cipline of the great Council of Trent
had lately been promulgated. There for twenty years past had laboured
our own dear saint, St. Philip, till he earned the title of Apostle of
Rome, and yet had still nearly thirty years of life and work in him.
There, too, the romantic royal-minded saint, Ignatius Loyola, had but
lately died. And there, when the Holy See fell vacant, and a Pope had to
be appointed in the great need of the Church, a saint was present in the
conclave to find in it a brother saint, and to recommend him for the
Chair of St. Peter, to the suffrages of the Fathers and Princes of the
Church.

7.

St Carlo Borromeo,[69] the Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, was the nephew
of the Pope who was just dead, and though he was only twenty-five years
of age at the time, nevertheless, by the various influences arising out
of the position which he held, and from the weight attached to his
personal character, he might be considered to sway the votes of the
College of Cardinals, and to determine the election of a new Pontiff. It
is remarkable that Cardinal Alessandrino, as St. Pius was then called,
(from Alexandria, in North Italy, near which he was born,) was not the
first object of his choice. His eyes were first turned on Cardinal
Morone, who was in many respects the most illustrious of the Sacred
College, and had served the Church on various occasions with great
devotion, and with distinguished success. From his youth he had been
reared up in public affairs, he had held many public offices, he had
great influence with the German Emperor, he had been Apostolical Legate
at the Council of Trent. He had great virtue, judgment, experience, and
sagacity. Such, then, was the choice of St. Carlo, and the votes were
taken; but it seemed otherwise to the Holy Ghost. He wanted four to
make up the sufficient number of votes. St. Carlo had to begin again;
and again, strange to say, the Cardinal Alessandrino still was not his
choice. He chose Cardinal Sirleto, a man most opposite in character and
history to Morone. He was not nobly born, he was no man of the world, he
had ever been urgent with the late Pope not to make him Cardinal. He was
a first-rate scholar in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin; versed in the
Scriptures, ready as a theologian. Moreover, he was of a character most
unblemished, of most innocent life, and of manners most popular and
winning. St. Pius as well as St. Carlo advocated the cause of Cardinal
Sirleto, and the vot