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Margaret Fuller Ossoli - At Home And Abroad

M >> Margaret Fuller Ossoli >> At Home And Abroad




This church, is indelibly stamped on my mind. Coming to Rome this
time, I saw in the diligence a young man, whom his uncle, a priest of
the convent that owns this church, had sent for, intending to provide
him employment here. Some slight circumstances tested the character
of this young man, and showed it what I have ever found it, singularly
honorable and conscientious. He was led to show me his papers, among
which was a letter from a youth whom, with that true benevolence only
possible to the poor, because only they _can_ make great sacrifices,
he had so benefited as to make an entire change in his prospects for
life. Himself a poor orphan, with nothing but a tolerable education
at an orphan asylum, and a friend of his dead parents to find him
employment on leaving it, he had felt for this young man, poorer and
more uninstructed than himself, had taught him at his leisure to read
and write, had then collected from, friends, and given himself,
till he had gathered together sixty francs, procuring also for
his _protege_ a letter from monks, who were friends of his, to the
convents on the road, so that wherever there was one, the poor youth
had lodging and food gratis. Thus armed, he set forth on foot for
Rome; Piacenza, their native place, affording little hope even of
gaining bread, in the present distressed state of that dominion. The
letter was to say that he had arrived, and been so fortunate as to
find employment immediately in the studio of Benzoni, the sculptor.

The poor patron's eyes sparkled as I read the letter. "How happy he
is!" said he. "And does he not spell and write well? I was his only
master."

But the good do not inherit the earth, and, less fortunate than his
_protege_, Germano on his arrival found his uncle ill of the Roman
fever. He came to see me, much agitated. "Can it be, Signorina," says
he, "that God, who has taken my father and mother, will also take
from me the only protector I have left, and just as I arrive in this
strange place, too?" After a few days he seemed more tranquil, and
told me that, though he had felt as if it would console him and divert
his mind to go to some places of entertainment, he had forborne and
applied the money to have masses said for his uncle. "I feel," he
said, "as if God would help me." Alas! at that moment the uncle was
dying. Poor Germano came next day with a receipt for masses said for
the soul of the departed, (his simple faith in these being apparently
indestructible,) and amid his tears he said: "The Fathers were so
unkind, they were hardly willing to hear me speak a word; they were so
afraid I should be a burden to them, I shall never go there again. But
the most cruel thing was, I offered them a scudo (dollar) to say six
masses for the soul of my poor uncle; they said they would only say
five, and must have seven baiocchi (cents) more for that."

A few days after, I happened to go into their church, and found it
thronged, while a preacher, panting, sweating, leaning half out of
the pulpit, was exhorting his hearers to "imitate Christ." With
unspeakable disgust I gazed on this false shepherd of those who had
just so failed in their duty to a poor stray lamb, Their church is so
rich in ornaments, the seven baiocchi were hardly needed to burnish
it. Their altar-piece is a very imposing composition, by an artist
of Rome, still in the prime of his powers. Capalti. It represents the
Circumcision, with the cross and six waiting angels in the background;
Joseph, who holds the child, the priest, and all the figures in the
foreground, seem intent upon the barbarous rite, except Mary the
mother; her mind seems to rush forward into the future, and understand
the destiny of her child; she sees the cross,--she sees the angels,
too.

Now I have mentioned a picture, let me say a word or two about Art and
artists, by way of parenthesis in this letter so much occupied, with
political affairs. We laugh a little here at some words that come from
your city on the subject of Art.

We hear that the landscapes painted here show a want of familiarity
with Nature; artists need to return to America and see her again. But,
friends, Nature wears a different face in Italy from what she does in
America. Do you not want to see her Italian face? it is very glorious!
We thought it was the aim of Art to reproduce all forms of Nature, and
that you would not be sorry to have transcripts of what you have not
always round you. American Art is not necessarily a reproduction of
American Nature.

Hicks has made a charming picture of familiar life, which those who
cannot believe in Italian daylight would not tolerate. I am not sure
that all eyes are made in the same manner, for I have known those who
declare they see nothing remarkable in these skies, these hues; and
always complain when they are reproduced in picture. I have yet seen
no picture by Cropsey on an Italian subject, but his sketches from
Scotch scenes are most poetical and just presentations of those lakes,
those mountains, with their mourning veils. He is an artist of great
promise. Cranch has made a picture for Mr. Ogden Haggerty of a fine
mountain-hold of old Colonna story. I wish he would write a ballad
about it too; there is plenty of material.

But to return to the Jesuits. One swallow does not make a summer, nor
am I--who have seen so much hard-heartedness and barbarous greed of
gain in all classes of men--so foolish as to attach undue importance
to the demand, by those who have dared to appropriate peculiarly to
themselves the sacred name of Jesus, from a poor orphan, and for the
soul of one of their own order, of "seven baiocchi more." But I have
always been satisfied, from the very nature of their institutions,
that the current prejudice against them must be correct. These
institutions are calculated to harden the heart, and destroy entirely
that truth which is the conservative principle in character. Their
influence is and must be always against the free progress of humanity.
The more I see of its working, the more I feel how pernicious it is,
and were I a European, to no object should I lend myself with more
ardor, than to the extirpation of this cancer. True, disband the
Jesuits, there would still remain Jesuitical men, but singly they
would have infinitely less power to work mischief.

The influence of the Oscurantist foe has shown itself more and more
plainly in Rome, during the last four or five weeks. A false miracle
is devised: the Madonna del Popolo, (who has her handsome house very
near me,) has cured, a paralytic youth, (who, in fact, was never
diseased,) and, appearing to him in a vision, takes occasion to
criticise severely the measures of the Pope. Rumors of tumult in
one quarter are circulated, to excite it in another. Inflammatory
handbills are put up in the night. But the Romans thus far resist all
intrigues of the foe to excite them to bad conduct.

On New-Year's day, however, success was near. The people, as usual,
asked permission of the Governor to go to the Quirinal and receive the
benediction of the Pope. This was denied, and not, as it might truly
have been, because the Pope was unwell, but in the most ungracious,
irritating manner possible, by saying, "He is tired of these things:
he is afraid of disturbance." Then, the people being naturally
excited and angry, the Governor sent word to the Pope that there was
excitement, without letting him know why, and had the guards doubled
on the posts. The most absurd rumors were circulated among the people
that the cannon of St. Angelo were to be pointed on them, &c. But
they, with that singular discretion which they show now, instead
of rising, as their enemies had hoped, went to ask counsel of their
lately appointed Senator, Corsini. He went to the Pope, found him ill,
entirely ignorant of what was going on, and much distressed when he
heard it. He declared that the people should be satisfied, and,
since they had not been allowed to come to him, he would go to them.
Accordingly, the next day, though rainy and of a searching cold like
that of a Scotch mist, we had all our windows thrown open, and the red
and yellow tapestries hung out. He passed through the principal parts
of the city, the people throwing themselves on their knees and crying
out, "O Holy Father, don't desert us! don't forget us! don't listen
to our enemies!" The Pope wept often, and replied, "Fear nothing,
my people, my heart is yours." At last, seeing how ill he was, they
begged him to go in, and he returned to the Quirinal; the present
Tribune of the People, as far as rule in the heart is concerned,
Ciceronacchio, following his carriage. I shall give some account of
this man in another letter.

For the moment, the difficulties are healed, as they will be whenever
the Pope directly shows himself to the people. Then his generous,
affectionate heart will always act, and act on them, dissipating the
clouds which others have been toiling to darken.

In speaking of the intrigues of these emissaries of the power of
darkness, I will mention that there is a report here that they are
trying to get an Italian Consul for the United States, and one in the
employment of the Jesuits. This rumor seems ridiculous; yet it is true
that Dr. Beecher's panic about Catholic influence in the United
States is not quite unfounded, and that there is considerable hope
of establishing a new dominion there. I hope the United States will
appoint no Italian, no Catholic, to a consulship. The representative
of the United States should be American; our national character
and interests are peculiar, and cannot be fitly represented by a
foreigner, unless, like Mr. Ombrossi of Florence, he has passed part
of his youth in the United States. It would, indeed, be well if our
government paid attention to qualification for the office in the
candidate, and not to pretensions founded on partisan service;
appointing only men of probity, who would not stain the national
honor in the sight of Europe. It would be wise also not to select men
entirely ignorant of foreign manners, customs, ways of thinking, or
even of any language in which to communicate with foreign society,
making the country ridiculous by all sorts of blunders; but 't were
pity if a sufficient number of Americans could not be found, who are
honest, have some knowledge of Europe and gentlemanly tact, and are
able at least to speak French.

To return to the Pope, although the shadow that has fallen on his
popularity is in a great measure the work of his enemies, yet there is
real cause for it too. His conduct in deposing for a time one of the
Censors, about the banners of the 15th of December, his speech to the
Council the same day, his extreme displeasure at the sympathy of a
few persons with the triumph of the Swiss Diet, because it was a
Protestant triumph, and, above all, his speech to the Consistory, so
deplorably weak in thought and absolute in manner, show a man less
strong against domestic than foreign foes, instigated by a generous,
humane heart to advance, but fettered by the prejudices of education,
and terribly afraid to be or seem to be less the Pope of Rome, in
becoming a reform prince, and father to the fatherless. I insert a
passage of this speech, which seems to say that, whenever there shall
be collision between the priest and the reformer, the priest shall
triumph:--

"Another subject there is which profoundly afflicts and harasses our
mind. It is not certainly unknown to you, Venerable Brethren, that
many enemies of Catholic truth have, in our times especially, directed
their efforts by the desire to place certain monstrous offsprings
of opinion on a par with the doctrine of Christ, or to blend them
therewith, seeking to propagate more and more that impious system of
_indifference_ toward all religion whatever.

"And lately some have been found, dreadful to narrate! who have
offered such an insult to our name and Apostolic dignity, as
slanderously to represent us participators in their folly, and
favorers of that most iniquitous system above named. These have been
pleased to infer from, the counsels (certainly not foreign to
the sanctity of the Catholic religion) which, in certain affairs
pertaining to the civil exercise of the Pontific sway, we had benignly
embraced for the increase of public prosperity and good, and also from
the pardon bestowed in clemency upon certain persons subject to that
sway, in the very beginning of our Pontificate, that we had such
benevolent sentiments toward every description of persons as to
believe that not only the sons of the Church, but others also,
remaining aliens from Catholic unity, are alike in the way of
salvation, and may attain eternal life. Words are wanting to us, from
horror, to repel this new and atrocious calumny against us. It is true
that with intimate affection of heart we love all mankind, but not
otherwise than in the charity of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
came to seek and to save that which had perished, who wisheth that all
men should be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth, and who sent
his disciples through the whole world to preach the Gospel to every
creature, declaring that those who should believe and be baptized
should be saved, but those who should not believe, should be
condemned. Let those therefore who seek salvation come to the pillar
and support of the Truth, which is the Church,--let them come, that
is, to the true Church of Christ, which possesses in its bishops
and the supreme head of all, the Roman Pontiff, a never-interrupted
succession of Apostolic authority, and which for nothing has ever been
more zealous than to preach, and with all care preserve and defend,
the doctrine announced as the mandate of Christ by his Apostles; which
Church afterward increased, from the time of the Apostles, in the
midst of every species of difficulties, and flourished throughout the
whole world, radiant in the splendor of miracles, amplified by the
blood of martyrs, ennobled by the virtues of confessors and virgins,
corroborated by the testimony and most sapient writings of the
fathers,--as it still flourishes throughout all lands, refulgent in
perfect unity of the sacraments, of faith, and of holy discipline.
We who, though unworthy, preside in this supreme chair of the Apostle
Peter, in which Christ our Lord placed the foundation of his Church,
have at no time abstained, from any cares or toils to bring, through
the grace of Christ himself, those who are in ignorance and error to
this sole way of truth and salvation. Let those, whoever they be,
that are adverse, remember that heaven and earth shall pass away, but
nothing can ever perish of the words of Christ, nor be changed in the
doctrine which the Catholic Church received, to guard, defend, and
publish, from him.

"Next to this we cannot but speak to you, Venerable Brethren, of the
bitterness of sorrow by which we were affected, on seeing that a few
days since, in this our fair city, the fortress and centre of the
Catholic religion, it proved possible to find some--very few indeed
and well-nigh frantic men--who, laying aside the very sense of
humanity, and to the extreme disgust and indignation of other citizens
of this town, were not withheld, by horror from triumphing openly and
publicly over the most lamentable intestine war lately excited among
the Helvetic people; which truly fatal war we sorrow over from the
depths of our heart, as well considering the blood shed by that
nation, the slaughter of brothers, the atrocious, daily recurring, and
fatal discords, hatreds, and dissensions (which usually redound among
nations in consequence especially of civil wars), as the detriment
which we learn the Catholic religion has suffered, and fear it may yet
suffer, in consequence of this, and, finally, the deplorable acts of
sacrilege committed in the first conflict, which our soul shrinks from
narrating."

It is probably on account of these fears of Pius IX. lest he should
be a called a Protestant Pope, that the Roman journals thus far, in
translating the American Address to the Pope, have not dared to add
any comment.

But if the heart, the instincts, of this good man have been beyond his
thinking powers, that only shows him the providential agent to work
out aims beyond his ken. A wave has been set in motion, which cannot
stop till it casts up its freight upon the shore, and if Pius IX. does
not suffer himself to be surrounded by dignitaries, and see the signs
of the times through the eyes of others,--if he does not suffer the
knowledge he had of general society as a simple prelate to become
incrusted by the ignorance habitual to princes,--he cannot fail long
to be a most important agent in fashioning a new and better era for
this beautiful injured land.

I will now give another document, which may be considered as
representing the view of what is now passing taken by the democratic
party called "Young Italy." Should it in any other way have reached
the United States, yet it will not come amiss to have it translated
for the Tribune, as many of your readers may not otherwise have a
chance of seeing this noble document, one of the milestones in the
march of thought. It is a letter to the Most High Pontiff, Pius IX.,
from Joseph Mazzini.


"London, 8th September, 1847.

"MOST HOLY FATHER,--Permit an Italian, who has studied your every step
for some months back with much hopefulness, to address to you, in the
midst of the applauses, often far too servile and unworthy of you,
which, resound near you, some free and profoundly sincere words. Take
to read them some moments from your infinite cares. From a simple
individual animated by holy intentions may come, sometimes, a great
counsel; and I write to you with so much love, with so much emotion of
my whole soul, with so much faith in the destiny of my country, which
may be revived by your means, that my thoughts ought to speak truth.

"And first, it is needful, Most Holy Father, that I should say to
you somewhat of myself. My name has probably reached your ears,
but accompanied by all the calumnies, by all the errors, by all the
foolish conjectures, which the police, by system, and many men of my
party through want of knowledge or poverty of intellect, have heaped
upon it. I am not a subverter, nor a communist, nor a man of blood,
nor a hater, nor intolerant, nor exclusive adorer of a system, or of
a form imagined by my mind. I adore God, and an idea which seems to me
of God,--Italy an angel of moral unity and of progressive civilization
for the nations of Europe. Here and everywhere I have written the best
I know how against the vices of materialism, of egotism, of reaction,
and against the destructive tendencies which contaminate many of
our party. If the people should rise in violent attack against the
selfishness and bad government of their rulers, I, while rendering
homage to the right of the people, shall be among the first to prevent
the excesses and the vengeance which long slavery has prepared. I
believe profoundly in a religious principle, supreme above all social
ordinances; in a divine order, which we ought to seek to realize here
on earth; in a law, in a providential design, which we all ought,
according to our powers, to study and to promote. I believe in the
inspiration of my immortal soul, in the teaching of Humanity, which
shouts to me, through the deeds and words of all its saints, incessant
progress for all through, the work of all my brothers toward a common
moral amelioration, toward the fulfilment of the Divine Law. And in
the great history of Humanity I have studied the history of Italy, and
have found there Rome twice directress of the world,--first through
the Emperors, later through the Popes. I have found there, that
every manifestation of Italian life has also been a manifestation of
European life; and that always when Italy fell, the moral unity
of Europe began to fall apart in analysis, in doubt, in anarchy.
I believe in yet another manifestation of the Italian idea; and 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 ever, through years, poverty, and griefs
which God alone knows. In these few words lies all my being, all
the secret of my life. I may err in the intellect, but the heart has
always remained pure. I have never lied through fear or hope, and I
speak to you as I should speak to God beyond the sepulchre.

"I believe you good. There is no man this day, I will not say in
Italy, but in all Europe, more powerful than you; you then have, most
Holy Father, vast duties. God measures these according to the means
which he has granted to his creatures.

"Europe is in a tremendous crisis of doubts and desires. Through the
work of time, accelerated by your predecessors of the hierarchy of the
Church, faith is dead, Catholicism is lost in despotism; Protestantism
is lost in anarchy. Look around you; you will find superstitious and
hypocrites, but not believers. The intellect travels in a void. The
bad adore calculation, physical good; the good pray and hope; nobody
_believes_. Kings, governments, the ruling classes, combat for a power
usurped, illegitimate, since it does not represent the worship of
truth, nor disposition to sacrifice one's self for the good of all;
the people combat because they suffer, because they would fain take
their turn to enjoy; nobody fights for duty, nobody because the war
against evil and falsehood is a holy war, the crusade of God. We have
no more a heaven; hence we have no more a society.

"Do not deceive yourself, Most Holy Father; this is the present state
of Europe.

"But humanity cannot exist without a heaven. The idea of society is
only a consequence of the idea of religion. We shall have then, sooner
or later, religion and heaven. We shall have these not in the kings
and the privileged classes,--their very condition excludes love,
the soul of all religions,--but in the people. The spirit from God
descends on many gathered together in his name. The people have
suffered for ages on the cross, and God will bless them with a faith.

"You can, Most Holy Father, hasten that moment. I will not tell you
my individual opinions on the religious development which is to come;
these are of little importance. But I will say to you, that, whatever
be the destiny of the creeds now existing, you can put yourself at the
head of this development. If God wills that such creeds should
revive, you can make them revive; if God wills that they should be
transformed, that, leaving the foot of the cross, dogma and worship
should be purified by rising a step nearer God, the Father and
Educator of the world, you can put yourself between the two epochs,
and guide the world to the conquest and the practice of religious
truth, extirpating a hateful egotism, a barren negation.

"God preserve me from tempting you with ambition; that would be
profanation. I call you, in the name of the power which God has
granted you, and has not granted without a reason, to fulfil the good,
the regenerating European work. I call you, after so many ages of
doubt and corruption, to be apostle of Eternal Truth. I call you to
make yourself the 'servant of all,' to sacrifice yourself, if needful,
so that 'the will of God may be done on the 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 confides to you, two
things are needful,--to be a believer, and to unify Italy. Without the
first, you will fall in the middle of the way, abandoned by God and by
men; without the second, you will not have the lever with which only
you can effect great, holy, and durable things.

"Be a believer; abhor to be king, politician, statesman. Make no
compromise with error; do not contaminate yourself with diplomacy,
make no compact with fear, with expediency, with the false doctrines
of a _legality_, which is merely a falsehood invented when faith
failed. Take no counsel except from God, from the inspirations of your
own heart, and from the imperious necessity of rebuilding a temple to
truth, to justice, to faith. Self-collected, in enthusiasm of love for
humanity, and apart from every human regard, ask of God that he will
teach you the way; then enter upon it, with the faith of a conqueror
on your brow, with the irrevocable decision of the martyr in your
heart; look neither to the right hand nor the left, but straight
before you, and up to heaven. Of every object that meets you on the
way, ask of yourself: 'Is this just or unjust, true or false, law of
man or law of God?' Proclaim aloud the result of your examination, and
act accordingly. Do not say to yourself: 'If I speak and work in such
a way, the princes of the earth will disagree; the ambassadors will
present notes and protests!' What are the quarrels of selfishness in
princes, or their notes, before a syllable of the eternal Evangelists
of God? They have had importance till now, because, though phantoms,
they had nothing to oppose them but phantoms; oppose to them the
reality of a man who sees the Divine view, unknown to them, of human
affairs, of an immortal soul conscious of a high mission, and these
will vanish before you as vapors accumulated in darkness before the
sun which rises in the east. Do not let yourself be affrighted by
intrigues; the creature who fulfils a duty belongs not to men, but to
God. God will protect you; God will spread around you such a halo
of love, that neither the perfidy of men irreparably lost, nor
the suggestions of hell, can break through it. Give to the world a
spectacle new, unique: you will have results new, not to be foreseen
by human calculation. Announce an era; declare that Humanity is
sacred, and a daughter of God; that all who violate her rights to
progress, to association, are on the way of error; that in God is the
source of every government; that those who are best by intellect and
heart, by genius and virtue, must be the guides of the people.
Bless those who suffer and combat; blame, reprove, those who cause
suffering, without regard to the name they bear, the rank that invests
them. The people will adore in you the best interpreter of the
Divine design, and your conscience will give you rest, strength, and
ineffable comfort.

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