II.—THE UNITY OF ITALY.
The idea of unity responds to one of the noblest aspirations of the soul, and wherever it exists free from all compulsion it gives birth to just hopes of true greatness. Would that the cry for unity were heard from the hearts of the inhabitants of the whole earth, and that the inward struggle which reigns in men’s bosoms, and the outward discord which prevails between man and man, between nations and nations, and between races and races, had for ever passed away!
“When will the hundred summers die,
And thought and time be born again,
And newer knowledge, drawing nigh,
Bring truth that sways the hearts of men?”
Unity is the essence of the Godhead and the animating principle of God’s church; and wherever her spirit penetrates, there the natural desire for unity implanted in the human heart is intensified and universalized, and man seeks to give to it an adequate embodiment in every sphere of his activity. It was this natural instinct for unity guided by the genius of Catholicity that formed the scattered tribes of Europe of former days into nations, uniting them in a grand universal republic which was properly called Christendom. Who knows but, as there reigned, by the action of an overruling Providence, a political unity in the ancient world which paved the way for the introduction of Christianity, that so there may be in preparation a more perfect political unity of peoples and nations in the modern world to open the way for the universal triumph of Christianity?
But there is a wide difference between recognizing that political unity is favorable to the strength and greatness of nations and the spread and victory of Christianity, and the acceptance of the errors of a class of its promoters, the approval of their injustice, or a compromise with their crimes.
“When devils will their blackest sins put on,
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows.”
The actual question, therefore, is not concerning the union of the Italian people in one nation, or whether their present unity will be lasting, or revoked, or by internal weakness be dissolved, or shaped in some way for the better. But the actual and pressing question is, How can Italy be withdrawn from the designing men who have managed to get control over her political government under the cloak of Italian unity, and who are plainly leading her on towards a precipice like that of the French Revolution of 1789, to be followed by another of even more atrocious notoriety—that of 1871? He must be blind to the sure but stealthy march of events who does not see that, under the control of the present party at the head of the legislative power, Italy is rapidly approaching such a catastrophe. A few thousand frenzied men held and tyrannized over France in 1789; a greater number in Italy—which, like all Europe, is worm-eaten by secret societies—are only waiting for the spark to produce a more destructive explosion, when the character of their leaders and the more inflammable materials they have to work upon are considered.
There is running through all things, both good and evil, an unconquerable law of logic. What is liberalism on Sunday becomes license on Monday, revolutionism on Tuesday, internationalism on Wednesday, socialism on Thursday, communism on Friday, and anarchy on Saturday. He who only sees the battered stones made by the cannon fired against its walls when the Piedmontese soldiers entered into Rome by Porta Pia, sees naught. There are more notable signs than these to read for him who knows how to decipher them. In the invasion and seizure of the temporal principality of the head of Christ’s church, which had stood for centuries as the keystone of the Christian commonwealth, the independence of nations was overthrown, international law trampled under foot, and the sacred rights of religion sacrilegiously violated. It was then—let those who have ears to hear listen—that rights consecrated through long ages, and recognized by 200,000,000 of Catholics to-day, were broken in upon by the Piedmontese army; and yet men are found to wonder that the violation of these rights by the Italian revolutionary party should fire with indignation the souls of the faithful in all lands. But revolution will take its course; and so sure as the Piedmontese entered by Porta Pia into Rome and took possession, and held it until the present hour, so sure is it that the conspirators of the secret international societies will in turn get possession of Rome and do their fell work in the Eternal City. “They that sow wind, shall reap the whirlwind.”
Who foresaw, or anticipated, or even dreamed of the atrocities of the Commune in Paris of 1871? What happened at Paris in the reign of the Commune will pale in wickedness before the reign of the internationalists in Rome. As Paris represents the theatre of worldliness, so Rome is the visible sanctuary of religion. Corruptio optimi pessima.
Is there a man so simple or so ignorant of the temper and designs of the conspirators against civilized society in Europe, as well as in our own free country, who fancies that these desperate men will shrink from shaping their acts in accordance with their ulterior aims?
No one who witnessed the reception of Garibaldi in Rome in the winter of 1875 can doubt as to who holds the place of leader among the most numerous class of the population of Italy. The views of this man and the party to which he belongs are no secret. “The fall of the Commune,” he wrote in June, 1873, “is a misfortune for the whole universe and a defeat for ever to be regretted.... I belong to the internationals, and I declare that if I should see arise a society of demons having for its object to combat sovereigns and priests, I would enroll myself in their ranks.” It is only the well-officered, strictly disciplined, and large army of Victor Emanuel that hinders Garibaldi from hoisting the red flag of the Commune in Rome and declaring an agrarian republic in Italy. But how long will the Italian army, with the present radicals at the head of affairs, remain intact and free from demoralization?
“The heights infected, vales below
Will soon with plague be rife.”
The army is drawn from a population which the internationalists have penetrated and inoculated with their errors and designs, and their emissaries have been discovered tampering and fraternizing with the troops.
Who can tell how near is the hour when St. Peter’s will be officially declared the pantheon of red-republican Italy, and the statue of Garibaldi will be placed on the high altar where now stands the image of the Crucified God-Man? This will not be the end but the prelude to the final act of the present impending tragedy, when the black flag will be unfurled and the palaces of Rome, with St. Peter’s and the Vatican, and all their records of the past and centuries of heaped-up treasures of art, will be reduced by petroleum and dynamite to a shapeless heap of ruins. To those who can tell a hawk from a handsaw this is the hidden animus and the logical sequence of the entrance of the Piedmontese army into Rome. This is the real reading of the hand-writing on the walls of Porta Pia:
“Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return To plague the inventor. This even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice To our own lips.”
But is there not a sufficient number of conservatives in the present national party of Italy to stop the men now at the head of affairs before they reach their ultimate designs? Perhaps so; it would be pleasant to believe this. But the present aspect of affairs gives but little hope of this being true. These conservatives, who did not, or could not, or would not stop the spoliation of the property of the church and the trampling upon her sacred rights; these conservatives, who did not take measures to hinder the Italian radicals from possessing themselves of the legislative power of the present government and pursuing their criminal course—these are not the men to build one’s hopes upon in stemming the tide that is now sweeping Italy to her destruction. The dictates of common sense teach us to look to some other quarter for hopes of success.