lf thus striving after the higher light?

The Pope's fancy conjures up the vision of that coming time. He sees the
motley pageant of the Age of Reason pushing the churchly "masque" aside,
impatient of the slowly-trailing garments, in which he, the last actor
in it, is passing off the scene. He beholds the trials of that
transition stage; the many whose crumbling faith will land them on the
lower platform of the material life; the few, who from habit, will
preserve the Christian level; the fewer still, who, like Pompilia, will
do so in the inspired conviction of the truth. He sees two men, or
rather types of men, both priests, frankly making the new experiment,
and adopting nature as their law. Under her guidance, one, like
Caponsacchi acts, in the main, well; the other, like Guido Franceschini,
wallows in every crime.... The "first effects" of the "new cause" are
apparent in those murdering five, and in their victims.

But the old law is not yet extinct. He (the Church) still occupies the
stage, though his departure be close at hand: so, in a last act of
allegiance to Him who placed him there, he _smites with his whole
strength once more_,

"Ending, so far as man may, this offence." (vol. x. p. 141.)

Yet again his arm is stayed. Voices, whether of friend or foe, are
sounding in his ear. They reiterate the sophistries which have been
enlisted in the Count's defence: the credit of the Church, the
proprieties of the domestic hearth; the educated sense of honour which
is stronger than the moral law; the general relief which will greet the
act of mercy. The Pope listens. For one moment we may fancy that he
yields. "Pronounce then," the imaginary speakers have said. A swift
answer follows:

"I will, Sirs: but a voice other than your's
Quickens my spirit...." (vol. x. p. 146.)

and the death-warrant goes out.

A favourite theory of Mr. Browning's appears in this soliloquy, for the
first time since he stated it in "Sordello," and in a somewhat different
form: that of the inadequacy of words to convey the truth. The Pope
declares (p. 78) that we need

"Expect nor question nor reply
At what we figure as God's judgment-bar!
None of this vile way by the barren words
Which, more than any deed, characterize
Man as made subject to a curse."

and again (p. 79) that

"... these filthy rags of speech, this coil