Preface.

The history of Pius IX. will always be read with interest.His Pontificate was, indeed, eventful. In no preceding agewere the annals of the Church so grandly illustrated.

The spiritual sovereignty, “with which,” to use the wordsof a British statesman, “there is nothing on this earth thatcan at all compare,” was crowned with surpassing glory.Doctrines which, hitherto, had been open to theological discussion,were ascertained and pronounced to be in accordancewith the belief of all preceding Christian ages. The Churchwas enabled, through the labors of her Chief and the zeal ofher Priesthood, to extend vastly the place of her tent. Thelife of Pius IX. himself was a marvel and a glory. None ofhis predecessors, not even Peter, attained to his length of days.

On the other hand, the venerable Pontiff, and, together withhim, the Catholic people, were doomed to behold and lamentthe loss of the time-honored patrimony of St. Peter. ThePapacy, however, unlike all temporal sovereignties, was ableto sustain so great a loss. More ancient than its temporalpower, it still survives; “not a mere antique, but in undiminishedvigor.”