Page:Christ and Antichrist - Manning.djvu/17

Rh from Monte Rotondo: 'I here, alone a Roman General, with full powers from the only lawful Government—that is, of the Roman Republic, and elected by universal suffrage—have the right to maintain myself in arms on this territory of my jurisdiction.' Before the moon was up on the night of the 3rd, he and his hordes were swept away, not by the soldiers of Christendom, nor by the armies of France, but by the just judgment of God, Whom, in the Vicar of His Incarnate Son, he had outraged and defied.

Thus, then, is one vast scandal and danger swept out of Italy. Year by year there have been arising in Italy the harbingers of a better day. It has suffered much, and the shadow of a greater suffering which may yet come is cast before upon it. But there is yet time, and there is yet hope. Italy is both Christian and Catholic. Infidelity and Revolution have tormented and tainted Italy, but Italy is neither revolutionary nor infidel. Factions have risen, from time to time, to the surface; and the traditional mind and will of Italy is for a while confused and paralysed. But it is evidently rising again in vigour and control; and if only wise and Christian counsels prevail, the Christian mind of Italy will be once more in the ascendant. Then, and only then, can the reconciliation of Italy and Rome be accomplished. No worse enemy ever came between them than the Infidel Revolution. When Italy returns upon the path of its old Catholic glories, the heart of the Catholic world will return to it. We love and venerate it as the soil on which the greatest glories of the Catholic Church are inscribed,