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

PAST CRUSADES AND MODERN REVOLUTIONS. 445and void of industr}',—received a new face, from tlicmultitudesof refugees transplanted thither who peopled entirecities.Stuffs, lace, hats, stockings, formerly imported fromFrance, were now made in these countries. A part of thesuburbs of London was peopled entirely with French manufacturersin silk ; others carried thither the art of makingcrystal in perfection, which was about this time lost inFrance. The gold which the refugees brought with themis still very frequently to be met with in Germany. ThusFrance lost about five hundred thousand inhabitants, aprodigious quantity of specie, and, above all, the arts withwhich her enemies enriched themselves."* From thatperiod dates the decline of France and Spain, and of all theCatholic kingdoms of Europe. Ever since have they beenrunning a downward career in wealth, inmorality, in socialorder, in military genius, in manufacturing skill, and commercialenterprise. The men who committed these folliesand crimes went to their graves little dreaming whata legacy of dire revolutions they had bequeathed to theirsuccessors. These revolutions have come. The men whosowed their seeds sleep in their marble tombs, unconsciousof the earthquake's throes and the tempest's thundcrings,which are now overturning thrones which their perfidyhad disgraced, and desolating lands which their violencehad watered with tears and blood. But their sons,who have served themselves heirs of their fathers' sins, by acontinuance in their fathers' superstitions, must witness andendure these dire calamities. These persecutors dug thegrave of the Church at the same time they dug their own,in the abyss of socialism. Truth is immortal, and she returnedfrom her tomb ; but for them, alas ! there is no resurrection.When we think that this violence on the partof Rome delayed the Reformation forthree full centuries,or rather, shall we say, has added six centuries of darknessand suffering to the history of Europe, we wonder why God* Age of Lewis XIV. vol. ii. pp. 197, 198.