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278 "But why should I thus write to you, and renew my pain and aggravate my grief, and make you the confidant of my sorrow? The remembrance of painful things embitters their evil without bringing any solace. That which has happened is like a tragedy, which took place, no doubt, in order that by your prayers we might be enabled to govern well that flock which has been committed to us, I know not how; that the cloud of difficulties hanging over us might be dispelled; that the heavy atmosphere which surrounds us might be cleared. Even as a pilot is joyful when he sees his well-directed bark driven by a favourable wind, so a church is the joy of a pastor, who sees it increase in piety and virtue, dispelling the anxieties that encompass him like clouds, and the fears inspired by his own weakness.

"A short time since, when he who had the episcopal office before us abandoned this honour, I found myself attacked on all sides, under what direction I do not know, by the clergy and the assembly of bishops and metropolitans, and particularly by the Emperor, who is full of love for Christ, good, just, humane, and (why shall I not say it ?) more just than those who reigned before him. Only against me has he been inhuman, violent, and terrible. Acting in concert with the assembly of which I have spoken, he has given me no respite, actuated, he says, to this insistance by the unanimous wish and desire of the clergy, who would allow me no excuse; and asserting that in view of such a vote he could not, however he might desire it, permit my resistance. The assembly of the clergy was large, and my entreaties could not be heard by many of them; those who heard them took no heed of them; they had but one intention, one determined resolve — that of imposing the episcopate upon me in spite of myself." ...

We will pause here one moment. The enemies of Photius have maintained that in thus expressing him-