government, and
to furnish absolute princes with a resource which was elsewhere supplied
by Protestantism. The consequence has been, that the Church is at this
day more free under Protestant than under Catholic governments--in
Prussia or England than in France or Piedmont, Naples or Bavaria.

As we have said that the Church commonly allied herself with the
political elements which happened to be insufficiently represented, and
to temper the predominant principle by encouraging the others, it might
seem hardly unfair to conclude that that kind of government in which
they are all supposed to be combined,--"aequatum et temperatum ex tribus
optimis rerum publicarum modis" (Cicero, _Rep._ i. 45),--must be
particularly suited to her. Practically--and we are not here pursuing a
theory--this is a mere fallacy. If we look at Catholic countries, we
find that in Spain and Piedmont the constitution has served only to
pillage, oppress, and insult the Church; whilst in Austria, since the
empire has been purified in the fiery ordeal of the revolution, she is
free, secure, and on the highroad of self-improvement. In constitutional
Bavaria she has but little protection against the Crown, or in Belgium
against the mob. The royal power is against her in one place, the
popular element in the other. Turning to Protestant countries, we find
that in Prussia the Church is comparatively free; whilst the more
popular Government of Baden has exhibited the most conspicuous instance
of oppression which has occurred in our time. The popular Government of
Sweden, again, has renewed the refusal of religious toleration at the
very time when despotic Russia begins to make a show, at least, of
conceding it. In the presence of these facts, it would surely be absurd
to assume that the Church must look with favour on the feeble and
transitory constitutions with which the revolution has covered half the
Continent. It does not actually appear that she has derived greater
benefits from them than she may be said to have done from the revolution
itself, which in France, for instance in 1848, gave to the Church, at
least for a season, that liberty and dignity for which she had struggled
in vain during the constitutional period which had preceded.

The political character of our own country bears hardly more resemblance
to the Liberal Governments of the Continent,--which have copied only
what is valueless in our institutions,--than to the superstitious
despotism