been the mainstay of the churclr of Rome, though their atrocious proceedings at times have excited the indignation of Roman Catholic sovereigns, and brought down the condemnation of the pontiff himself, have long been an active party in Switzerland, seeking to propagate as well as secure the Roman Catholic faith, and for that end engaging in deep political intrigues, and in some instances plunging the country into civil war. Their head-quarters are at Fribourg; and in Soleure, Schwitz, and the Valais they are strong and active. In the last of these cantons they procured, so late as the year 1845, the passing of a law proscribing all assemblies, discussions, and conversations reflecting on the Roman Catholic church, under penalty of fine and imprisonment. The law also prohibited the possession of any book indirectly attacking the religion of the state; so that, for having any book whatever which the Jesuit priest might pronounce unfriendly to Roman catholicism, a person might be amenable to the authorities. A Swiss writer has justly said, 'The Jesuits are the enemies of Switzerland, because they hate and would obliterate Swiss feeling and Swiss nationality. They are the enemies of Switzerland, because they detest and aim at overthrowing its freedom. They are the enemies of Switzerland, because wherever they are, they try to appropriate the civil power, to abrogate institutions, and to degrade the Swiss people into the condition of slaves under a priestocracy. In fine, they are the enemies of Switzerland, because they oppose all true intellectual education, and would put chains on men's minds, that they may the more easily enslave their persons.""

Mr. Noel gives a still fuller portraiture:-" Would you know, reader, what these Jesuits are? They have been expelled from almost every kingdom in Europe for their political intrigues; their political intrigues forced the emperor of China to drive them from Pekin and Pet-che-li. Their founder, Ignatius Loyola, was first a debauchee; then he despised himself, macerated his flesh, and mastered it; then grew into an ascetic, and becoming red hot with enthusiasm, was thought by others, and thought by himself, to be a saint; and by his enthusiasm won power over the enthusiastic. As happens generally, this enthusiasm burnt out; but it left behind it habits, opinions, aims, enmities, friendships, adherents, power, and the prospect of boundless empire. And now Ignatius became another man; the enthusiast grew into the chieftain. His fanaticism was past, his strong intellect and his force of character remained. Cold, calculating, guileful, and able, by his own experience of enthusiasm, to play on the enthusiasm of others, he climbed step by step, till his throne was as lofty and as splendid as the throne of the pontiff; and he held an unrivalled army of hardy, devoted, and disciplined bigots under his absolute command. Now read the orders which he gave them, which, though dead, he gives them still, and which each Jesuit slave still obeys. I took them from the Institute, the great work of his genius, the Jesuit's Bible. Most carefully let us strain every nerve to manifest the virtue of obedience, first to the chief pontiff, then to the superiors of the society, so that in all things in which obedience is consistent with charity, we may be prompt at the voice of each, as though it was the voice of Christ, obeying whatever is enjoined with speed, with joy, and with perseverance, persuading ourselves that every command is just, renouncing every opposite sentiment and judgment of our own by a sort of blind obedience . . . . and let each persuade himself that those who live under obedience should permit themselves to be carried and governed by Divine Providence, acting through their superiors, as though each was a corpse, which permits itself to be carried any where and to be handled in any manner; or like the stick of an old man, which serves him who holds it wheresoever or in whatsoever thing he wishes to use it.'

"They are therefore to go to any part of the world at any moment, on any mission, without the least reluctance, and to call what may appear white, black, if the church asserts it to be so. Blind and chained with fetters of brass, for the love they bear to their society, their Delilah, the fathers grind like Samson in the prison house (sce Judges

xvi. 21), under the orders of their general and their superiors. Their souls are corpselike; but their minds are a living enginery, overspreading the carth, and worked by one master engineer, towards one end, the subjugation of the human race to their sway.

"They began in enthusiasm, they have gone on in policy: they had devotedness, they have ambition: they obtained power by great sacrifices, they keep it by vigorous exertion. Half men, half machines, they give themselves up to their Machiavellian leaders, as Christians give themselves up to God. The Christian offers himself a living sacrifice to Christ, and burns like a flame of fire in his ennobling service: the Jesuit offers himself to be kicked, trampled on, or buried like a corpse; to be used any where and in any thing, or thrown away at pleasure, as a stick, by an ecclesiastical politician: the Christian renders to Christ a thoughtful, intelligent, and generous devotedness; the Jesuit bows with blind obedience to the will of tyrants whom he has sworn to serve: Christians are Christ's army, to struggle for the mental and moral emancipation of mankind; Jesuits are the Pope's Cossacks, to deceive and enslave them."

There has been much in the religious state of Switzerland of late years, to afflict those who love the religion of the Bible, while events have not been wanting to excite hope of a better condition. Another reformation is still needed; and this can only take place from the diffusion through the length and breadth of the land, of divine truth, accompanied by that Almighty energy which can ren ler it effectual to the enlightening of the mind and the purifying of the heart.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE STELVIO PASS-THE ORTLER SPITZ-THE VALTELINE.

THE great military road over Mont Stelvio was constructed by the Emperor of Austria, as a new line of communication between his German and Italian states, and as having the advantage of not traversing any portion of territory belonging to another government. From Vienna two roads communicate with this pass, meeting at Prad. Shortly after leaving this village, the road begins to ascend the magnificent mountain of the Ortler Spitz. A little beyond the barrier, this mountain suddenly discloses itself with an appalling effect, as it is seen from its summit to its base robed in everlasting snows, while enormous glaciers, descending from its sides, stream into the valley below the road. Immense masses of rock, in themselves mountains, throw out their black and scathed forms in striking contrast with the brightness of the glaciers which they separate. Mr. Brockedon considers the whole ascent from Drofoi as without a parallel in Alpine scenery.

The road, which is admirably constructed, winds round the northern side of the deep ravine into which the glaciers sink, and so near to them that a stone may, with little effort, be thrown upon them. The summit of this extraordinary pass is the highest that has been made traversible for carriages in the world; it being 9,272 feet above the sea, 780 feet above the line of perpetual snow in this latitude, and nearly half a mile perpendicularly higher than the pass of the Simplon. Yet the road on the summit is usually clear of snow by the end of July, and, except from occasional falls, continues so till September. A descent of 993 feet leads down to the inn and custom-house on the Monte Brauglio, over which there is a passage from the Valteline to the valley of the Adige. This was formerly a line of considerable commerce; but as this route traversed a small part of the territory of the Grisons, the Austrian government made the new road ascend, by the defile of Drofoi, to a col a thousand feet higher.

This was formerly rendered secure by The extent of the of the side of the

From the Monte Brauglio, a zigzag road leads down to the Wurmser-loch, a deep and appalling ravine, through which the Adda falls from rock to rock. considered one of the most dangerous passes of the Alps, but is now galleries, either excavated in the rock or constructed by masonry. road thus sheltered is 2,226 feet, besides 700 feet more so cut out mountain as to be sufficiently guarded by the impending rock. This defile leads down to the Valley of Bormio. The little town of that name was formerly enriched by the transit of merchandise from Venice to the Grisons by the old pass. The district of Bormio terminates at the narrow defile of La Sarra, which was then secured by a wall and a gate. Here the traveller leaves behind him the cold region, and descends with the Adda into the rich district of the Val Teline or Valteline.

Valteline is a longitudinal valley on the Italian side of the Rhaetian Alps, drained throughout its length by the river Adda. This river rises at the foot of the Stilsfer Joch, over which the new road made by the Austrian government leads from the Tyrol into

Lombardy, across the district of Bormio, or Worms, which lies cast of the Valteline, and then entering it at the defile of La Sarra, flows in a general direction from north-cast to south-west, until it enters the valley of Como, at the western extremity of the valley. Valtelina Proper is about forty-five miles in length, but including Bormio, which is a continuation of the same valley, it is fifty-five miles in length. It is bounded on the north by the Grisons, the main ridge of the Rhaetian Alps dividing the valley of the Adda from that of the Engadine; on the south-east by the Tyrol, from which it is separated by the lofty group of the Ortler and the Stilsfer Joch; on the south by the Lombard provinces of Brescia and Como; and on the west by the upper part of the Lake of Como, and by the district of Chiavenna, with which it is politically united.

Chiavenna consists chiefly of the valley of the Liro, a stream which rises at the foot of Mount Spiugen, and, flowing from north to south, joins the Maira, which comes from the Grisons. A few miles lower, the united stream enters the Laghetto, or upper Lake of Como. From the Splugen to the lake is a distance of about twenty miles. The three districts of the Valteline, Bormio, and Chiavenna have been united for ages under the same administration: first under the government of the Grisons, and, since the beginning of the present century, under the government of Lombardy. For this reason they are frequently included in historical archives under the general name of the Valteline.

Under the former government great dissatisfaction long existed, and the crisis of rebellion was accelerated by an act of flagrant injustice. Many inhabitants of the Valteline, suspected of favouring the Spanish court, and particularly those who had opposed with the greatest zeal the introduction of the reformed doctrines, were arrested and conveyed into the country of the Grisons. Mock courts of justice were established in several places, by which the prisoners were fined to a large amount; and some were even sentenced to the torture.

Among the sufferers was Nicholas Rusca, a priest of Sondrio, who had gained the universal esteem of the Catholics by his unremitted resistance to the Protestant doctrines, and who, for the rigid austerity of his manners, was greatly revered by the multitude. A man named Chiappinus, and three gondoliers of Venice, were arrested under the suspicion of a design to assassinate Scipio Calandrinus, the president minister of Sondrio, at the instigation of Rusca; a confession of guilt, and of Rusca's privity, being drawn, under fear of torture, from Chiappinus. The governor of the Valteline referring the matter to the diet of the Grisons, Rusca was cited before that assembly, but declined to appear; either, as his enemies pretended, from a consciousness of guilt, or, as his friends alleged, from a dread of putting himself in the power of the Grisons, so violently incensed against him. Having escaped from the Valteline, he waited at Bedano, where his cause was publicly pleaded before twelve judges deputed by the Grisons. Being acquitted of the charge, he returned to Sondrio, where with zeal, influenced by persecution, he continued to oppose the establishment of a Protestant school at Sondrio-a favourite measure of the opposite party.

His enemies, baffled in their first attempt, brought against him a charge of a more public nature: they accused him of opposing the decrees of the Grisons, and of exhorting the inhabitants of Morbegno not to bear arms against the king of Spain, the protector of the Catholic religion. In consequence of these insinuations, a troop of sixty Grisons arrived at Sondrio by night, and seizing Rusca, carried him to Tersis, where he was not only impeached of high treason in the temporary court of justice then assembled, but, against every principle of equity, was likewise again examined for having abetted the assassination of Calandrinus; and as he peremptorily denied these charges, he was condemned to be tortured, and the horrid sentence was inflicted three times in the dead of night. Extreme suffering failing to extort from him any confession of guilt, he was, on