, as
the effects and benefits of trade become the more developed, the
pontifical Government tightens its restrictions. The note of Antonelli,
the present ruling spirit of the papacy, was the most prohibitive ever
framed against the introduction of iron, in other words, of
civilization. This is the price which Italy must pay for the Pope and
his religion. She cannot participate in the advantages of foreign trade;
she cannot enjoy the facilities and improvements of modern times;
because, were she to enjoy these, she would lose the papacy. She must be
content to remain in the barbarism of the middle ages, covered with that
moral malaria which has smitten all things in that doomed land, and
under the influence of which, the cities, the earth itself, and man, for
whom it was made, are all sinking into one common ruin.[3]

We have yet other illustrations of the pestiferous influence of Romanism
on the temporal happiness of its subjects. We have already alluded to
the determined manner in which the Pontifical Government has hitherto
withstood the introduction of railways. And yet, if there be a country
in Europe where railways are indispensable, it is the Papal States. The
roads in the territory blessed by the Government of Christ's vicar, are
more like canals than roads, with this difference, that there is too
little water in them for floating a boat, and far too much for
comfortable travelling. Besides, they are infested by brigands, whose
pursuit a railway might enable you to distance. But a railway the
subjects of the Pontifical Government cannot have. And why?

One would think that the mere mode of conveyance is a very harmless
affair. What is it to th