24 OCTOBER 1846, Page 15

SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

TRAVELS,

Switzerland and the Swiss Churches being Notes of a short Tour, and Noticea ot the principal Religious Bodies in that Country. By William Lindsay Alexander.

D.D., F.S.A.S Mackhost; Glasgow. HISTORY, Amatory of the Rise and Early Progreie of Christianity. By Samuel Hinds, D.D., Prebendary of Castleknock, Chaplain to his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, and First Chaplain to his Excellency the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Second edition. Fellows. Carlisle in 1745. Authentic Acoonnt of the Occupation of Carlisle in 1745 by rrinoe Charles Edward Stuart. Edited by George out Mounsey Longman and Co.

Wit and Humour, selected from the English Poets ; with an Illustrative Essay, and

Critical Comments. By Leigh Hunt Smith and Elder.

Orrr-Books, Adh Fisher's Drawingroom Scrap-book: 1847. By the Hon. Mrs. Norton.

Fisher and Co. The Gallery of Scripture Engravings, Historical and Landscape. With Descriptions, Historical, Geographical, and Pictorial, by John Kitt°, D.D., F.S.A., &c. Fisher and Clo. The Juvenile Scrap-book : 1847. By the Author of 'The Women of England." Fisher and (b. New-Year's Day ; a Winter's Tale. By Mrs. Gore. With Illustrations by George Crulkshank Fisher and Co. The Boy's Summer Book ; descriptive of the Season, Scenery, Rural IAN and Country Amusements. By Thomas Miller, Author of " Beauties of the Country," Fcc. With thirty-six Illustrations, engraved on Wood, by Henry Vizetelly. Chapman and BisE. The Recreation ; a Gilt-book for Young Readers. With Engravings. ...Orr and Co.

DR. ALEXANDER'S SWITZERLAND AND THE SWISS CHURCHES.

Tars unpretending volume contains the account of a month's tour through Switzerland and a week's homeward journey through Belgium; involving notices more or less full of Strasburg, Basle, Neufchatel, Lau- sanne, Geneva, Bern; and the Oberland, with several interesting explora- tions among the Alps. In a country so often described there is not much to tell which can be new ; but Dr. Alexander, by confining himself to the actual impressions made upon his own mind, imparts a character to his narrative, notwithstanding the occasional diffuseness and the ready use of commonplaces which distinguish the person whose vocation it is to ad- dress a public assembly. It is not, however, as a narrative of a journey that the volume is to be regarded. Religious men and the state of reh- gion in the places be visited was the main subject of Dr. Alexander's in- quirks. In a town, the Protestant clergyman and the Protestant chart* when they existed were the first objects of his search ; and the actual state of religious belief and feeling among the different classes of the community —Romanists, Lutherans, and Dissenters—the principal topic of his at- tention. Hence, his work has a distinct feature which separates it from the mass of Continental travels ; and as the political events and social character of Geneva and Switzerland are involved in the inquiry, it pos- sesses a greater general interest than might at first sight appear to be the case.

Hope rather than fruition—the future, not the present—is the Protes- tant comfort Dr. Alexander is enforced to draw from Geneva and the Swiss Cantons. The church which Calvin founded has reached the dead- est stage of Unitarianism without the courage to avow it, and endeavours to check freedom of opinion by persecuting all who differ from it; a thing so contrary to the principles of the Unitarians, that it must be taken to exemplify the evil workings of a corporate spirit rather than of a creed. The majority of Protestant Switzerland has subsided into infidelity or " indifferentism" ; all political parties avowing and carrying out the most extreme opinions with regard to the power of the state over the church, even to the extent of prescribing its doctrines and super- seding its ritual. This power was rather established and proved by the Aristocratical party which introduced it than carried out ; but on the late accession of the extreme Democrats to the government, they proceeded to enforce the power given them in so stringent a manner that a majority of the clergy seceded, though accompanied by few of their flocks. Dr. Alex- ander accounts for this spiritual anomaly by the religious indifference or infidelity of the mass of the people, by the fact of the clergy having submitted too long and to too much before they mustered spirit to resist, and more than all, by religious people having withdrawn from the State church before their pastors. It is on these seceders—the Dissenters of Switzerland and Geneva—that Dr. Alexander builds his hopes. It is possible their leaven may stimulate the whole mass ; but at present there seems, even on Dr. Alexander's showing, too much of fanaticism, self-independence, and running after strange doctrines, tb give anything like a well-grounded confidence of this result,—except perhaps at Geneva, whose churches are under very distinguished men. Of Romanist Switzerland Dr. Alexander gives a more favourable ac- count ; and as his bias must be all against his conclusions, there can be no doubt as to the fact so far as his information is correct. In education and enterprise, indeed, the Protestant Cantons carry off the palm, but not in religion or morals.

"In one very important respect the Catholics of Switzerland have the advan- tage over the Protestants; they are both better instructed in the principles of their religion and have a sincerer faith in and reverence for that religion than can be affirmed of the Protestants in regard to theirs. Exceptions there are doubtless, on both sides; but the general fact is, I believe, as I have stated it. Whilst multitudes of the Protestants are ignorant of the first principles of Chris,. than truth, whilst by IOW of them the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel are reel- diated, and whilst a spint of indifference as to diversities of religions opinion widely prevails amongst them, the Catholics are, for the most part, sincerely at- tached to their faith, well acquainted with its principles and practices, proud of avowing their devotion to it, and apt to carry their preference for it the dangerous length of denouncing not only the sentiments but even the persons of all who re- ject it. If this betrays them into intolerance, it is, nevertheless, surely a more wholesome state of things than that tendency to the opposite extreme which too much marks the Protestants of Switzerland at present. I am far from thinking bigoted attachment to a corrupt form of Christianity a slight evil; but I cannot help regarding this as greatly to be preferred to that flippant indifference which practically abrogates religion altogether, or that hardened infidelity which makes religion a subject of contempt or mockery. "There is another reaped in which I have reason to believe that the Romanist population of Switzerland have the advantage over the Protestant; and that is in general morality. Compared with their immediate neighbours in France and Italy, the Swiss are, upon the whole, to be respected for their good conduct in re- gard to the ordinary relations of life; but when the different Cantons are compared among themselves in reference to this, the palm of superiority must, I understand, be accorded to the Catholic over the Protestant Cantons, viewed in both cases as a whole. That the credit of this is to be given to Catholicism, as if it possessed a tendency to elevate the moral tastes and habits of the people superior to that of Protestantism, I am not prepared to admit. This would be to deduce not only a general conclusion from a case which must be regarded as solitary, but a con- clusion which would stand in opposition to that authorized by the almost unani- mous testimony of all the other facts bearing upon the point. There is no man who can require to be informed, that in those countries of the European continent in which Catholicism prevails, the state of morals is in general deplorably inferior to that of countries in which Protestantism predominates. If we compare Bel- gium and Austria, for instance, with their Protestant neighbours in Prussia or Holland, there can be no hesitation on the part of any candid and well-informed inquirer in yielding the palm of superiority to the latter over the former, in all matters pertaining to social or individual morality; and the same result will be foturd as that almost universally authorized by the comparison of Catholic and Protestant states. If in Switzerland, therefore, this relation of the two systems is reversed, the fact must, in all fairness, be held as an exception to the general rule, to be accounted for by the influence of extraneous circumstances. In attempt- ing to state what these circumstances are, we shall probably not greatly err if we ascribe considerable weight to the influence of Helveticiiry simplicity and moun-

taineer integrity in the one case, and in the other to the de mg influence of a light and lax scepticism pervading the community. W at favours this con- clusion is, that of the Protestant Cantons, that of the Orisons, a primitive and mountain people, is the most virtuous; while of the Catholic Cantons, those occu- copied by the French Swiss, and situated on the plains, are the least virtuous."

The following trait of a guide is introduced as a mark of Swiss laxity.

"Poor Michele! with all his goodheartedness and all his hatred of the Jesuits, We soon found that in regard to any correct conceptions of spiritual religion he was completely in the dark. He was a Protestant, and, in profession at least, a believer in revelation; but his real position was one of utter infidelity or indiffe- rentism. His wife, he told us, was a Catholic; but he assured us they got on very well together, for she was a good woman, and be was no bigot. Indeed,' said he, ' I often go to chapel with her; not that I care for it, but it pleases her.' " 'Well, and does she ever go to your church with you?' " Oh, no, Monsieur! she is very good, but she would not do that.'

"'Then it appears that she is much more attached to her religion than you are to yours.' " Sith, sans doute, Monsieur: the poor woman is a devote; but as for me, I thank God I am more free.'

"My friend here took him up, and endeavoured to impress upon him the ne- amity of sincerity and earnestness in religion: but he appeared to make little impression on the light heart of Michele. • " Look'ee, Monsieur,' exclaimed the latter, after some abortive attempts to reason the matter with my friend, I sin a Protestant, my wife is a Catholic: it's all one; the great God does not trouble himself with our little differences, (le grand Dieu ne s'embarasse pas de not petites differences.)'"