in forming a pure
and elevated public sentiment alike by his precepts and his example.

How masterly is this sketch of the career of

PIO NONO.

A Pope arose, by his tendencies, his progressive instincts and his love
of popularity, an exception to the Popes of later times: to whom
Providence, as if to teach mankind the absolute powerlessness of the
institution, opened, in the love and in the illusions of the people, the
path to a new life. So great is the fascination exercised by great
memories--so great is the power of ancient customs--so feverish, in
these multitudes who are said to be agitated by the breath of anarchy,
is the desire for authority as the guide and sanction of their progress,
that a word of pardon and tolerance from the Pope's lips sufficed to
gather round him, in an enthusiasm and intoxication of affection,
friends and enemies, believers and unbelievers, the ignorant and the men
of thought. One long cry, the cry of millions ready to make themselves
martyrs or conquerors at his nod, saluted him as their father and
benefactor, the regenerator of the Catholic faith and of humanity. The
experience of three ages and the inexorable logic of ideas, were at once
forgotten; writers, powerful by their intellect and doctrines, until
then dreaded as adversaries, employed themselves in founding around that
_One_ man systems destined to prepare for him the way to a splendid
initiative. The many advocates of liberty of conscience, weary of the
spectacle of anarchy revealed by the Protestant sects, remained in
doubt. The few believers in the future church remained silent and
thoughtful. It might be that history had decided too rashly, it might be
amongst the secrets of Providence that an institution, which had for ten
centuries at least given life and movement to Europe, should rise again,
reconciled with the life and movement of humanity, from its own tomb.
The minds of the whole civilized world hung, troubled and excited, upon
the _word_ which was to issue from the Vatican.

And where now is Pius IX.?

In the camp of the enemy: irrevocably disjoined from the progressive
destinies of humanity; irrevocably adverse to the desires, to the
aspirations which agitate his people and the people of believers. The
experiment is complete. The abyss between Papacy and the world is
hollowed out. No earthly power can fill it up.

Impelled by the impulses of his heart to seek for popularity and
affection, but drawn on by