of the three was, by force of circumstances, turned to the direction
which he was ultimately to follow. Lincoln was thrown upon facts for his
education; Gladstone received the existing form of education in its
highest development, while the Pope was brought up under the domination
of spiritual thoughts at a time when they had but lately survived the
French Revolution. Born during the height of the conflict between belief
and unbelief, Leo the Thirteenth, by a significant fatality, was raised
to the pontificate when the Kultur Kampf was raging and the attention of
the world was riveted on the deadly struggle between the Roman Catholic
Church and Prince Bismarck--a struggle in which the great chancellor
found his equal, if not his master.

The Pope spent his childhood in the simple surroundings of Carpineto,
than which none could be simpler, as everyone knows who has ever visited
an Italian country gentleman in his home. Early hours, constant
exercise, plain food and farm interests made a strong man of him, with
plenty of simple common sense. As a boy he was a great walker and
climber, and it is said that he was excessively fond of birding, the
only form of sport afforded by that part of Italy, and practised there
in those times, as it is now, not only with guns, but by means of nets.
It has often been said that poets and lovers of freedom come more
frequently from the mountains and the seashore than from a flat inland
region. Leo the Thirteenth ranks high among the scholarly poets of our
day, and is certainly conspicuous for the liberality of his views. As
long as he was in Perugia, it is well known that he received the
officers of the Italian garrison and any government officials of rank
who chanced to be present in the city, not merely now and then, or in a
formal way, but constantly and with a cordiality which showed how much
he appreciated their conversation. It may be doubted whether in our
country an acknowledged leader of a political minority would either
choose or dare to associate openly with persons having an official
capacity on the other side.

But the stiff mannerism of the patriarchal system which survived until
recently from the early Roman times gave him that formal tone and
authoritative manner which are so characteristic of his conversation in
private. His deliberate but unhesitating speech makes one think of
Goethe's 'without haste, without rest.' Yet his formality is not of the
slow and circumlocut