These are obvious and necessary considerations; and the Pope expressly recognizes them in the ordinance accompanying the grant of the constitution.  “We intend,” he says, “to maintain intact our authority in matters that by their nature are related to the Catholic religion and its rule of morals.  And this is due from us as a guaranty to the whole of Christendom, that, in the States of the Church reorganized in this new form, nothing shall be derogated from the liberties and rights of the Church herself, and of the Holy See, nor any precedent be established for violating the sacredness of the religion which it is our duty and mission to preach to the whole world, as the only scheme of covenant between God and man, the only pledge of that heavenly benediction by which states subsist and nations flourish.”

Now, it is worthy of note that neither this constitution nor any of the acts of Pius under it was ever complained of by any party among the Pope’s subjects except in regard to these ecclesiastical reservations which were forced from him by the very nature of the office that he held.  The constitutionalists, indeed the moderate reformers, the party of Balbo and Gioberti and D’Azeglio, which comprised most of the educated and reflecting persons in the State, seem to have been entirely satisfied with it as a whole, or as it was.  So also were the unthinking populace, who received it with shouts of exultation, so long as they were not moved by the arts of a party who would not be satisfied with having a good pope, but were bent upon having no pope at all.  This was the party of Mazzini, the revolutionists as distinguished from the reformers—­not strong at first either in numbers or credit, as we have seen, but who made up for all deficiencies by their zeal and activity—­who were determined to establish a republic, and who cared nothing for the embarrassments of the Pope’s situation as head of the Church, of indeed for the Church itself.  They complained—­and with reason, too, upon their principles—­of these ecclesiastical reservations; and they made out of them their chief weapon of attack upon the Pope’s government, though they did not profit so much by the use of it as by the evident unwillingness of Pius to rush into a war with Austria for the purpose of giving the sovereignty of Lombardy to Charles Albert, a measure to which he was averse, because he thought such a conflict would be detrimental to the interests of the Church over which he presided.

The world’s future judgment of Pius will depend upon its belief of the sincerity with which he acted in thus allowing nothing but his religious duties and his position as the head of the Church to limit his concessions of political privileges to his subjects.  On this point, it is well to hear the opinion of Farini, who, as one of the Mamiani Ministry and as employed to mediate between them and the Pope, because much loved and trusted by him, seems peculiarly qualified to form one without undue bias on either side: