at last have reached
the Chambers, proposing, _first_, the better distribution of the
revenues of the Church, equal to a fourth of the kingdom; and, _second_,
the suppression of those "houses," the rules of which bind over their
members to sheer, downright idleness, leaving only those who have some
show of public duty to perform. The priests denounce the bill as
"spoliation and robbery" of course, and prophesy all manner of things
against so wicked a kingdom. Doubtless it is daring impiety in the eyes
of Rome to forbid a man with a shaven crown and a brown cloak to play
the idler and vagabond. We are only surprised that the people of
Piedmont have so long suffered their labours to be eaten up by an order
of men useless, and worse than useless.

Another grand difficulty in Piedmont was the absence of a middle
class,--wealthy, intelligent, and independent. No one felt that he had
rights, and you never heard people saying there, as you may do in
Britain, "this is my right, and I will have it." A feeling of individual
right, and of responsibility,--for the two go together,--was then
just beginning to dawn upon the popular mind. This was accompanied
by a certain amount of disorganizing influence; not that of
Socialism,--which, happily, scarce existed in Piedmont,--but that of
self-action. Every one was feeling his own way. The priests, of course,
were exceedingly wroth, and loudly accused Protestantism as the cause of
all this commotion in men's minds. Alas! there was no Protestantism in
Piedmont, for it had been one of the most bigoted kingdoms in Italy. It
was their own handiwork; for a tyranny always produces a democracy. As
if by a miracle, a powerful and popular press started up in Turin. The
writers in the _Opinione_ and the _Gazetta del Popolo_, acting, I
suspect, on a hint given by some Vaudois that there was an old book, now
little known, that would help them in the war they were now waging, went
to the Bible, and, finding that it made against the priests, were
liberal in their quotations from it. Their most telling hits were the
extracts from Scripture; and finding it so, they quoted yet more
largely. The priests were much concerned to see Holy Scripture so far
profaned as to be quoted in newspapers, and exposed freely to the gaze
of the vulgar. But what could they do? Their own literary qualifications
did not warrant them to enter the lists with these writers: they had
forgot the way to preach, unless at Lent; th