The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-06-10
The Personality Of the Former
and the Position of the
Latter.
Strong Articles in the Review of
Reviews by Two Noted
Journalists.
The Supreme Pontif in His Eighty First
Year-His Conception of a'Church
Universal.

The June number of the Review of Re
views, the new periodical to which Mr.. W.
7. Stead has given a wide circulation, re-
cords some impressions of Leo XIII, which,
taken together, enable the reader to form
an accurate conception of a deeply inter
esting personality. We have fist a pen ,
portrait of the pope, made by an Italian
journalist. who is, We understand, the ed
itor of the well-known organ of the vatican,
the Moniteur dc Rome. The second sketch
is an outcome of the visit made by Mr..
Stead to Rome for the special purpose of a
study of the actual position and prospects
of the papacy.
Singularly vivid is the Roman Journalists
account of the face, figure, voice and
bearing of the holy father. We should
premise that Leo XIII. has just entered
his elghty-first year and the four
teerth of his pontiicate. the length
of his reign having already greatly ex-
ceeded the average occupancy of the Papal
chair. Ihsre seems to be nj reason. how
ever, why he should not live as long as Won
Moltke, for his also is one of those nervous
tempsraments that bend but do not break.
At the first glance, indeed, he gives the inn-
preston of s%enility. His thin and angular
features, his alabaster complexion, the con-
vulsive trembling of his hands that can no
longer grasp a PEN, his bowed form, and
the almost diaphanous aspect of his whole
figure, seem to mark him as man upon the
threshold of extreme old age. His ~leanness
is phenomenal; it is, to be sure, a leanness
derived from twenty years of fasting and
privation, and which gives him an almost
Jncnrnnrna1 pEraaf r~a ..;.Ix --
the New York Sun, looking at his body, that
1T is but a passing shadow: yet perhaps few
have more justified the distfust
which Caesar expressed of lean
mon on the ground that thew have
often in them an intensity OF life and IL
frmness of character seldom TO be found
among the corpIlent. Whom he speaks and
becomes animated, the expression of cor
pSr"sl weakness vanishes, and one feels
thtN there is still beneath the fragile enye-
lope q powerful Vitality. and that the blade
IL infinitely stronger than the sheath that
covers it. His voice, especially when raised
IN public, has kept its ring, and his ewes
have lost none of their FIRE. 1t is said that
no enc who mas seen the eyes of Leo Nil.
can forget them. Their brilliancy has been
compared to that of carbuncles or black
diamonds; they give an extraordinary vi
vaclty to his expression, and there is some
thing inexpressibly piercing in their gaze.
1t is certain that he possesses an as.onish-
ing power of resistance to the
inroads of disease and decay. 1t seems,
indeed, that longevity is hereditary in tine
Pecci family. DR.. Coccarelli, the pope's
physician, said a short time ago: 80 solid
is the constitution of the pope that he could
very we'll live ten years longer if he does
not catch any malignant Malay" In spite
of his eighty-one years he does not evince
asingls symptom of intellectual decreni-