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

476 INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON NATIONS.and compare it with Prussia, the daughter of Luther ;or letus take the United States, the offspring of Protestant Britain,and compare them with Mexico and Peru, the offspringof Catholic Spain. Why should not Austria be as flourishingas Prussia ? Why should not Mexico be running the samecareer of improvement and growing wealth as the UnitedStates of America ? Are not these countries on a level asregards their internal resources and their facilities for foreigntrade ?Austria is richer in these respects than Prussia; Mexico than the States. And yet their prosperity isin the inverse ratio of their advantages. Why is this ? Onesolution only meets the case.*In the one instance. Protestantismhas elevated the moral character and strengthenedthe intellectual powers of the people, and hence the presenceof all the elements of a nation's greatness,—skill, enterprize,sobriety, steadiness, and security ; and there appears,therefore, no limit to their progress : in the other, ademoralizing and barbarizing superstition still bears sway;the people are unskilful, disorderly, and improvident ;theircountry has reached the limits of its prosperity, and is advancingbackwards into ruin.But it is not only when we take a large region into viewthat we are able to trace the peculiar effects of the two systems;a petty dukedom of Germany, or a Swiss canton, showsit equally well. The result is the same, however closely orminutely we examine. Let us take a rapid glance at thevarious popish countries of Europe, and see how they authen-* " Tlirougliout Chiistendoni, wliatever advance lias been made in knowledge,in freedom, in wealth, and in the arts of life, has been made in spiteof her [Church of Rome], and has everywhere been in inverse proportionto her power. The loveliest provinces in Europe have under her rule beensunk in poverty, in political servitude, and in intellectual torpor ; whileprotestant countries once proverbial for sterility and barbarism have beenturned, by skill and industry, into gardens, and can boast of a long list ofheroes, statesmen, philosophers, and poets." (Macaulay's History of Eugland.)