Foreign Volume 4 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879 edition. Excerpt: ... "what ought to follow, when that antique shadowy projection upon the scene of Time, that gift (so called) of Constantine, ..". quella dote Che da te prese il primo ricco padre," together with all its real historical accretions, shall have come to be numbered simply with the things that were. 11. We ask then, --1. Can the Temporal Government of the Popes accommodate itself to Constitutional forms? 2. If not, can it or ought it to endure? 3. If not, then in what manner should the political void be filled, and the See of Home provided for, with a view to the interests of the Eoman subjects, the disappointment of revolutionary speculation's in Italy, or elsewhere, and the just claims of the See itself as the ecclesiastical centre of the largest among Christian Communions? 12. The first question, then, to be examined is this; Can the Papal Government accommodate itself to Constitutional forms? Or, to illustrate the question by a needful paraphrase, we ask, not only whether it might in the abstract bear this accommodation; not only whether it be demonstrable, or not, that no such thing can take place; but rather, and chiefly, ' is it within the circle, however liberally drawn, of reasonable probability, --is it within the moral conditions of the times and men, that any such adaptation should be brought about? 13. In searching for an answer to this question, we may proceed, either by the light of abstract argument, or by that of experience. 'Inferno, ' xix. 116. When we look at the abstract question, we are met at once by this insuperable difficulty. Eare in Pagan times, the collisions of the Church with the State have, ever since the promulgation of the Gospel, made up a large and essential part of the history of the world. This marked difference...