restored to priests all the portfolios of the ministers.
He left a lay governor—a man worse
than any of the prelates—in one sole province,
in order to be able to say that laymen are eligible
to be governors of provinces . . . . . . . . He
has caused to be shot or beheaded about five
hundred men, almost all for political offences, a
number greater that is than all the governments
of Europe together,* have put to death in the
same time. He has so crowded the prisons
with political prisoners, that the Roman medical
college have on three different occasions had to
represent the imminent danger of pestilence
breaking out among them, on a scale to endanger
the entire city . . . . . He has paid many millions
to an Austrian army to hold Roman
provinces in subjection, and to accustom them to
the spectacle of the bastonade and the gallows.
He has published a law condemning the possessors
of political writings of an opposition
tendency to twenty years of the galleys . . . . . He
has sent into exile the whole of that national
assembly which (in 1849) was chosen by the
universal suffrage of the nation. He has
instituted courts which condemn in secret, without
notice given to the accused, by means of which
thousands of families have been reduced to
misery . . . . . He has declared exiles all who,
in travelling, should so much as touch
Piedmontese soil."

* The author adds a foot-note, to explain that,
although the arrests and imprisonments in Naples
were far more numerous, for absolute bloodshed, the Vicar of Christ is far ahead of any competitor.

The writer adds a number of other griefs,
some of which we omit because we have already
alluded to them, and many because English
readers would not readily understand the nature
of them without lengthy explanations. Surely
the bill of wrongs is long enough!

Let us pass on to the wrongs which mankind
in general, and the Ecclesiastical States in
particular, have to charge against the Pope in his
so-called spiritual capacity—those wrongs which
result, that is to say, from the assertion of his
spiritual pretensions. For the still more deadly
wrongs which are done to mankind by the
intrinsic nature of these pretensions belong to a
larger and deeper subject.

In the first place, it is by putting forward the
necessities of his spiritual position, and claims,
and duties, that the existence of this so
infamously exercised temporal power is defended
in the face of Europe. When it is urged that
the Bishop of Rome makes a very bad sovereign,
Rome, and her transalpine defenders in her
behalf, reply that in any case the sovereignty of
Rome's bishop is absolutely necessary to enable
him to perform efficiently his duties as supreme
head of the Catholic Church. "I cannot," the
Pope declares, "act as Bishop of the universal
Church to good purpose, unless I am king. If
I am not a monarch, I must be a subject; and
if I am a subject, my sovereign may prevent me
from acting in various circumstances in such a
manner as my universal cure of souls would
require of me." And this argument in favour
of the Pope's temporal power has been urged so
absolutely by his defenders, especially in France,
as to amount to maintaining that, even though
the Pope should govern his states badly, it is
necessary that he should have subjects for the
sake of the higher and wider interests of his
pontifical duties. The temporal interests of the
Pope's subjects must be made a sacrifice to the
spiritual interests of the Catholic world. So
strongly and avowedly has this ground been taken
by some defenders of the Papacy, that it has
been implied, if not said, "The Pope's subjects,
it must be admitted, are, to a certain degree,
victims to the spiritual necessities of the
Catholic world. Let us reduce the evil to a
minimum. The Pope must be a sovereign. But
let us make his sovereignty as small as may
be.

Now, before stating our own notions with
regard to the position thus taken up, we will give
the reply which is made to it by the parties most
interested, the Pope's subjects themselves. The
Italians in general are not good Catholics. The
most religious Catholics in Italy are to be found,
despite the quarrels and influences of statesmen,
in Piedmont. Savoy is more Catholic still. In
France, such portion of the population as is
Catholic at all is yet more earnest in its faith.
And the most truly religious Catholics in Europe
are probably to be found among ourselves.
Catholic devotion thrives in proportion to its
remoteness from the head-quarters of its Church.
The satire expressed in the old popular saying,
"The nearer to Church, the further from God,"
is entirely applicable to the religious influence
exercised by the Roman Pontiff. Thus, in the
Roman States men are, to say the truth, very
bad Catholics indeed. And the genuine answer
of their hearts to the above proposal of making
them victims to the religious welfare of Europe
(veil it under decorous euphonisms as they may)
is, that they wholly decline any such position,
however glorious; that, in fact, as compared
with their own national well-being, they care
not a rush for the necessities of the Pope's
spiritual office. However shocking, however
sad this may seem to truly religious Catholics,
however much even the Italians themselves
might object to the statement being made thus
crudely on their behalf, it may be believed that
it truly represents the feeling of the great majority
of the men of Central Italy. And if to many
a truly religious mind, such a spiritual condition
of a people as seems implied by the above
assertion appears deeply to be lamented, it may
be observed, in passing, that this is one of those
deeper wrongs, against humanity, for which
the Papacy is responsible; but which, want
of present space, as well as a consciousness
of the polemical nature of the subject, have
led us to exclude from consideration in this
article.

But the line of reply to the asserted necessity
of the Pope's temporal sovereignty, which
appears suggested by a consideration of the wrongs
done by him, would lead us to admit at once,