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No. 14. Vienna, 1 April 1904 — 16 Nisan 5664. 8th Year.

This week's number, being the Passover number, appears by exception on Wednesday instead of Friday.

The Editors.

Pope Pius X. and His Secretary of State.

(An Interview.)

There have been Popes who were masters of all the princes of the Church; then there were some who were the first of all monks; Pope Pius X. is, in his whole nature, the head of all Catholic pastors of souls.

I saw him in the bright sunlight of the first days of his reign, as with joyful countenance he received in the Court of San Damaso the many thousands who had come to see him and to listen to his words. In the kindly, open, somewhat broad-featured face one read undisguised satisfaction that it was granted him to offer words of comfort to so great a multitude and to bestow that blessing which, by virtue of his office, is of such high significance to all Catholics.

What he said was simple, but of moving fervour.

The assembly was of very mixed confession; there were Protestants of every kind there, and Jews as well.

Beside me stood a Dutch lady who had lost her sight, after having been able, years before, to behold the glories of Rome. Soon after this address she went to Monsignore Bisleti, the ever-obliging Majordomo of the Vatican, with the request that she might be permitted to thank the Pope personally for his uplifting words. The amiable prelate obtained a private audience for the Protestant lady.

For half an hour a loving priest, who laid aside all the outward trappings of his high dignity, spoke with a sorely afflicted sister. — The Pope performed the office of a pastor of souls for a blind Protestant woman, and lightened her dark path for a long time to come.

That is Pius X., the new Pope, the man of religion, to whom politics will be only a means of protecting his faithful, but never an end which religion is to serve.

The same, indeed, was expected of Leo XIII.; but it appears that the influence of his political adviser, Cardinal Rampolla, turned that naturally gentle lord from his original course. The political tendency of the Secretary of State and his far-reaching aims, to which a certain largeness of conception cannot be denied, often led him into the camp of those who made a business of enmity towards the Jews.

What manner of man, then, is he who to-day conducts the political affairs of the Vatican?

The appointment of Cardinal Merry del Val as Secretary of State to Pius X. was received with mixed feelings in all those circles which desire a conciliatory attitude on the part of the Church, and that because he belongs to the S. J.

But the fact that our leader, Dr. Theodor Herzl, was received by the Pope, and the amiable manner in which His Eminence the Secretary of State conversed with him, show clearly that the Jews are to-day regarded in the Vatican without prejudice. And from the conversation which was granted to me, and which I here reproduce as faithfully as possible in sense and wording, it plainly emerges that a modus vivendi between Jews and Catholics is possible, if our kinsmen will be wise and tactful enough to take to heart what may be learned from this conversation.

For us Zionists it has a quite particular significance.

* * *

Most Roman prelates are amiable men of the world, and when they wish to be friendly, their effect is enchanting. When I was led into the reception rooms of the Cardinal Secretary of State, into one of those halls which Pinturicchio steeped in imperishable beauty, an elegant gentleman in flowing robes came to meet me at the very door, led me into the depth of the room, and pressed me to take a place on a sofa at his side. The Cardinal's figure is as tall as that of his predecessor, Rampolla, only slighter; his face is as refined and delicate as his predecessor's was commanding, and even down to the