Chapter II: Part 2

At the station a large crowd had gathered to receive him, priests, people, representatives of the noble families of the place, and of the divers associations of town and country. Outside the bishop's house, in the great square of St. Peter, a multitude of townspeople were awaiting his arrival. "We want to see our bishop," they cried tumultuously, and their desire was immediately satisfied. Stepping out into the balcony which overlooked the square, their new pastor greeted them with warm affection and gave them his blessing.

Mantua, say the Italians, has always been a fighting city, and in 1885 it was still true to its reputation. Of Etruscan origin, and the birthplace of Virgil and Sordello, throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries its see had been usually held by members of the famous family of Gonzaga. The task which lay before the new bishop was no easy one. There were divisions between clergy and people; the seminary was almost empty of students; many parishes were without a priest; no synod had been held within the memory of man. The spirit in which Monsignor Sarto took up his new work showed itself in his first pastoral letter to his flock.

"I shall spare myself neither care nor labour nor watchfulness for the salvation of souls. My hope is in Christ, who strengthens the weakest by His divine help; I can do all in Him who strengtheneth me! His power is infinite, and if I lean on Him it will be mine; His wisdom is infinite, and if I look to Him for counsel I shall not be deceived; His goodness is infinite, and if my trust is stayed on Him I shall not be abandoned. Hope unites me to God and Him to me. Although I know I am not sufficient for the burden, my strength is in Him. For the salvation of others I must bear weariness, face dangers, suffer offences, confront storms, fight against evil. He is my hope."

His first care was the seminary, and in a little more than a year he was able to write to a friend: "I have a hundred and forty-seven boarders, young men with healthy appetites who can digest anything and everything."

The scarcity of priests in the country villages was indeed disastrous. The bishop lost no time in convoking a synod. "If people do not hear of God, of the sacraments, and of eternal life," he said to the priests assembled, "they will soon lose every good feeling, both civil and social. No difficulty is insurmountable; nothing is impossible to those who will and those who love." The difficulty that at that moment seemed most insurmountable was the want of money. The hundred and forty-seven young men required feeding, and the seminary was poor. The bishop sold the few fields at Riese that were all he possessed to meet the immediate need, and others, stirred by his zeal and eloquence, came forward to help him.

A thorough visitation of the diocese enabled Monsignor Sarto to understand its needs more fully. He liked to hear both sides of every question, and asked everyone to be perfectly frank with him in discussing both good and evil. "Joy shared is joy doubled," he would say, "and grief imparted becomes easier to bear." An old man who came one day was received with such kindness that, concluding he had to do with the bishop's secretary, he talked to him at great length about a little personal affair. "Can I believe you?" he asked wistfully, as the kind priest assured him that all would be right.

"What!" was the answer, "can you not trust your bishop?"

In order that the pastoral visitation might be no burden on the country priests, whose life was a continual struggle with poverty, he ordered that no preparations whatever were to be made for his reception. Nothing extra was to be provided; he would share with them what they had. Instead of a demonstration at the station, he begged that the people might gather in the churches for Mass and communion. "That is the greatest honour they can do me," he said; "that will be my greatest reward. I desire no useless pomp, but the salvation of souls."

One of his first acts was to write to the mayor of the city to ask his assistance, thus holding out the right hand of fellowship to the civil authority, and enlisting it in his behalf. "Your new bishop," ran the letter, "poor in everything else, but rich in love for his flock, has no other object than to work for the salvation of souls and to form among you one family of friends and brothers." The question of church and state, then a thorny one in Italy, had not of late years found a happy solution in Mantua. This gracious act of the new bishop was the first step towards a better understanding. He interested himself much in social questions; and it was through his efforts that the first Italian social congress was held at Piacenza in 1890. He understood the power of the press, and started a flourishing paper called the _Citizen of Mantua_.

As at Tombolo, at Salzano, and at Treviso, so at Mantua was the teaching of Christian doctrine one of the bishop's first cares. Schools and confraternities were established everywhere throughout the diocese, and on his pastoral visits he would catechize the children himself to see that they were properly instructed in the faith. Parents who would not allow their children to attend were threatened with severe penalties; on this subject the bishop, so gentle towards sorrow and suffering, was stern and inflexible. The children's souls were at stake, he said, and he would not see their birthright withheld from them. He insisted that church music should be decorous and religious, and that the Gregorian chant should be used when possible.

The bishop's day was a strenuous one. At five he celebrated Mass in his private chapel, and, his thanksgiving ended, went straight to his confessional in the cathedral. After breakfast of black coffee and a mouthful of bread, he began the oft-interrupted day's work, for he would have no set hours for receiving visits. Those who wanted him were admitted at any hour, and received with the most genial kindness. "No matter with what faces they go in," it was said of his visitors, "they always come out smiling--that is, unless they have done something dreadful." On these occasions Bishop Sarto could scorch the offender with words of fire, but at the first sign of repentance he was ready to forgive, to lift up the sinner and set him on the right road. Towards evening he would take a walk in the town, speaking familiarly to all he met. At nine he said the rosary with his household, after which he worked or studied till midnight.

St. Anselm of Lucca, friend of Gregory VII, and, like him, inspired with holy zeal for the reform of the clergy, is the patron saint of Mantua. In 1886 his centenary was celebrated with great splendour in the cathedral where he lies buried. Nor did the tercentenary of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, whose family was one of Mantua's olden glories, pass without special honour. A stirring address was given by the bishop himself to the young men, of whom St. Aloysius was the special patron.

"Religion has no fear of science," said Monsignor Sarto, attacking one of the most popular fallacies of the day; "Christianity does not tremble before discussion, but before ignorance. Tertullian proclaimed as much to the emperors of Rome. 'One thing,' he said, 'our faith demands: not to be condemned before it be known,' and it is this that I ask of you, young men, not to condemn religion before you have studied it." Pilgrimages were inaugurated to the birthplace of the saint at Castiglione; a mission was preached to the boys and young men of the district; processions were held. The celebration of the festival did a great deal of good in the diocese, impressing as it did upon the people the fact that the best way to honour their saints was by following in their footsteps.

In 1887 the sacerdotal jubilee of Pope Leo XIII was celebrated throughout the world. The words in which the Bishop of Mantua announced the approaching celebration to his flock found an echo in every Catholic heart. "The moment has come," he said, "to prove to the great Vicar of Christ our unchanging affection and fidelity. For us Leo XIII is the guardian of the Holy Scriptures, the interpreter of the doctrine of Jesus Christ, the supreme dispenser of the treasures of the Church, the head of the Catholic religion, the chief shepherd of souls, the infallible teacher, the secure guide, who directs us on our way through a world wrapped in darkness and the shadow of death. All the strength of the Church is in the pope; all the foundations of our faith are based on the successor of Peter. Those who wish her ill assault the papacy in every possible way; they cut themselves adrift from the Church, and try their best to make the pope an object of hatred and contempt. The more they endeavour to weaken our faith and our attachment to the head of the Church, the more closely let us draw to him through the public testimony of our faith, our obedience and our veneration."

The fame of the zeal and piety of the Bishop of Mantua soon spread beyond the bounds of his own diocese. His conspicuous merit and ability had not escaped the vigilant eye of Leo XIII, who had marked him out for higher dignity still. "If the Mantuans do not love their new bishop," he had said on the appointment of Monsignor Sarto, "they will love no one."

But the Mantuans were not so hard of heart, and the quarrelsome city, in the hands of one who, like his Master, was meek and humble of heart, had become a city of peace.

IV

PATRIARCH OF VENICE

In the consistory of June 12, 1893, Pope Leo XIII named Bishop Sarto cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, and three days later appointed him archbishop and patriarch of Venice.[*] On June 7 the bishop had set out for Rome, and on the 15th, in the presence of representatives from Venice, Treviso, Mantua and Riese, he received the cardinal's hat, with the title of San Bernardo alle Terme. The wisdom and modesty of the new cardinal, added to his charm of manner, won him many friends during his stay in Rome. For sixteen months Cardinal Sarto was unable to take possession of his see; for the Italian government, having claimed the right to nominate the patriarch, refused to sanction his appointment; and the municipality of Venice, which was largely anti-clerical, was only too glad of a pretext to show hostility to the Church.

[*] Patriarch is an honorary title. The only real patriarch in the Western Church is the pope himself.

The cardinal's first visit after his return from Rome was to his mother at Riese. At one of the stations on the way thither he was met by a deputation of his old friends the Tombolani, headed by their parish priest. Quite forgetting in their joy the respect due to a prince of the Church, the simple peasants rushed at their old curate, shouting vociferously, "Don Giuseppe! Don Giuseppe!" The cardinal, pleased with their enthusiasm, laughed and greeted his old friends with much affection.

All the bells were ringing in Riese as he entered it; all the people, young and old, were there to meet him and to escort him, the centre of a laughing, weeping, shouting crowd, to the church. Everyone was at Benediction, and when old friends had been greeted and good wishes given and received, the greatest joy of all was still to come--the meeting in the little home of his childhood, where Margherita had her son at last to herself. Next morning the cardinal preached to the people, thanking them for their welcome, and speaking of all the precious memories that centred for him round the altar where he had made his first communion and offered his first Mass. The day was spent in receiving visits; there was a kind word of greeting for new friends, and a still kinder word of remembrance for the old.

Early next day, having vested in his scarlet _cappa magna_, Cardinal Sarto went to his mother's room and, standing beside her bed, showed himself in all the glory of the "sacred purple." Margherita wept with joy; but there were tears of sorrow before night. It was the last day at Riese, and although neither of them knew it, that parting kiss was to be the last on this side of the grave. The old mother clung to her son with a passionate tenderness as he clasped her frail figure in his arms. She was eighty years old, and at that age partings are hard. A few months later the sorrowful news of her death reached the cardinal, now back at Mantua and busy with his episcopal duties. The joy of the last meeting and the grief of the last parting had been too much for the old mother's heart.

In September 1894 the government gave way at last, and the _exequatur_ or confirmation of the papal bull arrived. A few weeks later Cardinal Sarto pontificated for the last time in the cathedral of Mantua, and, bidding a loving farewell to the diocese where he had laboured so long and so strenuously, set out for Venice.

For years a government hostile to religion had waged relentless war on the Church in Italy. Laws had been passed forbidding religious teaching in the schools; charitable works had been "laicized": in other words, the goods of religious fraternities and charitable societies had been confiscated by the state, the revenues of bishoprics had been refused to prelates appointed by the pope, and rights of patronage had been claimed by the government over many sees. The result was soon to be seen in a growing materialism in all ranks of society.

"God is driven out of politics by this theory of the separation of church and state," wrote the new patriarch in his first letter to his flock. "He is driven out of learning by systematized doubt; from art by the degrading influence of realism; from law by a morality which is guided by the senses alone; from the schools by the abolition of religious instruction; from Christian marriage, which they want to deprive of the grace of the sacrament; from the cottage of the poor peasant, who disdains the help of Him who alone can make his hard life bearable; from the palaces of the rich, who no longer fear the eternal Judge who will one day ask from them an account of their stewardship. . . . We must fight this great contemporary error, the enthronement of man in the place of God. The solution of this, as of all other problems, lies in the Church and the teaching of the Gospel."

The Venetian people were determined to show their new pastor that the representatives of the government were not the representatives of popular feeling. Amidst the decorations which adorned the town, the municipal buildings alone remained untouched; amongst the crowds that gathered to meet the patriarch, the members of the municipality were conspicuously absent. The people resolved on an ovation the like of which had never before been seen. As the patriarch entered the launch that had been sent to receive him, the bells of all the towers in the City of the Sea rang out a joyous welcome; from every balcony and bridge came bursts of cheering, while a closely packed and enthusiastic crowd occupied every available space along the route. At the prow of the launch stood Cardinal Sarto in all the splendour of scarlet robes, a noble manly figure, full of dignity and sweetness, blessing the crowd with the winning smile that was characteristic of him.

On the following morning in St. Mark's, having listened to the congratulatory speeches addressed to him, the cardinal turned to the people, and in the breathless silence that followed, his clear voice rang out to the farthest recesses of the cathedral.

"I should be ashamed," he said, "to be the object of such honour, did I not know that it is offered, not to my poor person, but to Jesus Christ, whose representative I am and in whose name I come among you. You wish to show that you see in me your bishop, your father, and your patriarch, and I am bound to love you in return. When Jesus Christ gave to St. Peter the charge of His sheep and of His lambs, He asked him three times for the assurance of his love, thus giving him to understand that love is the greatest necessity for a shepherd of souls. From this moment I gather you all into my heart; I love you with a strong and supernatural love, desiring but the good of your souls. For you are all my family--priests, citizens, great and small, rich and poor. My heart and my love are yours, and from you I ask nothing but the same love in return. My only desire is that you should say of me, 'Our patriarch is a man of upright intention, who holds high the banner of our Lord Jesus Christ, who seeks only to defend the truth and to do good.' And since God has raised me, a son of the people, to this high dignity, He will certainly give me the strength and the grace necessary for so great a mission. It is the duty of a bishop to proclaim God's truth, to interpret it to the people; and I look upon it as a holy duty to speak frankly in its defence. I am ready to make any sacrifice for the salvation of souls. You who have zeal for the things of God, work with me, help me, and God will give us the grace that is necessary to achieve our ends."

The Venetians were deeply moved; they felt that their new patriarch was a truly apostolic man, and the impression only gathered strength as time went on. The doors of his house were always open to anyone, rich or poor, who wished to speak to the patriarch; the troubles of the least of his flock were his own. He threw himself with all his heart into every movement for the bettering of the condition of the poor, often settling, by his tact and zeal, bitter disputes between capital and labour. The municipality was, as we have seen, anti-clerical. He rallied the Catholic forces with such success that within a year they prevailed. For he knew the way to obtain his ends; and while throwing into the struggle the whole influence of his forceful personality, he inaugurated throughout the diocese, before and during the elections, a regular crusade of prayer. Wherever he went, peace and reconciliation followed. "Possessed of much sweetness and charm of manner," wrote one who knew him, "and uniting a certain stateliness and dignity with a graceful address and a delightful sense of humour, he preached the gospel of personal culture, putting cleanliness next to godliness, and good manners next to good morals, himself setting the example in these things."

As at Mantua and at Treviso, he insisted strongly on religious instruction for all classes. Ignorance of Christian teaching, he said, was the great defect of the times, and very many evils sprang from this alone. Many who were learned in secular sciences were deplorably ignorant of the truths of their faith. Preachers were apt to take too much for granted that their congregations were well instructed, and on this account their sermons bore little fruit.

"There is too much preaching and too little teaching," said the patriarch; "put aside these flowery and elaborate discourses, and preach to the people plainly and simply on the eternal truths of faith and on the teaching of the Gospel. Think of the good of souls rather than of the impression you are making. The people are thirsting for truth; give them what they need for their souls' health, for this is the first duty of a priest."

He insisted on religious instruction for adults as well as children, but reminded his priests that all these things require study, preparation and prayer. As nothing pertaining to the dignity of the priesthood was small in his eyes, he insisted that the clergy should be tidy in dress and scrupulously clean. He mixed freely with the people, often stopping to talk to those he met in friendly and familiar fashion. The Venetians loved him dearly. "There goes our dear patriarch," they would say, "intent on some good. God bless him and the mother who bore him." His home life was as simple as ever, and his charities as great. His two sisters and his niece kept house for him. His steward had to put him on an allowance, so unmeasured was his almsgiving, and it was said that the episcopal ring of the chief pastor of Venice was more than once in pawn.

"Times are changed," said an old friend who was visiting him, as the cardinal pulled out a gold watch from his pocket. "Do you remember the silver one which was always going to the pawnbroker at Tombolo?"

The patriarch looked ruefully at the watch. "The person who gave it me," he said, laughing, "had the unfortunate inspiration to get the patriarchal arms engraved on the back!"

"I am so sorry to have to send you such a wretched sum," he wrote to a priest in Mantua who had applied to him for money for some charity; "I was poor at Mantua, but here I am a perfect beggar. Take what I send in the same spirit, and forgive me."

The diocesan visitation begun soon after his arrival in Venice was no small affair, and took several months to accomplish. "We appreciate greatly the zeal and charity of our patriarch," said the people, "but we are praying that he may sometimes think a little of himself; for such men are precious, and we want to keep him as long as we can." As at Mantua, he begged that there might be as little pomp and ceremony as possible, and that no extraordinary preparations might be made in the different parishes for his arrival. With quick intuition he saw at a glance exactly what was needed in the way of reform or development, and at the synod which followed showed a perfect knowledge of the requirements of the archdiocese.

The eucharistic congress in Venice which took place in August, 1898, was prompted and carried out by the zeal and energy of Patriarch Sarto, who spared no pains to make it a success. Inaugurated as a reparation for the many sacrileges offered to Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, its aim was to stimulate the faith of the people and to arouse in them a greater love for this mystery of their faith. Each parish was to take its part in the celebration, the whole congress being carefully organized by the cardinal himself. "The heart of man," he said, "is inconstant in good; it grows cold and careless if it is not stirred up to action from time to time." Conferences were held and missions preached in many of the Venetian churches to prepare the people. The bells of all the city rang out to announce the beginning of the congress, which opened with a magnificent procession to St. Mark's. The inaugural address was preached by Cardinal Svampa, Archbishop of Bologna; and on the following day the patriarch himself addressed the people.

"Jesus is our king," he said, "and we delight to honour as our king Him whom the world dishonours and disowns. We, His true subjects, offer our true homage to Christ the King; the warmth of our love shall be greater than the coldness of the world. We meet around the tabernacle where Jesus remains in our midst until the end of time; there faith springs up anew in our hearts, while the fire of His charity--the very fire that He came to cast upon the earth--burns within us. The object of this eucharistic congress is to make reparation to our Lord Jesus Christ for the insults offered to Him in the Blessed Sacrament; to pray that His thoughts may be in our minds, His charity in our institutions, His justice in our laws, His worship in our religion, His life in our lives."

On the afternoon of the third day the final procession was one of the most magnificent of all the magnificent pageants ever seen in the City of the Sea, even in the days when the doge went in solemn state to wed the Adriatic. Cardinal Svampa carried the monstrance, while before and after him went cardinals in scarlet, bishops in cope and mitre, religious orders, the confraternities with their banners and insignia, hierarchs and priests of the Byzantine and Armenian rites in their vestments. "Splendid as a dream," wrote one who was present, "it seemed as if the very Greek saints had stepped out of the mosaics in the cathedral to be present at the solemn passage of Christ in their midst."

Cardinal Sarto had not been long at Venice before he determined on a thorough reform of church music. He summoned Don Lorenzo Perosi, a young cleric whom he had known at Mantua and a skilled musician. Music, said the patriarch, was intended to excite the faithful to devotion and to help them to pray: the music in vogue did neither. The fearful and wonderful performances of string orchestras, dear to the hearts of many, were banned, as was the use of drums, trumpets, tambourines and whistles. No instrument but the organ was to be used in the churches, and even that was to be subordinate. The words of the Mass were to be sung to the Gregorian chant with solemnity and dignity, and by men and boys alone. That the change was not acceptable in all quarters was hardly to be wondered at. The operatic efforts of loud-voiced ladies singing the _O Salutaris_ during Mass to the air of the Serenade from _Faust_, or a Creed that was like the Brigands' Chorus from an opera, still found many admirers.

Nevertheless, when a Mass of Palestrina was sung under the leadership of Perosi for the first time in the cathedral of St. Mark, the Venetians realized the difference. "Enchantingly beautiful," they said. But it was uphill work, and Don Lorenzo would have lost heart altogether had it not been for the support and encouragement of his holy patron.

One of the poorest of the island parishes of Venice was Burano, which in ancient times had been famous for its point lace. The cardinal, moved by the misery of its inhabitants, determined to revive the industry; but only one old woman remained who knew the art. A benevolent lady, persuaded to interest herself in the work, got the old woman to teach her, started a school of lace workers, and soon had six hundred girls in training. Clubs were started for young men and boys, not only here, but in many other parishes. There was no difficulty, no misery for which the patriarch did not try to find a cure. He had the art of giving without offending people whose decent appearance covered a poverty often more bitter in that it had to be hidden. He went one day to see a friend who had fallen on evil times, and who was in dire need of help. "I am so sorry," said the patriarch, "I have absolutely nothing left, but take this," giving him an exquisite ivory crucifix which had been given him as a present; "it is valuable, and will realize a good sum."

Although unflinchingly firm in everything that concerned the faith and the rights of the Church, the frank courtesy of Patriarch Sarto and his conciliating spirit kept him always on good terms with the government. He bade his priests and people respect all lawfully constituted authority, recognizing that "the powers that be are ordained of God." "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's," he would often say. When King Humbert of Italy was assassinated he ordered that a requiem should be sung for him in St. Mark's; and when the widowed queen came to Venice for rest and change of air, he visited and consoled her with the most heartfelt sympathy. "The restoration of society in Christ is the only cure for all the world's evils," he would constantly repeat. "No good is good which is not rooted and founded in Christ." He had the gift of inspiring others and rallying them to his own charitable schemes, filling them with a fire and energy like his own.

The 14th of July, 1902, was a day of grief for Venice. The great campanile of St. Mark's, which had stood for centuries watching over the glories of the City of the Sea, crumbled and fell in ruins. The universal lamentations were changed, by order of the patriarch, into thanksgivings that no one had been injured, and that the cathedral itself had not suffered. The reconstruction of the campanile was immediately determined on, and on the 25th of April, 1903, the feast day of the evangelist and patron saint of Venice, the first stone was laid. The square of St. Mark was a sea of heads; every window and balcony was crowded. The Duke of Turin, a prince of the house of Savoy, was present as the representative of the king, who had contributed generously to the reconstruction fund. The cardinal stood opposite him. Church and state were face to face, with the memory of all that had passed since the beginning of the Italian Revolution between them. Was conciliation possible? It might have seemed that day that it was--that in charity and justice lay the solution. The cardinal's tact and courtesy on this occasion, as on so many others, put everybody at ease, and his discourse won the admiration of all.

"It is a good and beautiful thing," he said, "for men to ask God's blessing on their work. The genius of man is at its highest when it bows before the Light Eternal. I rejoice, therefore, with you, most noble representatives of Venice, that, as faithful interpreters of public opinion, you have decided that the rebuilding of our beloved campanile must be inaugurated with a solemn act of religious worship. I rejoice that you have shown yourselves worthy sons of your Venetian forefathers, who, knowing well that 'unless the Lord build the house, their labour is in vain that build it,' began no enterprise without asking God's blessing and the protection of His Virgin Mother in their work." After having shown that all the glory of medieval Venice sprang from her faith and her religion, he turned to the Duke of Turin and the other illustrious guests with a word of thanks for their presence. "A man of personal fascination and splendid presence," wrote a member of the French government who was there, "with handsome open face and strong clear-cut features, softened by eyes in which shines the light of perpetual youth. Nothing proud about him, nothing obsequious, his manner with the Duke of Turin was perfect, that of a man who is completely at his ease."

Prince of the Church as he was, he was always ready to fulfil the duties of a simple parish priest. He would carry holy communion to the sick, hear confessions, give retreats in the churches of the diocese, and visit the prisons, the hospitals and the reformatories, preaching to their inmates and comforting all their sorrows. The religious orders were amongst the most favoured of his children; he was always ready to visit them on their feast days, and loved and esteemed their work. Both saint and sinner found in him a kindly strength and simple goodness which set them at their ease at once. The very sight of his face was a welcome; there was no affectation of piety or austerity which might repel or frighten anyone; no one could feel stiff or awkward in his presence, all shyness and reserve gave way before his gentle manner.

An intimate friend of the cardinal, who was staying with him, asked one day if he might celebrate Mass at an early hour next morning, as he had to catch a train. "Why not?" was the answer, "I will see that all is ready for you."

What was the astonishment of the priest when he went to the cardinal's private chapel at an early hour to find his host himself preparing for the Mass.

"But who will serve?" asked the celebrant.

"I," answered the cardinal very simply.

"Eminence!" protested his guest, quite aghast at the suggestion.

"What!" he exclaimed, smiling, "do you imagine that a prelate of my rank does not know how to serve Mass? A fine idea you have of the princes of the Church!"

He hated ostentation of any kind and would often travel about the country incognito. He was going one day to the convent of the Sisters of Charity at Crespano when, feeling sure that at Bassano, where he had to get out, there would be an ovation, he wrote to a friend telling him that two Venetian priests going to Crespano who did not know the country would be glad if a carriage could be sent to meet them at the station. The train arrived, and the two priests made their way to a ramshackle little carriage which was standing outside. The friend, who was waiting to do the honours to the cardinal's priests, came forward eagerly, and was just about to greet the elder of the two when he recognized the patriarch. "Your Eminence!" he stammered, utterly taken aback; but the cardinal, finger on lips in warning, jumped into the carriage followed by his companion, and drove away. Little did he guess that the time was close at hand when his desire to be unnoticed could nevermore be fulfilled, when he who loved to take the lowest place was to be obliged to take the highest in the world.

V

THE PAPAL ELECTION

The news of the death of Leo XIII, on July 20, 1903, came as a blow to the whole Catholic world. The old man of ninety-four, whose wonderful intelligence had remained unimpaired until the very end of his life, had guided the bark of Peter with sure and unswerving hand during the twenty-live years of his pontificate. His blameless life, his lofty ideas, and his indomitable moral courage have been borne witness to by men who had small sympathy for the Catholic Church. "The original attitude of Leo XIII towards the new social forces," wrote the _Quarterly Review_, "will make his pontificate a memorable epoch, not only in the history of the Roman Church, but in that of all Christian countries. His personal conception of the duties of the Church towards the labouring classes was catholic in the broadest and best sense of the term. It was such a conception as befitted the chief pastor of Christendom." And this was only one side of the activity of the great statesman and pope who had passed away. "Pray that God may send to His Church a shepherd after His own heart," said Cardinal Sarto when he announced to his people at Venice the news of the pope's death. Little did he think how that prayer was to be answered. Yet Leo XIII himself not long before his death had said to an intimate friend, "If the conclave chooses a cardinal not resident in Rome, it is Cardinal Sarto who will be elected."

The announcement of the death of Leo was sent to all the cardinals throughout the world, with the intimation that the conclave for the election of his successor would be held on the 31st of July. It was not until the 26th that Cardinal Sarto was able to set out. He laughed at the apprehensions of his sisters that he might not come back to them. His secretary, Don Giovanni Bressan, was busy putting together what was necessary for the journey. "Where is Don Giovanni?" asked the cardinal of his niece Amalia. "Go and tell him that a journey to Rome is not a journey to America."

"Get the conclave over and come back quickly," said Amalia.

"Sooner or later," replied the Cardinal, "it does not matter. In the meantime you go to Possagno for a change of air and I will pick you up on my way back." But the sisters were sad, and refused to be comforted.

The whole city turned out to greet the patriarch as the gondola made its way to the station; from every balcony and bridge good wishes and farewells followed him. At the station there was a regular ovation, poor and rich crowded round him to kiss his ring or catch a word from his lips. With tears in his eyes he thanked them for that demonstration of affection, and for the love they bore him.

"One more blessing! one more blessing!" pleaded the people, "who knows if you will ever come back?"

"Alive or dead, I shall come back," was the answer.

The train began to move, and from its window Cardinal Sarto unknowingly looked his last on his beloved Venice; it was good-bye for ever.[*] He had written to the Lombard College for rooms, and there he remained until the opening of the conclave. A Venetian lady who lived at Rome, having come to see him, expressed a polite wish that he would be the new pope. Cardinal Sarto laughed. "It is sufficient honour," he replied, "that God should make use of such as I to elect the pope."

[*] The story that he had taken a return ticket does not seem to be true but he planned to return to Venice immediately after the coronation of the new pope.

A French cardinal (Lecot of Bordeaux) who did not know him spoke to him one day. "Your Eminence is an Italian archbishop?" he asked.

"I do not speak French," replied Cardinal Sarto, in Latin; "I am the patriarch of Venice."

"Ah! if you do not speak French," answered his questioner, "you will not be eligible for the papacy."

"Thank God, no," was the answer; "I am not eligible for the papacy."

"I think the election will be quickly over," said Cardinal Sarto to an Italian journalist who came to visit him in Rome. "The pope will probably be elected at the second scrutiny."

"I venture to disagree with your Eminence," was the reply, "and on these grounds. I hope--for I think it is permissible--for a cardinal who resides in his diocese. Not that the cardinals of the curia are wanting in breadth or in experience, but as a rule those prelates who live in the provinces are in immediate contact with the people. They have a better chance of seeing things from the inside than those who occupy an official post in Rome, important and indispensable though these may be. But of necessity the non-resident cardinals are less well known in Rome than those of the curia, their candidature must therefore be slower and the election longer."

The election of a pope is one of the most solemn deeds of the Church, and is safeguarded by strict regulations. On the death of the pontiff the Cardinal Chamberlain, as representative of the Sacred College, assumes charge of the papal household, notifying to all the cardinals of the Church the death of the pope and the impending election. Every cardinal has the right to vote in the conclave, but he must be present in person to do so. Each one may take with him a secretary, who is generally a priest, and a servant. In the meanwhile a large portion of the Vatican palace has been walled off and divided into apartments or cells for the conclavists. Access to it can be had through one door alone, which is left open until the conclave begins, when it is closed and barred from without by the Marshal of the Conclave, and from within by the Cardinal Chamberlain. All communication with the outside world is then at an end until the result of the election is announced.

The conclave opens officially (now) not later than eighteen days after the pope's death. The cardinals assist at Mass and receive holy communion from the hands of the Cardinal Dean, who solemnly adjures them to elect as pope him whom they believe to be the most worthy. They assemble in the Sistine Chapel, where the actual voting takes place. The stall of each cardinal has a canopy overhead and a small writing-desk in front. The door is shut and bolted and the voting begins. Each cardinal having written the name of his candidate on the paper provided, deposits it in a chalice on the altar, taking as he does so the required oath: "I call to witness the Lord Christ, who will be my judge, that I am electing the one whom before God I think ought to be elected." The ballots are then counted and read aloud, and if no candidate has received the necessary number of votes, they are burnt in a little stove together with a handful of damp straw. As the chimney of this stove extends through a window of the chapel, the colour of the smoke or _sfumata_ can be clearly seen by those outside. Not until the election is made are the ballots burnt without the accompanying straw, when the clear white smoke is the first notification to the people that the pope is elected. Voting takes place twice a day, morning and evening, until a majority of two-thirds of the votes has been attained.

The _veto_ was the alleged right of certain Catholic rulers to object to the election of a cardinal of whom they do not approve. It was exercised rarely and has never been formally approved by the Church. Although Pius IX had forbidden any interference by the secular power in a papal election, an attempt was made to exercise the _veto_ at the conclave which resulted in the election of Pius X. At the third scrutiny, in which Cardinal Rampolla came first with twenty-nine votes, Cardinal Puzyna, Bishop of Cracow, who had accepted the mandate of the Austrian government in the name of the Emperor Francis Joseph, read (it is said after signs of severe embarrassment) a declaration excluding Cardinal Rampolla, without giving any reason for the exclusion.

The cardinals protested against the interference, and the votes in Cardinal Rampolla's favour were found to have increased by one in the evening scrutiny. But Cardinal Sarto's had been mounting steadily from the beginning and continued to do so until they reached the number of fifty.[*]

[*] The opinions of those best qualified to judge seem to agree that Cardinal Rampolla's failure to be elected was quite uninfluenced by the Austrian action. Soon after his election Pius X definitively abolished the exercise of the veto.

At five o'clock on the 31st of July the Cardinals, sixty-three in all, assembled at the Vatican. At nightfall the last door was closed and bricked up; the conclave had begun. At the first scrutiny Cardinal Rampolla had twenty-four votes, Cardinal Gotti seven, and Cardinal Sarto five. There was nothing alarming in this; but when, at the second scrutiny, the votes in favour of the Patriarch of Venice had doubled, and at the third doubled again, it was another matter, and his anguish was obvious to all. With trembling voice and tears in his eyes, he spoke to the Cardinals, begging them to give up all thought of him. "I am unworthy, I am not qualified," he pleaded, "forget me."

"It was that very adjuration, his grief, his profound humility and wisdom," said Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore, "that made us think of him all the more; we learnt to know him from his words as we could never have known him by hearsay." The voting continued. In the evening of the second day Cardinal Sarto, who at the last scrutiny had obtained twenty-four votes, on returning to his room found several of his colleagues who had come to beg him not to refuse the burden if God should call upon him to bear it. "I was one of those who went to visit him in his cell in the evening, to try to induce him to accept," said the American cardinal. "Those who had gone before had shaken his resistance, so that I almost hoped he would resign himself to what seemed to be inevitable." On the third day the votes for Cardinal Sarto went on increasing, until on the morning of the fourth day fifty out of the sixty-two were in his favour, eight more than the forty-two required for a valid election.

They asked him if he would accept, but he had already accepted in his heart after a most grievous inward struggle. "I accept," he said, with tears.

"What name will you take?" they asked him. "I will be called Pius," he replied.

Pale and trembling, he was clothed in the white cassock, the ring was placed on his finger, and he was led to the throne to receive the obedience of the cardinals. When at last the pope returned to his cell he remained for long in prayer before the crucifix. The faithful servant who had come with him from Venice begged him several times in vain to take some food. At last he rose, and, turning to his secretary, Monsignor Bressan, with something of his old serenity: "Come," he said, "it is the will of God."

Immediately after his election, when leaving the balcony from which he had given his first blessing inside St. Peter's, Pius X expressed his wish to go and visit Cardinal Herrero y Espinosa, Archbishop of Valencia, an old man eighty years of age who was lying sick in his cell. He had been taken ill a few days before and had received the last sacraments. The pope blessed and prayed over him. Three days later the man for whom the doctors had declared there was little hope was well enough to get up. He returned soon after to Spain, cured, as he himself always declared, by the prayer of Pius X.

The news of the election was received with joy in Italy. Outside of that country Pius X was little known. "What kind of a pope will he be?" was the question on many lips. The world had not long to wait for the answer. Two months had scarcely passed before his first encyclical letter rang through the Catholic world.

"It matters not to tell with what tears and earnest prayers we sought to avoid this appalling burden of the pontifical office," he begins. "We could not be other than disturbed at being appointed the successor of one who, after having most wisely ruled the Church for well-nigh six-and-twenty years, showed such power of genius and so shone with virtue that even adversaries were constrained to admire him."

Going straight to the heart of the world's unrest, the pope lays bare the cause of the disease--"the falling away from and forsaking God, than which there is nothing more nearly allied to perdition. As, borne up by God's might, we set our hand to the work of withstanding this great evil, we proclaim that in bearing the pontifical office this is our one purpose, 'to restore all things in Christ, so that Christ may be all in all'." Beautiful words, which embody the teaching and the work of a lifetime spent in God's service. No empty ideal either, but the one that Giuseppe Sarto had set steadfastly before himself from the very day of his consecration to the priesthood, to which he had devoted himself strenuously ever since.

He foresaw the hostile judgments that were to be expected from certain quarters on every action of the head of the Catholic Church. "There will be some, assuredly, who, measuring divine things by those that are human, will study our mind to wrest it to earthly ends and the aims of parties. To cut off this vain hope of theirs, we affirm in all truth that in human society we desire to be nothing, and by the help of God we will be nothing, but the minister of God whose authority we bear. God's cause is our cause, to which we are determined to devote all our strength and life itself Therefore, if any ask of us a token to show forth the purpose of our mind, we shall ever give this one alone--'to restore all things in Christ'."

"To this, therefore," he continues later, speaking of the evils that follow on the forsaking of God, "must we direct all our efforts, to bring the race of men under the dominion of Christ; when once this is done, it will have already returned to God Himself. How many are there," he laments, "that hate Christ and abhor the Church and the Gospel through ignorance rather than perversity, of whom you may rightly say that 'they blaspheme whatever things they know not'; and this is to be found not only in the common people, but among the cultured and even those who enjoy no mean learning. It cannot be agreed that faith is quenched by the growth of science: it is more truly quenched by want of knowledge." Speaking of those who are hostile to the Church, "Why may we not hope," he says, "that the fire of Christian charity will dissipate the darkness, and bring them 'the light and peace of God'? Charity is never wearied by waiting."

"A 'shepherd of souls' was the verdict of the Catholic world on reading the encyclical. 'Gentle and strong' was the judgement of a well-known American bishop. But there was another side to the character of the pope which later on became evident. 'Pius X,' wrote one who had known him intimately at Venice, 'is a man of keen intelligence, and of great culture, thoroughly well up in the philosophy, literature, and social movements of the times'." But first and foremost a shepherd of souls. The world was right in its judgement.

One of the first actions of the new pope was to order the distribution of four thousand pounds amongst the poor of Rome, and half that amount amongst the poor of Venice. "Is it not rather a large sum?" suggested the almoner respectfully, "considering the actual state of things?"

"Where is your trust in God's Providence?" asked Pius, and the money was given.

He could no longer go to his beloved poor, but word was given that they should come to him. Sunday after Sunday they were gathered, parish by parish, in the courts of the Vatican to hear from the lips of the pope himself a simple sermon on the gospel of the day. "Love God, and lead good Christian lives," such was the burden of his teaching; but there was more teaching still in the warm welcome that awaited them, in the tender charity that shone forth in every word and movement. "Sweet Christ on earth," was what St. Catherine of Siena loved to call the successor of St. Peter. Surely the name must have often come to the lips of those whose privilege it was to be much in the presence of Pius X.

VI

THE AIMS OF PIUS X

With a firm and sure hand the new pope had traced out the programme of his pontificate--the restoring of all things in Christ. It was not the first time he had used these words. We have already seen how as parish priest, bishop and patriarch they had been ever in his thoughts as the ideal and the aim of the sacerdotal life. The time had come when from the chair of Peter he was to set them before the world as the remedy for all its evils, calling on the faithful children of the Church to help in the great work.

Not only had he pointed out the evils to be dealt with, but the means of dealing with them. Earnest prayer, the formation of a learned, zealous and devout priesthood, religious instruction for the adult as well as for the child, wise efforts to ameliorate the condition of the poor and deal with the social question, Christian charity towards both friends and enemies, the faithful keeping of the commandments of God, the frequent use of the sacraments--thus was the "restoring of all things in Christ" to be accomplished.

All his life Pope Pius X had been a strenuous worker. At sixty-eight he was still a hale and vigorous man. He rose early, making an hour's meditation and reciting his Office before saying Mass, which he did usually at six o'clock. The day's work was carefully planned so that no time might be lost. A born organizer, the pope soon acquainted himself thoroughly with all that concerned the administration of the government of the Church and set on foot several necessary reforms in the work of the different congregations. Practical, punctual and exact in all his undertakings, he required that others should be the same. There was not a question of the day in which his quick intelligence did not take a lively interest.