The Sun.
London, England, 1852-10-23 00:00:00

fires Of S:nitlifield and the uulcm do fe of Spain. Ti'n
condeinn4tion of Francesco iNtidi,ai and Ito-0, his
wife, to upwards of four years of brutal and infamous
punishment in the prisons of forced labour of Vol-
terra and the E-gastolo, or female galleys, at Lucca,
for the offence of possessing and reading the Holy
Scriptures and the English Book of Common Prayer,
i-, justly resented as en indignity to the faith of every
Protestant nation, and en outrage on humanity and
religion itself. This monstrous sentence, which was
first pronounced.by the Corte itegia of Florence, on
time 4th June, after a preliminary detention of ten
months in the common gaol or that city, has since
been confirmed by the Court of Cassai,ion ; and we are
compelled, with great regret, to add, that although
the circumstances of the case and several direct
appeals for clemency and toleration, made by some of
the most illustrious personages' in Europe, have
brought this case under the distinct personal know-
ledge of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, that Prince
adheres with the implacable bigotry of a fanatic to a
sentence that degrades himself far more than it can
injure the victims of this cruelty, since it gives fresh
force and truth to the worst charges ever brought
against the authority he represents and the Church
to which he belongs. The King of Prussia, with a
most honourable zeal in the defence of Protestant
Christians, has made. !Arcing and direct appeals to the
sentiments., ol'kjustice.and self-respect he might have
-expected to find, even in an Italian Sovereign, but
he has failed to obtain any remission of this
iniquitous sentence ; and we have reason to be-
lieve that the interest felt in this case by the
most illustrious personages in this country has
not been less forcibly and cordially expressed,
though with no better effect. M. Von Usedorn, the
Prussian Minister at Rome, has been instructed to
repair to Florence to support the remonstrances of
the Protestants, though by a singular perversion of
the appropriate functions of a British Minister, it is
at this very time, and pending this important discus-
sion, that Sir Henry Bulwer, instead of being at his
post in Florence, has been suffered or ordered by
Lord Malmesbury to prolong his abortive and dis-
creditable mission to Rome. All the other Protestant
Governments have joined with alacrity in a common
protest against the application of penal laws and fero-
cious punishments to the faith of the Bible. Holland
has taken a warm interest in the cause; the Protest-
ants of France, Switzerland, and Southern Germany
have joined the deputation about to proceed to Tus-
cany, at the head of which Lord Roden, Lord Cavan,
and Captain Trotter will personally attend on behalf
of a society called the Protestant Alliance. We hope
for the sake of. the Madiais that these exertions will
not be made in vain, and that they will be released
from their very undeserved sufferings; but as this
concession will, after all, be extorted from the Tuscan
Government on the ground of mercy rather than of
justice, we must assume that the authorities of that
country do profess the ancient and execrable maxims
of the Romish Church for the so-called extirpation of
heresy by inquisitorial powers and by penal severi-
ties, for we find that as the influence of Rome has
become supreme and absolute over the mind of the
Grand Duke, he has sanctioned acts of vindictive per-
secution such as Rome herself would, a few years ago,
have scarcely dared to avow.
The law under which the Madiais have been con-
victed, is one of the Leopoldine enactments of 1786,
which provided, by its 60th article, that—
" Whosoever, with impious -designs, dares to profane
the divine mysteries, disturbing the sacred functions
with violence, or otherwise committing public impiety,
and whosoever publicly teaches maxims contrary to our
holy Catholic religion, towards which we have always
nourished, and will always maintain constant our love
and zeal, we will that, as a disturber of the order upon
which society is maintained in tranquillity, and as an
enemy to society itself, he shall be punished with the
greatest and moat exemplary rigour, nor ever with a
less penalty than public forced labour, for a term or for

fe.:accortiing to the circumstances of the case."

Vague as the language of this statute is, it would
seem utterly impossible to bring the case of the Ma-
diais within reach of it, even if all the counts of the
accusation were proved against them. They could
be charged with no profanity, no violence, or public
impiety, not even with public teaching. The use of
the Holy Scriptures, and especially the possession of
an English Prayer-book, in which were found the
Thirty-nine Articles of our Cnurch, condemning pur-
gatory and the worship of images as foolish inven-
tions, were the real offence. For not even any acts
of proselytism were established—if, indeed, such acts
could reasonably be attributed to two persons of
slight education and in so humble a station—the one
having been a travelling courier, and the other a
maid-servant. But the value to be put upon the accu-
racy and information of the Tuscan Attorney-
General, one Bicchierai, may be inferred from the
fact that he coolly assured the Court that " every one
knew the Bible Society to have been instituted in
France, in 1792, after the extravagances of the fana-
tic Johanne Souchott" (sic for Southcote)—an asser-
tion in which we hardly know whether most to ad-
mire the extravagance of attributing a passion for the
diffusion of Christian knowledge to France under the
Convention, or the connexion existing in the legal mind
of Tuscany between the Word of God and the ravings
of Johanna Southcote. Such an advocate was extremely
well qualified to contend—as he in fact did—that penal
justice must hasten to the defence and protection of
Catholicism, not so much for the sake of infallible
truth as for the preservation of the State itself; and
with equal propriety he quoted laws of Theodosius
and Valentinian to the effect, that " it is good to punish
by death and confiscation of property him who, by
service, persuasion, or advice, has passed from the
worship of the Christian religion to any of those in-
famous sects or rites." Such are the legal advisers
of the Tuscan Crown ; and if their reasoning is worth
anything, they are bound to proceed to the last extre-
mities for the extirpation of heresy; for there is no
act of barbarity for which their bigotry would not
find an excuse.
We had hitherto supposed the Grand Duke of Tus-
cany to be a well-intentioned though weak man; but
his weakness is such that his trials and his supersti-
tion have turned him into a bad one. These foolish
and wicked persecutions are the result of fear ; but,
if we are not mistaken, they will have the effect of
augmenting one hundredfold the danger they are
designed to avert. The trial of the Madiais has re-
vealed to Europe the existence in Italy, even among
persons of a humble station, and far more in a higher
rank, of an amount of Protestant conviction and
evangelical constancy under heavy sufferings, of
which little was hitherto known. The Attorney-
General of Tuscany himself assures us that "the
work most hidden, though extensive, is that of the
heterodox sect called the Evangelical Confession, or of
the Pure Gospel ;" in other words, Protestant Chris-
tianity, which "is well known to be much extended in
Florence and in other towns, as well as in the country."
We rejoice to hear it. We rejoice to think that Italy is
not eternally condemned to the sterile choice between
French atheism and Romish superstition ; and that
beneath the load of foreign oppression and indigen-
ous bigotry, a spark is kindled which may yet bode
well for the immortal cause of Christianity and free-
dom. The persecution of the Madiais has rendered
the existence of these opinions in Italy a matter of
interest to thouiands who had never thought upon
the subject; and it will serve to show our persecuted
fellow-Christians who worship in secresy and fear in
those lands, that, although they may be anathematized
by Rome, they are placed in communion with several
of the freest and most religious nations of the earth.
Lord Roden will not, we presume, be mistaken by
by the authorities of Tuscany for a demagogue, or
even a Whig ; but be takes with him on this mission
the cordial interest of the British public in a just
cause, and if he fails, we shall know with what
rigour the Roman Catholic Church still exacts its
victims and its sacrifices from those Princes who are
abject enough to be the slaves of its power.

in your front, facing you in declared warfare. S
persons M 0 RwNhloNaGr e
at
lHEßleast
sAt Lt
oD
b. —e T
feared h e r
met, they are not formidable. The danger begins
e wiehean t
only when you yourself do scorn and disregard them,
chi
ea
ys s a
roeof
and when they have thus an opportunity of firing on
you from behind.
The Tractarian party seems to have lately studied
with some success the tactics of the man whose gun
rnment, without allowing
was " famous for shooting round a corner." They
have managed to inflict a serious damage on the
Gove
visible for themselves to become
a single moment. A conspiracy more
skilfully planned, or more adroitly carried out, is
scarcely to be found in the annals of faction. How-
ever, we now begin to comprehend the whole
manoeuvre, and the moment the scheme is under-
stood, it ceases to be dangerous.
All who are acquainted with the newspaper press
of London know well, that, from March last down
Ito the present moment, there has been no more
bitter opponent of the present Administration than
the ilforning Chronicle, the organ of the Traaßrigui