for the
reason that his conscience as an honorable man and a most pious
sovereign enjoined it, as because his high view of the papal office
prompted him to employ the temporal power for the benefit of his
spiritual authority. A meek man and a benevolent prince, Pius IX was, as
a pontiff, lofty even to sternness. With a soul not only devout, but
mystical, he referred everything to God, and respected and venerated his
own person as standing in God's place. He thought it his duty to guard
with jealousy the temporal sovereignty of the Church, because he thought
it essential to the safe-keeping and the apostleship of the faith.

"Aware of the numerous vices of that temporal government, and hostile to
all vice and all its agents, he had sought, on mounting the throne, to
effect those reforms which justice, public opinion, and the times
required. He hoped to give lustre to the papacy by their means, and so
to extend and to consolidate the faith. He hoped to acquire for the
clergy that credit, which is a great part of the decorum of religion and
an efficient cause of reverence and devotion in the people. His first
efforts were successful in such a degree that no pontiff ever got
greater praise.

"By this he was greatly stimulated and encouraged, and perhaps he gave in
to the seduction of applause and the temptations of popularity more than
is fitting for a man of decision or for a prudent prince. But when,
after a little, Europe was shaken by universal revolution, the work he
had commenced was, in his view, marred; he then retired within himself
and took alarm.

"In his heart, the pontiff always came before the prince, the priest
before the citizen; in the secret struggles of his mind, pontifical and
priestly conference always outweighed the conscience of the prince and
citizen. And as his conscience was a very timid one, it followed that
his inward conflicts were frequent; that hesitation was a matter of
course, and that he often took resolutions even about temporal affairs,
more from religious intuition or impulse than from his judgment as a
man. Added to this, his health was weak and susceptible of nervous
excitement--the dregs of his old complaint. From this he suffered most
when his mind was most troubled and uneasy; another cause of wavering
and changefulness.

"Under the pressure of the extraordinary occurrences throughout Europe
early in the spring of 1848, the Pope's new Ministry under the
constitution proceeded