As no passion takes hold of the human heart with such sovereign power as that of religion, it follows that no bias of judgment is more fatal to truth than religious prejudice; and now let us gently descend again to M. Emile de Laveleye and his pamphlet: “It is agreed on all sides,” he says (p. 25), “that the power of nations depends on their morality. Everywhere is found the maxim, which is almost become an axiom of political science, that where morals are corrupted the state is lost. Now, it appears to be an established fact that the moral level is higher among Protestant than among Catholic populations. Religious writers confess this themselves, and explain it by the fact that the former remain more faithful to their religion than the latter, which explanation I believe to be the true one.” Here is fairness surely. The soft impeachment could not have been made in a more moderate or subdued tone. Catholics are notoriously more immoral than Protestants; but the subject is a painful one, and M. de Laveleye does not wish to emphasize the unpleasant truth by giving proof—which, indeed, would be superfluous, since Catholics themselves, we are assured, admit the fact and are concerned only about its explanation; and, strange to say, they have found the key to the mystery in the greater fidelity of Protestants to their religion: so M. de Laveleye and the Catholics shake hands and the dispute is at an end. The position of Protestants with regard to this question is peculiar. The very life of their religion is intimately associated with a fixed belief in the preternatural wickedness of popes, priests, nuns, and Catholics generally. The sole justification of Protestantism was found in the abominable corruptions of Rome, and its only defence is that it is a purer worship, capable of creating a higher morality. The history of the Reformation, as written by Protestants, traces its origin to an awful and heaven-inspired indignation at the sight of papal iniquity, which resulted in a divine Protest against sin. It is this feeling, indeed, which is the living human magnetism in the words of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and Knox. They all felt that in so far as they protested against open and patent evil they were right, and therefore strong. Leo X., with God’s eternal truth, but encircled by all the Graces and Muses, was at a disadvantage with those strong and plain-spoken men. In fact, the eternal ally of human error is human truth. It is because men who are right do wrong that men who are wrong seem right; and if men in general were fit to be priests of God, there would be on earth no power to oppose the Catholic Church. St. Paul had protested, St. John Chrysostom had protested, St. Peter Damian had protested, St. Bernard had protested, St. Catherine of Sienna had protested, and yet there was no Protestantism. To protest was well and is well, but to seek to found a religion upon a protest is madness;