The performances of papal nephews figure in history. After the Borgias were the Caraffas, who obtained power through Paul the Fourth; but at last becoming too insolent and rapacious, their uncle was compelled to strip them of their dignities and drive them from Rome.[80] Sometimes nephews were employed chiefly in ministering to pontifical pleasures, as in the case of Julius the Third, who, according to the historian, “thought of nothing but banqueting with this one and that one, keeping his relations in Rome rather to accompany him at banquets than to aid him in the government of the holy Church, about which he thought little.”[81] This occasion for relations does not exist at Rome now, as the pontiff leads a discreet life, always at home, and never banquets abroad. These historic instances make us see nepotism in its original seat. Would you know how it was regarded there? Sometimes it was called a hydra with many heads, sprouting anew at the election of a pontiff,[82] then again it was called Ottoman rather than Christian in character.[83] The contemporary historian who has described it so minutely says that those who merely read of it without seeing it will find it difficult to believe or even imagine.[84] The qualities of a Pope’s relation were said to be “ignorance and cunning.”[85] It is easy to believe that this prostitution of the head of the Church was one of the abuses which excited the cry for Reform, and awakened even in Rome the echoes of Martin Luther. A Swedish nobleman visiting Rome is recorded as declaring himself unwilling to be the subject of a pontiff who was himself the subject of his own relations.[86] But even this pretension was not without open defenders, while the general effrontery with which it was maintained assumed that it was above question. If some gave with eyes closed, most gave with eyes open. It was said that Popes were not to neglect their own blood, that they should not show themselves worse than the beasts, not one of which fails to caress its relations; and the case of bears and lions, the most ferocious of all, was cited as authority for this recognition of one’s own blood.[87] All this was soberly said, and it is doubtless true. Not even a Pope can justly neglect his own blood; but help and charity must be at his own expense, and not at the expense of his country. In appointments to office, merit and not blood is the only just recommendation. That nepotism has ceased to lord itself in Rome, that no pontiff billets his relations upon the Church, that the appointing power of the Pope is treated as a public trust and not as a personal perquisite,--all this is the present testimony with regard to that government which knows from experience the baneful character of this abuse. AMERICAN AUTHORITIES ON NEPOTISM.