The Canton of Berne, in Switzerland, has taken the extra-
ordinary step of forbidding the exercises of the Salvation Army throughout its jurisdiction. The reasons assigned are,—that the police cannot 'protect the Salvationists from attack, and that soldiers cannot be called out for such a purpose ; and that, more- over, the Army, "with its charlatanic appeals and propaganda' and overloud worship, "cannot, according to the ideas dominant with us, be recognised as a religion." It is, of course, open to the Bernese to prohibit religious processions calculated to dis- turb the peace—that is done in every country ; but this order prohibits worship in private, and in fact was called out by a private meeting. It comes to this, therefore, that no religion which excites the dislike of the lowest class will be tolerated in Berne, where, nevertheless, freedom of worship is secured by the Constitution. This is direct persecution, as unequivocal as the refusal of the Papacy to allow Protestant public worship within the city of Rome.
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