Italy, more than France or Spain, has abused the divine gift. She has “the light of Rome and the sun,” but has been ungrateful, proud, impious, shameless, and reckless. The whole land is now a mere haunt for banditti, traitors, and buffoons.
Alas! it is so: but Pius IX. still prays for his beloved Italy! Following the example of its lawful ruler, the nation—at least, the better portion of the nation—have multiplied their holy prayers, which daily grow more frequent from the delay of the benefit and the example of France. It has a clearer sense of equity and justice; it already feels disposed to renew its former covenant with God, return to the path of order, and take up its national traditions of glory. It is awakening from its dreams of moral and social primacy. It will be satisfied with, and glory in, being the patrie environnante of the Vicar of Christ. Would that France, once more regenerated, might speedily aid her in breaking loose from the tyranny of lodges, and shaking off the Prussian suzerainty!
In 1860, the unhappy King of Sardinia said to M. de la Tour d'Auvergne, the French minister at Turin: “I do not wish you to leave me under false impressions. I feel sure you regard me as impious—as an infidel, as people persist in saying. You are wrong.—If I number kings among my ancestry, there are likewise saints. Here, look around.—Well, do you think that in yonder world all these sainted relatives of mine have any other occupation than to pray for me?”[270]
Our Saviour prayed for those who knew not what they did! Pater dimitte illis. May all the saints in heaven and on earth pray for poor Italy! It has need of it.
Sonnet.
From the Italian of Giovanni Battista Zappi, upon the Moses of Michael Angelo in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli, at Rome.
Whose form there, sculptured in such mass of stone,
Sits like a giant, carrying art so far
Beyond all works most beautiful and known?