-elevated, liberal in the best sense of the
term. No sovereign spends less on his court and his own private
wants. If all thought and acted as he does, his would be a model
State. Both the French and the English envoys affirm that the
financial administration had improved, that the value of the land was
increasing, agriculture flourishing, and that many symptoms of
progress might be observed. Whatever can be expected of a monarch
full of affection for his people, and seeking his sole recreation in
works of beneficence, Pius richly performs. _Pertransiit
benefaciendo_,--words used of one far greater,--are simply the truth
applied to him. In him we can clearly perceive how the Papacy, even
as a temporal state, might, so far as the character of the prince is
concerned, through judicious elections, be the most admirable of
human institutions. A man in the prime of life, after an
irreproachable youth and a conscientious discharge of Episcopal
duties, is elevated to the highest dignity and to sovereign power. He
knows nothing of expensive amusements; he has no other passion but
that of doing good, no other ambition but to be beloved by his
subjects. His day is divided between prayer and the labours of
government; his relaxation is a walk in the garden, a visit to a
church, a prison, or a charitable institution. Free from personal
desires and from terrestrial bonds, he has no relatives, no
favourites to provide for. For him the rights and powers of his
office exist only for the sake of its duties.... Grievously outraged,
injured, rewarded with ingratitude, he has never harboured a thought
of revenge, never committed an act of severity, but ever forgiven and
ever pardoned. The cup of sweetness and of bitterness, the cup of
human favour and of human aversion, he has not only tasted, but
emptied to the dregs; he heard them cry "Hosannah!" and soon after
"Crucifige!" The man of his confidence, the first intellectual power
of his nation, fell beneath the murderer's knife; the bullet of an
insurgent struck down the friend by his side. And yet no feeling of
hatred, no breath of anger could ever obscure, even for a moment, the
spotless mirror of his soul. Untouched by human folly, unmoved by
human malice, he proceeds with a firm and regular step on his way,
like the stars of heaven.

Such I have seen the action of this Pope in R