Of a tenderness which yearns in memory over the defenceless member of his flock, lately the victim of brutality and disappointed avarice.
Pompilia, then as now
Perfect in whiteness.... (ll. 1005-1006.)
... My flower,
My rose, I gather for the breast of God. (ll. 1046-1047.)
With tenderness is coupled that humility which can say to this child of the Faith:
Go past me
And get thy praise,—and be not far to seek
Presently when I follow if I may! (ll. 1092-1094.)
········
Stoop thou down, my child,
Give one good moment to the poor old Pope
Heart-sick at having all his world to blame. (ll. 1006-1008.)
Yet, in spite of the heart-sickness, is present also the moral rectitude which refuses to shrink from the task demanding fulfilment—the censure of “all his world”—from the archbishop who repulsed the injured wife’s appeal for protection, “the hireling who did turn and flee,” through the entire list of offenders to the “fox-faced, horrible priest, this brother-brute, the Abate,” and the chief criminal, Guido, for whom also his friends would claim clerical immunity from the penalty attaching to his offence. Realizing to the full the character of his office, the weight of authority and historical continuity lying behind, the old Pope might well be tempted to grant to the miscreants that shelter which they crave. But the very fact which leads him to magnify the dignity of his official position, “next under God,” leads him also to recognize the immensity of personal responsibility attaching thereto. The sentence to be passed is the outcome of a personal decision.
How should I dare die, this man let live?
Yet whilst laying bare before his mental vision the evils existent in his Church, obvious alike in the individual even though he should himself “have armed and decked him for the fight”; and in the communal life of convent and monastery; whilst rejoicing that Caponsacchi should have had the necessary courage to break through ecclesiastical convention and
Let light into the world
Through that irregular breach o’ the boundary: (ll. 1205-1206.)
he yet points to the strength of the Church as safeguarding, by her rule as “a law of life,” those whose natural impulses may not be relied on to lead them to follow the course of Caponsacchi, and to whom it would not be safe to grant the permission: “Ask your hearts as I asked mine.” To these and such as these the law of life laid down by the Church’s rule is essential. Whatever the traditions of the past, whatever the possibilities of ecclesiastical modifications and developments in the future, in the present no considerations of personal interest or compassion must be permitted to warp the judgment of him who is armed
With Paul’s sword as with Peter’s key.