dinary details of a journey which, if the present rage for Continental travel should continue, will soon be as well known to Englishmen as the high road from London to York, Professor Hoppus has produced a work possessing certainly many features in common with the large family to which it belongs, yet having a character of its own, as referring to topics rarely adverted to by the visiters of foreign scenes.

We shall pass by the voyage to Ostend, and the subsequent passage by the canals to Bruges and Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels, as well as the accompanying remarks on the masques and mummeries of popery,-the frauds of priests, the splendour of churches, and the past and present condition of Belgium and the Belgians;-not because these things are unimportant or uninteresting, but because they are so familiar to the generality of readers. At the same time, we bear willing testimony, from personal observation, to the truth and spirit of many of the sketches which are presented to us of men and manners in the Netherlands. It is melancholy to observe the extensive influence which Popish superstition exercises over both. We have observed that some of our very liberal contemporaries are very illiberally angry with the learned Professor for reviling Popery. But surely none have a better right to bear a decided testimony against the spiritual chicanery, intolerance, and assumption of this fruitful "Mother of all abominations," than those who have always been the unflinching advocates of equal civil rights and benefits for her children. To withhold equal civil rights, benefits, or advantages 'from any portion of our fellow-men on account of religion, is bigotry, intolerance, and persecution;-to regard all religious opinions alike, is incompatible with maintaining the idea of a 'Revelation.'*

6

From the Netherlands, the party proceeded up the Rhine to Cologne, Bonn, and Coblentz; thence to Frankfort-on-the-Main, Darmstadt, and Strasburg; and thence through Switzerland, Savoy, and France. The descriptions of natural scenery which excited notice and admiration on this route, are generally graphic and glowing. We open upon Soleure.

The picturesque little city of Soleure stands in a delightful plain on the banks of the Aar, which divides it into two parts. It is fortified by a ditch, walls, and bastions, surmounted with antique-looking towers. In the centre of the town, is a large tower said to be the work of the Romans. Though Soleure is small and mean, as compared with Bern, the public buildings still give it the air of a capital. Among these are the Town-house; the Arsenal; the Public Library,

*Preface.

VOL. XVI.-N.S.

3 D

containing about 11,000 volumes; the handsome church of the Jesuits, erected by Louis XIV.;-and above all, the cathedral, which is devoted to the Romish worship,-this canton being chiefly Catholic.

• This church, which is dedicated to St. Ursus, stands at the end of the principal street, and is a noble structure, built of a whitish grey stone, which approaches to marble, and is brought from the neighbouring quarries. It was erected about sixty years ago, and its design is exceedingly chaste and beautiful. The tower at the eastern end is elegant, and the western front consists of a lofty and superb façade, in the Grecian style. Indeed this is universally admitted to be the finest church in Switzerland. The ascent to it is by a magnificent flight of steps, and is adorned with two fountains, the sound of which, as heard at the adjacent inn, had the effect of a continual pouring rain.

The interior of this splendid temple displays much taste, and is furnished with a very handsome organ, pictures, numerous altars, and a pulpit of fine marble; but none of the decorations exhibited the least of that tawdry and paltry ornament which we had so particularly observed in the Valais, and in Savoy.

In the evening, the toll of the deep-toned bell fell booming dolefully on the ear, and seemed to proclaim to the dark masses of the Jura, the reign of Romanism. The door of the church was still open, late in the dusk; and though no public service was going on, one solitary lamp shed a glimmer over the now gloomy vaults of this spacious edifice, through which the bell, still tolling monotonously without, sent its heavy sepulchral swell, tending to fill the mind with a deep emotion of solemnity, while here and there a lingering devotee was rising from before an altar consecrated to the Madonna, or to a Saint.' Vol. II., pp. 159-161.

-

We have passed by The Mer de Glace,' but turn back to extract the description, by way of contrast.

A descent along a rugged, and narrow path, leads to the Mer de Glace; which is, in fact, a vast glacier, or defile of ice, from half a mile to a mile in breadth; running between huge mountains, in different directions, to the extent of about five leagues; and supposed to vary in depth, from one to three hundred feet. It may be said to bear the appearance of a lake, wrought into tumult and fury by whirlwinds, and then instantaneously frozen, as a perpetual image of the storm;presenting various elevations, some being fifty or sixty feet; consisting of mis-shapen crags, ridges, and pyramids of ice, generally of a dull blue cast, with points and edges tinged of a sea-green hue, glittering in the sun-beam with various prismatic colours; the whole icy chaos being everywhere cleft into fissures of an appalling depth, and interspersed with rocks, that have been tumbled from the overhanging mountains.

It seemed strange to pass a line of hardy rhododendrons, at the very edge of the ice; and to be reminded that even here, vegetation is not dead. Quantities of the ranunculus glacialis, and of other Alpine

plants, are also found in this neighbourhood, in the clefts of the rocks.*

The savage mountains that rise above this extraordinary glacier, have a kind of terrible sublimity;-partially surrounding this icy gulf with an amphitheatre of dark, rugged summits, snowy heads and masses, and enormous shafts of granite, which shoot up into the sky, with their bare and piked horrors to the height of 10,000 or 13,000 feet above the level of the sea; and from 3,000 to 6,000 above the vast frozen cataract itself, on which we were now standing.

Immediately on the right were several craggy summits; and above them the peak of Charmoz, which impends, with an awful precipice, over Chamonix, down which an unfortunate traveller once fell, and perished. The peak called the Giant, the highest that is visible from this spot, towers at the end of the icy valley, where it turns off to the right, to form a part of the frozen footstool of the vast throne of the great Atlas Alp-for the glacier there runs up to mingle with the assemblage of ices, which unite to bind the higher parts of the base of the central mountain, in the rigours of that perpetual winter which here begins to reign. The mass of the Jorasse, beyond which lies Piedmont, is still farther on the left, and shuts in the valley, as with a long rampart of snow; while on the other side, several needle shafts, of different hues and forms, rise abruptly into the cloudless blue, to a stupendous height,-of which the principal are the Aiguille Drû, the Aiguille Verte, and the Aiguille du Moine.

One of these Aiguilles darts its pyramidal pike immediately from the border of the ice, to an elevation of 6,000 feet above its level: the upper part is nearly perpendicular, and towers, for 3,000 feet, in naked and stern majesty, with only a few streaks of snow; seeming to reject the mantle that covers an equal space below, where this mass of granite slopes down to the snowy bed from which it rises, at the edge of the glacier.

Under the direction of the guides, and armed with spiked poles, we walked some distance on the ice; which, just at this place, had the form of flat slabs of immense size, with chasms between them, varying in width from a foot and upwards, and tinged at their edges with shades of green and blue. Large stones were thrown into these crevices, and were heard for several seconds, with a hollow noise, till the sound died away, giving the idea of a fearful depth. Higher up, in the direction which leads to a spot called the garden,-an isle of earth, in the midst of ice,--the pinnacles become much loftier, and the chasms are of the depth of four or five hundred feet, and so wide, that travellers sometimes are obliged to go several miles round in order to avoid them.' Vol. II., pp. 74–77.

In some parts of the Alps, where pines will not now grow, the remains of ancient forests have been discovered, where the lynx still prowls, and the lämmer-geier, nine feet in its expanded breadth, dashes the chamois down the precipice, with a stroke of its wing, and then pounces on its victim, which it speedily tears to pieces.'

To most of our readers, however, we doubt not, the remarks which have been interspersed, on the state of religion in these parts, will surpass in interest any account of scenery, however splendid. We have long known what the Continent presents in its outward and physical aspects, but we are very partially informed as to the nature and extent of that moral and spiritual movement which has long been in progress there, and which now begins to promise an extensive revival of pure and undefiled religion.

We turn first to Belgium. The history of the Protestant religion in Belgium is painfully interesting. The exterminating persecutions of the sixteenth century, and the influence of Spanish and Austrian sway in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, nearly put out altogether the light of Protestantism. It was not until the French Revolution had broken up the old order of things, that Protestant chapels were again opened in some of the larger cities. The subsequent annexation of Belgium to Holland, was of course favourable to the Protestant cause. Under the patronage of the Dutch King, M. Merle d'Aubigné, now President of the Evangelical School of Theology at Geneva, preached at Brussels for many years, and, as is well known, with considerable success. The present position of affairs is thus described.

The progress of the Protestant faith received a temporary check, at the Revolution of 1830;-and the Catholics were in great hopes of getting rid, altogether, of Protestant sway :-through the influence of England, however, a government has been established, on enlightened principles, under Leopold; and by the charter, perfect toleration is secured to all religious opinions. Several of the Protestant churches were reduced very low, in 1830, by the withdrawal of great numbers of Dutch families into Holland; and the new government refused to support the pastors, as heretofore, on account of the insignificance of the congregations: yet there is reason to believe that Protestantism has, by this time, in a great measure, recovered from the shock which it appeared to sustain at the revolution; and that it will continue to make advances, in a soil of freedom, and under the influence of those spontaneous sacrifices of money,-talent,--time, and labour,-which constitute the surest basis, on which the gospel may be expected to command the unbought, and universal homage of mankind, and achieve the triumphs of the millenium.

There is a Bible Society at Brussels, which has printed the New Testament in the Flemish language; and which, notwithstanding many difficulties, is doing much good: a Tract Society also exists, which has printed many small treatises in Flemish. M. Boucher conducts a religious periodical entitled La Vérité; and this faithful and zealous young minister preaches to a congregation at Brussels, apparently with success. M. Devismes, another devoted minister of the gospel, labours at Dour, near Valenciennes; and has been very useful

to the miners of that region. About 400,000 children are instructed, in schools, throughout Belgium: they have, till of late, been very destitute of Bibles, but are now being supplied, through the agency of the British and Foreign Bible Society. In the schools of Brussels, eight hundred and forty copies of the sacred records have been distributed, very lately, in the course of a few weeks; and colporteurs, or itinerant venders of the Scriptures, are continually employed in diffusing and explaining them, wherever they can find opportunity.

By means of these, and similar exertions, not a few of the Belgians have, within these last five or six years, been brought to the Protestant faith, at Brussels, and other cities: but the overwhelming mass still remain Roman Catholics, and, next to those of Spain, are reckoned the most bigotted on the continent of Europe. From a pamphlet written about the beginning of 1835, by M. de Potter, who took so conspicuous a part in the Revolution,—it would seem, that the priests have tried every indirect means in their power, to contravene the spirit of the charter, in regard to religious freedom.' Vol. I., pp. 89, 90.

These efforts to advance a purer faith, and to circulate more widely the Scriptures of Truth, are evidently spreading in other quarters, and sometimes through very unexpected agency. At Bergheim, a town situated between Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne, Mr. Hoppus found on the table of the inn, a prospectus, containing an invitation to Catholic Germany to unite in subscribing for an edition of the New Testament in the vernacular tongue, from the Vulgate, to be published under the auspices of the Church; in order, as the prospectus stated, that both clergy and laity might do their utmost to diffuse the New Testament Scriptures, so that not a single cottage should be without them, and that there might be no school in which they should not be read. The price was to be twelve and a half silbergroschen,—about five shillings in English money.

To the state of religion in Germany, Mr. Hoppus devotes upwards of thirty pages. We can only extract a fragment or two.

From the latter part of the last century, Christianity has undergone an ordeal in this country, to which there is no parallel, since the iron bondage in which the Romish apostacy enchained Europe for a thousand years has been relaxed. A philosophical infidelity, under the name of Christianity, -and loudly claiming to be founded on the basis of philosophy, and philological criticism, has widely run its bane ful career among the divines and philosophers of Germany; and for many years appeared to reign almost triumphant. Amidst the various and changeful sentiments and theories which they have entertained, the Rationalists, or Antisupernaturalists, appear to have all agreed in proceeding on the principle of explaining away, or discarding the authority of the Scriptures; rejecting whatever professes to be supernatural in the Jewish and Christian revelations; and making reason the sole umpire in all matters of faith. The consequences, as might be expected, were but too obviously seen in the decay of piety, the almost