No one would have ventured to predict five-and-twenty years ago that religious liberty would within that period be as fully established in Italy as in England. Yet this great change in the condition of the Italian people is to-day an accomplished fact. In both countries civil disabilities on account of religious opinions have been swept away; in both this has been effected despite the opposition of the majority of the clergy, who have been forced to yield to the more tolerant and Christian views of the nation at large. And if in England and Italy there still exists a special connection between the State and one particular Church, so barring the way to that complete religious equality enjoyed by the people of Ireland, Canada, and the United States, it is nevertheless true that, as in Great Britain, so throughout the Italian peninsula, perfect toleration and freedom are accorded to all denominations. This happy result forms to-day a bright contrast to the intolerance and persecutions NEW SERIES.--VOL. XV., No. 2.

which have left so deep a stain upon the past history of both countries. Nor can it be forgotten that in both the chief abettors of such wrong-doing have been the priests who, to whatever outward Church they belonged, have habitually made use of the temporal power to inflict disabilities, and often penalties, upon those who differed from them in religious opinion, thereby flying in the face of that plain precept of Christ, "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."

It is the object of the present article to show-first, by what means Italy has been transformed from a land of religious intolerance into a land of religious liberty; and, secondly, to give some account of the actual relations of Church and State as established by the law of the Papal Guarantees, passed last May by the legislature of the Italian kingdom.

The origin of the liberties actually enjoyed by Italy is to be found in the Statuto,

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