centuries at least given life and movement to Europe, should rise again, reconciled with the life and movement of humanity, from its own tomb. The minds of the whole civilized world hung, troubled and excited, upon the _word_ which was to issue from the Vatican. And where now is Pius IX.? In the camp of the enemy: irrevocably disjoined from the progressive destinies of humanity; irrevocably adverse to the desires, to the aspirations which agitate his people and the people of believers. The experiment is complete. The abyss between Papacy and the world is hollowed out. No earthly power can fill it up. Impelled by the impulses of his heart to seek for popularity and affection, but drawn on by the all-powerful logic of the principle that he represents, to the severity of absolute dictatorship; seduced by the universal movement of men's minds, by living examples in other countries, by the spirit of the age, to feel, to understand the sacred words of progress, of people, of free brotherhood, but incapable of making himself their interpreter; fearful of the consequences, and trembling like one who feels himself insecure, lest he should see the people, raised to a new consciousness of its own faculties and of its own rights, question the authority of the pontificate--Pius IX. vacillated contemptibly between the two paths presented to him, muttered words of emancipation, which he neither knew how nor intended to make good, and promises of country and independence to Italy which his followers betrayed by conspiring with Austria. Then, struck with sudden terror, he fled before the multitudes who cried aloud to him _courage;_ he sheltered himself under the protection of a Prince whom he despised--the executioner of his subjects; he imbibed his tendencies, and in order to revenge himself for the quiet with which Rome, provoked in vain to a civil war, was organizing a new government, he solicited foreign aid; and he who had, from a horror of bloodshed, shortly before endeavored to withdraw Roman assistance from the Lombard struggle, agreed that French, Austrian, Neapolitan, and Spanish bayonets should rebuild his throne. He now wanders amidst the fallacies of secret protocols, the servant of his protectors, the servant of all except of duty and of the wish of those who hoped in him, turning to the frontiers of Rome and yet not expecting to re-enter there, and as if kept back by the phantoms of the slain. The Louis XVI. of Papacy, he has destroyed it for ever. The cannon ball of his allies discharged against the Vatican, gave the last blow to the institution.