The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1895-09-27
Spiritual and the Temporal ROVER

ings born of earth's best blood, dow
cred with natures noblest gifts, plant
ed in creations fairest Eden, the race
of Cato and Caesar, of Raphael and
Angelo. of Dante and Columbus, are
today celebrating the twenty-fifth an
niversary of their freedom and indie
pendence as a nation. Twenty-Five
years ago the destinies of Italy hung
vibrating in the dread scales of eter-
nal providence. A nation so rich and
fair that its very beauty has been its
curse; visited annually by thousa nds
of Americans for health and recrea-
ton; nation whose very name
arouses all the poetry and enthusiasm
of human natur, a nation synony-
nous with sunshine, beauty, art and
song; a nation that has laid us under
incalculable obligations, for it gave us
the mariners compass and the teles-
cope, it discovered for us the new
world and taught us civil freedom
this nation has lain for centuries be-
meath the heel of the oppressor, dis
membered and cut in pieces ia order
to satisfy the rapacity of the spoiler.
But the genius of Cavour lifted up
the fallen land and gave peace to its
distracted members and made it Il new
nation. He ennObled it with three
great franchises, freedom to speak,
freedom to print, freedom to legislate.
At that time Italy, to use Lamartine's
scornful phrase, Was but ga geographic
cal expression" Now she IL free and
united people. At that time enslaved
from the Alps to the Sicilian sea; now
from the Sicilian sea to the Alps en-
tirely free. At that time splitup into
twenty different states with as many
different systems of administration
and codes of law. Now one constitu-
ton, one monarch, one parliament,
one civil and political legislation. At
that time gripped like. some poor, de-
fenseless sheep by the VOLTS fang of
Austria in the north, and by the vel
vet but bloody paw of France in the
center; now the cOurted ally, on equal
terms, of her spoilers. After lis long
immurement in the house of bondage
it has extended its cramped and stiff
fened limbs, adapted its vision to the
unaccustomed light and expanded its
lungs to the purer air, and its history
for twenty-five years has been one of
steady progress.
When the unity of Italy was sealed,
Venice and Rome fell into her lap and
the tri-colored flag foated over the
city of the doges and of the poEtiffs.
There was more involved, however, in
the annexation of Rome than simply
the word Estate" The annexation of
Rome meant the fall of the temporal
power of the pope. 1t sometimes hap
pens on these shores where the sea is
ever gaining upon the land, some soli
tarv rock is left out in the water TO
mark the place where the old coast
| oil hn Cd nf hn
surging tide the shore crumbles,
houses and villages and plains disap-
pear, harbors and ports are choked up
with mud and sand, geography has to
retrace her charts, and yet there still
stands the solitary rock defiant of
change and time. sole witness to the
forgotten past. And yet all the while
the devouring element is gnawing at
its base, eating cut great caverns in
which the mighty sea creatures live
until at last on some fine morning the
dWellers on the shore look out, and 10
the rock is no longer there. 1t has
gone down, flashing for moment the
waters into II foam, and then they
subside over it and its place Is no lon.
ger seen. Such rock was the tempo.
raj power of the pope. The advancing
tide of life and thought had moved on
and on, ever pushing forward the
boundary linesof humanity, changing
customs, changing laws, changing in
situations; but in its remorseess. ir
reslstible march, one thing only seem
ed to keep its place, to stand where il
had stood for centuries, defiant of the
mighty progress, as though left there
to measure the distance between the
past and the present, and that was
the temporal power of the pope. Ye,
all the while the tide of new life that
washed around 1t was sapping it,
foundations until when the time wa,
ripe the monstIbus anachr,nl.m Oh
lapsed and disappeared and that rock
will not reappear again above tine
waters. 1t is no temporary storm
wave that has hidden it from our S.ea
Its foundations have been DESTROYED
it has gone down, and that mighty
ocean of the past where lies the world
that was, has buried it.-Ledger.
], The Worlds Fair Tests
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