THE PRESENT ATTITUDE OF THE POPE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 218, 29 June 1877, Page 17

THE PRESENT ATTITUDE OF THE POPE.

The present position of His Holiness, as shown lately in his allocution to the Cardinals, is the same as ever, and therefore more marvellous than ever. There is no trembling in the frame of that hoary old man, over whose locks, since they turned gray, have passed so many summers and winters, bleak beyond comparison. The years of his Pontificate have been fuller of tremendous events, heavy and wearing on the human frame, than the whole lifetime ot*~3^J|r a great man, yet there is no trembling in his frame, as he 9 JK?* < ? faces *^ c e^ ements ' There is no faltering in his voice ; eloquence, and it is full of power. The protest of Mfc* wever could be quelled. The organ that uttered it might be broisra, but right itself is inviolable, its protest irresistible, and the voice which utters it is always full of power. If we may contrast great things with small, as we contemplate Pius IX. in the midst of the stormy world about him, we are reminded of that old man who stood, of a stormy night, under all the fury of a raging tempest. He was as full of grief as of age. The tempest in his mind within, caused by the wrongs he had suffered, took from his sense all feeling of the roaring elements without. He stormed at them as they stormed at him. — " Blow wind ! and crack your cheeks ! blow !" He swore revenge on those who bad wronged him : " I will have such revenges on you that all the world shall — I will do such things — What they are as yet I know not." But the old King Lear, in all his fury, had to confess his weakness, his impotence, his utter inability to strike a blow. There is none of that, however, in the sight we have before us now. There is none of that wild fury, still less of that weakness. An outcast or a prisoner, as you like it, in his own kingdom, Pius IX. addresses the elements of political tyranny, and usurpation and apostacy, and infidelity, in the firm, plain tone of a master. There is no quavering, no want of power, none of the imbecility of dotage. To the world, to the very elements themselves, he like his Master, whose keys he holds, is a sign, a folly, an old man talking. But the old man's talk, as the Minister of Public worship gravely Bays, " has made a bad impression." And whether it made a bad impression or not upon the public mind, the havoc it does on souls by censure, condemnation and anathema, is beyond the reach of conception. Not that he is vindictive — not he. No more than the physician who cuts, who burns; no more than the Divine Providence which strews this life with thorns and briars, and misfortunes. The Vicar of Christ anathematises his enemies, but unto Balvation ; he cuts to the quick that the dead may be quickened ; be burns here, that they may escape everlasting burning hereafter. Catholic Bevietv.