Notwithstanding the steady progress which Piedmont is making towards religious
as well as political liberty, the nature of her ad- vancement does not even yet seem to be fully appreciated in this country. It appears to us, that although the measures which the Sardinian Government has already introduced, and that which is now anticipated, do not partake of any doctrinal contradiction to the dogmas of Rome, they are in spirit essentially of a Protestant character. The state is overrun by an enormous clerical army. With a population under five millions, it has thirty-five bishops, more than eight thousand priests, besides the monks and nuns, who are stowed in nearly five hundred convents. Some of these monastic orders subsist by begging ; a great majority of the priests possess a paltry pittance, comparable only to that of the priests in Ireland. Though thus depressed, this immense ecclesiastical and monastic army has been an instrument of civil disorder, by endea- vouring to depose the sovereign temporal authority in setting over it the authority of the Pope. Sardinia has been able to sustain herself against such attempts, and she now proposes to make a further step towards ecclesiastical independence, by bringing the whole body of the clergy more under the control of the state. The chief measures are, the suppression of the mendicant orders, retaining only those which are self-supporting and charitable ; a reduction in the number of bishoprics and canonries, with equaliza- tion of emoluments, especially an increase of salaries for the poorer priests ; and finally an ecclesiastical commission, to investigate and rearrange church-revenues. There is no doctrinal question here ; but while, by the very nature of the proceeding, the Government of the land asserts its supremacy over the indwellers, of all orders, it must win a grateful feeling on the part of the working clergy, to whose comforts it will so tangibly minister, and it must secure the confidence of its own people. The true pith of Protestantism is independence of Rome ; which Sardinia is thus by degrees esta- blishing.
