order. There was certainly grandeur and beauty in that Pope who had shut
himself up in his Vatican, and who, the more he became a purely moral,
spiritual authority, freed from all terrestrial cares, had grown in the
adoration and awe of mankind. Such a flight into the ideal deeply stirred
Pierre, whose dream of rejuvenated Christianity rested on the idea of the
supreme Head of the Church exercising only a purified, spiritual
authority. He had just seen what an increase of majesty and power was in
that way gained by the Supreme Pontiff of the spheres beyond, at whose
feet the women fainted, and behind whom they beheld a vision of the
Deity. But at the same moment the pecuniary side of the question had
risen before him and spoilt his joy. If the enforced relinquishment of
the temporal power had exalted the Pope by freeing him from the worries
of a petty sovereignty which was ever threatened, the need of money still
remained like a chain about his feet tying him to earth. As he could not
accept the proffered subvention of the Italian Government,* there was
certainly in the Peter's Pence a means of placing the Holy See above all
material cares, provided, however, that this Peter's Pence were really
the Catholic /sou/, the mite of each believer, levied on his daily income
and sent direct to Rome. Such a voluntary tribute paid by the flock to
its pastor would, moreover, suffice for the wants of the Church if each
of the 250,000,000 of Catholics gave his or her /sou/ every week. In this
wise the Pope, indebted to each and all of his children, would be
indebted to none in particular. A /sou/ was so little and so easy to
give, and there was also something so touching about the idea. But,
unhappily, things were not worked in that way; the great majority of
Catholics gave nothing whatever, while the rich ones sent large sums from
motives of political passion; and a particular objection was that the
gifts were centralised in the hands of certain bishops and religious
orders, so that these became ostensibly the benefactors of the papacy,
the indispensable cashiers from whom it drew the sinews of life. The