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

4G4INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON NATIONS.access.The same dark shadow comes between brother andsister, and the mutual and trustful confidence of their childhood years is blighted for ever. The father can mark, da_vby day, the dark stains of the confessional deepening on hiedaughter's soul, clouding the sunshine of her face, and restraining the free current of her talk. Infernal institution !invented in the pit, and set up on earth to root out all thatis lovely and pure, and holy and free, among the human family.The confessional is slavery worse tlian death. Howa people who have once tastedfreedom could advocate theintroduction of a tyranny so unspeakably odious and soperfectly unbearable, surpasses our comprehension. Andyet there are not wanting at tliis moment some in Englandwho seek to revive the practice of confession.Another disagreeable feature of papal Europe, in whichit contrasts most unfavourably with protestant states, isthe all but universal prevalence of the vice of gambling.Gambling-houses abound in all the great cities of the Continent.Most of the watering-places of southern Germanyare nothing else than large gambling establishments. Theprotestant part of the Continent, it is true, is not altogetherfree from this dreadful pollution ; but such houses in protestantstates are thinly planted, comparatively. In Franceand in southern Europe this vice has infected the whole ofsociety, and obtrudes itself everywhere,—in private parties,in the common taverns, as well as in those houses speciallyset apart for it.* The papal government, too, has its* "Their [the populace] two great temptations are the festivals andthe lotteries The lottery is a thousand times more fatal ; itsvenom infects every town in Italy. Each government has its lottery. .. . A drawing takes place rather oftener than once a fortnight. . .. . A day-labourer withholds regularly a portion of his earnings from hisfamily, to spend it on , his weekly hazard at an office; and the starvingbeggar, if he receive an alms which will purchase two meals, often goeswithout one of them, that he may have a chance of becoming rich." (Italyand the Italian Islands, by W. Spalding, Esq. Professor of llhctoric, StAndrew's, vol. iii. p. 249 ; Edin. 1841.)