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

:celebrated stream.POPISH AND PROTESTANT PRINCIPALITIES. 479This was once the highway of Europeand at every step we meet the memorials of the commercialwealth and baronial power of which this region was ancientlythe seat. The banks of the river are studded withfaded towns, once the busy seats of traffic, but now desertedand impoverished ; while the crag is crowned with thebaron's castle, now mouldering in the winds. We by nomeans ascribe to Popery the great reverse which the Rhenishtowns have sustained, and which is plainly owing to thosegreat scientific discoveries and politicalchanges which haveopened new channels to commerce, and withdrawn it fromthis its ancient route. But what we affirm is, that whereverthere yet remains in this celebrated tract any commercialenterprize and prosperity, it is in connection with Protestantism.The commerce of Europe the valley of the Rhinecan never again command ; but its trade might be ten timeswhat it is, were it not for the torpor of the people, inducedby a superstitious ^aith ; and to be satisfied of this, we haveonly to take into account that the Rhine connects the centreof Europe with the ocean, and that its course throughout isin a thickly-peopled region.Here, on the right bank of theRhine, is the free protestant state of Frankfort.It is somefifteen miles distant from the river; nevertheless it is thescene of extensive banking operations, of commercial activity,and of great agricultural prosperity. Its soil isrich and smiling like a garden, and offersan agreeable contrastto that of the semi-popish duchies and electorates lyingaround it.But in no part of Germany have the seeds of lifeand thereforewhich Luther sowed become wholly extinct ;the whole of Germany contrasts favourably with the Bava-As we advancerian and Austrian kingdoms on the south.towards the Adriatic the darkness deepens, and the groundrefuses to yield its strength to the poor enslaved beings thatlive upon it.No traveller ever yet penetrated the mountain-barriers ofSwitzerland who was not struck, not more with the gran-