The world found the “Epistle to All Christians” very piquant, not on account of novelty, but because of the nude vivid candour with which old and trite truths were enunciated dogmatically. Christianity, the Pope proclaimed, was a great deal more than a mere ritual service. It extended to every part of human life; and its rules must regulate Christians in all matters of principle and practice. He laid great stress on the assertion of the principle of the Personal Responsibility of the Individual. It was quite unavoidable, quite incapable of being shifted on to societies or servants. Each soul would have to render its own account to its Creator. In connection with the last doctrine, He denounced as damnable nonsense the fashionable heresy which is crystallized in the Quatrains of Edward Fitzgerald,
O Thou, Who didst with pitfall and with gin
Beset the road I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not, with predestined evil, round
Enmesh; and then impute my fall to sin.
O Thou, Who man of baser earth didst make;
And, e’en with paradise, devise the snake;—
For all the sin, wherewith the face of man
Is blackened, man’s forgiveness give—and take!
He described those lines as the whine of a whimpering coward: pertinently inquiring whether a human father would be blameable, who, having taught his boy to swim, should fling him into the sea that he might have the merit of fighting his own way to shore where the rope was ready at hand? He condemned all attempts at uniformity as unnatural crimes, because they insulted the Divine intelligence Which had deigned to differentiate His creatures. He declared that God’s servants were to be known by their broad minds, generous hearts, and staunch wills.
“The Church of God is not narrow, nor ‘Liberal,’ but Catholic with room for all: for ‘there are diversities of gifts.’ ”
It was the individual soul which must be saved; and it was that which was addressed in the Evangel. He considered the immense strength of the single verse,
“Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” Hence He would have no barrier erected between Christians of the Roman Obedience and Christians of other denominations. The following passage, containing His Own idea of His relation to other men, attracted much attention:—
“It is in no man’s power to believe what he list. No man is to be blamed for reasoning in support of his own religion: for he only is accountable. ‘Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold’; and these deserve more care and love, but not cheap pity, nor insulting patronage, nor irritated persecution: for if, as has been said, a man shall follow Christ’s Law, and shall believe His Words according to his conscientious sense of their meaning, he will be a member of Christ’s Flock although he be not within the Fold. And, though We know that he understands Christ’s Words amiss, yet that is no reason for Our claiming any kind of superiority over an honest man, the purpose of whose heart and mind is to obey and to be guided by Christ. Such an one is a Christian and Our good brother, a servant of God; and, if he will have Us, We, by virtue of Our Apostolature, are his servant also.”
The conclusion of the “Epistle” contained a very striking admonition addressed to members of His Own communion, to the effect that the being Christian did not confer any title to physical or external dominion, but rather the contrary. Perhaps the peroration is worthy of quotation:—
“Persuade, if ye can persuade, and if the world will permit you to persuade: but seek not to persuade. Better to live so that men will convince themselves through the contemplation of your ensample. That way only satisfaction lies. Accept, but claim not, obedience. Seek not suffering, nor avoid it: but, when it is deigned to you, most stringently conceal it and tolerate it with jubilation, remembering the words of Plato where it is written ‘Help cometh through pain and suffering, nor can we be freed from our iniquity by any other means!’ Scorn not the trite. Scorn no brother-man. Scorn no thing. Yet, if ye (being men) must scorn, then scorn the enemies of God and the King, which be the Devil and Dishonour and Death.”
An even greater sensation, than that caused by the “Epistle to All Christians,” attended the simultaneous publication of the Bull Regnum Meum. It personally was addressed to the very last person in all the world by whom, under ordinary circumstances, a communication from the Vatican might have been expected. Hadrian VII, Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, sent Greeting and Apostolic Benediction to His Well-beloved Son—the Majesty of Victor Emanuel III, King of Italy. “My Kingdom is not of this world” was the text of the Bull, which the Pope began with an unwavering defence of the Divine Revelation, the Church, Peter, and the Power of the Keys. So far, He spoke as a theologian. Then, with lightning swiftness, He assumed the role of the historian. His theme was the Forged Decretals or Donation of Constantine, which first were promulgated in a breve which His Holiness’s predecessor, Hadrian I, addressed to His Majesty’s predecessor (in a certain sense), the Emperor Charlemagne. He recited the well-known facts that these Decretals, though undoubtedly forged, had been forged merely as the intellectual pastime of an exiled archbishop’s idle hours, and with no nefarious intent whatever. He showed how that, during four centuries, no doubt as to their authenticity had been entertained; and how that three more centuries had elapsed before evidence had been collected sufficing to justify their being thrown overboard from the Barque of Peter to lighten the ship. Then, He continued, the Pope was the sovereign of a patrimony of which
