The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

49 S SHAM REFORM AND REAL RE-ACTION.its feet,—that power which had been the bulwark of despoticthrones,—which had provided a dungeon for science,and a stake for the patriot and the confessor,—whose mottowas immobility,—had become the patron of progress, andassumed the lead in a grand movement towards free government! Those who were able to penetrate the policy ofRome saw clearly that the movement was distasteful andabhorrent to the Papacy,—that it contained principles utterlydestructive of the system,—and that it had placed itselfat its head that it might strangle by craft what it was unableto crush by force.Nevertheless, for some time the policy of the Pope wascompletely successful ; and there even appeared some likelihoodof its being finally triumphant. Flambeaux were burnedbefore the gates of the Quirinal, and Rome resoundedday and night with vivas. The journalists of Paris andLondon wrote elaborate and eloquent panegyrics on the reformingPope. It had almost been voted by acclamationthat Popery was changed ; that the bloody deeds of pasttimes were to be attributed to the barbarism of the age, andnot at all to the spirit of the Papacy ; and that the pontificalsystem was perfectly compatible with constitutional andliberal government, and the progress of the human race.This was what Pius IX. wished the world to believe ; andhad he but succeeded in making the world believe this, hewould have carried his point ;he would have added a lustreand authority to the chair of Peter unknown to it for ages.*The revolted masses would have returned to the creed theyhad abjured, and come thronging back to the altars fromwhich infidelity had driven them away. Recognising inPius at once the pontiff and thereformer,—the high priest* Great movements intended to regenerate, but wliich have proved ultimatelydestructive of the Papacy, have before now come from popes. Thecase of Pius IX. finds its parallel, perhaps, in the great zeal displayed byPope Nicholas V. for the revival of letters in the middle of tlie fifteenthcentury.