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

BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 477ticate our theory,—that, be thegenius of a people and thecapabilities of their territory what they may. Popery willconvert their country into a social and economic wreck.And here we may state, once for all, that as regards thecountries north of the Alps, we shall state only what we havehad personal opportunities of knowing, and which we challeno-eany competent witness to contradict or disprove.We begin with Belgium, which, on the whole, is the mostflourishing Roman Catholic country in Europe, but which,nevertheless, affords conclusive evidence of what we are nowseeking to substantiate.Belgium enjoys a free government,a rich soil ; is favourably situated for commerce with protestantstates ; and, above all, still retains the protestantelement, and, along with that, the arts and manufactureswhich the storms of former persecuting eras were the meansof drifting to her shores. Those parts of Belgium where theFrench Protestants settled enjoy a high degree of prosperity,—a prosperity which is the result and the recompense of itsformer hospitality to the victims of persecution.aboriginalBut in theparts, as in the south-west, where Popery settlesthick and dense, we find the same indolence and wretchednessthat prevail in Ireland. That district bears the samerelation to the rest of Belgium which Ireland does to Britain.It is liable, like Ireland, to be visited with periodicfamines, and at these seasons it endures like deplorable misery.The condition of these districts forms a frequenttheme of discussion in the Belgian Chambers, as Irelanddoes in the British Legislature. As in Ireland, so in Flanders,airriculture and the arts are in a backward state, andthe people are the prey of ignorance and improvidence. Theland groans under a pauper occupancy ; and the manufactureof thread,—the staplo manufacture of the country,—isprosecuted with the hand-wheel of their ancestors. Competitionis hopeless with the rest of Belgium, which enjoysthe advantage of improved machinery, and thus the Flemingshave fallen behind in the race of national prosperity.Let us contrast Belgium with the little protestant state