Two important utterances by the new Pope have been published
this week,—one an account of an interview with M. Henri des Houx, and the other an address to the Car- dinals in a "select Consistory." In the former Pius X. appears as a purely spiritual pastor of the Church exhorting the faithful to follow Christ, Who on earth refused a crown and saved mankind by suffering and humiliation ; and stating that the Church at present is safer under heretical Monarchies like Britain, or Republics like the United States, than under many Governments nominally Roman Catholic. In the second, however, his Holiness declares with regard to the temporal power that it is necessary for the Pope to be free and to appear free ; that his conscience and his oath require him to protest against his present deprivation of liberty; that he will follow in the steps traced by his predecessors ; and that he must concern himself with politics, for they involve at times questions of Christian morality. The Pope, in fact, is falling—as it was inevitable he should fall—under the spell of the Papal system, but he remains a separate, possibly a marked, personality. For example, according to M. des Houx, he preaches every Sunday to crowds whom he admits to the Vatican gardens, and those who surround him are always dreading that he will one day drive abroad into the streets of Rome. His full character is not clearly developed yet.
