Page:Margaret Fuller by Howe, Julia Ward, Ed. (1883).djvu/192

Rh having there found “Rome twice directress of the world, first through the Emperors, later through the Popes," he is led to believe that the great city is destined to a third and more lasting period of supremacy.

“I believe that another European world ought to be revealed from the Eternal City, that had the Capitol and has the Vatican. And this faith has not abandoned me through years, poverty, and griefs which God alone knows."

One cannot help pausing here to reflect that in both historic instances the supremacy of Rome was due to a superiority of civilization which she has long lost, and is not likely to regain in this day of the world.

Mazzini says to the Pope: “There is no man this day in all Europe more powerful than you; you then have, most Holy Father, vast duties."

He now passes on to a review of the situation:—

"Europe is in a tremendous crisis of doubts and desires. Faith is dead. Catholicism is lost in despot- ism; Protestantism is lost in anarchy. The intellect travels in a void. The bad adore calculation, physical good; the good pray and hope; nobody believes....

"I call upon you, after so many ages of doubt and corruption, to be the apostle of eternal truth. I call upon you to make yourself the servant of all’; to sacrifice yourself, if needful, so that the will of God may be done on earth as it is in heaven; to hold yourself ready to glorify God in victory, or to repeat with resignation, if you must fail, the words of Gregory VII.: 'I die in exile because I have loved justice and hated iniquity.'

“But for this, to fulfil the mission which God con-