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

;4P2INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON NATIONS.Vienna and Paris.* In Paris, the illegitimate births weremarked as being about one-half of the whole ; and inVienna the proportion was nearly the same. We speaknot of the conventual establishments, which were the consecratedabodes of the twin vices of indolence and lewdness.Nor do we speak of the seduction and profligacy with whichthe law of clerical celibacy inundated private families.Wespeak of the state of general society as regards the greatvirtue of chastity, which is confessedly far below that ofHolland, of Britain, or of any Protestant country.Analogous to this is the respect in which woman is heldin Roman Catholic countries. Christianity alone gives womanher proper place. All idolatries agree in degradingher. Hinduism makes woman the slave of man; Mahommedanismmakes her the toy of his pleasures. ModernJudaism teaches that they are " very inferior beings;" andseveral great rabbies have held, that for them there is noimmortality. Romanism, true to its genius as a false religion,has degraded woman, by forbidding its priests tomarry. " It cries up marriage for a sacrament, and yet atthe same time bars its sacred clergy from it, because itwill defile them.""!- Thus all false religions, and Romanismamong the rest, have struck at the highest interests of so-* The return of births during the year 1849 furnishes sad evidenceof the immorality of the Viennese. The total number of children bornwas 19,241. Of these, 10,3G0 were illegitimate, and only 8SS1 legitimate.Munich and Paris have hitherto borne the worst character in this respectbut this return throws them into the shade. Concubinage is the law,marriage the exception. Misery keeps equal pace with vice. Between1827 and 1847, the suicides in Paris had risen from 1542 to 3G47. Anyone who will take the trouble of watching the Paris journals will find,that at present the suicides in Paris amount to seventeen per week. Theincrease may be owing in part to the excitement and misery produced bythe Revolution, (" Daily News" of April 8, 1850 : M. Raudot's Work onthe Decline of France.)+ Tract on the Character of Popery ;printed about the time of the Revolution,and quoted in the " Free Thoughts," p. 454.