it happened that the Roman Pontiff, whom Christ had constituted the head and centre of his whole Church, acquired a civil Princedom.' By all of us therefore it is to be held as most certain that this temporal rule did not fortuitously accrue to the Holy See, but by a special disposition of God was assigned to it, and during a long series of years confirmed and preserved to it, with the unanimous consent of all kingdoms and empires, and almost by a miracle." This address may be looked on as coming from the whole Episcopate-morally speaking-if we take into account the number of those who signed it at Rome and of those who gave their adhesion to it at a distance. It may also be considered as expressing the sentiments of the Pope, who fully accepted and approved it. I subjoin a proposition set down in the Syllabus for reprobation-n. 76. "The abrogation of the civil empire which the Apostolic See enjoys would be in the highest degree conducive to the liberty and felicity of the Church."

The summary of the doctrine laid down in these passages is that the temporal power was established and maintained by God through a special Providence, that it has been beneficial, that it was necessary for the well-being of the Church, that its beneficial character and its necessity continue in the present time, and in the present circumstances of human society and of the Church. I emphasise this element of the doctrine to meet the subterfuge, or at least mistaken opinion, of those who pretend that the temporal power, though perhaps formerly useful, or even necessary, has ceased to be so. It is cheap for the enemies of any institution to admit a past utility, and fall back on the altered condition of the times. There are Protestants not unwilling to allow that the spiritual authority of the Pope did good in its day. No doubt, there are differences between periods that render some changes in legislation and observances advisable; but human nature remains the same; the substantial character and chief features of human society remain the same; and it is upon these that the utility and necessity of the Pope's temporal power depend. Even if it were imaginable that the world had become so altered as to put an end to that utility and necessity, the decision of the question whether this was really so or not would not rest with every pretentious thinker and talker, but with those whose business it is to understand and pronounce on such questions, namely, the pastors of the Church; and we see what they hold and proclaim, not only as to the past, but as to the present.

What, we may next inquire, is the nature and the degree of the necessity so plainly recognised and asserted by the Pontiff and the bishops? The end for which the temporal power is needed is the Pope's liberty and independence, his freedom from secular control, the opportunity likewise of possessing and working, without interruption or disturbance, the machinery of ecclesiastical government; and his enjoyment of competent revenues for the due maintenance of his position, as well as for the expenses incidental to his office, the expenses, namely, required to carry on the machinery of which I have just spoken. All this is comprised in those few words of Pius IX.,

"that it (the Holy See) may be able to exercise its sacred power without any impediment."

The degree of this necessity is a point somewhat more obscure, and on which I am unwilling to pronounce a decided opinion. In the first place, it is sufficiently obvious that the temporal power is not essential to the existence of the Church nor to the indispensable action of the Vicar of Christ, It is more obvious still that the Almighty could make the Church flourish more without the temporal power than she has ever flourished with it; but this would be in some sort changing the present order of Providence, and our whole question is about what is required in that order, and supposing the world to go on in other respects as it does and has done.

Coming then closer to the point; as things stand on this earth, the temporal power is needed for a certain measure or degree of well-being of the Church, which measure will not be attained without it. Is this measure a minimum due to the Church in virtue of the Divine promises, so that they would not be sufficiently fulfilled by anything short of it? We are speaking of the Church in its full maturity, in that normal condition which it did not reach for centuries after its first foundation. We are speaking, too, of a permanent state, not of passing trials, temporary interruptions. Is this measure of well-being, I repeat, which cannot be had without the temporal power, a minimum due to the Church in virtue of the promises made to her by Christ? My reply to the query is, that, in my judgment, no one is bound to admit such to be the case. It may or may not be the case; I cannot see that it is. On theological grounds, I would not say the restoration of the temporal power is certain, as it would be if we knew that it was necessary for the minimum of the Church's guaranteed well-being. I am, however, myself persuaded, as I said in the last preceding paper, that either Pius IX. or some of his successors will recover the States. The civil dominion of the Pope is necessary for a degree of well-being, whereof I do not believe that God will allow the Church to continue deprived. This civil dominion, resulting as it did from a special Providence, and similarly maintained for ages, appears to enter so much into the plan of God regarding his Church that He is not likely to let it finally fail.

Some think, perhaps, that the plan is being varied. But I can see no good ground for such an opinion. This ground is not discoverable in any change which human society has undergone; for no change of the sort can be assigned; and, besides, as we have seen, the Pope and the Bishops say that the temporal power is necessary now. This ground, again, is not discoverable in the actual present cessation of the Pope's political sovereignty; because the same thing has happened before, and because we can easily conceive in general terms that the fortunes of the so-called Italian kingdom may undergo a total change, though we do not see precisely how this is likely to come about. Changes as unforeseen up to near the time of their occurrence have happened in all times and very specially in our own, and have, on the other hand, fallen far less to the lot of the Popes, in an unfavour

sense, than of other sovereigns. I will add a view of mine, which is not perhaps worth very much, as I neither am nor pretend to be well versed in politics. The kingdom of Italy seems to me unstable and artificial. It does not appear solidly founded, nor on the way to being so. It is imperfectly put together, poorly governed, heavily taxed, with a people decidedly less happy than they had been before. I will say a little more of this last point further on.

It may be that God will permit the Popes to remain deprived of temporal power, though, I am very far from expecting this. I am, as I have said, persuaded of the contrary. But if the foreboders of such a future mean to insinuate that God may positively will and approve the Pope's permanent loss of his states, the notion is quite inadmissible and not to be listened to for a moment. God may and does permit robberies, and murders, and sacrileges; but He does not wish them nor sanction them. He permits sovereigns to be unjustly despoiled of their kingdoms, and private individuals to be robbed of their property, but He is not an assenting party to these outrages. He does not desire his Church to be hampered and straitened, though He may tolerate it for a longer or shorter time. Of course if the Almighty were even to permit the final cessation of the temporal power, we should suppose some end or motive of the permission, some end worthy of the Divine Wisdom, though we might not be able to ascertain definitely what that end was. But assuredly it could not be the well-being of the Church as such. We know, for instance, that God allows vice, and even heresy, to dominate extensively in some countries, that in others He lets idolatry prevail, and all this for wise ends, among which, however, is not the welfare of those countries. Whilst this wickedness of men is permitted to go on, God calls them by his grace to change their ways, and inspires his ministers to labour for their conversion. So, if He permitted the States of the Church to continue permanently in other hands, He would undoubtedly will, though inefficaciously, the restoration of the Pontiff's sovereignty. It would still continue to be a good, virtuous, pious act to endow the Church with temporal power. For if it was so before it would still be so, the circumstances being substantially the same. That they are now substantially the same we have on the authority of the Pope and of the Bishops; that they would continue substantially the same as they are now is the supposition I make; for if God were to bring about a different state of things, the case, as I have sufficiently explained, would not be the one we are speaking of.

Under my fourth question, I have been considering the existence and degree of the necessity of the Pope's temporal power, having regard almost entirely to the authority on which the doctrine on the subject rests, the authority of the Pope and the Bishops. But the declarations proceeding from this authority suppose reasons which indeed are partially indicated in the passages cited. Reasons there must be, and reasons present to the minds of those pastors who have proclaimed the doctrine; for the doctrine in itself has not been revealed. There are reasons sufficient and satisfactory to show the

necessity of the temporal power, so far as it is asserted. Yet those Catholics who have never considered the arguments or do not realise their force are not at liberty to reject the doctrine so emphatically propounded by the pastors of the Church.

My fifth question, then, regards these reasons or grounds. Why, I ask, is the Pope's temporal power necessary? A fully developed answer to this inquiry would exceed my limits. But I will reply, as I conceive, sufficiently and substantially, first in general terms, then somewhat more in detail. The Church of Christ, in the more comprehensive sense of the phrase, is a vast, organized, independent society instituted for spiritual and religious ends, with laws and a legislative power of its own, with authorised magistrates, and officers, and tribunals, and temporal rights too from God as to the possession and acquisition of worldly goods, and, in fact, with worldly goods necessary or useful for its maintenance and administration. This society is spread over the earth, and divided into many sections, partly, though not necessarily, corresponding with the natural and with the civil divisions of countries, but still one society. Of this entire society the Roman Pontiff is the supreme Head on earth, having and exercising jurisdiction over all parts of the Church. His power is of Divine institution; he is in the strictest sense by Divine right Ruler of the Church. All Catholics recognise his sovereign authority in faith, morals, and discipline. He can and does make laws for the whole body; he enacts, repeals and modifies ecclesiastical statutes, whether general or local; he grants dispensations even where no one else can; he confers, withdraws, restricts spiritual jurisdiction throughout the world. He is the supreme judge, not only of controversies concerning faith and morals, but also of ecclesiastical causes, which come before him either in the first instance or by way of appeal. The whole of this intervention is based on Divine right, and is, at the same time, actual and practical in the highest degree.

This is a general view of the Pope's office and position and functions in the Church. He must be either a sovereign or a subject of some secular prince. He might no doubt be nominally exempt, nominally not a subject, but a permanent guest of the sovereign in whose territory he lived, and this very word "guest" is used by the bishops in the passage I have cited from the Address of 1862, to designate one of the things they deprecate. Even so, he would be practically a subject, in the power of the temporal sovereign, dependent on the same sovereign for whatever immunity was allowed him. He would be, in one word, a subject, as the early Popes were subjects of the Roman emperors. Suppose Rome actually ruled over by King Victor Emmanuel II., as unfortunately it is at this moment. Set aside the violent state of things which prevails there just now. Suppose the Pope legitimately a subject of the Italian monarch. Suppose him treated honestly, treated kindly, he is still a subject civilly of Victor Emmanuel. He is, at the same time, Head of the Church, with those attributes which I have described above. Without going further, there is a manifest

incongruity in this combination. The condition of a subject of one particular king does not consort well with that of Spiritual Ruler of the vast body of Christians who are subjects of the Pontiff, and with whom he has to deal as such. The incongruity, the unfitness of the thing, becomes more obvious if we consider some of the details, as I propose to do.

one.

WINGED WORDS.

XIV.

1. A thoroughly unselfish spirit is always a happy and a bright It is self-love wounded, or vexed, or disappointed, that causes the greatest amount of misery and melancholy in the world; if we could kill this aching nerve, the chill blasts of life would lose their power to give us pain.-Dr. Grant, Bishop of Southwark.

2. The Gospel, while it proclaims a reward to those who give up the endearments of home, has certainly not depreciated, but highly exalted, the ties of natural affection; and, if we knew more of the souls of men, we might find that those saints who have quitted their homes for the service of God, are precisely those whom God has rewarded by greater measures of his grace for their self-denying love in the bosom of their families.—Puseyite life of St. Richard.

3. I will and I won't do not dwell in this house.-St. Ignatius. 4. Vague, injurious reports are no men's lies, but all men's carelessness. Anon.

5. Praise makes a wise man modest, a fool arrogant.—Anon.

6. When you have anything to say, say it; when you have nothing to say, say it.-Anon.

7. Always be doing something, but let that something be something, and not an idle loss of time upon nothing.-Dodd.

8. There are truths which some men despise because they have not examined, and which they will not examine because they despise.-Anon.

9. No man is ever written down except by himself.-Bentley.

10. It is a part of probability that many improbable things will happen.-Agathon.

11. Public gossip is sometimes the best security for the due completion of private arrangements.-Edward Lord Lytton.

12. Too much reading and too little meditation produce the effect of a lamp inverted, which is extinguished by an excess of the element that is meant to feed it.-Anon.

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13. Quarrelling is the most foolish thing a man can do-especially with his own relations.-Anthony Trollope.