GREAT POPE, WISE LEADER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVI, Issue 4, 26 January 1899, Page 27

GREAT POPE, WISE LEADER.

F. MARION CRAWFORD'S SKETCH OF LEO XIII. Ik his new book, A ye Roma Immortal in, F. Marion Crawford has an interestng chapter on Leo XIII. The novelist writes :—: — Joachim Vincent Pecci, since 1878 Pope, under the name of Leo XIII., was born at Carpineto, in the Volscian Hills, in 1810. His father had served in the Napoleonic wars, but had already retired to his native village, where he was at the time a landed proprietor of considerable importance and the father of several children. Carpineto lies on the mountain side in the neighbourhood of Segai, in a rock district and in the midst of a country well known to the Italians as the Ciooiaria. This word is derived from ' cioca,' the sandals worn by the peasants in that part of the country in the place of shoes, and bound by leathern thongs to the foot and leg over linen strips which serve for stockings. The sandal, indeed is common enough, or was common not long ago in the Sabine and Sammian hills, and in some parts of the Abtuzzi, but it is especially the property of the Volscians all the way from Montefortine, down to the Neapolitan frontier. Joachim Pecci was born with a plentiful supply of that rough, bony, untiring mountaineer's energy which has made the Volscians what they have been for good or evil since the beginning of history. Those who have been to Carpineto have seen the dark old pile in which the Pope was born, wich its tower which tops the town, as the dwellings of the small nobles always did in every hamlet and village throughout the south of Europe. B'or the Pecci were good, gentle folks long ago, and the portraits of Pope Leo's father and mother, in their dress of the last century, still haug in their places in the mansion. His Holiness strongly resembles both, for he has his father's brow and eyes, and his mother's mouth and chin. IN HIS YOUTH he seemed to have been a very dark man, as clearly appears from the portrait of him painted when he was nuncio at .Brussels at about the age of 34 years. The family type is strong. The extraordinary clear, pale complexion is also a family characteristic. Leo XIII.'s face seems cut of live alabaster, and it is not a figure of speech to say that it appears to emit a light of its own. Born and bred in thd keen air of the Volscian hills, he is a southern Italian, but of the mountains, and there is still something about him of the hill people. He has the long, lean, straight, broad-shouldered frame of the true mountaineer, the marvellously bright eye. the eagle features, the well-knit growth of strength traceable even in extreme old age ; and in character there is in him the well-balanced construction of a steady caution, with an unerring, unhesitating decision. In the matter of physique there is, indeed, a resemblance between Leo XLII., President Lincoln, and Mr. Gladstone — Jong, sinewy men, all three of a bony constitution and indomitable vitality, with large sculls, high cheek bores, and energetic jaws -

all three men of great physical strength, of profound capacity for study ; of melancholy disposition, and of unusual eloquence. Born during the height of the conflict between belief and unbelief, Leo XIII., by s significant fatality, wag raised to the pontificate when the Kulfrrkampf was raging, and the attention of the world was ri vetted on the deadly straggle between the EOMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND BISMABCK —a struggle in which the great Chancellor found his equal if not his master. The Pope ppent his childhood in the simple surroundings of Carpineto, than which none could be simpler, as everyone knows who has ever visited an Italian country gentleman in his home. Early hours, constant exercise, plain food, and farm interests, made a strong man of him, with plenty of simple, common sense. As a boy he was a great walker and climber, and it is said that he was exceedingly fond of birding, the only form of Bport afforded in that part of Italy, and practised there in those times as it is now, not only with guns, but by means of nets. The stiff mannerism of the patriarchal system which survived until recently from the early Roman times gave him that formal tone and authoritative manner which are so characteristic of his conversation in private. His deliberate but unhesitating speech makes one think of Goethe's ' without haste, without rest.' Yet his formality is not of the slow and circumlocutory sort ; on the contrary, it is energetically precise and helps rather than mars the sound casting of each idea. The Pope's voice is as distinctly individual as his manner of speaking. It is not deep, nor very full, but, considering his great age, it is wonderfully clear and ringing, and it has a certain incisiveneßS of sound which gives it great oarrying power. Pius IX had as beautiful a voice, both in compass and richness of quality as any baritone singer in the Sistine choir. No one who ever heard him intone the 'Te Deum ' in St. Peter's in the old days can forget the grant tones. He was gifted in many ways with great physical beauty, with a rare charm of manner, and with a most witty humour ; and in character he was one of the most gentle and kindhearted men of the day, as he was also one of the least initiative, so to say, while endowed with the high moral courage of boundless patience and political humility. Leo XIII. need speak but half a dozen words, with one glance of his flashing eye and one gesture of his noticeably long arm and transparently thin hand, and the moral distance between his predecessor and himself is at omce apparent. There is STRENGTH STILL IN EVEBY MOVEMENT ; there is deliberate decision in every tone ; there is lofty independence in every look. Behind these there may be kindliness, charity and all milder virtues ; but what is apparent is a sort of energetic manly trenchancy which forces admiration rather than awakens sympathy. When speaking at length on any occasion he is eloquent but i with the eloquence of the dictator and sometimes of the logician rather than that of the persuader. His enunciation is exceedingly distinot. In Latin and Italian he chooses his words with great care and skill, and makes use of fine distinctions in the Ciceronian manner, and he certainly commands a larger vocabulary than most men. His bearing is erect at all times, and on days when he is well his step is quick as he moves about his private apartments. A man who thinks slowly but moves fast is generally one who thinks long and acts promptly— a hard hitter as we familiarly say. As a statesman Leo XIIL is admitted to be of the highest order ; as a scholar he is indisputably one of the finest Latinists of our time ; as a man he possesses the simplicity of character which almolt always accompanies greatness, together with a healthy sobriety of temperhabit and individual taste rarely found in those beings whom we might call ' motors ' among men. It is commonly said that the Pope has not changed his manner of life since he was a simple bishop. He ia indeed a man who could not easily change either his habits or his opinions. He is a great Pope. There has not been his equal intellectually for a long time nor shall we presently see his match again. There he stands at the head of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, as wise a leader as any who in our day has wielded power, as skilled in his own manner as any one who hold the pen,, and better than all that, as simple and honest a Christian man as ever fought a great battle for his faith's sake. IN SPITE OF HIS GREAT AGE the Holy Father enjoys excellent health and leads a life full of occupations from morning till night. He rises very early. Of late

he frequently says Maw in a ohapel in his private apartment. After Macs he breakfasts upon coffee and goat's milk, and this milk is supplied from goats kept in the Vatican gardens, a reminiscence of Oarpineto and of the mountaineer's early life During the morning the Pope receives cardinals, bishops, ambassadors, who are going •way on leave, or who have just returned, princes and members of the Boman nobility, and distinguished foreigners. At 10 he takes a cup of broth. At 2 in the Afternoon, or a little earlier, he dines, and he is most abstentious, though he has excellant digestion. When the weather is line he generally walks or drives in the gardens. Papal gendarmes are lodged in the gardens, and it is their duty to patrol the preoincte by day and night. The fact that two dynamitards were caught in the garden in 1894 proves that a private police is necessary. From the cupola of St. Peter's the whole extent of the Vatican grounds is visible, and when the Pope is walking the visitors over 400 feet above stop to watch him. He has keen eyes and sees them also. ' Let us show ourselves,' he exclaims on such occasions. 'At least they will not be able to say that the Pope is ill.' j His favourite poets are Virgil and Dante. He knows long passages of each by heart, and likes to quote them.