"Neither can we refrain from telling you that to use victory well is a
greater and more difficult achievement than to be victorious. If the
present day recalls to you any other period of your history, let the
children profit by the errors of their forefathers. Remember that all
stability and all prosperity has its main earthly ground in concord;
that it is God alone who maketh of one mind them that dwell in a house;
that he grants this reward only to the humble and the meek, to those who
respect his laws, in the liberty of his church, in the order of society,
in charity toward all mankind."
* * * * *
Shortly afterward another measure, emanating entirely from the Pope, and
opposed by the prejudices of the mob, showed that his humane and liberal
disposition and enlightened understanding waited for no impulse from
without, and for no hope of increased popularity, before doing justice
to a long oppressed race. "The friends of social progress were highly
gratified by the decision of Pius IX to raze in Rome the walls and gates
which shut up the Jews in the Ghetto. He had already, at the
commencement of his pontificate, softened some of the rigors with which
they were afflicted, and had directed that they might spread beyond that
ignominious precinct; nor, however great was the outcry about it among
the mob, did he forego the idea of bettering the condition of the
followers of the Mosaic law." He was disposed to give them civil rights;
and if he did not think of extending his concessions even to political
privileges, yet he would give this as the main reason for it, that, in a
constitutional country, everyone who enjoys them may rise to the highest
stages of power; whereas a pope could not have any save Catholic
ministers. In the mean time he raised them out of the abjectness of
their isolation, although the Roman vulgar censured him for it bitterly,
most of all because it took effect in Holy Week. When it was known in
the city that the walls and fastenings of the Ghetto were to be pulled
down at night, by order of the Cardinal Vicar, Ciceruacchio hastened
with his companions, or subjects, to share in the work; and they shared
in it so largely that it seemed as though the thing were effected more
as their boon than by the will of the Pope. Pius IX was vexed at this;
whether because noise had been made about what he wanted done quietly,
or because it was brought about in such a manner that it might seem the
popular party had had more to say to it than the authority of the head
of religion. Rome fully shared the enthusiasm which was awakened
throughout Italy by the entrance of the Piedmontese troops into
Lombardy, and by the announcement by Charles Albert that he had drawn
the sword in the sacred cause of Italian independence. His proclamation,
in the stilted phrase common to such state papers, declared that he
relied upon "the assistance of that God who is visibly with us; of that
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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