But the parliamentary struggles of one generation seem passing
stale and unprofitable to the next. Yet the history of nations depends
as much on their civil as on their warlike contests. In Piedmont the
strife always turned on the same point: whether the State or the
Church should predominate. Free institutions do not settle the
question; it is most manifestly rife to-day in a free country, Canada.
In Italy itself a great clerical party is working silently but
ceaselessly, under the mask of abstention from the elections, to
recover its political power. The Sardinian Government could not
withdraw from the duel at will; the Church in Piedmont was a political
force constantly on the lookout for an opening to retake the position
it had lost. Besides the moral power derived from the support of the
peasants and of the old aristocracy, it wielded the material power of
an organised body, which was numerous and wealthy in proportion to the
numbers and wealth of the population. The annual income of the Church,
including the religious houses, was nearly L700,000 a year.
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