CONSTITUTION OF GENEVA.

57

eles provide that liberty of instruction shall be guaranteed to all Genevese, only under the reserve of dispositions prescribed by the laws for the interest of public order and good manners; and also that no corporation or congregation can be established without the authority of the Council of State. It is easy to see that with such a constitution of Church and State, the Romanists have everything made easy to their hand in Geneva, and only need a civil majority, when, by appointing their own Council of State, they can put every heretical congregation to the torture, and forbid, by law, any school or assembly of instruction or worship other than pleases them, under whatever severity of penalty they may choose to impose. No wonder that the cry of every Christian patriot in Geneva should be, Separate Church and State, separate Church and State! May God help them in their struggle after liberty.

"Advance come forth from thy celestial ground,
Dear Liberty!-stern nymph of soul untamed,
Sweet nymph, Oh rightly of the mountains named!
Through the long chain of Alps from mound to mound,
And o'er the eternal snows like Echo, bound.

Like Echo, when the hunter-train at dawn

Have roused her from her sleep: and forest-lawn,
Cliffs, woods, and caves, her viewless steps resound,
And babble of her pastime!-On, dread Power,

With such invisible motion speed thy flight,

Through hanging clouds, from craggy height to height,
Through the green vales and through the herdsman's bower,
That all the Alps may gladden in thy might,

Here, there, and in all places at one hour."

Liberty must come soon, or to all human appearance the case will be desperate; the time may come when men like Malan, Gaussen, D'Aubigné can no more speak out as they are doing now, from the mountain citadel which they hold for Christ, but will either be silenced or banished. The progress of the danger is rapid. "By the annexation of the new territory," remarks Dr. Heugh, "and also by a perpetual immigration of poor Savoyards in quest of the comforts of Geneva (like Hibernian immigration into Britain), the Roman Catholics have now upwards of twenty-seven thousand out of a population rather under sixty thousand; and during the last five years,

the Catholic population increased by three thousand, while that of the Protestants diminished by two hundred, the former by immigration into the territory, the latter by emigration from it. That advancing minority will become and probably will soon become a majority; and then, suffrage being universal, Geneva may, by the vote of a majority of her citizens, lose her rank among Protestant States, renounce by open profession the Protestantism which in fact her ministers and her people have already betrayed, and re-annex herself to Rome.' It should be added to this, that the calculation above made is with reference to the Canton and not the city of Geneva. The city contains about 30,000 inhabitants, of whom but a very small portion are Romanists. Of the whole twenty-two Cantons in the Swiss Confederation, there are only nine Popish; in six Cantons both Romanism and Protestantism are legalized together.

The only safety against these dangers is in the interposition of God, by means of the three ONLYS; let me repeat them; The Word of God ONLY,

The Grace of Christ ONLY,

The Work of the Spirit ONLY.

These things can keep the Roman Catholic population in a safe minority, or indeed can make them all Protestants, or, should there be a majority, can in a moment change it from falsehood into truth. So, by these three onlys Geneva will still be safe.

These three onlys will be the perfect independence of the Church of Christ. These three onlys will make the Church of Christ, in that independence, triumphant through the world.

In the Canton de Vaud, a Church-and-State Canton, the peo. ple have been so greatly enraged against the assemblies of Christians, who chose to worship by themselves, apart from the National Church, that they have broken up those assemblies with violence and almost with murder. When, in consequence of these acts the Christian assemblies demanded protection from the State, they were coolly told that they themselves were the authors of the disturbance, and that they must cease from those meetings which gave occasion for it? Such is the definition of religious liberty in a Church-and-State republic!

How difficult it is to work out a great truth, to work it clear. There is a muddy fermentation, and if it be drank while that is going on, it produces great disturbance in the system. This is the case with religious liberty. It has never been fully understood, it is just working itself clear. But it makes a great disturbance in doing so, or rather, the ingredients, foreign and pernicious, with which it has been compelled to mingle, have made disturbance, and do so still. There never will be quiet

in Europe till there is perfect religious liberty. The doctrine is in the laboratory of trial, tossed from crucible to crucible, and is going through processes for its purification, enough, in Mr. Dana's language, to make the most knowing chemists stare. God is purifying it for use in the kingdom which he is to set up on earth. The nations have never yet been ready for it! the old bottles would not hold this wine of the new dispensation; but God is preparing the world for it, and the throes in regard to its reception are perhaps a sign that the kingdom of peace and love is near at hand. But after all, the doctrine of a perfect religious liberty can there only be understood, and there only be practicable, where the truth prevails in love. The truth produces love, and love produces liberty, and thus men, made free themselves, rejoice in the freedom of others. If not, they are not free; "their passions forge their fetters."

It is with the great error Church and State as with minuter practical errors, that have long prevailed; they must be undermined gradually, and the occupants above warned off the ground. If not, both the assailants and the besieged will fight, and get blown up, or otherwise injured. "Truth," said Coleridge very pithily, "is a good dog; but beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out."

CHAPTER IX.

CHAMOUNY AND THE MER DE GLACE.

CHAMOUNY is in some respects the central and concentrating scene of the grandeur and glory of Switzerland. It is among

the Alps what Raphael's painting of the Transfiguration is among the European galleries of pictures. It is a finished and perfect world of sublimity, within a world of beauty. Four or five several times I have visited it, and each time with new discoveries of its glory, new impressions and lessons, new wonder and delight.

From Chamouny you may make the Tour of Mont Blanc, which also is itself a separate and perfect gem of travel. My first visit to Chamouny was made some years ago, in company with an American gentleman, in the bright month of October, on foot. A man should always travel in Switzerland as a pedestrian, if possible. There is no telling how much more perfectly he thus communes with nature, how much more deeply and without effort he drinks in the spirit of the meadows, the woods, the running streams, and the mountains, going by them and among them, as a friend with a friend. He seems to hear the very breath of Nature in her stillness, and sometimes when the whole world is hushed, there are murmurs come to him on the air, almost like the distant evening song of angels. Indeed the world of Nature is filled with quiet soul-like sounds, which, when one's attention is gained to them, make a man feel as if he must take his shoes from his feet and walk barefooted, in order not to disturb them. There is a language in Nature, that requires not so much a fine ear, as a listening spirit; just as there is a mystery and a song in religion, that requires not so much a clear understanding, as a believing spirit. To such a listener and believer, there comes

"A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,
Rythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere-
Methinks it should have been impossible
Not to love all things in a world so filled,

Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air

Is music slumbering on her instrument."

The music of the brooks and waterfalls, and of the wind among the leaves, and of the birds in the air, and of the children at play, and of the distant villages, and of the tinkling pleasant bells of flocks upon the mountain sides, is all lost to the traveller in a carriage, or rumbling vehicle of any kind; whereas

a pedestrian enjoys it, and enjoys it much more perfectly than a man upon a mule. Moreover, the pedestrian at every step is gaining health of body and elasticity of spirits. If he be troubled with weak lungs, let him carry his own knapsack, well strapped upon his shoulders; it opens and throws back the chest, and strengthens the weakest parts of the bodily system. Besides this, the air braces him better than any tonic. By day and by night, it is an exhilarating cordial to him, a nepenthe to his frame.

The pedestrian is a labouring man, and his sleep is sweet. He rises with the sun, or earlier, with the morning stars, so as to watch the breaking of the dawn. He lives upon simple food, with an unsuspicious appetite. He hums his favourite tunes, peoples the air with castles, cons 'a passage in the Gospels, thinks of the dear ones at home, cuts a cane, wanders in Bypath Meadow, where there is no Giant Despair, sits down and jots in his note book, thinks of what he will do, or whistles as he goes for want of thought. All day long, almost every faculty of mind and body may be called into healthful, cheerful exercise. He can make out-of-the-way excursions, go into the cottages, chat with the people, sketch pictures at leisure. He can pray and praise God, when and where he pleases, whether he comes to a cross and sepulchre, or a church, or a cathedral, or a green knoll under a clump of trees without cross, or saint, or angel; and if he have a Christian companion, they two may go together as pleasantly and profitably as Christian and Hopeful in the Pilgrim's Progress. He ought to be a draughtsman, ought to know how to sketch from nature. I must confess that I did not, and so I warn others from my own experience; if they are going to walk in Switzerland, let them learn to draw, The only original sketch I brought home in my note book, which otherwise might have been filled with rude gems, was a sketch of the battle-field of Morgarten, pencilled amidst my own word-sketches, by an English clergyman, my companion. After all, however, my friend was almost always more vexed for want of time to finish his sketches than he was gratified with collecting them. If one could take a little daguerreotype with him, it would be a nice thing among the mountains, to let nature do her own sketching.