and have held that, in entire consistency with religion, a foreign prince or state may wage war with him in his character as an earthly sovereign. But as a matter of fact, as is well known, the Pontiffs have never refrained from using the spiritual weapons in their hands, as the excommunication and the interdict, for the furtherance of the temporal interest. They have turned the awful powers of discipline,which are attributed to them, for the furtherance of their political schemes. The inevitable effect must be, and has been, to degrade the spiritual function, and rob it of no small portion of the reverence which it might otherwise excite and maintain. Of the influence of the secular dominion exercised by the Popes, and of the court which it creates, on their own personal character, history is an outspoken witness. The covetousness, the ambition the luxury, the open and shameless licentiousness, the atrocious crimes, which are chargeable on too many of the Popes -offenses which have moved the indignation of Catholic historians like Baronius, and poets like Petrarch and Dante-have commonly grown out of the temptations incident to the temporal sovereignty. By the occupations and pleasures which cluster about it, Pontiffs who are by no means to be counted among the worst, have been drawn aside from the proper work and character of Christian bishops. Father Paul, after praising Leo X. for his erudition, his humanity, his liberality, his love of letters and arts, adds with fine satire, that "he would have been a perfect Pope, if with these qualities, he had united some knowledge of the affairs of religion, and a somewhat greater inclination to piety, for neither of which he manifested much concern." * Dante's indignant protest against the temporal power of the Roman Bishops, is familiar +:

"Laws indeed there are

But who is he observes them? None; not he,

Who goes before, the shepherd of the flock,
Who chews the cud, but does not cleave the hoof.
Therefore the multitude, who see their guide
Strike at the very good they covet most,

* Istoria del Concil. Trident, Lib. I., p. 5.

Purgatoris, XVI., 1. 100—115 (Cary's translation).

The allusion is to an unclean beast in the Levitical Law. (See Levit. XI., 4).

Feed there, and look no further. Thus the cause

Is not corrupted nature in yourselves,

But ill-conducting, that hath turn'd the world
To evil. Rome, hat turn'd it unto good,

Was wont to boast two suns.* whose several beams
Cast light on either way, the world's and God's.
One since hath quench'd the other; and sword
Is grafted on the crook; and so conjoin'd,

Each must perforce decline to worse, unawed
By fear of other."

But can the temporal power be given up, and the spiritual power be left intact? The affirmative is declared by some Catholic writers and statesmen. It is proposed that the Pope should surrender his temporal authority, but continue at Rome the exercise of his spiritual functions, receiving an abundant revenue, together with an abundant income for each of the cardinals. On the other hand, the Pope and his party stoutly contend that the temporal sovereignty is essential to the full exertion of his spiritual functions, and therefore cannot be given up. It must be allowed that cogent arguments may be brought forward on this side of the question. In the first place, as the Pope declares in his recent " Allocution," if he is not to be a Ruler, he must be a subject of one of the Catholic Powers; and, if a subject, he is constantly exposed to the suspicion of being warped or managed, in his spiritual government, by the power to which he is thus, in a civil relation, subordinate. The experience of the Papacy at Avignon, and the immense loss of prestige and influence consequent on the relation of the Popes, at that time, to the French Kings, is one of the facts which lend a strong support to this plea put forth by Pius IX. On the contrary, the force of his argument seems to be neutralized by the consideration that, in the present state of the world, the Pope, as a temporal ruler, is incapable of sustaining himself, and is obliged to lean for support on a foreign power. If it be said that the surrender of his States is to compromise his independence, the reply is that his independence is lost already. There is stil more weight in an additional argument, which is also touched upon by the Pope in the late

*The Emperor and the Bishop of Rome.

"Allocution," that on becoming a subject he would at once be involved in a conflict of duties, or would be fettered in the promulgation of doctrine and the administration of discipline. The great question of marriage, which is now a prominent subject of contention between the Pope and the Italian King, affords a fair illustration. In the kingdom of Italy, and wherever the French law is in vogue, marriage by the civil contract alone is valid. To this law and practice the Pope is, of course, vehemently hostile. Marriage is a sacrament of the Church, and the sanction of the priest is held to be indispensable. The control which this doctrine gives to the priesthood is one of their greatest prerogatives, and no wonder that it is prized and defended to the last. Now, suppose the Pope to become a subject of Victor Emmanuel. It is easy to see that his freedom to fulminate anathemas against the authors of the statute which abolishes this high prerogative, and against such as venture to take shelter under the law of the land, might be inconveniently restricted; and that conflict between the secular and ecclesiastical rulers would almost inevitably spring up. And this is only one of the subjects on which variance and strife might easily arise. On a review of the whole question, we are inclined to agree with the Pope and his party in the opinion that the loss of the temporal power carries with it a partial loss of the spiritual. If the spiritual power could survive the surrender of the temporal, in undiminished vigor, the former might be enhanced, and the Catholic Church strengthened by the purifying influence flowing from the change. The Pope would stand forth in the simple character of Supreme Bishop, free from the entanglements of secular rule. But, as we have just intimated, it is doubtful whether his freedom, as a spiritual Prince, would not be seriously impaired by the loss of his earthly kingdom.

Will the Pope be dethroned? If we looked solely at the past, we should give a negative answer to this question. We should say that if he be driven from his kingdom, he will regain it. Many times have the Popes been expelled from Rome. They have seen their dominions pass into other hands, and have wandered forth as fugitives and exiles. witnessed emergencies which, in outward

Often have they appearance, were

more threatening than the peril in which they are just now involved. The bark of St. Peter, to borrow their own favorite simile, has frequently been tossed by the tempest, but has never been submerged. It has floated in safety in the midst of the rude blast, and at length the billows have been composed to rest. But times have changed. There is, even in the Roman Catholic part of Christendom, a decline of faith in the Papal pretensions. The main point is that the Papacy no longer enjoys in Europe the popular sympathy which was once its firm support. In the middle ages, the Papacy was popular, sometimes even demagogical. In modern times, it has attached itself with blind, unyielding tenacity to the despotic principles and organs of the reactionary anti-republican party in Europe. It vainly struggles to stem the tide of political sentiment which, notwithstanding occasional fluctuations, has been steadily rising since the commencement of the present century. The prospect, therefore, is that the Pope will be forced to yield up what remains to him of his Italian kingdom. If he could permanently change his residence, the problem would admit of another solution. He might become the master of some other province, or establish himself on some island of the Mediterranean. But it is only as Bishop of the Roman Church that he can pretend to Episcopal supremacy. Forsaking that Church by his own voluntary act, could he longer claim the prerogatives of Peter? If a theory could be devised for escaping from this difficulty, still the abandonment of Rome for a long period would bring upon him a great loss of consideration.* The peculiar glory that lingers over the eternal city, and over the Papacy as identified with it, would be lost.

The separation of Italy or of France, or of both, from the Papal See, would be an event which would be hailed by Prot

* The Catholic theologians hold that the Bishop of Rome may reside away from that city, if he chooses. As long as he is Bishop of Rome, he is Supreme Pontiff. Says Perrone:-"Fieri potest, ut summus pontifex resideat Viennæ, Mediolani, Berolini, aut Petropoli; nunquam vero potest fieri, ut simplex episcopus Viennensis aut Petropolitanus sit summus Pontifex; ubicunque idcirco resideat, semper erit pontifex maxmus, ut possit dici ac vere sit in primatu Petri successor." Perrone, T. II, § 604. (Quoted in Hase, Handbuch der Protestantischen Polemik, etc., p. 242, n.)

estants with joy. Such an event would open to the seceding kingdoms the possibility of religious reforms which are now precluded. The policy of toleration is now too firmly estab lished, to render it possible in either of the countries just mentioned, for Protestantism to be suppressed by the tyranny of an establishment, in case they were to break off their connection with the Roman Church. Unhappily, in France, the Ultramontane party is now in the ascendant. The old principles of Gallican freedom, for which Bossuet, and a body of great men before and after him, have contended, have lost ground and find but few advocates. In Italy, the prospect is more hopeful. It is not improbable that the prolonged and irritating conflict there between Pope and king will ultimately lead to an open renunciation of the ecclesiastical, as well as civil, pretensions of the Pope. Since the modern nations of Europe emerged into a distinct existence, the feeling of national rights and of national independence, as opposed to foreign ecclesiastical control, has been steadily growing. A regard for the interest o the nation has ontweighed the influence of religious affinities. Since Philip the Fair summoned together the estates of his realm to aid him in his opposition to the tyrannical measures of Boniface VIII., the nation has generally been the uppermost thought, as compared with the Church, in the policy of European rulers. The hostility of France to the Austrian house of Hapsburg brought the former to the assistance of the Protestant cause in the thirty years war. Now we find Prussia and Italy in alliance against the same Catholic empire. The Papacy is not so strong that it can afford to set itself against the national feeling and real welfare of any Catholic people.

At the same time we have little confidence in the permanence of any triumph that is achieved over the Papal system, unless that triumph results from the power of enlightened religious convictions. In the last century, in Europe, the Papacy-we speak of it as a system of spiritual rule-was at a low ebb. It seemed as if there were none so poor as to do it reverence. The Emperor Joseph II. of Austria introduced into his dominions reforms that fell little short of an utter renunciation of Papal control. Everywhere the bonds of hier