PAPAL INTERESTS AN INTERNATIONAL QUESTION.
A NOTED French writer in the Cosmopolitan of April, in an article on "Pius X. and the Problems of His Pontificate," expressly informs us over and over that Pius X. will carry out the policy of his eminent predecessor, Leo XIII. Among the live questions is the independence of the pope politically, and he tells us that "Senator Tacini has proposed an amendment to the situation which would have the effect of placing the liberated pontiff under the shield of international guarantees. The pope would then be the grand almoner of courts and nations." But in this there may be danger, so the pope waits until the time when all the interests connected with the "Italo-pontifical question" shall be "defined" so as to be "preserved in their universality." And we are told that this is not a "dead issue, since Austria and Germany have woven it into their diplomatic plots; it is an affair of international importance, and upon its solution all the powers are determined. It is simply to look after the pennies and to cultivate paradox, to say, as one sometimes hears, that the future of the Papacy concerns only the Italians and occupies only the Catholics." This writer speaks truly. The world is involved in the papal question. All the world will take part in its solution. All—Protestant nations as well as Catholic—are aiding in the healing of the deadly wound and the elevation of the woman on the Tiber to the "mistress of kingdoms," the great city which ruleth over the kings of earth. But this can not be as long as the pope is a prisoner in the Vatican. But will Italy consent to an independent state within its kingdom—imperium in imperio?—Hardly; there is too much danger to both attending it. What will be the solution? It is offered in Palestine and Jerusalem, and this is more than suggested in certain prophecies in the Holy Scriptures. Such a consummation would be considered the vindication of all the crusades of the past centuries, and all the world would wonder and worship, save those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. Rev. 13:8; 17:8.