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

488 INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON NATIONS.reapers. Some tracts of this beauteous land are now altogetherdesert ; and the salubrity of Italy has been so muchaffected thereby, that the average duration of human life isconsiderably shorter. The malaria was known to ancientItaly, but it is undoubted that it has immensely increased inmodern times, and this is universally ascribed to the absenceof cultivation and of human dwellings. " The Pontinemarshes, now a pestilentialdesert, were once covered withVolscian towns ; the mouth of the Tiber, whither convictsare sent to die, was anciently lined by Iloman villas ; andPgestum, whose hamlet iscursed with the deadliest of allthe Italian fevers, was in other days a rich and populouscity."*A perpetualround, extending from one end of the yearto the other, of festivals and saints'* days, interrupts the laboursof the people, and renders the formation of steadyhabits an impossibility. The Roman Calendar exhibits afestival or fast on every day of the year. The most of theseare voluntary holidays ; but the obligatory ones amount toabout seventy in the year, exclusive of Sabbaths. A greatpart of the land is the property of the Church. The numberof sacerdotal persons is of most disproportionate amount,seriously affecting the trade and agriculture of the country,from which they are withdrawn, as they also are from thejurisdiction of the secular courts. " In the city of Rome,"says Gavazzi, " with a population of 1 70,000 (of which nearly6000 resident Jews, and a fluctuating mass of strangers,nearly of the same amount, formed part), there were, besides1400 nuns, a clerical militia of 3069 ecclesiastics, beingone for every fifty inhabitants, or one for every twenty-fivemale adults ;while in the provinces there were towns wherethe proportion was still greater, being one to every twenty.The Church property formed a capital of 400,000,000 offrancs, giving 20,000,000 per annum ; while the whole revenueof the state was but eight or nine millions of dol-* Spalding's Italy and the Italian Islands, chap. iii. p. 289.