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

DEGRADATION OF ITALY. 487chants and artificers of Milan excepted, are for the mostpart slaves and beggars. Where now is the commerce ofVenice ? On the quays on which her merchants traffickedwith the world, mendicants whine for alms ; and the sighingof four millions of slaves mingles with the wave of theimperial Adriatic.Italy presents at every step the memorials of its pastgrandeur and the proofs of its present ruin. In the formerwe behold what the narrow measure of freedom ancientlyaccorded to it enabled it to attain ; in the latter, we seewhat the foul yoke of the Papacy has reduced it to.* Itsliterature is all but extinct, under the double thral of thecensorship and the national superstition. The Bible, thatfountain of beauty and sublimity, as wellan unknoion hook in Italy ;as of morality, isand the popular literature of itspeople is mainly composed of tales, in prose and in verse,celebrating the exploits of robbers or the miracles of saints. -f"The trade of its cities is at an end, and its towns swann withidlers and beggars, who can find neither employment norfood. These are wholly uncared for by government. Itsagriculture is in a like wretched condition. In some partsof Italy thefarms are mere crofts, and the farm-houses hovels.In other parts, as in the plain around Rome, thefarms are enormously large, let out to a corporation ; andthe reaping, which takes place in the fiercest heats of summer,is performed by mountaineers, whom hunger drivesdown every year to brave the terrors of the malaria, andthe harvest costs on an average the lives of one half the• " The Pojie found the Romans heroes, and left them hens."(Gavazzi.)f* " Of the tliousands who cannot read aliDhabetical letters in Rome, notone is found ignorant (for lottery purposes) of Arabic numerals ; while forthose who can read there is published the famous Book * of Dreams,' as anappropriate auxiliary in legalized witclicraft,— a book sold in wheel-barrowsat every fair, and at church-doors, and often the only book in thewhole village where a New Testament is unknown. . . . While theworks of learning and genius are on the Index, this blasphemous book'scirculation is unblushingly promoted."(Gavazzi, Thirteenth Oration.)