ill be forever
impossible for a government organized on the principles of the Papal
temporal power to be other than that which has been suppressed by
Italy. To the majority of the higher Italian ecclesiastics, the church
has become merely a political instrument, into the management of which
the spiritual interests of the people do not enter, and the efforts of
the Catholics of other countries to bring about a reform will never
succeed while the power is in the hands of the Italian clergy, which
it will be as long as the Papacy is an Italian institution; and as the
Pope is Pope merely because he is the Bishop of Rome, it is difficult
to see how the situation can be made different.

Pius IX. was personally a most sincere and devout, though worldly,
man, and it is difficult to believe that any other than a devotee
could now be elected to the Holy See, for even the most corrupt civil
or ecclesiastical intellect must see the importance of a reputation
for sanctity in the Pontiff, while, as the influence of the Papacy is
no longer of vital importance to the government of any country in the
world (though doubtless of considerable utility to several), there is
little political importance in the personality of the Pontiff, and
slight motive for foreign governments to exercise influence on the
election. If removed from Italy and established in a seat surrounded
by a population like that of the masses in France (out of Paris and
the large cities), amenable to purely spiritual influences, the church
would revert to its normal functions and abandon politics,--a result
never to be hoped for while it remains Italian. I have no sympathy
with its creed, or any other of the creeds, for I conceive no
healthy conformity of belief possible to men and women differing in
intellectual and spiritual capacities; but I have seen good work done
by the Catholic church in many quarters, and I have many and admirable
Catholic friends, and, to be frank, I do not believe that the creed
makes much difference in the religion.

As to Pius IX., I am convinced that he was not only a devout man, but
an excellent and admirable man, as men go, a genuine believer in the
divine direction of his pontificate, and incapacitated for civil
government simply because no one could carry on a civil government on
ecclesiastical principles. He loved his people, and, personally and
generally, was beloved by them; but the progress of liberalism and
democracy had driven out