Leo

“ Leo was but a few seconds in making the descent, and yet it seemed to be as many hours to him.
Just as he slid over the edge of the decline there came a puff of smoke and flame which completely enveloped his form and screened him from the view of his companions above. Blinded and scorching from the heat, he fell, with a splash, into the cooling waters of the rushing stream. ”

“ Therefore, Leo, my Father, beware of listening to those sirens who make you out to be not simply a man, but partly a god, so that you can command and require whatever you will. It will not happen so, nor will you prevail. You are the servant of servants, and more than any other man, in a most pitiable and perilous position. Let not those men deceive you who pretend that you are lord of the world; who will not allow any one to be a Christian without your authority; who babble of your having power over heaven, hell, and purgatory. ”

“ Leo the Thirteenth need speak but half a dozen words, with one glance of his flashing eyes and one gesture of his noticeably long arm and transparently thin hand, and the moral distance between his predecessor and himself is at once apparent. There is strength still in every movement, there is deliberate decision in every tone, there is lofty independence in every look. ”

“ It was a world pervaded by a sense of beauty in literature, in plastic art, in architecture, in painting; a world in which graceful accomplishments and courtly manners lent a charm to daily life. A scholar or artist, coming to Rome in Leo's reign, would have found there all, or more than all, that had fascinated Erasmus a few years before. To Leo and his contemporaries it might well have seemed that their age was the very flower and crown of the Renaissance. The aesthetic pleasures of their existence had been prepared by the labours of predecessors who had brought back the ancient culture. ”

“ All this did Leo, and his immediate successors. And when he superadded to the functions of a great religious magistrate the virtues of the humblest Christian,--parting with his magnificent patrimony to feed the poor, and proclaiming (with an eloquence unusual in his time) the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, and setting himself as an example of the virtues which he preached,--we concede his claim to be numbered among the great benefactors of mankind. How much worse Roman Catholicism would have been but for his august example and authority! ”

“ Exit Votarius.
Leo. Hold, my lord—I might.
He is my husband, sir!
Ans. O soul of cunning!
Came that arch subtlety from thy lady's counsel
Or thine own sudden craft? Confess to me,
How oft thou hast been a bawd to their close actions,
Or all thy light goes out?
Leo. My lord, believe me—
In truth, I love a man too well myself
To bring him to my mistress.
Ans. Leave thy sporting! ”

“ When Leo the Thirteenth had been on the throne only a few weeks, there was sold everywhere a comic print representing the Pope, with a huge broom, sweeping all the useless people pell-mell down the steps of the Vatican into the Piazza of Saint Peter's. As often happens, the caricaturist saw the truth. In a reign that has lasted twenty years, Leo the Thirteenth has done away with much that was useless, worthless and old-fashioned, and much that cumbered the narrow patch of earth on which so important a part of the world's business is transacted. ”

“ Leo's first words on taking his place in the Vatican were addressed to his brother Giuliano: 'Let us enjoy the Papacy, now that God has given it to us;' and his notion of enjoyment was to surround himself with court-poets, jesters, and musicians, to adorn his Roman palaces with frescoes, to collect statues and inscriptions, to listen to Latin speeches, and to pass judgment upon scholarly compositions. Any one and every one who gave him sensual or intellectual pleasure, found his purse always open. ”

“ The majority of men, and a large class of women, bury their dead, and straightway begin assiduously the cultivation of all that promises oblivion; but Leo's nature was deeper, more intense; and while she made no audible moan, and shed no tears, she accepted the fact that earthly existence had lost its coveted crown, and that her aching heart was the dark grave of a beautiful hope that could know no resurrection. ”

“ Spain was in the hands of Arians; Gaul torn between contending races and beliefs; Britain had relapsed into heathenism. The one thing needful at the moment seemed to be Unity, and for this unity Leo sacrificed, strove, and toiled. And his own soul being a city at unity within itself, with primitive simplicity of character, Roman strength of will, Christian singleness of heart, this unity he succeeded in preserving through that distracted age. But always with him unity was a means and not an end, the essential condition of life, valued for the sake of the life it guarded ”

“ Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me.
The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. ”

“ If it were, I should not wish him to go out into the world, because I should not expect him to find anything there. His heart is utterly at rest; but though he is personally happy, this thing troubles him. His prayers are eating into his soul like flame, and in time this fire of pity and sorrow will become a serious menace to his peace. Besides, I see in Leo a great power of sympathy and understanding. He has in him the gift of ruling other souls. He is very young to rule his own soul, and yet he rules it. ”

“ Better still, Leo, the Leo he had at last found out, was worth while. He was a great man, a man head and shoulders above all his fellows in the world's affairs, and his ultimate fall would be something worth while having brought about.
His delight was manifest as he rode along the trail in the direction of Everton. His good humor left his narrow eyes smiling his satisfied thought. His men had worked well; and he—well, he had never worked harder, or with a more satisfactory result. These men of the soil were far easier to influence than town-bred workers. ”

“ The wine shall flow for thee, and the feast shall be prepared--"
Saint Leo waved his hand, "Fasting and prayer," he cried, "fasting and prayer shall be my companions. Prostrate in the dust, lifting my heart unto the throne of God, humbly calling upon the name of my Saviour, beseeching the Spirit of truth to guide me aright! ”

“ Although the young Raphael, who owed so much to 132 the example of Leonardo, now rode through the streets as a wealthy nobleman, Leonardo himself received no great commissions. While Pope Leo was indulgent of his brother’s whims he himself had no use for this tall, serious old man who roamed the shaded walks of the Vatican poking at the strange plants in the botanical garden or making drawings of the foreign animals in the private zoo. ”

“ Leo gives to those born under its influence a lofty mind, a spirit of fair play, an unbending dignity, and a generous heart. While they have a great respect for law and authority, their imperious and independent nature causes them to feel resentment when commanded. ”

“ Leo suspected what was the matter. Taking a basket from a peg, and a bowl from the dresser, he went out into the fields. Everything was sodden with the rain, but the birds were singing with all their might; those that were not were repairing the ravages of the storm.
"Even the birds are busy at their nests," thought Leo; "Everything, every creature, has its work to do. ”

“ The rain fell monotonously against the stones of the tiny cloister.
"What a tempest!" said Brother Leo, smiling contentedly at the sky. "You must come in and see our father. I sent word by the porter of your arrival, and I am sure he will receive you; that will be a pleasure for him, for he is of the great world, too. A very learned man, our father; he knows the French and the English tongue. Once he went to Rome; also he has been several times to Venice. He has been a great traveler." ”

“ When the judgment of posterity has passed into a proverb it is too late to question its equity, or to appeal from its fiat, and the name of Leo the Tenth will thus remain identified with his age as the star whence its lustre was derived, although Italy was then brightened by not a few orbs of scarcely inferior brilliancy or less genial influence. ”

“ A Leo person will nearly always be found at the head of some great humane movement. You would become very successful in the study of Metaphysics or Occult science. As it would strengthen your will power, and enlighten your mind, and give you the knowledge and wisdom, which would enable you to reach out and grasp the so-called secret powers and forces. The Sun , placed in the sign of Leo at your birth, promises much success in life, through your own personal magnetism and power to adapt yourself to circumstances. ”

“ The favourable opinion entertained of Leo X by his contemporaries long held the field in history. His reign has been regarded as at once the zenith and cause of the greatest period of the Renaissance. His wide liberality, his unfeigned enthusiasm for the creations of genius, his unprejudiced taste for all that beautifies humanity, and his sympathy for all the culture of his time have been the theme of a traditional chorus of laudation. More recent criticism has recognised in the reign of Leo a period of incipient decline, and has traced that decline to the follies and frailties of the Pontiff. ”

“ But Leo stood firm, a rock of strength because he stood on the Rock. Still his protecting presence and his words of power were there—“Christ Himself has not abandoned the care of His beloved flock.”
“Throughout the universal Church Peter is still saying day by day, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God;’ and every tongue which confesses the Lord is clothed with the majesty of this voice. This faith overcomes the devil and dissolves the fetters of his captives; those who are torn away from the world it engrafts into heaven, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it.” ”

“ For in my song.
⁠The summer long,
The stars, and moon, and night, Love,
Are but for thy delight, Love!
LEO
I
Over the roofs of the houses I hear the barking of Leo—
Leo the shaggy, the lustrous, the giant, the gentle Newfoundland.
Dark are his eyes as the night, and black is his hair as the midnight;
Large and slow is his tread till he sees his master returning,
Then how he leaps in the air, with motion ponderous, frightening!
Now, as I pass to my work, I hear o'er the roar of the city—
Far over the roofs of the houses, I hear the barking of Leo ”

“ They would no longer let him sleep outside his master's door, but they tied him in a lonesome stall in the stable. And now he could not go to walk with Gerasimus free and happy as the King of Beasts should be. For he went only in harness, with never a kind word from his master's lips.
It was a sad time for Leo. He was growing thinner and thinner. His mane was rough and tangled because he had no heart to keep it smooth. And there were several white hairs in his beautiful whiskers. He was fast becoming melancholy; and the most pitiful beast [24] in all the world is a melancholy lion. ”

“ Thenceforth Rome and her Pope were identified. The magic of her old Imperial name was transferred to him; the granite of his ancient Roman character guarded her. Leo spoke “to the City”; the city still spoke, as no other voice could speak, to the world. The “ad Urbem” and “ad Orbem” were thenceforth not to be dissociated.
We do not hear of any pomp and ovation to do him homage on his return. The city was saved; but the salvation was from a humiliation only possible through the degradation and corruption of the city itself. And this moral degradation continued. ”

“ Leo had absorbed the culture of his time, but he did not possess the ability to look beyond that time. A diplomatist rather than a statesman, his creations were only the feats of a political virtuoso, who sacrificed the future in order to control the present. ”

“ It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. ”

“ Leo died on the 10th of November 461, the liturgical anniversary being the 11th of April. His successor was Hilarius or Hilarus, who had been one of the papal legates at the “robber” synod in 449.
The title of doctor ecclesiae was given to Leo by Benedict XIV. As bishop of the diocese of Rome, Leo distinguished himself above all his predecessors by his preaching, to which he devoted himself with great zeal and success. ”

“ While Leo is conceded to have been a devout Christian and a noble defender of the faith as we receive it,--one of the lights of the early Christian Church, numbered even among the Fathers of the Church, with Augustine and Chrysostom,--his special claim to greatness is that to him we trace some of the first great developments of the Roman Catholic power as an institution. More than any other one man, he laid the foundation-stone of that edifice which alike sheltered and imprisoned the European nations for more than a thousand years. ”