tianity. Religion supplements the action of repressive law, and of the secular arm, because the citizens are obliged by their conscience to conquer their evil inclinations. Each head of a family, finding his chief guarantees of security in the religious character of his neighbours, requires that these shall, in every case, show their respect for religion. Each citizen then voluntarily fulfils those duties, which are imposed on the Russian by his sovereign supported by his soldiery. Never do they think, in the United States, of bringing religion into their political struggles, much less of claiming in its name the help of the civil power. The ministers of religion habitually use a means of success which has no limits: they stimulate by their preaching and example the religious zeal of their flocks. It is thus that the Catholics, weakened and sometimes degraded by the protection of government in the old Spanish and Portuguese colonies of America, attain in a few years in the United States to a great position, as is proved by the remarkable testimony of many. As for myself, it is through the conversation and writings of the Catholics of North America that I cherish the hope of seeing speedily accomplished, under the influence of religion, the social reform of the Latin populations of the South-west of Europe."*

The reader who, in the first editions of the work of M. Le Play, met with such significant pronouncements in favour of religious liberty, might have experienced serious difficulty in reconciling the results adduced by that sagacious observer, with the laws of human nature, and with the indications furnished by experience in our own country. How does it happen that liberty of discussion, which has been productive among us of scepticism and immorality, has in England and America strengthened religious belief and the empire of morality? There is doubtless a remarkable difference in the character of the Latin and Anglo-Saxon races, which would partly explain the different influences exercised by the same régime on each. Less excitable than the Latin-Celt, the Anglo-Saxon is more calculating, and practical considerations influence him more than abstract doctrines. While the former is easily impassioned for an idea, and deduces from it, even to his own detriment, the most extreme consequences, the latter, more cool, stops voluntarily half-way, in the path of error as well as in that of truth, when he finds it too inconvenient and embarrassing to carry it out to its legitimate result. But if this peculiar disposition of the two great Anglo-Saxon nations has retarded in them the disintegrating action of free examination, it has not completely sheltered them from the dangers which we have seen to inevitably emanate from the conflict of contradictory doctrines. Sooner or later, the absence of all dogmatic authority must cause, even in these nations also, a frightful intellectual and moral anarchy, instead of that semblance of harmony which different accidental causes maintained for some time after the destruction of the principle of unity. Is not this in fact what has happened? A century and a half had not elapsed since the Reformation, before Bossuet proved that it had not left intact in England a single stone of the

* "Réforme Sociale," liv. i. ch. xii. § 3, pp. 163-164,

doctrinal edifice built by the Son of God. "All that religion deemed most holy has been destroyed. England has so changed, that she does not herself know to what she shall cling; and more agitated within her lands and within her harbours than is the very ocean by which she is surrounded, she finds herself inundated by the formidable deluge of a thousand extravagant sects."*

When Bossuet pronounced these words, the movement of doctrinal decay stamped on England by Protestantism had not attained its ultimate limits it was to go on for another century; and finish by destroying, in the mind of a people naturally so religious, the very basis of natural religion. Did not the inaugurators of French philosophy borrow their most corrupting sophisms and their most dangerous attacks on Christianity from Bolingbroke and other English writers of the eighteenth century? A remarkable reaction took place at the end of the last and beginning of the present century; but what was the cause of it? Was it not, on the one hand, the feelings of horror inspired in all by the frightful consequences which the revolutionary logic deduced from the principles of impiety? On the other hand, was it not owing to the happy influence produced in England by the virtues of our clergy, to whom she had given a generous hospitality? It was then that she relaxed, in her own bosom, the fetters which had weighed down the Catholics; and we can come to no conclusion in favour of the liberty claimed for error, from the happy fruits which resulted from liberty at length being conceded to Catholic truth.

But the deleterious action of free inquiry, momentarily arrested by this reaction, is again manifesting itself with greater violence than ever; and obliges M. Le Play, in the later editions of his work, to retract a great portion of the praises he had bestowed on English toleration. He thus expresses himself in a note added to the last edition :

"The facts mentioned in this chapter were collected during my frequent visits to England since 1836. They were noted on the spot, in 1851, in accordance with the text which I have reproduced. In 1862, when I last visited England, the condition of things was tending to a change, and since then recent intelligence has informed me that the evil has been aggravated. Certain literary celebrities have adopted the ideas which the savans of Germany, rather than those of France, are propagating in the cities and manufacturing towns of the West. They desire to destroy that work of reparation, which was accomplished in England under George III., and which, since our misfortunes, has inspired in France great devotion in the sphere of our agriculture, our arms, and our fleet."+

The evidence on which this note rests is only too undeniable; and it considerably weakens the testimony given in the text to the religious prosperity of England. It is no longer true to say that in that country "a writer who desires the esteem of his fellow-citizens ""dares not deny that Christianity is the principle of her prosperity and her liberty"; that "those who venture to spread the paradoxes accepted among ourselves would be spontaneously excluded from every respectable society." Those

*Bossuet, "Oraison funèbre de la Reine d'Angleterre.".
+"Réforme Sociale," liv. i. ch. xii. p. 156, note g.

who have read our preceding numbers can convince themselves, that the most pernicious of these paradoxes have been supported in public gatherings ; and the slight degree of repulsion which they have encountered shows that Christianity is far from having that influence over the mind of the nation which was supposed. The venerable University of Oxford, so long the bulwark of Anglican orthodoxy, has not been able to shield herself from the invasion of German rationalism; and, once established in that citadel, nothing can prevent its undermining the faith of the clergy and of the educated classes. There is every reason to believe that the evil, which is externally manifested by such frightful symptoms has long since been imperceptily gnawing the entrails of English society. The posthumous autobiography of Stuart Mill reveals to us, in this leader of the school, the art reduced to system of concealing an absolute scepticism under a respectable exterior. Let us acknowledge that the practice of this art is not so difficult in Protestant society. The heretical sects not imposing on their members, as the Catholic Church does, any acts which imply an energetic profession of faith,-incredulity makes serious ravages among them without any exterior display. But if we may judge from the tone of their more popular journals, there is a double movement in English society; while the minority are influenced by the Ritualistic reaction,the spirit of Christianity and the idea of the supernatural are weakened, and are tending to disappear completely, from among the masses of the nation.

As much may be said of the United States. And here also the candour of M. Le Play obliges him to admit the truth of what we say. "One recognizes," he says, "by a number of symptoms, that a change is taking place in the ideas and morals of this great nation." What is this change? It is the very change which we pointed out as the necessary result of free discussion.

"Daily do we see new sects appear in the United States, who are only nominally attached to the Christian dogma. Some of them even abandon themselves to the practice of illuminism and polygamy. It seems also that scepticism and materialism are openly professed in some of the large cities. American travellers assure me that in New York, for example, religious belief is corrupted in proportion to the propagation of those deplorable morals which have made some European cities true nurseries of contagion. These tendencies, which no positive institution represses, are being rapidly developed. The habitual symptoms of decay are everywhere showing themselves: luxury disorganizes the domestic hearth, family ties are relaxed, and under this influence women take upon themselves habits of independence, and so give scandal to Europeans. The civilized world, which, since the time of Washington, had received only a good example from the Americans, is now surprised to see them follow a retrograde path."*

These words were written in 1874, the date of the latest edition of the "Réforme Sociale." Even at that time the results of religious liberty in the United States were regarded in a less favourable light by M. Le Play

* "Réforme Sociale,” liv. i. ch. xiii. p. 166.

VOL. XXVII.-NO. LIII. [New Series.]

than they had been. But the judicious observer must not stop here; and, in a short time, the application of M. Le Play's own method proceeded to display new light, and finally dissipate every illusion. One of the most distinguished members of the "Union de la Paix Sociale," M. Claudio Jannet, has just published a work, by which we may appreciate at its just value that American democracy, for which M. de Tocqueville had inspired us with such an unreasoning admiration.* M. Jannet does not grudge his admiration and praises of the excellent institutions which, united to exceptionally favourable material conditions, gained for the United States their unexampled prosperity and their immense development. But side by side with these elements of progress, whose action was especially shown during the first half of this centnry, we see, during the last thirty-five years, a movement of moral and even material decay, continually increasing. To trace these two contrary influences to their true principles, M. Jannet has patiently analyzed them. The result of this conscientious inquiry has been formulated by M. Le Play himself, in a letter printed at the beginning of the book. He says:

"In portraying in a faithful picture the moral decay of the United States, you have led us back to one of the causes of our own ruin. You point out to us the error which caused our delusion, respecting the origin of that prosperity, which we so much admire in this nation under the descendants of Washington."

This is, in fact, the conclusion clearly resulting from M. Jannet's book: that what has been alleged as the origin of the greatness of the United States is, on the contrary, the cause of their decay. It is generally supposed that this society is founded on liberty of worships and democratic equality. Nothing is more false. Every state of which the Union was composed at the beginning had a religious basis, and several of them made the enjoyment of political rights dependent on ecclesiastical position. All had a state religion except one, which from the first unfurled the standard of toleration and this exception was the only Catholic State, that of Maryland. Hence it resulted, that by means of this toleration, the Puritans of New England established themselves in large numbers in the country, seized the reins of government in 1648, and excluded the Catholics. If, to obtain the aid of France in the struggle against England, they relaxed the rigour with which they had treated the true religion, they did not on that account proclaim dogmatic indifferenee. Each state preserved its religious autonomy, as well as its political sovereignty; and it was to save the former, that they decided to leave religion outside of the federal constitution. At the same time Christianity was recognized as the law of the entire nation. In all the States blasphemy and the violation of the Sunday rest were severely punished; and nowhere would the negation of Christ's divinity have been tolerated. Every great act of public life began with prayer, and Government was never backward in decreeing religious services, either of expiation or thanksgiving, to ward

"Les Etats-Unis contemporains," by Claudio Jannet.

off menacing perils, or to celebrate national successes. As long as the mass of the nation was imbued with this religious spirit, the disintegrating influence of the democratic principle could be neutralized. But after 1830, when the founders of the Union were all in the grave, respect for the old traditions was impaired, and free inquiry soon bore its natural fruit. The clash of different creeds, the ever-increasing licentiousness of the press, the immigration en masse of German colonists infected with scepticism, completely demolished the edifice of American Protestantism; and while Catholicity was acquiring fresh vigour from attacks, which deprived it however of a large number of its weaker members, the Puritanism of New England, but lately ardent to fanaticism, rapidly divested itself of every positive creed, and gave way to the vague Deism of the Unitarians. It was the same in the other States; and three-fourths of the Protestants now no longer acknowledge Jesus Christ as their God. They are still Christian by name, but in reality they have no creed; and those who are stung by the desire to believe something, if they do not enter the Catholic Church, throw themselves into the absurdities of Mormonism or the superstitious practices of Spiritism. This new religion, the diabolical counterfeit of the Divine supernatural, boasts of having three millions of followers. Altogether there is no limit to the religious disintegration of the United States. Every day the principle of private inspiration produces some new sect, which offers a more gross allurement to the passions under a more mendacious appellation: there are the partisans of free love, whose name sufficiently indicates their principal dogma; perfectionists, who have perfected marriage by substituting for it a brutal promiscuity.

It is scarcely necessary to add, that with this religious disorganization there necessarily corresponds an ever-increasing social decomposition. The mob, whom universal suffrage invests with the sovereignty, who are not guided in the exercise of this sovereignty by any principle of religion or morality, only make it an object of speculation and a protection for license. As all officers, even the magistrates, are elected, the most capable are not chosen, but those who are best able to flatter the passions of the electors. According to this principle that "the spoils are for the victors," the party who succeeds to power at each new election makes a clean sweep of the officers appointed by the preceding government. The electional agents dispose of the offices in advance, receiving a premium for themselves. The malversations of each functionary, in endeavouring to pay this tax and also to make his fortune during his very brief tenure of office, may be easily understood. Impunity is secured to him, since he can only be punished by his own party, who are quite as greedy as himself. So the peculations which are practised under the eyes and with the knowledge of all, in all branches of the public service, surpass everything that we could believe possible in Europe. In the Custom-house alone the State loses every year, according to official reports, from 60 to 125 millions of dollars. The duty on whisky, which should amount to 400 millions, was returned, in 1867 as only 65 millions. The offices in the Senate are publicly sold; and the most lucrative profession in the United States is not that of the stockbroker, but of the broker of offices.