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wholly ignored the ecclesiastical results of this revolution or very greatly undervalued their importance; or they have utterly misinterpreted their significance.

And yet to those who understood the Italian character, Italian institutions, and Italian politics, it was even antecedently plain that some profound and probably permanent disturbance of the religious traditions of that people would result from that revolution; that some great change in the relations of Italian Christianity to the ecclesiastical institutions and to the religious convictions of other peoples was inherently involved in the very conditions under which that revolution must take place.

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This view of Italian politics was suggested to the writer by Mr. George Ticknor, and it was confirmed by no less an authority than Baron Bunsen, so early as 1857. The latter than whom no European publicist of his day was more intimately acquainted with Italy and with the various influences which were then contending for the shaping of her future-in conversation with the writer, in May of that year, expressed his conviction that another and a successful attempt to break the Austrian power in Italy was yet to come; and, at the same time, clearly pointed out the ecclesiastical consequences which would, almost inevitably, follow upon such success.

The writer had, subsequently, abundant opportunity to verify in person these previsions; and also to draw his own very decided conclusions both of the religious possibilities now before the people of Italy and of the religious duty of others towards them at this time. He has lately submitted to the readers of the "Andover Review" an outline analysis of the relations of Italian politics to the Roman papacy and the grounds of his belief that the papacy must shortly cease to be. Some account is here offered of the various theories of religious reform which are under consideration, and the several types of reformed Christianity which have been pressed upon the Italians in lieu of the institutions which are passing thus away.

Nor is the subject one of barren interest to us. The ecclesiastical and religious future of Italy closely intertwines itself with the religious interests of every people of Western Christendom; and any light which may guide Christian philanthropy to help the unfolding of that future in such wise as to subserve the largest, noblest interests of our own, or to save us from even doing harm all unwittingly, is useful in its day.

1 See Andover Review, August, 1884, pp. 157-172.

The conclusions to which the writer has been forced to come will, he is well aware, array themselves against the plans of some enthusiastic friends of Italy and trespass upon many à priori views of duty; but the fault, he respectfully submits, is in the facts. It is certainly not in his lack of opportunity to form a just judg ment, nor, he is confident, even in his ecclesiastical point of view.

There were those, of course, who resisted to the uttermost all change, whether in the state or in the church of Italy. Of these Pius IX. and Cardinal Antonelli were as truly representatives as Ferdinand of Naples and the Grand Duke of Tuscany. They of whom these were the representatives, i sanfedisti, i codini, i zelanti, as they have been popularly and variously called, — have proposed no reform of any kind, have admitted, now admit no need whatever of reform. They have ever consistently and unfalteringly resisted that revolution, step by step, in its every advance and in its every relation to the life and to the future of the people of Italy.

On the other extreme there are, equally of course, - and their number is very far from small or their influence to be disregarded, those who, granting to these irreconcilables that they are, as they claim, the true representatives of Christianity, ask and seek only the sweeping rejection of all Christian faith and Christian following; and, with Garibaldi, denounce Pope, priest, and parson, Bible and church alike.

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To one or the other of these two extreme parties there is much reason to think that most Americans look for the ecclesiastical future of Italy. Or, rather, they look for a combination of irrelig ious anarchy and an indefinite continuance of the papal past. Even of those who know that the word reform has been spoken, albeit with many meanings and in many tones, as that which alone offers to Italy a third alternative, even of those who are, in a general way, aware that the earnest advocates of some kind of religious reform are to be found in every part of Italy and in every phase of Italian society, there are, probably, but few who fully realize that such a reform has been and is still sought in three different directions, very few, in other words, who have any clear idea how such men, for instance, as Padre Curci, Padre Gavazzi, and the late Baron Ricasoli are to be regarded in relation to each other.

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2. As a reform of the Catholic Church of Italy considered apart from the papacy.

3. As a reform of religion in Italy, considered apart from and even as against the Church.

In illustration of each of these three distinct schemes of reform proposed to Italy, a sketch is here given, drawn, for the most part, from personal intercourse with the men or from personal knowledge of the events and incidents to which reference is made.

The proposed reform of religion wholly apart from the existing Church, the so-called Evangelical movement, will first be con

sidered.

The Italian people proper inherit from their past but one form of organic Christianity. Any theory of reform, any religious teaching, therefore, which is based upon despair of their ancient Church must imply a willingness to accept such teaching from some foreign source, - to renounce Italian for an exotic Christianity. This should not be overlooked.

During the brief constitutional experiments of 1848, two Waldensian evangelists ventured to Florence and there held a monthly meeting in the Swiss chapel, in connection with which they distributed, to such as would accept them, Italian Bibles. The reaction of 1849, however, put a stop to this. The evangelists were forced to leave Tuscany, and it is said that three thousand Bibles were seized in the hands of the printer and burned.

Still, many of those who had been influenced by this teaching, and who were almost, if not wholly, of the working-classes, continued their Bible-reading at home or meeting privately with each other; and in 1851 the extirpation of this "heresy" was committed to the police. More than a hundred Florentines were "admonished;" the excellent Waldensian missionary, M. Geymonat, was imprisoned for a short time, and then sent out of the country; Captain Packenham, an Englishman, was banished for proselyting.

Some, however, continued to meet furtively for the study of the Scriptures, and the government proceeded to severer measures. Among those arrested and exiled was a young Tuscan nobleman, Count Pietro Guicciardini. Among them were also Francesco and Rosa Madiai, who, after a trial prolonged for thirteen months, were, in 1852, sentenced to years of imprisonment at hard labor, a sentence which roused such indignation throughout Europe and America that semi-diplomatic intercession was made for them and procured its commutation to exile.

But about this time two English ladies, Miss Charlotte Johnson and Miss Elizabeth Brown, members of the sect of Plymouth Brethren, came to Florence and gave themselves devotedly to the work of Bible-teaching, going to some and receiving others, for that purpose, at their own lodgings. It was probably due, in no small measure, to their patient, all-enduring, and persistent labors that, in despite of every persecution, the number of these brethren slowly and steadily increased, in most cases, at the cost of very serious interference with their power to get work, or to earn a support for their families, if no worse. To help them in these straits, money was soon given and sent by foreigners interested in this work to the two ladies, and by them distributed among the brethren.

This, however, before long became an unworthy attraction to others of the same classes to profess themselves devoted Biblestudents, and it led also to some dissension about the distribution of these funds, to guard against which, it was, in 1854, proposed that special "deacons " should be set apart. But it was a funda mental principle with the Plymouth Brethren that no stated ministry should, in any form, be recognized; and one of the English ladies, adhering strictly to this principle, opposed the proposition; while the other, regarding it rather from a practical point of view, decidedly favored it. The majority of the brethren concurred with the latter, and the deacons were finally elected; but this was followed, in December, 1858, by a division on that issue, the two parties being known, from the Christian names of the ladies, as the Elisabettini and the Carlottini.

The national revolution of the following April released these Tuscan radicals from further fear of persecution, and permitted the coming of some men of better education or of greater abilities to join them. Count Guicciardini returned to Florence; Mazzarella, a Neapolitan advocate of some oratorical gifts, appeared among them, and for a few months attracted numbers to his preaching; and so also Barsali, a carpenter of Pontedera, who had for some time been a leader of a local religious gathering in that town; and, above all these, Gualtieri, the priest of a neighboring parish in the Mugello, who had, a few years before, renounced his charge and gone to Genoa. Through the exertions of Count Guicciardini a reconciliation was effected in October, 1859, and the Libera Chiesa Evangelica Italiana, as they now called themselves, was again

one.

In the month of January, 1860, came up again not only the old

question of deacons, but also that of elders, of which many began to feel the necessity. On this, the more radical minority drew off once more, led, be it noted, by Gualtieri and another ex-priest, Magrini, with Count Guicciardini, - and were called, thereafter, from their place of worship on the quay, the Arno party. The majority, who were now disposed to admit some kind of ministry, obtained a locale on the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, No. 7, and were known as the Corso party. It thus happened, singularly enough, that the Carlottini or Arno party, who utterly abjured any ministry, were led by ordained priests; while the Corso party, who now sought a ministry, had only Miss Brown and the Pontedera carpenter for their guides. These latter published on the 14th of January a formal declaration and protest against this new schism, probably the first printed paper in the documentary history of this movement.

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Within a few months new divisions arose in the Corso party on the personal choice of their elders and deacons. A portion of these, having secured due control of a meeting — as was credibly stated by the somewhat summary process of coming early and then locking the doors upon the rest who came later, adopted a constitution nem. con., published under date of the 11th of June, and chose a certain Buriori, a schoolmaster, with Barsali, as their ministers. Miss Brown and her adherents, to the number, perhaps, of sixty or more, met thereafter at the house of one Fabroni, near San Lorenzo, and waited the progress of events.

Such is the somewhat curious story-drawn, in fact, from written memoranda furnished in 1860 by Gualtieri, Fabroni, and Barsali themselves of the earlier days of what has since attracted so widespread an interest in England, Scotland, and America as the Libera Chiesa Italiana. The following extracts from letters, and from a journal of that summer of 1860, will give some idea of what these Tuscan puritans were at the time.

Sunday, July 8th. "I accompanied Dr. M. to a meeting of the Evangelicals in the Casa Schneidorf on the Lung' Arno. In a room on the ground floor some seventy-five persons assembled, for the most part apparently of the working-classes. One lady entered whom Dr. M. told me was a Countess —, English by birth, but of Italian marriage. At the end of the room was a table with a plain cloth, a loaf of bread on a plate, a decanter of wine, and a tumbler. Just outside the door sat a man at a table with Bibles to sell, or Bibles and hymn-books to lend during service. "One of their evangelists, Gualtieri,"

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