ii. It cannot be expected that we should quote all these passages at

length, but we will quote a few of them. The ex-civil servants, on 13th July, 1872, approached His Holiness to express “their sincere devotion and gratitude for what he had done for their sustentation and comfort under most distressing circumstances.” The police officials, seven days afterwards, were introduced by Mgr. Randi; and one of them, the Marquis Pio Capranica, read an address, in which the persons whom Mr. Gladstone calls “the scum of the earth” (_Review_, p. 278) thank the Pope for extending to them and their “families his fatherly munificence.” On the 27th of December, 1871, the ex-military officials, through Gen. Kanzler, laid at the foot of the Pope their protestations of unalterable fidelity, their prayers for the prolongation of his life, and their gratitude for his generosity in alleviating the distress and misery of many families of his former soldiers. But perhaps the “truculence” of Pius IX. may be discovered, if not in his compassion and generosity to his ex-servants, at least in his admonitions to them to furbish up their arms and keep their powder dry. Mr. Gladstone asserts (_Review_, p. 297) that “blood and iron” are “in contemplation at the Vatican.” “No careful reader of this authoritative book (the _Speeches_) can doubt that these are the means by which the great Christian pastor contemplates and asks--ay, asks as one who should think himself entitled to command--the re-establishment of his power in Rome.” Now, the Pope can ask or command this “blood and iron” assistance from none so well as from his ex-soldiers, and from the civil and military officials still loyal to their chief. It happens, however, that no “careful reader” of the Pope’s speeches to his former soldiers or servants can discover a trace of this “truculent” purpose of His Holiness. He rarely mentions a weapon; but when he does, it is to remind his audience (as at p. 197, vol. i.) that “we must not combat with material weapons, but spiritually--that is to say, with united prayers.” He reminds some young soldiers (vol. i. p. 69) that “prayer is the terrible weapon for use specially in the actual grievous condition of affairs, by which weapon alone can the complete triumph of the church and religion be obtained.” When he would place before some of his faithful civil servants the example of the “Hebrews when rebuilding Jerusalem, who held in one hand the working tools and in the other the sword to combat the enemy,” he warns them to imitation by means of “prayer on the one side, and constancy on the other” (vol. i. p. 475). Prayer is the burden of his advice on all these occasions. “_Sursum corda!_ Lift up the thought and the heart to God, from whom only we can expect comfort, help, counsel, or protection now and always” (vol. ii. p. 25). “They have imagined,” says the Pontiff to the Marquis Pio Capranica and other ex-functionaries of the Police Department (vol. ii. p. 36), “that we wish to cause an armed reaction! To think this is folly, and to assert it is calumny. I have made known to all persons that the reaction which I desire is this: namely, to have people who can protect youth, and provide for the good education of the young in the principles of faith, morality, honesty, and respect towards the church and her ministers. This is the reaction which now and always I will say is our desire. As for the rest, God will do that which he wills. Great reactions are not in my hands, but in His upon whom all depends.” There is one passage cited by Mr. Gladstone to show that the Pope would “take the initiative,” if he could, and lead his troops to battle. It occurs in a speech addressed to Gen. Kanzler and the officers of the late pontifical army, and may be found in vol. ii. pages 141 and 142. The Pope says at the beginning of his speech, “You are come, soldiers of honor, attached to this Holy See and constant in the exercise of your duties, to present yourselves before me; but you come without arms, proving thereby how sad are the present times. Oh! would I also could obey that voice of God which many ages ago said to a people, Transform your ploughs and plough-shares and your instruments of husbandry into spears and swords and implements of war; for the enemies are advancing, and there is need of many weapons and of many armed men. Would that God would to-day repeat those same inspirations even unto us. But God is silent, and I, his Vicar, cannot do aught in distinction from him, and cannot do aught save keep silence.” The foregoing paragraph has undoubtedly a warlike sound, and is of course quoted by Mr. Gladstone; but it is immediately followed by another passage which takes from it all its force, and which is not quoted by Mr. Gladstone: “And I will particularly add that I could never desire to authorize an augmentation of arms, because, as Vicar of the God of Peace, who came on earth to bring peace to us, I am bound to sustain all the rights of peace, which is the fairest gift which God can give to this earth.”

Mr. Gladstone notices “the Pope’s wealth of vituperative power,” and refers to various passages for illustrations. A string of references looks convincing, but it has been already shown how little reliance can be placed on Mr. Gladstone in this respect. He who takes the pains to verify these references will find Pius IX. has indeed used hard language, not only towards the Italian government or Victor Emanuel, but towards insidious proselytizers and bad and immoral teachers, spectacles, and publications. But is Mr. Gladstone an unprejudiced judge of the propriety of the pontifical expressions? The late British premier thinks favorably of Victor Emanuel, and imagines Rome to be much improved by the entrance of the Italians. He thinks the Pope “knows nothing except at second-hand, nothing except as he is prompted by the blindest partisans.” But Mr. Gladstone himself is the infallible authority. He has sought and produced, of course from impartial sources, statistics to show that crime has greatly diminished since the termination of the papal _régime_. The Gladstonian statistics, of course, refute the statements of the Pope, and also, as it happens, those of the law officers of the crown in Italy, one of whom, Ghiglieri, when lately opening the legal year with an elaborate speech, enlarged on the increasing prevalence of crime in the Roman province since 1870--that is, since Rome became the capital. Every visitor at Rome since that date knows that “flower-girls” and other girls have only since 1870 been permitted to infest the Corso and theatres, and that Rome, though not yet as bad as Paris or London in respect to ostensible immorality, is rapidly advancing to equality in vice with rival capitals. But Mr. Gladstone is not averse to vice in certain quarters. He calls the blind Duke of Sirmoneta “able, venerable, and highly cultivated,” and contrasts him (with perfect accuracy, but rather scandalously) with the other members of the Roman aristocracy, who, according to Edmond About, have not even vice to recommend them. The Carnival of 1875 in Rome is itself an illustration of the progress of vice and of crime in what Mr. Gladstone calls the “orderly and national Italian kingdom.”

There is but space left to us to notice the deposing power, “the most familiar to Englishmen” of all the “burning questions.” And the best way to notice this question is to set before our readers the _ipsissima verba_ of Pius IX. on the subject (as far as a translation can pretend to supply them) from the famous speech to the Academia di Religione Cattolica on July 20, 1871. The Pope said:

“But amid the variety of themes presented to you, one seems to me at present of great importance, and this is to repel the attacks by which they try to falsify the idea of the Pontifical Infallibility. Among other errors, that one is more than all others malicious which would attribute to it the right to depose sovereigns and release nations from the bond of fidelity. This right, without doubt, was sometimes in extreme circumstances exercised by pontiffs; but it has nothing to do with the Pontifical Infallibility. Nor is its source the infallibility, but the pontifical authority. The exercise, moreover, of this right, in those ages of faith which respected in the pope that which he is--namely, the Supreme Judge of Christianity--and recognized the advantages of his tribunal in the great contests of peoples and sovereigns, freely was extended (aided, also, as a duty, by the public right and by the common consent of the nations) to the gravest interests of states and of their rulers. But the present conditions are entirely different from those, and only malice can confound things so diverse--as, for instance, the infallible judgment concerning the principles of revelation--with the right which the popes exercised in virtue of their authority when the common good demanded it. As for the rest, they know it better than we, and every one can perceive the reason why they raise at present a confusion of ideas so absurd and bring upon the field hypotheses to which no one gives heed. They beg, that is, every pretext, even the most frivolous and the furthest from truth, provided it be suited to give us annoyance and to excite princes against the church. Some persons wished that I should explain and make more clear the conciliar definition. This I will not do. It is clear in itself, and has no need of further comments and explanations. Its true sense presents itself easily and obviously to whoever reads the decree with a dispassionate mind.”

Doubtless the deposing power is one of the “rusty tools” which Rome, according to Mr. Gladstone, has “refurbished and paraded anew.” But what man with a dispassionate mind can read the authentic version of the words put by Mr. Gladstone incorrectly before the public without coming to the conclusion that the “refurbishing and parading anew” of the deposing power is altogether a creation of Mr. Gladstone’s “brain-power,” and that Pius IX., so far from showing a disposition to employ again “the rusty tool,” actually manifests an intention to undervalue it and lay it aside? Some persons would “refurbish” up the deposing power by connecting it with infallibility, and the Pope denounces their attempt as absurd and malicious. The abstract right of pontiffs to depose princes and release subjects from allegiance is referred by Pius IX. not to the infallibility which would give it new lustre, but to the pontifical authority, which in olden time was strong and powerful, but which at present is scarcely recognized by the kingdoms of the world. The exercise of this right is delicately touched upon, in such a way as to suggest not the least disposition to resume the right by putting it in practice. It was indeed “sometimes, in extreme circumstances”--_talvolta in supreme circostanze_--exercised by popes in those times when the pontiff was acknowledged “the Supreme Judge of Christianity,” and when the Holy See, by the common consent of nations, was the tribunal to which appeal was made in the great contests of sovereigns and nations. Then indeed this right was extended to “the gravest interests of nations and of rulers”; but now all is different--“aflatto diverse.” So far from “parading anew” the abstract right, and “furbishing” it up for present use, the Holy Father indignantly repudiates the malicious allegation by declaring that the right itself was but seldom exercised in ancient times, and then only under special conditions such as are not likely to be found in modern days. “Hypotheses” may of course be imagined by those who wish “to give annoyance and excite princes against the church.” But these “hypotheses,” as the Pope remarks, are not serious. No one pays heed or attention to them. They are “ipotesi, alle quali niuno pensa.” The limits of the obedience of subjects to sovereigns are clearly set forth by Pius IX. in his address to an Austrian deputation on the 18th of June, 1871. “Submission and respect to authority are the principal duties of truly good subjects. But at the same time I must remind you,” says the Pope, “that your obedience and fidelity have a limit to be observed. Be faithful to the sovereign whom God has given to you, and obey the laws which govern you; but when necessity calls, let your obedience and fidelity not advance beyond, but be arrested at, the steps of the altar.” You have “duties to the laws as subjects, and to your consciences as Christians.” “Unite these duties well, and let your supreme rule be the holy law of God and his church.” The state of mind of that man who can find nothing in the _Speeches of Pius IX._ save matter for ridicule, sarcasm, and invective is not to be envied. It reminds one of the phrase employed in the consistorial “_processus_” for the appointment of a bishop to a diocese in which heretics usurped the churches and impeded the profession and practice of true religion: _Illius status potius est deplorandus quam recensendus_--It is a condition which is rather to be deplored than described.

THE BATH OF THE GOLDEN ROBIN.

The sun beams over Laurelside To Ana-lo-mink water, And nature smiles in rural pride At all the gifts he brought her.

The merry greenwood branches hold More cheer than castle’s rafter, The gurgling river ne’er is old With sly and mellow laughter.

How welcome is the soothing sound Of mingling water speeding O’er pebbly bed with laugh and bound, Through wooded banks receding!

Ah! pleasant ’tis to close one’s eyes, And let the murmurous measure With liquid tones of gay surprise Fill up the fancy’s pleasure.

But ere my hooded eyes could wake Sweet fancy’s happy scheming, Came Robin Oriole to break My sleepless, dulcet dreaming.

For Rob outshines the glowing day, And in the sun’s dominions Seems like a ball of fire at play On elfin sable pinions.

He glints the orchard’s dropping dew, Illumes the maple’s mazes, Dispels the pine-shade passing through, And in the sunshine blazes!

And sweeping to a mossy bank, The wings the flame deliver Where fern-encloister’d pebbles flank An eddy from the river.

Here, by the stream-indented path, As master Rob did spy it, Thought he, What chance for Sunday bath! So tempting, cool, and quiet.

He quaintly eyed the little pool, And hopt so self-confiding, And peek’d around, like boy from school, To see none near were hiding.

Then, list’ning, seem’d to mark the tone Made by the eddies’ patter; But bravely sprang upon a stone, And plunged with splash and spatter.

The bath came only to his knees, But, ducking as he flutters, Against his throat the water sprees, And round his body sputters.

It leapt in bubbles, as his crest And wings were merrily toiling; You’d think his ruffled, fiery breast Had set the water boiling.

He stopt short in his merry ways As coy as any lady, And, flutt’ring, sent a diamond haze Around his bath so shady.

Then popt out on the olive moss So softly deep and luscious; Then skimm’d the blue-eyed flow’rs across, And perch’d within the bushes.

He perk’d his head like dandy prig, Now feeling fine and fresher; And took the air upon a twig, That scarcely felt his pressure.

Full suddenly he scann’d his shank, As though he had not reckon’d One dip enough, flew to the bank, And gayly took a second!

Oh! how the jolly fellow dashed The little waves asunder! Dove in his head and breast, and splashed His pinion-feathers under.

Then standing up, as though to rest, He looked around discreetly; Again with zest the pool caress’d, And made his bath completely.

Out hopt he where the sun-fed breeze Came streamward warmly tender-- A brilliant prince of Atomies Amid this mountain splendor.

Oh, balmy is the mountain air Of May with sunlight in it! And blest is he from town-wrought care Who can in greenwood win it.

But sun on Robin’s radiant coat, All drench’d, he fear’d might spoil it, So to an alder grove did float To make his feathery toilet.

He pick’d his wings and smoothed his neck, Arranged his vest’s carnation, And flew out without stain or speck To dazzle all creation!

ARE YOU MY WIFE?

BY THE AUTHOR OF “A SALON IN PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” “NUMBER THIRTEEN,” “PIUS VI.,” ETC