POPE PIUS IX.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3868, 28 July 1873, Page 3

POPE PIUS IX.

[The Mail.] Pius IX., after surviving prophecies, prophets, epochs, periods, temporalities, kingdoms, and empires, near a hundred of his own Cardinals, and a good many possible successors, is in that state of health which expresses itself by conflicting telegrams, messages hastily sent to and fro, warnings, and preparations. The news to day is again better ; but, if there are hopes that the end is still at a distance, the contingency has been brought too close for Europe not to begin seriously to calculate its conse quencps. The fears and hopes are about equally balanced. Many things which cannot be done to day will be possible and likely when the obstacle of a great and cherished name is removed. The name and character of the man stand for something, and, as the Italians themselves are the most anxious in the matter, as well as the most concerned, we may, perhaps, be on the eve of a moral as well as a personal change. - But if we consider the man himself we cannot but conclude that the range of alteration has long since been reduced to narrow limits. Pius IX. has done all that devotees could dream, and suffered all that the world could accomplish. He has achieved an absolute dominion over the human intelligence, and lost every inch of his temporal power. Indoors the whole universe is at his feet, but he cannot look out of his windows without seeing a world in arms against him. Could he ever have been advised — for it did almost seem his nature — to confine himself to his spiritual character, there never was such a Pope. He seems, indeed, the predicted climax of the long series. In him are combined the simplicity of childhood, the arrogance of youth, the enterprise of maturer years, and the obstinacy of old age, till it is hard to say whether the man or the child, the saint or the man of the world, predominates in the old man acting the grand part of a present divinity. A Pope, indeed, has no opportunities of withdrawing for a while, of reconsidering his position. He is a public man always on duty ; an actor always on the stage ; never to be missed for an hour, and holding his ground by an unbroken continuity. He must always be seen, or heard, or at least beard of, and known to be moving. Pope Pius IX. is said to have been chosen on account of special qualities for this purpose. He was of the most cheeful presence and was the most prompt and witty speaker in the Sacred College. "Whatever Pius IX. was expected to do, he disappointed hia friends by the child-like confidence with which he threw himself on the popular care. Truth must prevail, he thought, and need not fear. But having discharged his duty to the people, or his weakness for popularity, Pius IX. has since been simply the present High Priest of the new dispensation. It is impossible to imagine a belief more sincere, a vision more intense, a life more consistent, than that of the man who has claimed for more than a.quarter of a century to be the lord and master of the whole world. If there be neither folly nor sin in such a claim, then we may admire Pius IX., and, indeed, must worship him and obey him also. But while Pius IX. has been reigning ovev the whole world, issuing commissions and edicts to the vorv ends of the earth, and summoning councils to the foot of his throne, the whole world has been rapidly changing in the contrary direction. Indeed, the louder he has called the further have nations gone from him ; and the more energetic his sway, the more desperate the resistance. It must be said, too, that the Stars have fought against him, and unless Pius IX. has pulled his own house down over his head, it is Heaven's doom and deed. We may concede — we may even be well content — that he still holds and rules the most impulsive, the most imaginative, and the most sentimental races of the civilised world ; and that he is himself admirably adapted for that empire over souls. It is best that they who cannot govern themselves, and who are singularly averse from all reasonable government, should find somebody to govern them on their own terms. We envy the Pope his Irish, French, or Peninsular subjects as little as we envy them their infallible guide. In this soil there is a good deal to be worked out yet, and we see no prospect of early change, even if Pius IX. has a very different successor. Everybody has leave to fight his battle in the British Parliament. But if there be any quarter which more than another enjoys the latest thoughts of the Old Man at the Vatican, it is that Germany which became an Empire in spite of him and his thousand Bishops. It is Germany that for the present leads the world, for what she does her Continental neighbours know they may do, and soon find they must do. Germany is meeting Rome on her own ground. Since Rome, through her court, her council, and every other mode of expression, is defining spiritual authority and power in a way to include everythingwithin the dominionsof tbespiritual chief, Germany erects, defines, and fortifieß the rights of the Civil Power. The

! measures now in the German Parliament, and J i kelj to become law, amount to a secular organisation, so complete as not to leave the Pope a soul, a place, an hour that he can call entirely his own. Germany asserts for the Civil Power the control of all education, the imposition of its own conditions on entrance to either civil or ecclesiastical office, the administration of all discipline, and at every point the light to confine religious teachers and preachers to purely doctrinal and moral topics. Had the Syllabus or the decrees of the Vatican Council been simply translated into the language of civil power, by carefully reserving for it whatever the Pope denies to it, we should have the substance of the new measure to which Germany alleges itself to be driven, somewhat in advance of its spontaneous wishes. Henceforth there is to be neither priest nor bishop, nor cardinal, nor teacher, nor preacher, nor proclamation, nor public act, nor penalty, nor anything that man can be, or do or cay far the soul's good of man in Germany without the proper authorisation, mark, and livery of the Emperor. We know not wheiher the Pope can draw much comfort or hope from the fact that all the religious communities are treated with equality — tolerated, watched, controlled, and kept down, like Rome. Germany has come to this under Pius IX. Can it do more under the more favorable reign of a less fanatic or less unreasoning successor ? A new reign, even if it be that of a Pope, should be a new departure, and that from the actual state of the affairs to be dealt with. Pius IX. 's successor will start with the almost universal fact of absolute separation between Church and State, in every sense of those words. England, Russia, and Turkey still have their respective unions of Church and Slßte, whatever the amount or value of the union may be ; but as much can hardly be said of any State or people claimed by the Roman Catholic Church. In that communion we see nothing but protests, reiterated every yenr with new vigor and determination, against the pretensions of Infallible authority. There are changes and revolutions, new dynasties, new combinations, and new forms of government. But no change comes in favor of Rome. The work recedes further and further from the voice that claims to silence the undeistanding, to reduce faith to a passive absorption of ideas and obedience to servility. Yet that Rome will remain for ages to come one of the guides to conscience, and even a teacher of thought, as well as a guardian of tradition, we need not doubt, nor do we wish to doubt. The world cannot offend any of the old sources of knowledge, or anything that points higher than this level plain. Nor does the world wish anything it once loved and cherished so changed as to lose its identity, and no longer be what it once was. Rome will be Rome to the end of the chapter. But the world itself is changing. Man is changing. All the modes of thought, and life, and feeling are changing, so that we may even feel and see the change. Whatever Power affects to deal with these things will have at least to adapt itself to the change, and present itself in a manner which will not shock, repel, and drive to absolute resistance. As it happens, something more is t» be done now. The flock has not merely to be kept together ; it has to be won and recalled from its wanderings in every direction — if, indeed, that be possible. Rome is bound to believe it possible, even though now she treats it apparently as a hopeless task. If the work be indeed possible, she will have to confine herself to the only ways and means left her — the arts of peace and persuasion. With these she can at least do as well as the rest of the world ; but the rod of iron she once weilded to rule the nations and to break them to pieces is no longer in her hand. It is her voice that is to do the work ; and, as she cannot even threaten with dignity, she must now be content be persuade, and even to reason.