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fluity; and I am assured, on creditable authority, that about 500 scudi a-year is all that remains in the private purse even of the most exalted among these ecclesiastical princes! Nor need we be sur

bishops, some cardinal-priests, some
cardinal-deacons. Cardinal Antonelli
is of the last order, and if he serves
the Church in a somewhat worldly
fashion, and more after the manner
of the serpent than the dove, the prised at such exemplification of the

Church itself can receive no taint, and he himself is not so very blamable, since he is not a priest! "Les bonnes âmes," says M. About, "qui veulent absolument que tout soit bien à Rome, font sonner bien haut l'avantage qu'il a de n'être pas prêtre. Si on l'accuse d'être trop riche: d'accord, répondent ces Chrétiens indulgents, mais souvenez-vous qu'il n'est pas prêtre! Si l'on trouve qu'il a lu Machiavel avec profit, il n'est pas prêtre! Si le public cite un peu souvent ses bonnes fortunes, il n'est pas prêtre! Je ne savais pas que les diacres eussent le privilège de tout faire impunément. A ce prix, que ne nous permettra-t-on point, à nous que ne sommes pas même tonsurés?" Mr Hemans is desirous of conveying to the English mind a just idea of the private life of cardinals, as well as of the Pope. He has, no doubt, obtained accurate information, and we are quite prepared to believe that, as a class, notwithstanding their greater pomp, they are much the same description of people as may be found amongst the clergy in any cathedral town of England. He tell us

"It would be erroneous to infer from the outward splendour and cumbrous ceremonial attached to this rank, that the private existence of the cardinals is all gilded with pomp and steeped in luxury. Much is required for the external-little left to private purposes. The income of a cardinal, simply as such, who resides in the Papal States, is 4000 scudi a-year; though, if he hold a bishopric, abbacy, or other benefice, or office of government, the revenue attached to such, of course, brings augmentation to his means. With the state they must keep up (as two carriages, livery servants, chaplain, secretary, &c.), many of the Sacred College have little at their disposal: some have died so poor that it it has been found necessary to defray their funeral expenses out of the treasury, or the privy purse of the sovereign. Even the seven cardinals of the order of bishops, suffragans of Rome, have not (abatement being made of obligatory and official expense) any great super

principle of Catholicism, whose aim is to surround with lustre the spiritual idea attached to the office-not to aggrandise the individual, or administer to the pride of family."

Mr Hemans delights in tracing a symbolic meaning in everything about him. The princes of the Church shall enjoy, if he pleases, merely a symbolic wealth. We know there is one instance in which they display very ingeniously a symbolic poverty. If a cardinal, as member of some religious fraternity, has taken the vow of poverty, he records or fulfils the vow-by driving in a brown chariot instead of a scarlet one!

We are quite ready to believe that both Pope and cardinals in this present century lead most respectable lives, and are, in general, admirable specimens of the ecclesiastical character. We have our own archbishops and bishops, who, probably, in mere domestic or personal luxury, are far in advance of these princes of the Church; we have no difficulty, therefore, in picturing to ourselves a number of quiet, respectable, intelligent, and learned men, wearing red stockings and driving about in gilded coaches. But if we were to take our excellent Archbishop of Canterbury and put a crown upon his head, and give him for secretaries of state the able Bishops of London, Oxford, and Exeter-should we, out of thes these worthy prelates, form a very admirable civil government for England? We should probably say that, justin proportion as they were zealous churchmen would they prove defective as king and ministers. The Pope and cardinals may be very excellent ecclesiastics-they haveproved themselves bad governors, bad legislators, bad administrators of justice. Municipal government is for earthly objects, the administration of justice, the promotion of industry, and the like, and these require the undivided care of the eminent men to whom they are committed. A good priest subordinates every earthly interest to the

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piety of his flock, or the prosperity of his church. To him a great criminal, who is a sound Catholic, is not half so detestable as a good citizen who is a bad believer. What is

earthly prosperity itself? Adversity and Christian resignation are much better. We rise easily above the pleasures of others; and can willingly stand sponsors for any poor child that it shall renounce the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. And if all

ecclesiastics are not pietists, they rarely fail of being good churchmen; so that no object of civil government will be carried forward beyond the point where it is quite compatible with the wealth and dignity of the Church, and the mental submission of the laity.

The Papal Government is a despotism-the short-lived constitution given by Pius IX. may be regarded as a nullity-and it must share in all the evils of that unchecked form of government. The despotism, it is true, is in the hands of a man not likely to use his power in wanton acts of cruelty, but it is also in the hands of one who, in the great interests of his hierarchy, would feel himself justified in any arbitrary act. Moreover, there are certain defects which follow directly on the spiritual nature of the government, as that indiscriminate charity which produces the very poverty it vainly attempts to overtake, and that mischievous lenity towards criminals, which it balances by a severity equally mischievous against all who venture to think for themselves.

"That discontent prevails at Rome,"

writes Mr Hemans, "against all authorities, political, municipal, and religious, is apparent to the most superficial observer; and, allowing for exaggerations or causeless ill humours, the constant expression of that feeling must be admitted to represent a moral fact, though few may be qualified fully to account for its origin or intensity. Those who live under a government must, generally speaking, be better able to appreciate it than theorisers at a distance. Most severely has the judicial system of this country been criticised, both at home and abroad; and one of its aspects too prominent at Rome cannot be defended, in the arbitrary principle manifest in such abuses as arrests on mere

suspicion, indefinite delay of trials, prolonged imprisonments before sentence or even investigation has ensued."

And, finally, after reviewing some from a government which punishes of the judicial anomalies that spring

sin more than crime, and disbelief as the greatest of sins, our author concludes by giving in his adhesion to the opinion that the Catholic religion would be greatly strengthened if the Papacy could limit itself to a spiritual dominion.

"In many minds," he says, "and almost universally in this country, the idea now obtains that the highest credit of the Papacy can only be restored by separation from the temporal sovereignty, or at least such modification of that so

vereignty as to reduce it simply to a guarantee for independence, political and financial."

In other European Governments the ecclesiastical and civil powers criticise and check each other. Both need this sort of criticism. A religious corporation is of admirable service as a censor to the state and the people; but if there is no power in the nation to overlook and pass judgment on the religious corporation, it will run riot or become corrupted. A religious corporation made despotic becomes the most despotic of all governments, for it is despotic over mind, body, and estate.

Again, there are needful and imperative functions of the state which are altogether inappropriate in the hands of the clergy. How can a genuine Christian priest keep alive the military spirit of his subjects? The sword should be placed in other hands. Even the sword of justice he cannot wield with the necessary energy ener and promptitude. The judge here in England sentences a criminal to be executed, and forthwith pious clergymen come round him and do their utmost, in the interval between the sentence and the execution, to prepare the murderer for his advent into another world. This is as it should be. The objection that some have made, that this dismissal to happier regions of the penitent criminal detracts from the terror of the punishment, and, therefore, from its salutary effect upon society, is one

of those objections which seem to have validity till we look closer into the matter; for, in fact, this concern manifested for the safety of the soul makes death itself more terrible, and, upon the whole, augments the horror that hangsover capital punishment. But what if we allowed the visiting clergy, or the pious home missionary, to delay the execution till he was satisfied that the soul of the criminal was saved? The certainty and promptitude of the punishment, on which all its efficacy depends, would be at an end. Yet this is what is done in Rome. A Catholic priest does not think the soul saved unless the criminal has received absolution, and he cannot receive absolution until he has confessed his sins. If a crime has really been committed, there is a confession of it to be made, and till this confession has been extracted the priest is reluctant to sign the warrant for his execution. Thus assassins and banditti-men who have made robbery and murder their trade-have been kept in prison till it has been felt that it was too late to punish them! the populace had forgotten their crimes, and would look only with compassion on their death. The right of asylum is still retained in the Roman States. It keeps up the sacredness of churches and churchmen. Even murderers must acknowledge there is some good in religion, if it shelters them from the pursuit of justice.

All temporal interests are subordinated or postponed to a fictitious piety a piety divorced from its rational connection with human wellbeing. Much of the land is held in mortmain - what can it better do than support pious souls who pray for others? You talk in vain of improvements, of long leases, of better modes of communication, roads and railways-these pious souls must not be disturbed; and what else can be demanded of them than to transmit to others the same immunity from all mundane cares which, for the profit of mankind in general, they have submitted to enjoy ? Even the most beautiful and beneficent of human feelings that charity which interests us in the welfare of others, and with

out which a human society must become stagnant and corrupt - is made a mischief and a calamity by being converted into an arbitrary rule of this fictitious piety. It is enough that the man gives-as gives-as if all charity consisted in giving as if it were not incumbent to help also by prompting to self-help-as if it were not a matter of duty to reflect on the ultimate result of our giving. Is the mere self-sacrifice on the part of the giver of so much coin, to satisfy the duty of Christian and rational charity? Yet the Papal Government itself, and every monastic institution, and every individual whose conscience is under the tutelage of the priest, merely gives, and gives-and a frightful amount of poverty is the inevitable result.

In thought as well as in action there can be no advancement under this government. The church of the middle ages is to assert its authority over the minds of a more enlightened and civilised era. It is bad enough when this end is to be accomplished through the assistance of a monarchical power, with whom the hierarchy has made alliance-what must it be when the hierarchy can act for itself, without the intervention of an ally who has his own objects and his own interests to consult? The press is put under a rigid censorship: the education of the people is put under the supervision of the priesthood. All philosophy, all history, all science, is limited or falsified to just that teaching which will accord with its religious dogmas. A grown-up man cannot read a heretical book, even for the sake of controverting it, without the written licence of a priest; and this written licence will contain express exceptions. Mr Hemans gives us one in which the whole works of Bentham are excepted. The dry laborious works of our reforming jurist were not to be read, even for the sake of controverting them. Some may think less of this intellectual slavery than of civil or municipal abuses; but they think very erroneously: it lies at the root of the matter. How can any practices of such a government be reformed, if the doctrines from which they flow, or the spiritual

authority by which they are maintained, may not be questioned ?

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no earth

We avoid mentioning many of the harsh and spiteful acts with which the present government is charged, because we desire to keep distinct those evils which may be traced to the individual pope or minister, from those which are inherent in the system itself-a system which unites in the same person a spiritual and temporal despotism. There is no care in this government-there is no faith in human progress. It has only to preserve, to enjoy, to give its subjects paradise and purgatory. There earthly progress for the people worth a thought. The old and detestable plan of monopolies holds its place in Rome-monopolies of tobacco, salt, sugar-we know not whatare given or sold by the government. What motive has it for securing to human industry greater scope and more equitable treatment? You would say that so vicious and demoralising a method of raising money as the lottery, would at least be abandoned by a government so moral in its pretensions that it prudishly interferes with the anatomical studies of the schools of surgery; but no, it holds its place.

"Though not to the same degree a furore here as at Naples, and though the public extraction at Rome is only bimestral, not weekly, as at the former city, the effects are scarcely less ruinous in one than the other State. On Saturday, twice in the month, it is that a large and excited multitude assemble in the piazza in one of Rome's older quarters, before the stately palace called 'Madama' from its foundress Catherine de Medici, now appropriated to offices of government. At a balcony high on

the front appears a group of authorities, with a chaplain and a theatrically-dressed little boy standing before a cylindrical vessel in a frame. When all is ready, after this receptacle has been made to turn rapidly on a pivot, the little chief actor (whose innocence is used to impose upon the crowd in the equivocal transaction) draws slowly out from the vessel the winning numbers, each of which is loudly proclaimed to the people.

If the glittering 'gin-palaces' in London

streets be a reproach, not less so is the nightly illuminated lottery-office in Rome-open later than all other establishments, and under no obligation of

closing for any festival. Poor families in this city lay by their little earnings weekly, to the privation of parents and children, for buying numbers to play; and when one observes the degrading superstition among other results, astonishment is increased at the support, by ecclesiastical government, of a system so odious. Divining, dream-interpretations, charms, are among the train of attendant evils, despite their being condemned dogmatically by the Church. Il vero libro dei Sogni is a vile publication, sold at almost every stall in Rome (without impediment from the rigorous censorship that has not spared Gioberti or Rosmini), a snare for ignorance, that professes to give the corresponding "lucky number' for every object that can be thought or dreamt of!-even the name 'Papa' admitted, with its appropriate divination in three numbers; and prete, cardinale, cardinalato, each with its number for gambling on-besides other terms grossly indecent ! More deplorable is it that such superstition should be supported by any minister of religion; but the belief widely prevails, and is to a degree encouraged by those who should labour to uproot it, that certain of the mendicant friars have

gifts of divination for the lottery. I was visited once by a friar, an entire stranger, who mysteriously intimated that if I were a lottery-gambler he could tell me something worth knowing-for which I thanked him."

For all apology you are told that the people of Rome would gamble in the lotteries of other States, if they had not one of their own. One would think that here, if anywhere, the Papal Government would set a good example to its neighbours; but it seems to argue as Cowper's schoolboy, "If the orchard must be robbed, I may as well go shares." M. About suggests that the Court of Rome may not altogether disapprove of the sort of education a lottery assists in giving. It is true that there may be some advantage, he says, in teaching people to depend on their industry rather than on their luck. But then, in the Roman States, where industry leads to little, the lottery is a consolation for the poor. One can always hope, and the Church teaches us to live on hope; and it is a bad habit of the mind to rely upon ourselves. Better rely on providence, on miracle, and pray to the saints for a good number, and consult the Capuchin, who is good authority on this as on other subjects, and live as much as possible by faith.

It is hardly possible to make the mere temporal interests of the people a matter of conscience with this priestly government. What can industry do but make the world more pleasant and seductive? And science is a known enemy to implicit belief. It is said that there is no country in Christendom where education is so little advanced as this, which lies under the immediate care of the Vicar of Christ.

Such is the government that is now upheld by the foreign troops of France, against the wishes of the inhabitants of Rome. Such is the government which is again threatened with overthrow by the new movement, headed by Garibaldi and the King of Sardinia. Will the Emperor of France, or any other emperor, continue to support it? And what will be the results on Catholic Europe, if the temporal sovereignty of the Pope should really come to an end? These are questions which we cannot help asking ourselves, though it is only a very imperfect answer we can give to them.

When the present Emperor of France undertook the restoration of the Pope to his civil power, it was a small republic, of most uncertain existence, that he assailed and destroyed. And the policy which determined him is very intelligible. He thereby represented himself to all Europe as the champion of order, he gained the support of his own clergy, and he set his foot on this rising flame of republicanism, which, as matters stood, seemed to bode no good to Italy, or to neighbouring nations. But the scene has very rapidly changed. The new movement is one for national unity, -the formation of one great Italian monarchy. Will the Emperor of France oppose this movement, openly or covertly? Or will it be strong enough to accomplish its ends, despite of all foreign opposition? Here we can express no confident opinion. We can only hope that the grandest political scheme which has agitated the minds of men in our day may be fulfilled.

It looks, as we are accustomed to say, "too good to be true," too grand a project to be actually accomplished.

All Italy formed into one compact monarchy! or say all Italy, with the exception of that part which has been left under the dominion of Austriathe design is one which must kindle the imagination of the coldest politician. A kingdom of Italy that would soon compete in population, in wealth, in intelligence, with the kingdom of France-what an accession to the great family of European nations! Not an acre of land, nor a single human soul, would be added to Europe, and still there would be a new creation, a new people, with renewed energies. France, England, and Germany have long represented the growth and progress of the world; they have been the foremost and advancing nations of Europe; now a fourth would come amongst them, who, in every career, whether of art, science, industry, or war, would be second to none. Every one feels directly that Italy would be a new power; that the intellect of the nation would spring up as from a sleep. Commerce and industry would revive, new schools of art would appear, and, above all, new universities, or universities that will teach science and history in quite a new spirit. Hitherto the youth of Italy, the youth of the middle classes, on whom the vigour and energy of each coming age depends, has been cruelly maltreated, "cabined, cribbed, confined," and then pronounced to be capable of nothing better than a theatrical and coffee-house existence. Let us hope that France will not be impelled, by some feeling of distrust and jealousy, to oppose and thwart this great regeneration of a people, who, in the arts of peace, in the prosecution of science and philosophy, -if not in material wealth and power,-may soon be its distinguished rival.

We can but hope success to this great effort for a united Italian people. We know the difficulties that must be encountered, the opposition from without and within, the open or concealed hostility of foreign powers, the ceaseless, pertinacious, unwearied, and unscrupulous resistance of the great body of the priest

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