or angry. When we look upon his portrait, it is with strong interest, certainly, but without fear, or home-felt emotion of any kind. We study it to impress on our memories the countenance of the unhappy Pope who is doomed to exemplify the long-foreseen degradation of that which was for centuries the greatest power in the world.
This year will, in all probability, decide the future destiny of the papacy as a European sovereignty. Of its authority as a spiritual power, this is not the place to speak. The quarrel between the Pope and his antagonists is not an affair of his spiritual kingdom, but his temporal dominions. It is not a case of rebellion of heretics against the head of the church, but of the revolt of Catholic subjects against a sovereign who lets them be oppressed by tyrannical ministers of state.
Popes are changed as well as times. Instead of bold, combative, self-willed, haughty priests, we have now, in the highplaces of the Church, men who begin with supposing themselves as powerful as their predecessors, and who set to their work accordingly, but who collapse at once when they find out their mistake,—still using the language of pretension and insolence, but using craft and cruelty where they can no longer rule by unquestioned authority.
From that point of degradation no government ever revives. Its duration is merely a question of time; a question only too interesting, however, to those whom it most nearly concerns,—the Italian subjects of the Pope. They and he, and the dignitaries about him have the nearest concern in the matter which interests all Christendom. It may be difficult to say which we should pity most—him or his subjects. As for his priestly officials, we need not trouble our feelings much about them. According to their deserts, they will suffer either a righteous retribution for the selfish abuse of power, or will meekly bear, with some moral satisfaction, the consequences of their mistakes in mixing up civil despotism with the exercise of their spiritual authority.
There are several reasons why we should pity Pius the Ninth sincerely and deeply. He is a man in the wrong place. He might have been a kindly and devoted minister among the poor; and, without any act of his own, he is lifted up to a place whence oppression necessarily bears hard upon the multitude. He was made for orderly and ordinary times of peace in the Church, or for seasons of natural calamity: but not for any crisis of social or ecclesiastical conflict. He has not intellect, nor moral force, nor self-reliance, nor bodily health for such a position as that of the head of a sinking state; and thus, if we cannot feel any great respect for him on the ground of his merits, we are sensible of a respectful compassion for his sufferings in the unhappy lot he is fulfilling.
There was a time, however—and that not very long ago—when many of us said that, happen what might, we would never cease to give the present Pope credit for the early acts of his reign. Let us carefully redeem that pledge, and keep his best deeds uppermost in our minds.
It is interesting to speculate on what he would have been if he had followed up his first destined profession, and continued a soldier. He would hardly have risen to any high military rank, unless by favour: but he would have been a pleasant comrade, and a kind and considerate commander; and he would probably have escaped the disease of epilepsy, which may be answerable for much of the failure of his latter life. Whatever may have been the motive which led him to choose a clerical life, among his many enemies none have impugned the purity of his life, or questioned the due subordination of his affections to his calling. No nepotism has caused scandal during his reign: no love of money for his relations, nor ambition for himself. Pure in conduct, and disinterested in feelings while a working priest, he deserved the hopes and the homage poured out before him when he recovered from the fainting-fit with which he received the news of his election to the Papal-chair. This was in 1846, when he was fifty-four years of age.
It was supposed that the long-needed reforming Pope had now arrived. Cardinal Ferretti, Archbishop of Imola (as he was before his election), was known to have seen and heard a good deal about liberalism in Chili, where he had been sent on service, soon after the independence of that republic: and his six years in the Romagna had taught him much of the grounds of discontent which existed under the rule of Gregory the Sixteenth, and his tyrannical Minister Lambruschini. As he had formerly sympathised with the sufferers by pestilence, devoting himself and all that he had, night and day, to the victims of cholera; so, in the Romagna, he was understood to give his pity and his prayers to the victims of the papal tyranny of that day. That he would be a reforming Pope, and the father of his people was the general expectation, thirteen years ago: and he sincerely intended and endeavoured to be so.
Some surprise was occasioned in Puritan New England about that time by an incident which occurred one evening, in the neighbourhood of Rome. It was the Pope’s custom to recreate himself by a drive into the country, where he was wont to get out of the carriage, and walk for exercise. One summer evening, about sunset, he was standing, in his ordinary dress, with his cap on his head, looking at the landscape from a hill-road when a party of Americans came up, only just landed at Cività Vecchia. They were sons and daughters of the Pilgrims; yet they were presently kneeling in the dust, the ladies with their faces bathed in tears, receiving the Pope’s blessing. There was nothing wonderful in their emotion. A throng of associations connected with the supreme papacy of past ages no doubt arose in their minds in contrast with the destiny and character of the reforming Pope before them, who was to purge out the evils of the institution, and show what a paternal and really spiritual government could do. With these thoughts in their minds, and the benign-looking grey-haired old man standing before them in the sunset light, gazing back upon Rome, which they were about to enter for the first time—it is not surprising that strong emotions stirred even Puritan bosoms.
Some of that party may be saying now, “Who