The Press. — London, England, 1857-09-05 00:00:00

Sit traturt. Rome: its Ruler awl its Institutions. By John Francis Maguire, M.P. London: Longmans. THE present Popo of Romo has always appeared to us to be one of the weakest and vainest men ever elevated to the Papacy. Deficient in policy, without firm ness, plastic and dangerously impressible, Pius IX., with good intentions and erroneous modsures, was the cause of bringing great oubles on his Church, on Italy, and on Europe. Why the Cardinals ever chose him seems to us a mystery ; and the " Infallibility of the Church" has not in the last three hun dred years received so severe a shock as in the selection of Pius IX. He has all the qualities which would make a good parish priest, and but few of those which would render him a great sovereign. He is bene volent and well disposed; he is without cruelty, but he is also weak, uncertain, and shallow. There is no depth in his mind; consequently there is no able design in his conduct. Superficial and sentimental, Pius has always planned more than he could per form. Like Louis XVI., or Joseph Bonaparte (King of Spain), Pius presents us with the spectacle of an admirable private, but an almost contemptible public, character. Such aro the men who palsy mighty nations and ruin grand institutions. Their virtues, being allied with weakness, are as bad as the vices of natures altogether inferior to them. And this is the prelate whom Mr. Maguire has chosen for the most fulsome panegyric that we ever read. We have heard and perused many hard and bitter words against " Popery," but the adulatory spirit of this volume is enough to raise the spleen of the most moderate of polemics. The glorification of Pius by Mr. Maguire approaches the ridicu lous. This zealous panegyrist has no eye for the weakness, the credulity, the political insin cerity, the flimsy views of the Pope. Not a word is said of the series of infatuated blunders by which Pius allowed himself to be made a tool by designing revolutionists who after wards imprisoned him. The mortifying results to the Papacy, and to what Mr. Maguire calls " the Church." by the Pope having been com pelled to fly in disguise from Rome, and ask shelter from the King of Naples. and sue for aid from the great powers, is lightly passed over by the author. In Mr. Maguire's eyes, or at least as the Pope is painted in this volume, Pius IX. is all that is great, grand, and re• splendeut; he is magnificent as Leo X.. and shrewd as Gangunelli; be is illustrious by talents, by virtues, by attainments, by achieve ments, and a list of other a eieteriu, for which vide the panegyric of " St. Pius," for in this volume he has been canonised in anticipation by the ardent and able member for Dun garvon. If Pius IX. were the glorious pontiff de scribed here, how comes it that his people rose against him, and that a Ftench army was necessary to re-seat him in his Papal chair? If " the institutions of Rome " be so admirable in character as they are represented here, would Mr. Maguire be pleased to explain the phenomenon of a pope running away from Rome, and taking refuge at Gaeta? Mr. Maguire, in a loose style (p. 317), talks of " the 300 or 400 churches at Rome." The number is certainly enormous, whatever its exact limits may be. There are troops of priests, and sacristans, and thurifers, and acolytes, and students, in proportion to these chum ches ; and the question arises how, in a city whore the population is about 172,000, has this enormous ecclesiastical ascendancy worked? A more discontented population does not exist in Europe; ever hovering be tween conspiracy on the one hand, and slavery to the Church on the other—asking alms today, and planning assassinations to morrow—now trembling before a monk eloquent on the horns of the devil, and anon creeping to Mazzini—ever fluctuating between super stition about holy water, and a plebeian thirst for patrician blood. They are a priestridden race ; yet they have the virtue to writhe in THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 5, 1857. their bonds, and they pant to disenthral them selves. The churches aro decked with satin and gold. Gorgeous furniture adorns the greater part of their " 300 or .100 churches." But the sacerdotal calling is the only trade or profession that thrives at Rome. Art is culti vated there chiefly by foreigners from distant lands. In the city of " God's vicegerent on earth," of " Peter's successor," of " 300 or 400 churches," even the panegyrical pages before us acknowledges that savings -banks, and rail ways, and telegraphs, and gasworks, are adopted only after every other country has had them at full work. _ Colleges are described, convents are pointed out, and libraries are counted up ; but there is one thing of which Mr. Maguire has not spoken in the book, and that is of a spirit superior to all that mere art can teach and church melodies suggest—the spirit of Liberty. Amid palaces, and convents, and magnificent altars, and sumptuous processions, the soul of man is crushed and degraded in the city of " 300 or 400 churches." A few lines of the Bible remembered amidst all this glare of pomp and ecclesiastical parade would do more good to the heart than the most brilliant cere monies or the professional hosannahs of the trained bands of the Papal choir. Of all places in the world, there is none like Rome where a lofty spirit can so keenly appreciate the glorious lines of the poet : What's hallowed ground ? Ilas Earth a spot Its Maker meant not Should be trod By Man, the image of his God, Erect and free, Unsconrged by superstitious rod To bow the knee? There are many things, we admit, which harass us in our Protestant ecclesiastical affairs ; but it is only after a residence at Rome, or after a perusal of panegyrics like that before us, that we can feel truly thankful that our lot has been cast in the land where the Book,radiaut with celestial power, and stamped with the inspiration of the Most High, speaks to the universal heart with a hundredfold moral power beyond the glozing rhetoric of its priests, and the trilling cadences of luscious singers, and the tutored utterances of the mercenary crowd who at Rome sing to-day in honour of Pius as they would have sung for Diana of Ephesus eighteen hundred years ago. Yet Mr. Maguire appears to us one of the best specimens of a Roman Catholic advocate. He is courteous to antagonists, and he is said to be personally esteemed by his political adversaries in Ireland. We only know him by having heard him in the House of Commons, where he speaks and votes as an " Indepen dent Oppositionist." In provincial journalism he holds an eminent position, and in the Irish department of the Times we have often seen his name identified with the " Irish platform." A work on Rome from such a man ought to be of some representative importance; yet we cannot accept the present vapid volume as being equal to what Mr. Maguire's party, and his own undeniable abilities, would demand. The variety of his pursuits seems to have pressed too much on his energies. . . The worst feature of modern Romanism is truly represented in this volume. It is ad dressed, unconsciously, to servile classes. Modern Popery plans and caters for the crowd ; it enlists " agitators " and manufactures clap traps; it invents statistics ; it lisps the rights of human nature ; it talks prettily about chil dren ; it echoes the cant of perfectibility, while it is drugging the knowledge that it offers to minds thirsting for pure sustenance. The late Daniel O'Connell, in many of his phases, was a perfect representative of modern Romanism. When it 'cannot be aristocratic it will be democratic, or vice versa. When it can be neither, it will be absolutist or monarchi cal. In Protestant countries, modern Ro manism assumes the language of intellectual Jacobinism, and it disguises its politics with a tincture of medireval sacerdotalism. It is " Liberal" against anything but—priestcr*ft. Of these characteristics we are often reminded iu this volume. We shall proceed to give Rome specimens of this panegyric. Here is the Pope, as 117 st seen by the enthusiastic member fur Duugar von. The italics are our own : A face more calculated to win confidence and inspire affection I have never seen. One smile from that tender mouth, one soft beam from those mild blue eyes, and errn men would come as children to his knee. Though the very opposite of those stern and haughty pontiffs which the Protestant imagination may picture to itself, as it thinks of a Hildebrand or a Julius, I could not conceive a man ner or a bearing more full of true dignity than that of the Holy Father, as he sat enthroned amidst the Princes of the Church, or rose to intone the vespers—which he did with a musical and sonorous voice—or to impart the apostolic benediction. I have elsewhere seen many pious priests in the performance of their sacred functions ; but never before did I behold a countenance more expressive of profound piety, or so illumined with that heavenly brightness which outwardly manifests the working of the spirit within. It seemed, as it were, suffused with a light from above. Heart and mind and soul appeared to be absorbed, as they really were, in the ceremonies in which he assisted; and not for a second's space did his at'eution wander from his devotions. He communed as truly with his God, in the midst of that splendid crowd, and with hundreds of eager eyes riveted upon him, as if he were kneeling in his private chamber, and asking for another day of strength to meet the difficulties of his exalted but perilous position. There is the true Papal tone in the follow ing account of the amazing courage of the Pope when ho was a cardinal : An incident that occurred in the February of INII3 evinced the noble courage with which the prelate was endowed, and the singular efficacy which Providence coin• musicale', lo his words. One even►ng of the Carnival, a little before dusk, the Cardinal was making his accustomed visit before the altar of the Holy Sacrament in the Cathedral, when the sacristan rushed towards him, crying out " to hasten for God's sake, as murder was being per petrated in the sacristy." Invoking the Divine aid, the Cardinal at once arose, and hastening to the spot, found there, lying upon a form, a South of about twenty years of age, who, having been dangerously wounded by a bayonet thrust, had just taken refuge in the sacred building. The Cardinal had scarcely reached the sufferer, when three armed men rushed in, with the wicked intention of completing their deed of blood. But nowise dismayed by their naked weapons, and their looks of deadly hate, Mastai boldly confronted the assassins, and presenting his pectoral cross, described to them the enormity of their crime, and commanded them to retire. His words, so full of courage, and uttered as with the authority of one commissioned by Heaven, struck terror into their breasts, and were silently and almost unconsciously obeyed. How silly ! How puerile ! Yet this is the sort of style that is delighted in by saint wor• shippers and preservers of relics. Here are anecdotes of the true conventual pattern. They are just the sort fit for reading aloud amongst " novices :" Several anecdotes are told of the Pope's gentleness and familiarity with children. Amongst others, the following is not the least characteristic. One day a little fellow, all in tears, attempted to make his way through the ranks of the Swiss guards, to present a petition. The Pope, hearing the noise, inquired as to its cause, and sent for the peti- tion. it was in these words :—" Most Holy Father, my mother is old and infirm. lam too young to support her life and mine. Oar landlord, a bad man, will turn us out to-morrow if we don't pay him the four scudi we owe him. Deign to lend them. I will pay you when lam bigger." " What is your name, my good child, and how old are you?" asked the Pope. "I am Paul ; and I am ten years old.' ' "What trade is your father ?" " He's waiting in Paradise for us these ten years," answered the little fellow, with an accent of touching emotion. "And your mother?" in put-NI the Pope. " She embroiders and prays from morn ing to night." Having asked the child where he lived. and been told, the Pope desired him to come on the nex: day. and that he would give him what his mother wanted. In the meantime inquiries were made, which proved that the statement of the child was correct : and when he came again, the Pope gave him ten scudi. " I did not ask you for ten," said the little fellow, and he gave hack six. " Take them again, my good child," said the Pope, " and tell your mother I will look after her for the future." Then the firmness of Pius IX. is thus pane gyrised. Again the italiits are our own : In moments of the greatest danger he has displayed a calmness and a presence of mind that are not always associated with the more vulgar quality of mere physical bravery. Mild and gentle as he is by nature, there is no danger which he would not face, when called upon by a consciousness of duty to do so. Remember how boldly he braved, and how effectually he awed, the furious assns• sins in the sacristy of the Cathedral of Imola. Also, how, amidst the horrors of the fearful 16th of November, ISIB, he maintained his position with unshrinking courage, declaring that "he would yield nothing to violence." If, at length, he did affect to yield, it was to save his faithful guards and prrsonal attendants from being butchered, and the streets of his capital from being deluge' with innocent blood. Again, during his flight, he exhibited a coolness and a courage which those Interested in his safety could with difficulty emulate. And bravely, too, on another critical occasion, but one of a far different kind, did his nerves withstand a shock that made many a stunt heart tremble at the time. This was on the Nth of April, IPO S , when the flooring of a hall in the Monastery of St. Agnes gave way beneath the unaccustomed weight of some hundred and fifty persons ; and Pope, cardinals, prelates, generals, soldiers, monks, and students, were whirled through the yawning ruin, amidst falling beams, fragments of masonry, and clouds of dust. Not a few were hurt, some more or 572