what it may, the President Merlin announced to the Council of Ancients the great news (of the fall of the Temporal Power and restoration of the Roman Republic) in a message as follows:—'Citizen representatives, after 1,400 years humanity demands the destruction of an anti-social power; the cradle of which seems to have been placed under the reign of Tiberius, only to appropriate to itself the duplicity, the ferocious tyranny, the gloomy policy, the thirst for blood of the father of Nero.'[1] Where now is this fabric of impiety? And where in a little while will be the stolid blasphemies of this hour? The Christian world must perish before this godless anarchy can destroy the source of its peace and order.
And here I would fain break off. But there are thoughts nearer home which compel me to go on. The influence of this country for good or for evil, for order or for disorder, is great. As a Christian and an Englishman I deplore the licence of nameless writing and irresponsible speech, which, for the last twenty years, throughout the whole Pontificate of Pius IX., has encouraged and stimulated the anti-Christian revolutions of the Continent. We have among us public voices which
- ↑ Moniteur, tom. xxxix. p. 165. Gaume, La Révolution, vol. i. première livraison, pp. 149–152.
beautiful Revolution with the last shake of the tabernacle of idolatry, of imposture, and of Italian disgrace.
'The pedestal of all tyrannies, the Papacy, has received the anathema of the whole world: and the nations are now gazing upon Italy as upon a redemptress.
'And shall Italy, because of the arrest of a man, withdraw affrighted from this glorious mission?'
