Not that the church discourages efforts which have as their object the material interests of mankind; but, in her view, our duties to God are of the first importance, and to these all others are subordinate. What doth it profit? she is always asking, whereas Protestantism is busy trying to show us how very profitable and pleasant the Reformation has made this world—and virtuous, too, since honesty is the best policy and enlightened self-interest the standard of morals. It is the old story—God and the world, the supernatural and the natural, progress from above and progress from below. But we feel that it is time we should give our readers proof that we have no desire to avoid direct issue with M. de Laveleye. We flatly deny, then, his assertion that the Catholic nations are more immoral than the Protestant; and when he further affirms that Catholic writers themselves—for his words can have no other meaning—admit this, he lies under a mistake for which there can be no possible excuse. In the statement of facts, however, which we propose now to give, we make no use whatever of the testimony of Catholics, but rely exclusively upon the authority of Protestants and of statistics; and that our readers may have the benefit of observations extending over considerable time as well as space, we will not confine ourselves to the most recent writers or statistics on the subject under discussion. Laing, a Scotch Presbyterian and a most conscientious and observant traveller, who wrote some thirty-five years ago, says of the French: “They are, I believe, a more honest people than the British.… It is a fine distinction of the French national character and social economy that practical morality is more generally taught through manners among and by the people themselves than in any country in Europe.”[4] Alison, the historian, writing about the same time, but referring to the early part of this century, says that the proportion of crime to the inhabitants was _twelve times_ greater in Prussia than in France.[5] To this may be added the testimony of John Stuart Mill, in his _Autobiography_, published since his death, who passed a considerable portion of his life in France. Referring to his sojourn there when quite a young man, he says: