Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/435

Rh at the foot of the Alps has become the head of Italy, lawgiver, prophet, perhaps its Joshua. I will speak of Piedmont's young life of freedom, and of the men who have called it forth, and of those who are now leading it forward to development.

Already on my arrival in Turin, I met with an expression of this life in a folk's almanac, which was to be seen in the window of every bookseller, and on the title-page of which one read, under the banner of Sardinia and Savoy, the words: La legge e equale per tutti—the law is alike for all. The words referred to the last victory which had been won by the constitutional liberal party, by the abolition of a separate tribunal of justice for the priesthood, whereby the priests, like all other citizens were rendered amenable to the same civil law. That is a great victory in Piedmont, which is an entirely priestly-catholic country, and the liberal party of Turin have raised in commemoration thereof, a handsome obelisk upon one of the principal market-places of the city.

How, and whence comes the vernal wind, which at certain periods of time awakens the hearts of mankind and of nations to a consciousness of new power, for the acquisition of new objects and of a new future? Does it come like the spring-time to the earth, from an inner divine order and necessity? Or does it come in consequence of the use which free spirits have made of the divinely-conferred gifts of light and will, in unison with the summoning voice of God? I believe the latter. Because the spring-time of the earth always awakens the same flowers and the same birds' songs, which again die and return in the same succession.