These good Popes were short-lived,--their reigns for the most part counting by days only; but they opened happy glimpses of an administration where the powers of government were not treated as a personal perquisite.
Sumner reflects on the brief reigns of virtuous Popes and their potential for good governance.
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They belong to a system so essentially irrational, that all the admitted virtues of many of its agents cannot save it from judgment.
Controlled by such a code, employing such representatives, sustained by such agencies, animated by such Furies, and producing such fruits of tears and bitterness, it must be open to question.
Let loyalty to one man be exchanged for Love to Man.
Again I repeat, so long as the War System prevails under the sanction of International Law, these painful incongruities will be apparent.
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