BOOKS.

COUNT CAMPELLO.*

IT is a singular result of the spirit of universal tolerance, that, outside distinctly sectarian circles, there is a general tendency to regard with suspicion a convert from one form of religion to another. Probably the increasing conviction that the highest ideal of Christianity may be attained through the medium of any of its branches, has much to do with this feeling. If all religious systems are to be regarded as approxi- mately of equal value, the convert who, in a spirit of levity or without due consideration, deserts one sect for another, is likely to lose quite as much in abandoning his old' creed as he can possibly gain by adopting the new one. Discredit is also reflected upon converts in general by the occasional very un- favourable specimens who are apt to come most before the public. These are found in all religions communities. The ex-Jesuit who delivers lectures on the secret atrocities of Popery is as repugnant to the common rim of Protestants as the notorious anti-Catholic writer who was some years ago admitted to the bosom of the Church be had so virulently attacked, to the profound disgust of all good Roman Catholics. Every one will remember how admirably the humbug that may exist in connection with a change of religion was satirised by Thackeray in his account of Mrs. Hobson Newcome's party. We are willing to believe that such imposture is of very rare occurrence, but the mere possibility of its existence has given rise to this apparently unreasonable feeling of distrust. Besides, a new convert is always set upon such a very lofty pedestal by his dear Christian friends, that the world would show more than human forbearance if it refrained from throwing stones at him.

This last danger is the one to which Count Campello is chiefly exposed in England. So much has been made by English prelates and English societies of his services as a protestant—we will not do Count Campello the injustice of using a capital "P "—against the errors of the Church of Rome, that many of us who have not lost at least the respect for that great Christian organisation—which, at any rate, is communis mater, the mother of all Western forms of Christianity—are apt to question the real value of his achieve- ments. But at least we must recognise this as a case where the honesty of motive cannot be called in question. In quit- ting the Church of his fathers—for which, even in its present condition, we believe, he retains no inconsiderable attach- ment—Count Campello had everything to lose, and, so far as we know, nothing to gain. The utmost glorification in Anglican circles is but a poor exchange for a Canon's stall at St. Peter's, with as fair a prospect of a Cardinal's hat as a priest of good birth, acknowledged talents, and personal popularity in the highest quarters could have. But to form a real opinion of the motives and merits of Count Campello's conduct, it would be necessary to study the facts of his life, of which a vivid and interesting picture is presented by Mr. Robertson. We have only space to give a brief summary.

Enrico di Campello was not originally intended for the Church. His father, who had held a small office in the Papal States before 1848, was one of those mistaken persons who believed Pio Nono to regard the new liberal and patriotic movement in Italy as something more than a mental recrea- tion of a mildly exciting character. When the Pope fled from Rome, he even accepted office under the Republican Government of 1849, for which rash proceeding he afterwards suffered considerably. As a condition of making his peace with the Holy See, he was called upon to dedicate one of his sons to the service of the Church, and the choice fell upon Enrico, then a young man of twenty-two, with no inclination whatever to follow the career pointed out to him. His re- luctance to enter the priesthood was, however, overcome. After a brief period of instruction, he received the various orders in quick succession, and was then transferred to the great training college where the Church of Rome provides

• Count Campello and Catholic Reform in Italy. By the Rev. Alexander Robertson, San Remo. London ; Sampson Low and Co.

special instruction for the men of good family and abilities who are expected to do her honour in a wider field than that of the ordinary clerical duties. At the age of thirty he was a Canon of Sta. Maria Maggiore, and six years later was pro- moted to the signal honour of a Canon's stall at St. Peter's. Up to this time he had done little that was remarkable, with the exception of some good work in the way of establishing night. schools for young workmen while he was at Sta. Maria Maggiore. He seems, however, to have become noted as a person of dubious orthodoxy, over whom some supervision should be maintained. He was known to sympathise with the patriotic party in Italy, who were, naturally enough, in the worst possible odour at the Vatican. In 1870 he even founded an association in sympathy with the political current of the day, called the "Italian Catholic Society for the Vindication of the Rights of the Christian People, and especially of the Citizens of Rome," which was denounced by the Church, and does not seem to have done any particular good to anybody. As time went on, matters became more serious. There remain in Rome some unhappy legacies from the superstition of by- gone days, which often prove a stumbling-block to the faith of educated believers, but which are regarded by the common people with a devotion which the Church practically dares not disturb. The Church of Rome is not alone in this respect. We remember reasoning with a worthy and intelligent Greek priest at Jerusalem on the astounding imposture of the "Holy Fire," the absurdity of which he quite admitted. But to give it up was impossible. "Let the people once know," he said, "that it is not true, that there is no real miracle, and they will lose their faith in everything." It is an untenable position, of course, but it is perhaps easier for an outsider to point out its defects than for the spiritual guides of a great multitude to see their way out of a difficult position which comes down to them as a relic of a less critical age. Count Campello seems to have made little or no effort to conceal his views con- cerning many such things at Rome, and his own estrange- ment from the Church, and the suspicion with which he was regarded by his superiors, grew apace. In the latter years of Pio Nono, he had many thoughts of resigning his canonry, and breaking with the Roman Catholic Church for ever ; but the death of the Pope, and the succession of an ecclesiastic believed to hold much more liberal ideas, delayed his action, and it was not till the year 1881, when the expectations founded upon the election of Leo XIII. had been proved illusory, that he finally took this momentous step.

Count Campello was at this time fifty years of age. He held a much-coveted and profitable appointment, with an annual income of fifteen thousand francs, and. an almost abso- lute certainty of promotion to higher places yet. His known liberal views might, indeed, be a barrier to his progress ; but an even formal submission to the authorities he was supposed to have disregarded would probably have been so joyfully accepted as to make his future path to honour even smoother than before. There is not a Church in the world that does not understand the value of a sinner that repenteth in public, with all the world looking on. From all these advantages he fell, as he must have known he would, to nothing, to a position of absolute insignificance, and at the same time, we believe, of serious pecuniary difficulties, though in all proba- bility these were not what troubled him most. It is something to get hold of a man who renounces anything distinctly tangible for conscience' sake. Of course he got sympathy, cheap, generous sympathy, exhilarating to the mind of the donor, and unexhausting to the pocket. "From England, Scotland, and elsewhere hundreds of most encouraging letters reached him from private sources," a fact which, if it proves anything, shows what a number of idle persons disposed to interest themselves in other people's affairs, are to be found in these favoured countries (not excluding " else- where "). The Anglo-Continental Society sent £90 as a sub- scription to the newspaper he had started, which was more practical.

In the ensuing year, Count Campello started his Reformed Catholic Church, under the wing of a committee of English

and American clergymen. His profession of faith at this

time does not show any very violent departure from the doc- trines of the Catholic Church. He "accepted whole and entire" the faith of the Catholic Church, as expressed in the Nicene Creed and developed at the six (Ecumenical Councils, and recognised a divinely instituted hierarchy, though wishing the Bishops and parish priests to be elected by the clergy and Christian laity. To the Papal jurisdiction he could not be expected to show any devotion :—

"I recognise in the Pope of Rome a certain primacy of moral influence, a primacy of universal love and solicitude, which primacy, however, by the Divine institution of the Episcopate, gives him no other place than that of Primus inter wquales. I reject at the same time every other attribute whatever, preroga- tive, title, whether of honour or of jurisdiction, in the Pope, and especially the decree of his personal infallibility, promulgated in the Vatican Council of 1870.'

In addition, he wished the liturgy to be in a tongue under- standed of the people, regarded the celibacy of priests as com- mendable but in no way obligatory, and held "the institution of confession to be wholesome and divine, but it mast be free and moral." The earliest liturgy used at the meetings of his followers was apparently very slightly altered from the Catholic original. "Many things were retained," Mr. Robert- son tells us, "which Protestants might well object to ; " and this seems natural enough. We are rather sorry to hear that some of these have since been removed,—as far as we can

make out, from deference to the English allies of the new Church. Perhaps the movement, as it has grown, has obliged its leaders to make a more decided departure from their old doctrines ; certainly it is not pleasant to think that such matters may be altered to suit the convenience of kind

patrons, "with thanks for past favours, and soliciting a con- tinuance of the same."

Count Campello's Church did not begin with any very great flourish of trumpets, nor can it be said that it has yet attained any extraordinary prominence. But in the parts of Italy where the founder's influence has been felt, it has certainly gained the respect, and often the cordial co-operation, of people who had no personal connection with it. At Arrone, in Count Campello's native valley, when a site for a church and schools was being sought for, the Municipality offered to give one free of expense. At San Remo, the Sindaco offered a small theatre to the reformer to explain his views in, and on receiving a remonstrance from the priests of the neighbourhood, after a very successful meeting had been held, offered to give it to them also for a night, if they wished to answer Count Campello's arguments, an offer which was not accepted. Still, the poor little Church is rather oddly governed, for the present at least, till better times come. It is, we believe, under the ecclesiastical supervision of the Bishop of Salisbury, but its

ministers receive ordination from an Old Catholic Bishop in Switzerland. Its congregation—or at least its organ, the Labaro,

shows a not unnatural desire to attach itself to some stronger bodies which are more or less in sympathy with its aims ; and we have even heard of a great scheme for the formation in the not distant future of a grand Free Catholic Union, which would comprise the Church of England, the Episcopalian Church or Churches of America, the Old Catholics, the followers of Pere Hyacinthe, the Reformed Church of Count Campello in Italy, and, we suppose, the supporters of the similar movement started in Spain by Senor Cabrera, and heaven knows what besides. For one of the natural conse- quences of this yearning for brotherhood with already powerful religious sects is, that the oddest little separatist Churches—of whose doctrines or very existence ordinary mortals know as little as they do of the Maronites or the Nosairians—come blinking out of their hiding-holes, with plaintive entreaties not to be left out. The project may be classed among what Maitland of Lethington called devout imaginations. Could it ever come to pass, such an alliance would certainly be regarded as being formed for purposes of attack on the Roman Catholic Church, and the world at large has no longer any particular desire to pull down that venerable edifice.

It must be admitted, however, that there is much more excuse for such an assault in Italy than elsewhere. The hopelessly impracticable attitude of the Vatican obliges a well-disposed citizen to choose whether he will be a good Catholic or a good Italian. It was only a year or two ago that one of the most deservedly respected of Italian priests pronounced a benediction from the pulpit upon the Sovereign who is loved and honoured in every corner of Italy. The Vatican authorities were shocked and horrified beyond measure, and in a few days a lame explanation was put forth to the effect that, the season being one of high festival, it was usual to extend the benediction of the Church to Turks and infidels and Kings of Italy and the like, so that no importance

should be attached to the circumstance. As long as such a policy as this is continued, there is much strength in Count Campello's motto of Beligione e Patria. The Italians are naturally a pious people, and a religion which allows them to follow their patriotic instincts at the same time, should find many disciples. There might perhaps be a salutary subject of reflection here for some of those to whose hands the destinies of the Italian Church are entrusted; but there appears to be a hereditary tendency among the Roman hierarchy to run their heads against the nearest brick wall, if only to see whether it really hurts so much as people say. After all, as far as Count Campello is concerned at least, its en oat bien vu d'autres. A word of praise should be given to Mr. Robertson for clearness of writing and general impartiality, though the old Presbyterian leaven occasionally seems to make it difficult to speak with perfect fairness of the authorities at Rome.