racter leaves it untouched. In one, and only one, of all these figures
his dignity is veiled in sadness. Pope Vigilius at Constantinople, in the
grasp of a despot, and with the stain of an irregular election never
effaced from his brow, is still conscious of it, still has courage to say,
"You may bind me, but you will not bind the Apostle St. Peter". Six hundred
years after St. Gregory, when accordingly the succession of Popes had been
rather more than doubled, I find the biographer of Innocent III. thus
commenting on his election in 1198: "The Church in these times ever had an
essential preponderance over worldly kingdoms. Resting on a spiritual
foundation, she had in herself the vigour of immaterial power, and
maintained in her application of it the superiority over merely material
forces. She alone was animated by a clearly recognised idea, which never at
any time died out of her. For its maintenance and actuation were not
limited to the person of a Pope, who could only be the representative, the
bearer, the enactor, for the world of this idea in its fullest meaning. If
here and there a particular personality seemed unequal to the carrying out
such a charge, the force of the idea did not suffer any defect through him.
Most papal governments were very short in their duration. This itself was a
challenge to those whose life was absorbed in that of the Church to place
at its head a man whose ability, enlightened and guided by strength of
will, afforded a secure assurance for the exercise of an universal charge.
From the clear self-consciousness of the Church in this respect proceeded
that firm pursuance of a great purpose distinctly perceived. It met with no
persistent or wisely conducted resistance on the part of the temporal
power. On one side all rays had their focus in one point. In temporal
princes the rays were parted. Few of these showed in their lives a purpose
to which all their acts were made consistently subordinate. As
circumstances swayed them, as the desire of the moment led them away, they
threw themselves, according to their personal inclinations, with impetuous
storm and violence upon the attainment of their wishes. They had to yield
in the end to the power of the Church, slower, indeed, but continuous,
pursued with superiority of spirit, moreover with the firm conviction of
guidance from above, and of the special protection from this inseparable,
and so attaining its mark. One only royal race ventured on a