the prelates. Municipal reforms were promised.
In general the old defects continued, and the old discontent was not
conciliated.

It is manifest that Constitutionalism, as it is ordinarily understood,
is not a system which can be applied to the States of the Church. It
could not be tolerated that a warlike faction, by refusing supplies,
should compel the Pope to go to war with a Christian nation, as they
sought to compel him to declare war against Austria in 1848. His
sovereignty must be real, not merely nominal. It makes no difference
whether he is in the power of a foreign State or of a parliamentary
majority. But real sovereignty is compatible with a participation of the
people in legislation, the autonomy of corporations, a moderate freedom
of the press, and the separation of religion and police.

Recent events would induce one to suppose that the enormous power of the
press and of public opinion, which it forms and reflects, is not
understood in Rome. In 1856 the Inquisitor at Ancona issued an edict,
threatening with the heaviest censures all who should omit to denounce
the religious or ecclesiastical faults of their neighbours, relatives,
or superiors; and in defiance of the general indignation, and of the
despondency of those who, for the sake of religion, desired reforms in
the States of the Church, the _Civilta Cattolica_ declared that the
Inquisitor had done his duty. Such cases as this, and those of Achilli
and Mortara, weighed more heavily in the scale in which the Roman State
is weighed than a lost battle. Without discussing the cases themselves,
it is clear what their influence has been on public opinion, with which
it is more important at the present day to treat than with the
governments which depend on it. This branch of diplomacy has been
unfortunately neglected, and hence the Roman Government cannot rely on
lay support.

After describing the evils and disorders of the State, which the Pope so
deeply felt that he put his own existence in peril, and inflamed half of
Europe with the spirit of radical change in the attempt to remove them,
Dr. Doellinger contrasts, with the gloomy picture of decay and failure,
the character of the Pontiff who attempted the great work of reform.

Nevertheless, the administration of Pius IX. is wise, benevolent,
indulgent, thrifty, attentive to useful institutions and
improvements. All that proceeds from Pius IX. personally is worthy of
a head of the Church-