Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/39

Rh There was a time when all went to bow the knee before our Lady of Lausanne or Einsiedeln. Nothing then divided the Vaudois under the rule of Berne from those under the rule of Freyburg. How different is it now, both in custom and religion. Reform began in Switzerland at the same time as in Germany, and has given rise to her first as well as to her last war. Of a truth we know not either what crimes or what virtues, what old or new ideas, may not be met with at the foot of the Alps.

“It is in the midst of these contrasts that thirty sovereign states, all differing in interests and physiognomy, sit down to take counsel together for the common good. Cantons of twenty thousand souls take their place beside those of three hundred thousand. Monarchists, aristocrats, and the most dissimilar democrats sit together; all forms of government, with one exception only, the despotic. To which we must add, in order to complete the picture, the whole nation, armed, is always as one, upon the scene; that which is elsewhere accomplished by the will of some few, is in Switzerland accomplished by the voices of all; and that this people's modes of action as a sovereign people lead to perpetual agitation.

“Such has Switzerland been in all ages. It is this which characterizes Switzerland, that whilst it is a union of dissimilar races, languages, religions, natural circumstances, receiving every kind of culture, it yet remains the same.

“But what is the power that holds together these dissimilar elements? By what power, what art, is this