The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 1913. THE POPE

New Zealand Tablet, 17 April 1913, Page 33

Th e New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 1913. THE POPE

fj URING the last few days Pius X. has been a in the arena wrestling, if not with death, »v at least with grave disease and weakness. C The world by proxy has been looking on, j**" with a keen and sympathetic interest for i. the great and good old man who bears upon his shoulders the weight of nearly four score years, who has within the compass of a single decade done wonderful things for the Church of which he is the Visible Head, who is the friend of humanity and one of the most lovable and saintly of the long line of Pontiffs that have sat in the chair of St. Peter. It is possible that his journey into eternity is near at hand. But as we write, the physicians' report as to his condition is reassuring; and his loving Catholic children all over the world cling prayerfully to the hope that the day is still far distant when the ' good grey head whom all men know ' must rise from the pillow no more. ■* Soon or late, in God's good time the soul of "Pius must flit. The Pope dies. But the Papacy lives on. It knows neither decrepitude nor decay. Men in times past have sought in various parts of the earth the marvellous foundation of perpetual youthand have died with the waters undiscovered. The Church's

waters of youth come from a higher source than that of earth. Her marvellous vitality has been the theme of,, many an unfriendly pen. Macaulay’s words have been often quoted. But the following sentences therefrom, well worn as they are, will, in the present circumstances, bear repetition:— The- proudest royal houses/ says Macaulay, . ‘ are but of yesterday when compared with the line of Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth; arid far beyond Pepin the august dynasty extends till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The Republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But the Republic of Venice was modern when ’ compared with the Papacy and the Republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and youthful vigor. . . . Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the commencement of all governments and of all ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world, and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britainbefore the Prank had passed the —when Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antiochwhen idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca; and she may still- exist in undiminished vigor when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge ,to sketch the ruins of St Paul’s.