h it is our
duty and mission to preach to the whole world, as the only scheme of
covenant between God and man, the only pledge of that heavenly
benediction by which states subsist and nations flourish."

Now, it is worthy of note that neither this constitution nor any of the
acts of Pius under it was ever complained of by any party among the
Pope's subjects except in regard to these ecclesiastical reservations
which were forced from him by the very nature of the office that he
held. The constitutionalists, indeed the moderate reformers, the party
of Balbo and Gioberti and D'Azeglio, which comprised most of the
educated and reflecting persons in the State, seem to have been entirely
satisfied with it as a whole, or as it was. So also were the unthinking
populace, who received it with shouts of exultation, so long as they
were not moved by the arts of a party who would not be satisfied with
having a good pope, but were bent upon having no pope at all. This was
the party of Mazzini, the revolutionists as distinguished from the
reformers--not strong at first either in numbers or credit, as we have
seen, but who made up for all deficiencies by their zeal and
activity--who were determined to establish a republic, and who cared
nothing for the embarrassments of the Pope's situation as head of the
Church, of indeed for the Church itself. They complained--and with
reason, too, upon their principles--of these ecclesiastical
reservations; and they made out of them their chief weapon of attack
upon the Pope's government, though they did not profit so much by the
use of it as by the evident unwillingness of Pius to rush into a war
with Austria for the purpose of giving the sovereignty of Lombardy to
Charles Albert, a measure to which he was averse, because he thought
such a conflict would be detrimental to the interests of the Church over
which he presided.

The world's future judgment of Pius will depend upon its belief of the
sincerity with which he acted in thus allowing nothing but his religious
duties and his position as the head of the Church to limit his
concessions of political privileges to his subjects. On this point, it
is well to hear the opinion of Farini, who, as one of the Mamiani
Ministry and as employed to mediate between them and the Pope, because
much loved and trusted by him, seems peculiarly qualified to form one
without undue bias on either side:

"Pius IX had applied himself to political reform, not so much