Doubtless the deposing power is one of the “rusty tools” which Rome, according to Mr. Gladstone, has “refurbished and paraded anew.” But what man with a dispassionate mind can read the authentic version of the words put by Mr. Gladstone incorrectly before the public without coming to the conclusion that the “refurbishing and parading anew” of the deposing power is altogether a creation of Mr. Gladstone’s “brain-power,” and that Pius IX., so far from showing a disposition to employ again “the rusty tool,” actually manifests an intention to undervalue it and lay it aside? Some persons would “refurbish” up the deposing power by connecting it with infallibility, and the Pope denounces their attempt as absurd and malicious. The abstract right of pontiffs to depose princes and release subjects from allegiance is referred by Pius IX. not to the infallibility which would give it new lustre, but to the pontifical authority, which in olden time was strong and powerful, but which at present is scarcely recognized by the kingdoms of the world. The exercise of this right is delicately touched upon, in such a way as to suggest not the least disposition to resume the right by putting it in practice. It was indeed “sometimes, in extreme circumstances”--_talvolta in supreme circostanze_--exercised by popes in those times when the pontiff was acknowledged “the Supreme Judge of Christianity,” and when the Holy See, by the common consent of nations, was the tribunal to which appeal was made in the great contests of sovereigns and nations. Then indeed this right was extended to “the gravest interests of nations and of rulers”; but now all is different--“aflatto diverse.” So far from “parading anew” the abstract right, and “furbishing” it up for present use, the Holy Father indignantly repudiates the malicious allegation by declaring that the right itself was but seldom exercised in ancient times, and then only under special conditions such as are not likely to be found in modern days. “Hypotheses” may of course be imagined by those who wish “to give annoyance and excite princes against the church.” But these “hypotheses,” as the Pope remarks, are not serious. No one pays heed or attention to them. They are “ipotesi, alle quali niuno pensa.” The limits of the obedience of subjects to sovereigns are clearly set forth by Pius IX. in his address to an Austrian deputation on the 18th of June, 1871. “Submission and respect to authority are the principal duties of truly good subjects. But at the same time I must remind you,” says the Pope, “that your obedience and fidelity have a limit to be observed. Be faithful to the sovereign whom God has given to you, and obey the laws which govern you; but when necessity calls, let your obedience and fidelity not advance beyond, but be arrested at, the steps of the altar.” You have “duties to the laws as subjects, and to your consciences as Christians.” “Unite these duties well, and let your supreme rule be the