In 1815 Friedrich Gentz noted: “Napoleon's downfall was a pure and unqualified advantage for Russia; for the rest of Europe, and especially for the states bordering on Russia, it was largely balanced by the increased strength that she secured for herself at the expense of the general equilibrium. For this great power there is virtually no further real danger; if she attacks her neighbors her greatest risk is merely diat she may fail in her purpose and have to postpone her venture to a more favorable time. The difficulty of penetrating Russia's interior is now so generally recognized that only lunacy and despair could prompt an attempt to conquer this great empire. While the other states of Europe exhausted themselves in the struggle against Napoleon, Russia who allied herself with him understood well how to extract the most solid benefits from the ephemeral union. It would be easy for her to fall upon her neighbors, for she has so many greedy ambitious reasons for trying it, and, if the expression be allowed, such substantially centrifugal habits, that war, which others regard as a necessary evil, will always be to the Russians a matter of choice, of emotion, and of speculation.“

In his Life of St. Patrick Jocelin of Furness quotes an Irish saying: “The Lord gave Ireland not to Palladius, but to Patrick.” This is indeed the view of the Patrick legend from the seventh century onwards. According to this legend, Pope Celestine sent his archdeacon Palladius to Ireland to preach Christ to the Irish; but Palladius failed completely, “because nobody can take from the world that which is not given him from above.” It was his successor Patrick who laid the foundations of the Irish church.

This legend, to say the least, over-simplifies the facts. Prosper of Aquitaine, a contemporary of Palladius, distinctly tells us that Palladius was sent “to the Irish believing in Christ” as their first bishop, in other words, with orders to organize a diocese on the basis of Christian communities already existing, however sporadic the latter may have been. The legend is further contradicted by a seventh century Irish tradition which has preserved the names of three churches founded by Palladius in Leinster.

The problem of the Patriarch Photius involved one of the most tangled and bitter differences that hamper friendly relations between Eastern and Western Christianity. Since the Renaissance, Photius, a Greek scholar of the ninth century, has been venerated by philosophers and philologists alike as the genius who among others was instrumental in transmitting to later generations classical Greek and Hellenic culture. On the other hand, Photius' name has been associated with the rise of the first schism in the ninth century when, under Pope Nicholas I, Photius played a prominent part in the first clash between the papacy and the East. The result is that the same man who is venerated as a saint by the Eastern Church, and as one of the last living witnesses of the tradition of the early Christian Fathers, has been for centuries regarded by the Christian West as the father of the great schism, as a prevaricator who falsified papal letters and conciliar Acts, and as a symbol of pride and lust for ecclesiastical domination. It is evident that both views cannot be right. Hence, the history of the Patriarch still stands as the greatest stumbling block barring the way to a better understanding between eastern and western Christendom. The apparent impossibility of reconciling such contradictory estimates has left historians with the feeling that history in this case finds itself in a cul-de-sac.

“Heraldry in this reign [Edward III] received the highest polish: in future times it was more gorgeously attired; but with its simplicity it lost its greatest merit.“ Change or progress which the world hails as warmly as it yearns for the permanent and the familiar has disordered and corrupted all hierarchies of men. Mediaeval society may be given an intellectual formulation which is a marvel of order. The peasant toils, the noble fights and the clerk prays. But the clashing reality hastily reveals how uncomprehensive the division is. Where is the merchant or the fortunate adventurer? If the nobleman must be endowed with lands and wealth as a mark of his station and to afford him the leisure for war, what is the status of the merchant who has profitably held the wolf of avarice by the tail? If wealth is a mark of position, does the possession of an adequate supply of silver marks, involving power as it does, also bring with it position? Over the centuries it always has, although society has often urbanely pretended that high degree went only to wealth grown old or has saved itself from vulgarity by insisting that gentility went only with land (which was purchasable).

The outcome of the Italian election's can be summarized statistically as follows. In the elections for the Chamber of Deputies (the only ones to be taken into account in these comments), a total of 26 million citizens went to the polls, or about 92% of the registered voters, as against 23 millions in 1946. Almost 13 millions cast their ballot for Christian-Democracy in 1948 as against 8 millions in 1946; about 10 millions for Marxist parties, as against 9 millions in 1946. All remaining parties and groups obtained about 3.5 million votes as against nearly double that number in 1946. These figures would seem to indicate that Christian-Democracy got about two-thirds of all first time voters, in addition to the support of those electors who refused to renew their confidence in the smaller parties. Marxism not only stood its ground but was able to add one million new supporters. The tendency, already so clear in 1946, towards the disintegration of smaller parties, became even more apparent in 1948; in certain regions of northern Italy they disappeared completely, and the south remained the only part of the country offering a last lingering haven to the groups which ruled Italy for the sixty years before the advent of fascism.