first fathers of the order had assumed the habit, and amongst its guests in times past had been numbered S. Francis of Assisi and S. Catherine of Sienna. The cell occupied by F. Alessandrino during his visit to Rome, like that of the holy founder which adjoins it, now forms a sanctuary, where he receives the devout homage of the faithful. Little did the Prior of S. Sabina dream of these coming glories, when the wayworn traveller stood before him at nightfall, to ask hospitality of the brethren of his order! "What brings you to Rome, brother?" was his sarcastic reply; "is it perchance to ask their Eminences the Cardinals to elect you Pope?" "I have come to Rome," quietly answered Ghislieri, "on the business of the Church. When that is finished, I shall leave it again. Meanwhile, I crave of your reverence a brief hospitality and some hay for this mule."

Ghislieri entered Rome in 1550.

Just a century before, on the fall of Constantinople, the arts and sciences had fled before the sword of Mahomet to seek protection from the Vicar of Christ. A passion for classical literature and Grecian art took possession of the fervid Italian spirit, which acted unfavourably even upon the ecclesiastical order. The renaissance, as it is called-the new birth of classical art and learning-fascinated the gaze of Catholics, when the discordant challenge of Luther broke upon their ear. It roused Leo X. to the assertion of his sublime prerogatives. "Arise, O Lord," are the words of the Bull then published, "judge thine own cause. Arise, Peter, and undertake the cause of the holy Roman Church, the mother of all Churches, which was entrusted to thee by God, and which by His command thou hast consecrated with thine own blood." he was preparing to act in accordance with this pontifical language, he was carried off by a sudden death.

As

Adrian VI., his successor, the beloved and revered preceptor of the Emperor Charles V., brought to the Chair of S. Peter the heart of a true bishop, and the character and training of a plain straightforward German. When he was applied to for payment of a pension assigned by his predecessor to the discoverer of the famous Laocoön, he replied sadly, "These are idols. I know gods whom I love far better, my brothers in Jesus Christ, the beggars." Adrian lived but a year and a half after his election to carry on the reforms which he meditated, but his spirit lived still in his successors. Paul III. assembled the great Council of Trent, which was to accomplish the gigantic work of practical reformation, the need of which had formed the pretext for the attacks of the innovators on the Church, and to promulgate at the same time those

doctrinal decrees which confronted their falsehoods by the calm utterances of her infallible truth.

Paul III. died in 1549, and had just been replaced by Julius III., when F. Michele presented himself before the Cardinals of the Holy Office. Amongst them was one better skilled in physiognomy than the Prior of S. Sabina.

Cardinal Caraffa, the founder of the Theatins, had received the purple at the same time with the English martyr, Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Pole. Age had neither bent the form nor weakened the intellectual powers of the austere and venerable old man, whose whole life and strength had been devoted to the work of religious restoration. His keen and practised eye at once recognized a kindred spirit in the obscure Dominican, who was henceforth to be associated with him in the enterprise, and hereafter to succeed him on S. Peter's chair.

F. Michele was sent back with the full confidence and approbation of his superiors to his difficult and perilous charge. He was advised on one occasion, when he had to pass through the heretical country of the Grisons, to travel in a secular disguise. "I accepted death," said he, "with my commission. I can never die in a holier cause." So in the Dominican habit, in the full light of day, he fearlessly and safely pursued his way. But Caraffa was watching his opportunity to fix his new colleague in Rome, and, on the first vacancy, F. Michele was appointed Commissary General of the Holy Office, and lodged by the Cardinal in his own palace. Day by day did he visit the prisons, seeking by every means of argument and persuasion to win the accused from their errors to the obedience of Christ. His charitable endeavours were not unfrequently rewarded with success, and all the revenues of his office, which his austere and mortified life left wholly at his disposal for such purposes, were devoted to the support and relief of those whose necessities would otherwise have exposed them to the danger of a relapse.

In 1555, at the age of 80, Cardinal Caraffa ascended the Papal Chair under the name of Paul IV. The aim of his life had been the restoration of the Church's discipline, and the vindication of her doctrine; and beside this holy purpose lurked a passionate desire for the deliverance of Italy from the Spanish yoke. "Italy," he was wont to say, "is an instrument of four strings-Rome, Naples, Milan, and Venice, which were framed to be in unison;" adding, "if in this sacred cause I should be neither helped nor heeded, posterity shall know that there was at least one aged Italian who, when

at the very gates of the grave, instead of resting and preparing his soul for death, conceived a design for the restoration of his religion and his country to their ancient glory."

To aid him in this work, the new Pontiff invested F. Michele with additional powers and responsibilities, by conferring upon him the united bishoprics of Nepi and Sutri, in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome. His diocese soon felt the effects of the vigilant pastor's care; every place under his jurisdiction was visited-even the remotest hamlets, which had never seen a bishop's face before. But the Dominican could not forget the convent cell, which was never more to be his home, and on his knees besought the Holy Father to release him from his charge. To cut off all hope of deliverance, Paul at last made answer: "I will bind you with so strong a chain, that even after my death you shall think no more of the cloister." Ghislieri learned but too soon the meaning of these words, when he was created Cardinal in 1557.

The members of the Sacred College, with one consent, returned their thanks to the Holy Father for an appointment for which the new cardinal could not find it in his heart to express a gratitude which he did not feel. He showed his unchanging love for his order by retaining the name of Alessandrino instead of resuming, as is usual, that of his family, and by choosing for his title the Dominican church of S. Sabina, which was then admitted by the Pope to rank among the titular churches of Rome. The Holy Father soon showed that the cardinalate was, in his person, to prove no empty dignity by investing him with the office of Supreme Inquisitor, with powers which had been hitherto shared by the four Cardinals of the Holy Office.

Cardinal Alessandrino laid aside none of the habits of his former life on the assumption of his high dignities. He still wore the Dominican habit, observed the fasts and other austerities of the rule, and lived in all the simplicity of the cloister. The unworldliness which he preached himself he desired to impress upon all belonging to him, as appears from the following letter to his niece, who had written to ask some favour :

My dear Niece,-I have learnt with joy from your letter of the 26th February, the happy union which subsists between you and your husband, who is a very honest man, and that you live together in the fear and love of God like true Christians. Beware of taking credit to yourself that you are the niece of a cardinal. The rank which I hold in the Church ought to be to you a subject of thanksgiving to God, and a new motive for advancing in virtue. Ask for me the grace to lead a life corresponding in sanctity with

the position to which I have been raised by the Vicar of Jesus Christ. You ought not to wish that God should raise me higher in this world. You see only the splendour of my new dignity, and know not the cares, the anxieties, and the sorrows which it brings upon me, and from which in the cloister I was happily free. . . As touching the affair of your brother-in-law, know, my dear niece, that benefices are not given to flesh and blood, but to virtue and merit. God has hitherto given me grace to keep myself free from these infamous and criminal intrigues; and think not that in my old age I shall consent to lay such a burden on my conscience.

Rome, 26th March, 1558.

His household was limited to the smallest number consistent with the dignity of his position. He took care to instruct all its members himself in their duties, having warned them before they entered his service that they were to enter a convent and not a palace. There was no limit to his kindness to those who discharged their duty faithfully. He never disturbed them at their meals or during the time of their repose. Rather than do so, he would open the door of his antechamber himself. The most spacious hall in his palace was turned into an infirmary for the sick. Nor was his charity confined to those of his household; he received all who came to him, with or without a reason, with the same gracious and unwearied courtesy, and sent them away with the conviction that God had raised him to so high a dignity only to afford him a larger field in which to serve, instruct, and edify his brethren.

The Pope continued to use his counsels for the government of the Church, but unfortunately he had other helpers and counsellors in his darling scheme for the liberation of Italy. His nephews keenly participated his feelings on this subject, and unhappily he looked for no other qualifications on their part to entrust the principal administration of temporal affairs to hands certain to wield it against the ascendency of Spain. His eyes were soon opened by the indignant murmurs provoked by their misgovernment. One day when he uttered his habitual exclamation, "Reformation, reformation !" the Cardinal whom he addressed replied: "Yes, most Holy Father, reformation; but we must begin with ourselves." The spirit of Paul IV. was one which knew not weakness, nor brooked delay with an inflexible will, but a broken heart, he rested not till he had redressed the evils committed under his name. He imprisoned the most guilty members of his family, repealed the taxes imposed by his nephews, and displaced every official who had been appointed by them.

He summoned an extraordinary Consistory, in which he

himself pronounced the decree of banishment against his kinsmen, and unfolded without disguise the history of their misdeeds, whilst shame and indignation strove for the mastery in his broken voice and venerable countenance.

The aged Pontiff did not long survive this last heroic effort. In a parting interview with Cardinal Alessandrino, he commended to him the defence of the faith which he was so gloriously to maintain, and went to receive his reward from the hand of that Good Master who discerns the purity of His servants' intention under the dross which, through their own imperfections or the sins of others, conceals it from the eyes of men.

Not so the fierce and fickle populace of Rome. The Pontiff's statue was defaced and dragged in the mire, and his nephews perished in prison or on the scaffold.

Paul IV. died in August, 1559. John Angelo de Medici was elected to succeed him in the following December, and took the name of Pius IV. His pontificate was signalized by the completion of the labours of the great Council of Trent, the last general Council of the Church, and illustrated by the sanctity of his nephew, S. Charles Borromeo, one of the principal instruments, under God, of carrying out its decrees for the restoration of discipline and the promotion of ecclesiastical perfection.

It was expected by many that the accession of the new Pope would be followed by the disgrace of Cardinal Alessandrino; but, though the temporal policy of Pius IV. was entirely opposed to that of his predecessor, he was no less devoted than he to the work of ecclesiastical restoration; and he soon showed his confidence in the trusted associate of Paul IV., by confirming him in his office of Supreme Inquisitor, and appointing him to the important see of Mondovi in Piedmont.

Ghislieri set forth at once to undertake the charge of his new flock, visiting the baths of Lucca on his way, to obtain relief from a painful disease under which he had long been labouring. On his arrival at Mondovi, his first care was the restoration of the offices of the cathedral church to their fitting solemnity; he then proceeded to the visitation of his diocese, administering the sacrament of confirmation to whole districts, remedying existing abuses, and making provision against their recurrence. Bosco, his old home, lay almost within his jurisdiction; and though his parents were no more, he wished to extend to his native place the benefits which his more extended power of doing good enabled him now to confer. As the best gift he could bestow, he founded a convent of his order in the place where his childish steps had first