Little or nothing can be hoped for from the government in this respect, as long as the po litical relations between it and the Church con tinue to be strained, and as long as the tradi tional policy lasts of abstention from all that concerns religion. The state could never be,f a yorable to religious instruction in the schools by the clergy, who might educate subjects as rebels, or traitors. On the other hand, the general lack of theological culture among a cultured laity, especially after the abolition of the theological faculty in the university, may lead to a consid eration of a serious and effectual form of in struction. The bourgeoisie, of which the gov ernment is only a reflection, is saturated with acobinism; and Italian liberalism is not only legitimately anti-clerical, but also anti-religious. T e government, liberal and non-religious as it is, and should be, has never appeared to be aware of the social and political value of the religious life among the people that it governs, and of the great truth taught by history — that religion is the strength and the beginning of -all national life, , ,, , , In addition to all this we must remember that what was called the Popula: Party in Italy, and more especially the Radicals and the So cialists, were at least the indirect supporters of each ministry, which, without them, could not have long remained in power, and that they brought into Italian public life the most deter mined opposition not alone to the Church, but also to all religious matters; and their words were assiduously propagated among the people as the words that would free them from that re ligion which they looked upon as the traditional stronghold of authority and of the ruling classes. We notice, besides, that in science official science, so to speak—in Italy, positivist theories and tendencies still generally prevail, whilst in more cultivated countries they have lost ground, as might be seen at the Congress of Free Thought held in Rome three years ago.
There is not much to be hoped for from the action of other religious bodies in Italy. In spite of the multiplication of evangelical cen tres and literature, especially the Waldensian, they remain only isolated instances, and the entrance of Protestanism into Italy meets with the same opposition to-day it encountered in the time of Luther. The nature of the Italian race which demands in addition to the religious sentiment the satisfaction of its vivid imagina tion and of the classic sense of beauty and of ceremonial form, is foreign to the inner spiritual individuality of the religious life peculiar to northern races; it loves the association and social union of souls united in a common wor ship and solemn and magnificent rites.
Nevertheless, whoever should deny that there is a breath of religious .life in modern Italy would be greatly mistaken. The discussions raised by Fogazzaro's book, especially since his condemnation by the Church, were not owing to the literary value of the work, which is but slight, nor to his acknowledgment that he had not the courage,to retract, but to the idea for mulated in the book of a, reform of the Church.
It is true that the promulgation of these ideas are limited to a group of cultured persons, and it is not to be expected that a successful move for religious regeneration can extend to the people from that source. Then again, the sympathy for 'Trancescanistn," whence arose the society of Saint Francis d'Assisi, founded by Sabatier, is more historical, erudite and ar tistic than religious. The true religious move ments always originate in the minds of the common people.
We must distinguish between the operative masses of the cities,. agitated by the irreligious propaganda of socialism, and the rural popula tion among whom the religious spirit is a hying reality. In the southern part of the peninsula and in Sicily, particularly in the rural districts, religious belief often becomes dense superstition. An idolatry of saints and images, a belief in signs, omens and fetichism, rules the life of the people, sometimes accompanied by Vicious , cus toms and personal violence. Centuries of pov erty, illiteracy and oppression account for this in part; hut the Oriental character of- these mixed races chiefly accounts the frank sensoalism, vivid imagination, intense emotionalism, im pulsivity, semi-pagan worship of beauty and gorgeous ceremonial, and blind belief in, which characterize their religion. Increasing Pducation and better., economic conclitions44 gradually alter all 'this; and even now those who look beneath the surface will discover much ignorance and simple virtue sustained and corn. forted by faith, by acts of abnegation and by admirable self-sacrifice. These are, of course, less en evidence than the more numerous social crimes and acts of violence; but they are there, as a source of inspiration and a guiding infiu. ence. In truth, this popular religious influence, especially enduring in the rural districts, is like a groundwork formed by the old current mys ticisms which, in times past, created in Italy an original form of sentiment and of religious consciousness.
Italy gave to Christianity, Saint Benedict, and Saint James of Fiori, Francis of Assisi, and Catherine of Siena, Savonarola and Saint Ber nardino, Philip Neri and Carlo Borromeo. And from religion was drawn the inspiration that prompted the works of those aSpiriti Magni,' Dante and Giotto, Fra Angelico and Petrarch, Brunellesci and Columbus, Michelangelo and Tasso, down to Rosmini and Manzoni. NoW the popular form of Christianity— that of Francesco d'Assisi — is a purely original and national form, characterized by a serene and exalted temperance, far removed from all ex tremes of penance or ascetic discipline, as from all forms of doctrinal dogmatism and intoler ance.
And one cannot better estimate the truly Italian character of this form of Christianity than by comparing the character of Saint Fran cesco with that of Saint Domenico, Catherine of Siena or Ignatius Loyola.