Western exegesis, and is a dead letter to the whole body of our popular exegesis still." No man can mistake the elements of a saving faith; even a wayfaring man, though a fool, cannot possibly err in deducing from the Scriptures all that is necessary for salvation. But when we pass from questions of practical religion to questions of Biblical interpretation it is not too much to say that every commentator, however learned, must go egregiously astray if he be devoid of literary culture. Exegesis is a domain from which mere ignorant convictions, even when they claim to speak ex cathedra, must be remorselessly expelled. Mr. Arnold has rendered a memorable service by the incontrovertible clearness with which he has proved this proposition, and in dwelling upon its importance he is, in one particular direction, continuing the theological influence of his illustrious father.

I have dwelt on the position of Dr. Arnold as a Churchman and as a theologian because in these spheres his merits are but partially recognised, whereas none deny, and all are grateful for, the reformation which he effected in English schools. To dwell on that reformation-its nature, its extent, its beneficence, the methods by which it was accomplished- is not possible in this paper, but those who are familiar with school life will be able with the aid of these volumes to trace it for themselves. Certain it is

that English schools have undergone a very marked change for the better during the fifty years which have elapsed since he was elected Head Master of Rugby. Those changes have carried with them a change also of our whole social life. They began to work from the very day when-to recall the scene so beautifully described in the grateful pages of Arnold's two eminent pupils, Dean Stanley and Mr. T. Hughes-in the then mean and unsightly chapel of Rugby School, dimly lighted by the two candles of the pulpit, were seen above the long lines of youthful faces the strong form and noble face of the greatest of English schoolmasters, and the voice was heard, "now soft as the low notes of a flute, now clear and stirring as the call of the light infantry bugle, of him who stood there, Sunday after Sunday, witnessing and pleading for his Lord." To trace the course and the issues of this social reformation might be an interesting task; but at present, as one of the least worthy of those who in a similar office to Arnold's own would fain have caught something of his spirit, I can but lay upon the base of his statue

a

wreath of respectful gratitude. Few teachers have arisen since his death who could reach high enough to place that wreath around his brow.

"Ut caput in magnis ubi non est tangere signis

Ponitur hic imos ante corona pedes."

F. W. FARRAR.

FROM the Quirinal to the Vatican, from the death-bed of the Re-Galantuomo, the first King of United Italy, to the death-bed of Pius IX., the last Papa-Re of Rome, the transition has been most startling and most sudden. In all the circumstances associated with these close coincidences of royal and papal deaths, Italy may well feel justified if she once more gratefully recognises the influence of the benignant star which was believed to have so often shed its light on the fortunes of the nation. The Re-Galantuomo, so singularly fortunate in all the events of his life, was not less fortunate in the place and time of his unlooked-for death. An interest of a very different character would have attended the close of his life had it occurred at his Piedmontese villa of La Mandria. There would not, there could not, have been found there, the assemblage of domestic political and religious associations which imparted so varied and, in some respects, so important an interest to the last sad farewell taken, to the last solemn blessings given, in the little chamber on the ground-floor of the Quirinal; nor was the Re-Galantuomo less fortunate in the time of his departure. Had he died only two months earlier, the prospect of a possible embarrassment in Italian affairs arising from his decease might have lent fresh vigour to the Ultramontane conspirators who were then holding Marshal Macmahon in their toils. But his death, so closely preceding that of Pius IX., furnished the occasion for rekindling in the mind of the aged pontiff all the more generous feelings towards the house of Savoy and the Italian people, by which the commencement of his pontificate had been marked, and paved the way for a better understanding, if not

for a complete reconcilation, between the new Pope and the new King.

A German commentator on Machiavelli, when expanding and illustrating that passage of the Prince in which the Florentine secretary has set forth how completely all the calculations of Cæsar Borgia were overturned by the sudden death of his father, Pope Alexander VI., has observed that, strange as it may seem, the one element in all human combinations which is most certain and unavoidable-the element of mortality—is the one most generally overlooked. The remark, however, did not hold good in the case of Pius IX., for it would be difficult to discover amongst the illustrious and august personages of the nineteenth century another individual whose decease, whether proximate or remote, has been made the theme of so much speculation, and who, before closing his eyes, has been in an equal degree a party to the discounting of all the political and religious contingencies which his end might bring about. Given up again and again by his physicians, it was his lot to belie all their predictions, until they at last ceased to foretell his approaching death; and then, when they had all agreed that he might live yet two or three years, he put their science and their art once more to scorn, and died when every man in the Vatican believed in the further prolongation of his life. The strange medley of inconsistencies and contradictions by which his character and career were marked revealed itself even in this last phase of his existence; and just as the most fitful and capricious, the most spasmodic and impulsive of human beings had favoured the world with the proclamation of his personal infallibility-the frail mortal whose uncertain health was in youth

the chief cause of his exchanging the profession of arms for that of the Church, lived on with all his physical infirmities to the age of eighty-five, in his constant illnesses and constant recoveries almost suggesting the idea of the milk-white and immortal hind, "still doomed to death, yet fated not to die." Shortly after the Italian occupation of Rome at the close of 1870, when the animosity between the representatives of the Italian government and the occupants of the Vatican was at its height, there appeared in the windows of all the Roman print-sellers a photograph representing Pope Pius IX. and King Victor Emanuel arm-inarm, both smiling most pleasantly, and apparently on the very best possible terms. During the seven years that elapsed from its first appearance until the death of both Pope and King, the photograph steadily maintained its place as one of the most popular and profitable articles of the photographic trade, nor did its sale appear to be in the least degree affected by the violent language of the Papal briefs and speeches denouncing the Savoyard usurper, or the equally violent declamations in the Italian parliament and press against the clerical foes of liberty. It seemed as if a certain shrewd and sound instinct had taught the people that in the midst of all this war of words much latent good feeling existed towards each other in the hearts of the sovereign and the pontiff, or at any rate that if no such good feeling existed it ought to exist, and that its existence would promote the best interests of the Italian State and the Catholic Church. The muchtalked-of but never-realised conciliation held its place in the minds of the people far more surely than it entered into the calculations of the statesmen or the churchmen; and the popular instinct in this case, as it is in so many others, was a better political guide than the hesitating and distrustful counsels of the cabinet or the curia. The conciliation came at last, and came in a manner so unexpected and amidst No. 222.-VOL. XXXVII.

circumstances so touching that men could not but regard it as brought about by the interposition of a higher power, and designed to illustrate far higher truths than those bound up with the alternate successes of liberal and clerical opponents, or even with the triumphs of a national and Ultramontane warfare. Pius IX. had never ceased during the whole course of his life to be an Italian patriot; during the earlier period of his life he had been a sincere reformer, and at one epoch it is no exaggeration to say an Italian revolutionist. If his revolutionary period was not of long duration it was at any rate so strongly marked that the early friends who then shared his hopes and aspirations would never consent to look upon him in after life in any other character, and some of them even set up a theory as to his relation to the Church much akin to that once in favour as to Sunderland's relations with our James II. That was simply absurd, and it would be throwing away time to exhibit the evident proofs of its absurdity, and to show that however mistaken in his means Pius IX. had ever during his pontificate the same end in view-the welfare of the Roman Catholic Church.

As a reformer his tendencies were not disclosed for the first time on his elevation to the papal throne. There exists, and in all probability will soon be published, an extensive correspondence which Cardinal Mastai-Ferretti, when Bishop of Imola, held with the chief political authorities in Rome, and in which the future Pope seeks to impress on the leading persons of the government the necessity of adopting a number of most important reforms, of which some are as much wanted at the present day as when Cardinal MastaiFerretti penned the letters alluded to. To give an example, he implores the Papal government to make such arrangements with some foreign state as may place at its command a remote island for the sole objects of a penal colony, declaring that all the attempts to deal with brigandage and with the

HH

like crimes in the papal state will prove fruitless, unless the criminals shall for a term of years, or if required, during the whole of their lives, be completely separated by a distant ocean. from the rest of the population. There is every reason to believe, it is but justice to the present Italian government to make the statement-that the actual rulers of the Italian kingdom have an equal conviction of the same truth, and that if full effect has not been given to it the fault lies much more in the jealousy of foreign powers than in the diplomatic action of Italy itself. Pius IX. was a reformer, both from the principles which made him desire a better state of things, and from the kindly feeling which made him desire an increased amount of happiness amongst all around him. But it happened with him as with the Emperor Napoleon III., that he often felt most keenly, and in consequence of this feeling promoted most readily, the happiness of the individuals with whom he was brought into immediate contact; and their personal gratification was but too often in direct antagonism with the happiness of the great masses of subjects intrusted to their rule. The more honest advisers of Napoleon III. were so well acquainted with this dangerous weakness in the character of their sovereign, that when they proposed to him any great administrative reform, they not unfrequently made it a regular stipulation that he should not consent to grant personal interviews to the parties whose interests would be wounded. That official adviser of Pius IX. whom it would be unsafe to rank amongst the more honest of his class, his cardinal-secretary of state, Antonelli, was so well acquainted with the same peculiarities in the character of the pontiff, that his constant and, as it proved, perfectly successful aim was to shut out Pius IX. as much as possible from all intercourse with all persons, excepting those who were subservient to the

Cardinal's own aims, whose interests were identified with his own, and whose happiness was not likely to be much affected by any sympathy felt or efforts made by them for objects of general and public welfare. Much has been said during the last seven years of the imprisonment in the Vatican of Pius IX. The matchless effrontery with which, in Belgium, France, and the Rhine Provinces, circulation was given, with the full knowledge and sanction of the Catholic hierarchy, to the legend respecting Pius IX.'s alleged captivity, and the constant and public sale in those countries of straws taken from the august prisoner's pallet, and of photographs representing him behind prison bars, throw a striking light on the reckless character of Ultramontane ethics. The Ultramontane prelates, who during their annual visits to the Vatican had the constant opportunity of seeing Pius IX. surrounded by all the old Byzantine splendour of his court, who knew that all his movements were as free as those of their own sovereigns, must have performed a very curious mental process when they succeeded in reasoning themselves into the belief that the constant and daily representation in their presence of that enormous lie was a matter calling for no protest or no rebuke. It must be presumed that they had accepted and acted on the principle set forth with such clearness by Loyola in is "Rules," that if any object seem to the devout believer white, and the Church tells him it is black, his unhesitating duty is to regard and pronounce it black, in accordance with the decision of his spiritual guides. When the story of his reign shall be faithfully and fully written, more prominence will be given to the involuntary imprisonment which, during twentyeight years, he endured at the hands of his Cardinal-Secretary of State; or, what amounts nearly to the same thing, to the strong, though subtle, network of precautions by which the