The Sun.
London, England, 1867-04-06 00:00:00

soldiers of France, while defending the present should be mismanaged, or be in any way unlawfully
Government by their bayonets, have made the employed, the Secretary of War, through whom or-
people familiar with the idea of a better. Nor can ders go, has it in his power to obstruct and hinder
the legions of English and American travellers pass the President's action, and therefore is justly to be
and repass continually without an influence, held answerable if he does not do so. Diplomatic
however little they seek to exert it, for their very correspondence being all in the name of the Secre-
presence tells constantly of a higher and happier tary of State, the whole tone and course of it is now
civilisation. All this makes the question of Ponti- under his absolute control, and blunders therein can-
fical Government a very different one from what it not be charged upon the President. For anything
was in the middle ages, when wretchedness was the that may be done hereafter, since the passage of
common portion of all mankind, with the exception the bill regulating the tenure of office, the PreSident
of the few who claimed a divine right to rule. The cannot fairly and justly be impeached, unless some
solution may take the world as much by surprise as one or all of the Cabinet Ministers be impeached
the events which secured in 1860 the freedom of with him. Whether this divided responsibility will
the rest of Italy. If any general war should occupy work as well as our old-fashioned method of giving
the attention of the chief Catholic powers, I for undivided power to and imposing undivided respon-
one shall look to see Enceladus shake the last weight sibility upon one administering head is to be seen.
from his breast. In the experience of this State and of this city it has

worked very ill. Since the Constitution of 184 G the
governor of this State has been limited to the duty
of writing mess&ges, signing or vetoing bills, ad-
ministering apardou-bureau, and occasionally trying
a sheriff or street commissioner, His control over
the finances of the State is limited to approving the
monthly claims of his two or three clerks and aides-
de-camp for wages. His power to see that the law
are faithfully executed is limited to the right t 0
request the Attorney-General or a district attorney
to attend to any prosecution of importance, which
request the law officer may comply with or not as
may suit his own notions. The division of re-
sponsibility in this city has brought us to a condi-
tion in which official wrong-doin g is without remedy.
The manly and direct course under our Constitu-
tion was, if the President had proved himself unfit
to be trusted with power, to impeach and remove
him. Congress has chosen the more crooked way of
seeking a remedy not contemplated by our Constitu-
tion, divesting the President of powers necessary to
good administration, and divesting him thereby also
of responsibility. They have tried, by making the
Cabinet independent of the President, to introduce
here the so-called responsible government of Eng-
land. They have failed to do so because, although
the Cabinet Ministers are no longer under the con-
trol of the President, they are equally beyond the
control of Congress. While the President cannot
remove them, so also Congress has no power to put
them out of office, except by the slow process of
impeachment. Practically the members of the
Cabinet are now not responsible to any one. Does
it not look as if we were, blindly perhaps as yet,
reaching after some new form of government.—The
Round Table.

I have entered somewhat more largely into
politics than I intended, but it is because I have
just been where such thoughts were forced upon
me. To-day being the festival of the Annunciation
High Mass was celebrated in the Church of Santa
Maria Sopra Minerva, near the Pantheon, in pre-
sence of the Pope himself. The square was packed
with people awaiting the arrival of the procession,
and within the church a dense crowd of spectators
pressed close up to the cordon of bayonets. The
arrival of the procession was announced by loud
cheers, and soon after the Pontiff was borne in, in
the usual state of red liveries and peacock's feathers,
and wearing the triple crown. Only a very small
portion of the crowd kneeled as he passed. Most
even of Italians contented themselves with bending
the head, and making the sign of the cross ; and
Protestant fereigners, it is needless to say, did
not feel bound to do either. There was some
very good singing. From the lower end of
the church some figures could be seen bowing before
the altar, and the smoke of incense rising. At the
upper end one could see various officials in a corner
of the stage, kneeling sometimes and watching
attentively for their turn to sing. The view of all
else was cut off by a high fence. The gorgeous
Swiss Guard chatted with the women, stopping to
kneel a moment on the occasion of what I presumed
to be the elevation of the host. Very few of those
around took the same trouble. What religious
advantage people are expected to gain from words
which they can none of them understand, and from
symbolic acts which not a tenth-part of them can
see, passes any Protestant comprehension. I never
saw less solemnity in any service it has been my
fortune to attend. Persons of every grade were
passing in and out in constant succession,
some kneeling for five seconds and some for
as many minutes. After a service of about
an hour, and the distribution of dowries
to the beneficiaries of the Society of the
Annueziata, the Pope was carried out as he had
been brought in, receiving as few outward testi-
monials of reverence. Italians could be seen
mounted on chairs to get a view of the display as
he passed. The windows of the American College
next the church, and of another building opposite,
were full of people all armed with handkerchiefs
and flowers, and when the Pope entered his car-
riage they did their best at cheering, but they had
the demonstration entirely to themselves. The
cheers came from one direction. I could not detect
in the crowd which filled the square a single move-
ment beyond that of curiosity. The pardinals,
attended by ecclesiastics with rapiers under their
frocks, entered their splendid carriages which drove
off one by one, the people scattered, and soon no-
thing remained but the usual residue of beggars.
It was this scene which set me to writing in the
present vein. The flashing of bayonets and clank-
ing of swords amid what is termed Christian wor-
ship, and the protrusion of rapiers under priestly
robes, have a religious bearing which the correspon-
dent of a secular journal might not be thanked for
discussing. But they have also a political signifi-
cance, showing as they do that ecclesiastical autho-
rity has here so far declined as to depend on force
for that supremacy which was once inspired by its
very name. This is itself the beginning of a revo-
lution. The contrast, the splendid equipages, with
the poverty• smitten crowds through which they
drove, has also its political significance, showing the
need that exists for a new state of things--a need
' which comes home more closely to the masses of
any people than any theoretical demand, and to
which they cannot always remain blind; while the
apathy of the crowd on the one hand, and on the
' other the manufactured enthusiasm, prove that the
people already feel the need, and that their rulers
are well aware of their feelings.