Of the Pope's statesmanship and Latinity the world knows much, and is sure to hear more, while he lives--most, perhaps, hereafter, when another and a smaller man shall sit in the great Pope's chair. For he is a great Pope. There has not been his equal, intellectually, for a long time, nor shall we presently see his match again. The era of individualities is not gone by, as some pretend. Men of middle age have seen in a lifetime Cavour, Louis Napoleon, Garibaldi, Disraeli, Bismarck, Leo the Thirteenth--and the young Emperor of Germany. With the possible exception of Cavour, who died, poisoned as some say, before he had lived out his life, few will deny that of all these the present Pope possesses, in many respects, the most evenly balanced and stubbornly sane disposition. That fact alone speaks highly for the judgment of the men who elected him, in Italy's half-crazed days, immediately after the death of Victor Emmanuel.
At all events, there he stands, at the head of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, as wise a leader as any who in our day has wielded power; as skilled, in his own manner, as any who hold the pen; and better than all that, as straightly simple and honest a Christian man as ever fought a great battle for his faith's sake.
Straight-minded, honest and simple he is, yet keen, sensitive and nobly cautious; for there is no nobility in him who risks a cause for the vanity of his own courage, and who, in blind hatred of his enemies, squanders the devotion of those who love him. In a sense, today, the greater the man the greater the peacemaker, and Leo the Thirteenth ranks highest among those who have helped the cause of peace in this century.
In spite of his great age, the Holy Father enjoys excellent health, and leads a life full of occupations from morning till night. He rises very early, and when, at about six o'clock in the morning, his valet, Pio Centra, enters his little bedroom, he more often finds the Pope risen than asleep. He is accustomed to sleep little--not more than four or five hours at night, though he rests a short time after dinner. We are told that sometimes he has been found asleep in his chair at his writing-table at dawn, not having been to bed at all. Of late he frequently says mass in a chapel in his private apartments, and the mass is served by Pio Centra. On Sundays and feast-days he says it in another chapel preceding the throne-room. The little chapel is of small dimensions, but by opening the door into the neighbouring room a number of persons can assist at the mass. The permission, when given, is obtained on application to the 'Maestro di Camera,' and is generally conceded only to distinguished foreign persons. After saying mass himself, the Holy Father immediately hears a second one, said by one of the private chaplains on duty for the week, whose business it is to take care of the altar and to assist. Frequently he gives the communion with his own hand to those who are present at his mass. After mass he breakfasts upon coffee and goat's milk, and this milk is supplied from goats kept in the Vatican gardens--a reminiscence of Carpineto and of the mountaineer's early life.