From the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn

by Henry M. Field

So the persecutions of the early Christians by successive emperors are matters of authentic history. Knowing this, we visit as a sacred place the scene of their martyrdom, and shudder at seeing on the walls the different modes of torture by which it was sought to break their allegiance to the faith; we think of them in the Coliseum, where they were thrown to the lions; and still more in the Catacombs, to which they fled for refuge, where they worshipped, and (as Pliny wrote) "sang hymns to Christ as to a God," and where still rest their bones, with many a rude inscription, testifying of their faith and hope.

It is a sad reflection that the Christian Church, once established in Rome, should afterwards itself turn persecutor. But unfortunately it too became intoxicated with power, and could brook no resistance to its will. The Inquisition was for centuries a recognized institution of the Papacy—an appointed means for guarding the purity of the faith. The building devoted to the service of that tribunal stands to this day, close by the Church of St. Peter, and I believe there is still a Papal officer who bears the dread title of "Grand Inquisitor." But fortunately his office no longer inspires terror, for it is at last reduced to the punishment of ecclesiastical offences by ecclesiastical discipline, instead of the arm of flesh, on which it once leaned. But the old building is at once "a prison and a palace"; the cells are still there, though happily unoccupied. But in the castle of St. Angelo there is a Chamber of Torture, which has not always been merely for exhibition, where a Pope Clement (what a mockery in the name!) had Beatrice Cenci put to the torture, and forced to confess a crime of which she was not guilty. But we are not so unjust as to impute all these cruelties of a former and a darker time to the Catholic Church of the present day. Those were ages of intolerance and of persecution. But none can deny that the Church has always been fiercely intolerant. There is no doubt that the massacre of St. Bartholomew was the occasion of great rejoicings at Rome. The bloody persecution of the Waldenses found no rebuke from him who claimed to be the vicegerent of Christ; a persecution which called forth from Milton that sublime prayer:

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints,

Whose bones lie scattered upon the Alpine mountains cold!

Amid such bitter recollections it is good to remember also the message of Cromwell to the Pope, that "if favor were not shown to the people of God, the thunder of English cannon should be heard in the castle of St. Angelo."

It seems as if it were a just retribution for those crimes of a former age that the Pope in these last days has had to walk so long in the Valley of Humiliation. Not for centuries has a Pontiff had to endure such repeated blows. The reign of Pius IX. has been longer than that of any of his predecessors; some may think it glorious, but it has witnessed at once the most daring assumption and its signal punishment—a claim of infallibility, which belongs to God alone—followed by a bitter humiliation as if God would cast this idol down to the ground. It is certainly a remarkable coincidence, that just as the dogma of Infallibility was proclaimed, Louis Napoleon rushed into war, as the result of which France, the chief supporter of the Papacy (which for twenty years had kept an army in Rome to hold the Pope on his throne), was stricken down, and the first place in Europe taken by a Protestant power. Germany had already humbled the other great Catholic power of Europe, to the confusion and dismay of the Pope and his councillors. A gentleman who has resided for many years in Rome, tells me that on the very day that the battle of Sadowa was fought, Cardinal Antonelli told a friend of his to "come around to his house that night to get the news; that he expected to hear of one of the greatest victories ever won for the Church," so confidently did he and his master the Pope anticipate the triumph of Austria. The gentleman went. Hour after hour passed, and no tidings came. It was midnight, and still no news of victory. Before morning the issue was known, that the Austrian army was destroyed. Cardinal Antonelli did not come forth to proclaim the tidings. He shut himself up, said my informant, and was not seen for three weeks!

And so it has come to pass—whether by accident or design, whether by the violence of man or by the will of God—that the Pope has been gradually stripped of that power and prestige which once so acted upon the imaginations of men, that, like Cæsar, "his bend did awe the world," and has come to be merely the bishop, or archbishop, of that portion of Christendom which submits to the Catholic Church.

I find the Rome of to-day divided into two camps. The Vatican is set over against the Quirinal. The Pope rules in one, and Victor Emmanuel in the other; and neither of these two sovereigns has anything to do with the other.

It would take long to discuss the present political state of Rome or of Italy. Apart from the right or wrong of this question, it is evident that the sympathies of the Italian people are on the side of Victor Emmanuel. The Roman people have had a long experience of a government of priests, and they do not like it. It seems as if the world was entering on a new era, and the Papacy, infallible and immutable as it is, must change too—it must "move on" or be overwhelmed.

CHAPTER XXIII.