[Footnote 185: Lately elected a member of the French Academy.]
The dignity, firmness, and elevated piety of the noble pontiff stand out in more striking relief from their necessary comparison with the rude and merciless tyranny of his oppressor, and have wrung the strongest expression of admiration from sources the most unexpected. In an article entitled, "The Papacy and the French Empire," the Edinburgh Review (October, 1868) says:
"The meek resistance of Pius VII. to the overwhelming force which had crushed every independent power on the continent of Europe, was therefore a protest worthy of the sacred character of the head of the Latin Church in favor of the dignity and liberty of man; and, by the justice of Heaven, the victim survived the conqueror, the feeble endured, the mighty one perished."
Great activity prevails throughout Europe in the search for and publication of documents, long buried in libraries and private collections of MSS., which are calculated to throw light upon the history and workings of the so-called Reformation. And this activity is probably greatest in Switzerland, where every canton, separately or with an adjoining canton, has its historical society in active and industrious operation. German and French, Catholic and Protestant, vie with each other in their praiseworthy efforts to rescue from decay and ruin old parchments, chronicles, protocols, and letters, that are calculated to throw any light on the events of past centuries. In this direction works the Protestant Berner in the Helvetia Sacra, and the Pius Verein promises great results in a collection of which the first volume has lately appeared, entitled, Archiv für die Schweizerische Reformnationsgeschichte. Herausgegeben auf Veranstaltung des Schweizerischen Piusvereins. Erster Band. Solothurn. 8vo, 856 pp. The central committee of this society consists of Count Scherer Beccard, of Lucerne, and Prebendary Fiala and Professor Barmwart, both of Solothurn. The volume announced contains chronicles, monographs, and extracts from the archives of Lucerne, the mere enumeration of which would be too much for our space.
The old Benedictine abbey of La Cava, in Italy, has long been known to possess in its archives a mass of documents and MSS. said to contain treasures of diplomatic and archaeological erudition. They cover the period from Pepin le Bref to Charles V. Father Morcaldi, one of the most distinguished savants of Italy, has undertaken their classification and publication. They will fill, when printed, eight or ten folio volumes, and require from five to seven years for publication.
A recent number of the Literarischer Handweiser, edited at Münster by Dr. Franz Hülskamp and Dr. Herrmann Rump, contains an article on Catholic journalism in the United States. Here is an extract:
"Since the cessation of the well-known Quarterly, edited by Dr. Brownson, American Catholics possess but one really first-class periodical, namely, The Catholic World, founded some four years since, and published at New York, in handsomely printed monthly numbers. This monthly, founded by Father Hecker, of the Congregation of the Paulists, a zealous convert, distinguished for his effective dialectic and polemic ability, is one of the most welcome manifestations in the field of North American periodical literature. Already, during the short period of its existence, it has gained numberless friends, and bears favorable comparison with the best productions of the European press. The influence and writings of Father Hecker and his collaborators are sufficient warrant that The Catholic World has an important future before it in the field of defence and polemics, and that it will most probably be for many the guide to the bosom of the church."