munity. In those universities in which freedom of speech is in any degree allowed, the desire of political liberty appears to be accompanied with free-thinking on the subject of religion. It is affirmed by professor Tholuck, that the university of Halle is the seat of infidelity, and that even some of the teachers of theology are infected with an anti-christian spirit. This hostility to the truth, he says is still more prevalent at Weimar, where zealous Chris tians are discountenanced and persecuted: but he seems, in this instance, to have used the language of exaggerab tion. We admit that those who wish to be reformers in politics are in general equally desirous of what they call a reformation in religion; but the charge of infidelity is the common resource of intolerant bigots, who are offended even with such as differ from them in unimportant particulars, and stigmatise, as infidelity, that which is merely a sectarian difference of opinion.

Dissatisfied with the religious systems established in Germany, the baroness Krudener ventured to propose a reform. This lady, in her youth, was not strongly im pressed with sentiments of piety. Her vivacity seemed to disdain all restrictions, and her morals were not pure or correct: but, in the progress of her studies, she at length met with the works of Stilling, a German enthusiast, whose effusions, operating upon the warmth of her disposition, excited in her mind a strong devotional spirit. When the sparks of her piety were kindled into a flame, she resolved to illuminate the world, as far as her abilities would allow, and began, in the year 1813, to propagate her opinions publicly at Heidelberg. In the following year she visited Paris, in the character of a religious res former, and prayed and preached at her hotel for the edification of the dissolute and depraved French; but, while she amused them by her eccentricity, she made no impression upon their minds. To Switzerland she after wards directed her course, and preached in the open airs to large congregations. She dwelt on the necessity of regeneration, and asserted the saving power of faith and grace, even without those works which are meritorious in the opinion of the world. She was consequently more

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severe in her denunciations against what the Methodists call sin, than against acts of worldly wickedness and guilt. She pretended to be convinced that her frequent and earnest prayers had so far secured the divine favor, as to give her that inspired and influential character which enabled her to reclaim thousands of sinners: but, by declaiming at the same time against some civil ordinances, she so displeased the rulers of several cantons, that they ordered her to quit the country. Retiring into the duchy of Baden, she assembled at her house the supposed friends of true religion, and boldly continued her career, until the magistrates stopped these irregular proceedings. She thus became sensible of the danger of defying the constituted authorities, and was more prudent and cautious in her subsequent conduct. She lived many years unmolested on an estate which she possessed near Riga, where, as well as in her other places of abode, she was idolised by the poor for her numerous acts of charity and beneficence. She died in the Crimea, in 1824, without the fame of having instituted a formal sect.

boWhile a protestant lady of Germany thus asserted her pretensions to the honor of inspiration, a Romish fanatic of the same country seemed to think himself equally favored with the divine aid. This was the prince Alexander Hohenlohe of Bamberg, who pretended that he could cure bodily disorders by prayers and devotional exercises; and several cases have been obtruded on the credulous part of the community, containing attestations, seemingly strong, of the providential grant of relief (at the precise time when the prince solemnised the mass and offered up prayers to Heaven) to persons in distant countries, whose friends had applied to him in the fullness of their faith and the fervor of their zeal.

Of the stwenty-two cantons which now compose the Helsetic confederacy, six are attached to the protest ant communion; and of these Bern is the most populous and flourishing. In six of the states, the catholics and protestants bear equal sway, while the other ten cantons follow the Romish system. In these, a tolerating disposi tion usually prevails; but there has lately been an ex.

ception from that rule in the case of the Pays de Vaud A new sect arose in this canton, or rather a number of persons resolved to commence a more methodical course of religious duties and devotional exercises, not supposing that their zeal in this respect could excite the displeasure of the ruling power. If they had restricted these marks of piety to their own families, the government would not have taken the least notice of their conduct; but their offence, it seems, consisted in propagating the same spirit among others, by inviting their friends to their houses to join in these acts of worship. It does not appear that they entertained any new opinions or heterodox notions; and therefore the great council of the canton had no suffi cient ground of interference; nor ought it, indeed, tô have interfered, even if the people had been heretically disposed; for, as belief depends on the unsophisticated mind, it ought never to be subjected to force or constraint.15A minister of the Gospel, however, was accused, in the year 1824, of the heinous crime of having read and expounded a chapter of the Scriptures to four persons beside his own family, and condemned to banishment for three years by his arbitrary judges. Other ministers were arraigned for similar conduct; but, when twenty-six clergymen petitioned the government to relax its rigor in cases of this kind, the prosecutions, we believe, were discontinued.dw

While the catholics sometimes transgressed the limits prescribed by the government, but (in the case which we have stated) without serious delinquency, the protestants occasionally deviated from the ordinary course of legitimate proceedings, and, in one case, disgraced their holy cause by sanguinary excesses. In a village of the canton of Zurich, the family and neighbours of a farmer, named John Peter, were infected with the superstitious folly of his daughter Margaret, who, having a tendency to 1 va otai list

Des Persecutions Religieuses dans le Canton de Vaud, salA similar case occurred in France in 1825. At the village of St Etienne, one man, sixteen women, and two children, were apprez hended for meeting at a private house to read the New Testament and, for this alleged violation of the law, they were reprimanded by the magistrates and fined....

deyout enthusiasm, had been inflamed into absolete phrensy by the effusions of itinerant preachers. So high was the opinion of her sanctity, that she was even sup posed to have been favored with celestial inspiration; and, by the influence which she thus obtained, she was enabled to hold religious assemblies, in which the most shameful extravagances and the most hideous enormities were practised. She maintained the necessity of waging perpetual war with Satan, to prevent him from triumph. ing over Jesus Christ, and recommended, as the most effectual mode of saving souls from the grasp of the restless fiend, either an act of self-sacrifice, or the infliction of mortal wounds on friends and relatives. At a meeting of her disciples, she attacked one of her brothers with such fury, that only the opportune aid of a female domestic saved him from death. Her sister then offered herself as a victim, and was beaten to death with an iron mallet by the cruel enthusiast and one of her mad friends. Her father did not actually witness these outrages; but he knew that she was perpetrating some enormity, and yet did not rush into the apartment to secure peace and order. He suffered the storm to rage, while he calmly pursued his ordinary occupations. Margaret's phrensy was not yet cooled; and, while she sat on the bed on which remained the palpitating body of her sister, she began to strike herself with the mallet. Not satisfied with the vigor of her own arm, she desired a friend to use the instrument with fatal effect; but, suddenly thinking that crucifixion would be a more legitimate death, she insisted on suffering that species of torture. Some pieces of timber were then placed upon the bed in the form of a cross, and to these she was deliberately nailed, without seeming to feel any pain, so great was her fortitude, and so deter mined her self-devotement. At length she said, ' Drive a nail into my heart, or split my head; the latter part of the alternative was instantly executed, and a low moan announced her expiration. A judicial inquiry was made into these horrid acts; and Ursula Kundig, the most willing and ready agent in the work of murderous fanati cism, was sentenced to imprisonment and labor for sixteen

years. Some of Margaret's male associates were deprived, for the rest of their lives, of their political rights; and her father's house, the scene of her folly and cruelty, was demolished. Her opinions and fancies were not imme diately renounced by her votaries, some of whom pretended to believe that she would soon re-appear in the world

The commanding number of protestants in Switzer land may be supposed to keep those of Piedmont in countenance; but the latter (we mean the Vaudois) have been so discouraged by the bigotry of the court and the Romish clergy, that they are reduced to a small number, not exceeding 20,000, who are under the spiritual direction of thirteen pastors. They preserve those tenets which they maintained on their original separation from the Romish church. We are called heretics by the members of that church (said their primate Peyrani to a late visitant of their secluded valleys); but our church is founded the durable rock of Christianity. We have adhered to the pure tenets of the apostolic age, and the Romanists have separated from us.'

on

& go bossly In all the states of which we have been speaking, the Jews were at an early period mingled with the Christians, notwithstanding the rooted odium which subsisted between the humbled posterity of the ancient patriarchs and the triumphant adorers of the Messiah. Although the former may be thought to have no concern in a history of the church of Christ, it may not be altogether improper to take notice of the treatment which they have received in our time from the Christian governments. While the French revolution was in progress, Gregoire was the first who openly proposed that they should be rescued from the state of degradation to which they had long been subjected and, as freedom was then (ostensibly at least) the order of the day, there was no pretence for with-holding it from the Israelites. In consequence of this change of opinion, they were admitted into corporations, promoted to a variety of offices, obtained considerable rank in the army during Napoleon's sway, and were deemed not unfit to belong even to his celebrated Legion of Honor. It was pretended that he entertained the idea of re-establishing their power in