The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

INTELLECTUAL RANK OF NATIONS. 419religion that determines the social place and the terrestrialdestiny of a man; it is religion that determines the socialplace and the terrestrial destiny of a nation. But we havealready proved that Popery is opposed to Scripture, andcontradicts reason. In the proportion in which it does soit is not religion ; and in the proportion in which it is notreligion, it does not possess and cannot exercise the influencewe have described. It follows that the Papist is denied thebenefit of an influence morally restorative and intellectuallyinvigorating in an extraordinary degree, to all the extent towhich Romanism comes short of religion.But we have alreadyestablished that Popery is not merely a defective systemof Christianity,—it is a system antagonistic to Christianity.It not only, therefore, does not possess the influencewe have ascribed to Christianity, but it possesses an influenceof a directly opposite character.It tends as much todegrade and pollute man''s moral constitution as Christianitytends to elevate and purify it ; and where the one quickens,expands, and strengthens the intellect, the other inflictsfeebleness and torpor.In proof of the vast intellectual quickening which Christianityalways brings along with it, we may appeal to the stateof the heathen world.The various nations of the earth occupyplaces on the intellectual scale ranged according tothe proportion in which the elements of religion are retainedamong them. First come the more remote tribes, to whomthe existence of a God is scarcely known, and whose mentalpowers scarce suffice to enable them to count ten successivenumbers ; next come the Hindoos of India, conspicuous alikefor the grossness of their religious system and their utter intellectualand moral prostration; next in the intellectualscalecome the various tribes of Western Asia, whose faithis ]\|ahommedanism ; then the popish nations of Southernand Western Europe ; then the semi-popish nations ofNorthern Germany ; and last of all, and very much in advanceof all the others, are the protestant nations of Britainand America. As is the religion of a people, the Bible being