We do not intend to convey the idea that ignorance and its natural consequences do not prevail among the Maltese peasantry, when we say that there is much of seeming comfort and contentment to be found among them. As an average class, these children of the soil exhibit only too clearly their want of culture and intelligence. The priests oppose all efforts to improve them by schools. Education is virtually tabooed by the church, it being held that devotion to the Roman Catholic religion is all that is necessary for their spiritual or earthly welfare. Said a famous English general: "Thinking bayonets are dangerous. What we require in a soldier is a machine that knows just enough to obey orders." So it is with the followers of the Roman Catholic faith; people who can read and reason for themselves are "dangerous," so far as putting trust in that bigoted creed is concerned. What the church requires is machines which will obey orders, and yield up their hard-earned wages to support the priesthood and the regal Romish palace of the Pope at Rome. Any unprejudiced observant traveler in Spain, Italy, Mexico, or South America will bear witness to the truth of this statement. Not one twentieth of the inhabitants of this Maltese group can read and write. In populous, overcrowded China, eight tenths of the inhabitants can read and write, and yet the Western nations look upon them as semi-barbarians. Can any one indicate another people on the globe, eight tenths of whom can read and write? Education is not only compulsory, but it is the only stepping-stone to high preferment in the civil service of the government. Our venal politicians would do well to profit by the example of China. It will be remembered in this connection that since the suppression of the Pope's temporal power in Italy Malta has been looked upon as a possible future residence for the head of the Romish church. An influential section of the councils of the Vatican has favored the idea, and it would seem to be well suited for the purpose. Were this to occur, Malta would eventually become the Mecca of Catholicism. We may not expect to see such a change brought about in our day; if it should ever happen, it would add but one more to the strange vicissitudes in the history of Malta.