honours, and red carpets were spread for him at the threshold of aristocratic houses, until his name was found to be contagious. Then, in twenty-four hours he was sped from England with the profuse facilities of departure which wait upon an unwelcome guest. In my judgment-and I have formed it not in London from newspaper correspondents, but in Rome during many a long residence, extending in all over seven yearsthose who have encouraged this chronic agitation against the religion of Italians and the independence of Rome, have been among the chief causes of the present disorders of Italy. They could put no surer bar to its unity or to the solution of the Roman question which they confidently believe to be settled. They are keeping it open by encouraging the Government of the day to persist in quarrelling with the Catholic Church and with its Head. But this part of the subject has outgrown its proportion. I return, therefore, to the proposition I set out to prove, that by the collisions which now exist between the Civil Powers and the Church, the Governments of Europe are destroying the main principle of their own stability. And I must add that they who are rekindling the old fires of religious discord in such an equal and tempered Commonwealth as ours, seem to me to be serving neither God nor their country.

CHAPTER V.

THE MOTIVE OF THE DEFINITION.

My last proposition is that the motive of the Council. of the Vatican for defining the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff was not any temporal motive, nor was it for temporal ends; but that the Definition was made in the face of all temporal dangers, in order to guard the Divine deposit of Christianity, and to vindicate the Divine certainty of Faith.

I have read many things in Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet which are unlike himself, but none seems more so to me than this question, 'Why did that Court, with policy for ever in its eye, lodge such formidable demands for power of the vulgar kind in that sphere which is visible, and where hard knocks can undoubtedly be given as well as received?'1

Would it not have been more seemly and more dignified if the question had been couched in some such words as these: 'Why has the Catholic Church, in a moment of great peril, when a revolution is at the gates of Rome, and the Civil Powers of the world are uniting, not only to forsake it, but even to threaten it with opposition-why has it at such a time, in spite of every inducement of policy, and every motive of interest, and in defiance of every pleading of worldly wisdom, persisted in defining the Infallibility

of the Pope-a doctrine which is sure to bring down upon the Church the animosities of all its enemies without, and the conspiracies of all its faithless members. within?' Even Mr. Gladstone can see that this was most impolitic. Why, then, will he accuse the Church of always having a policy in its eye? By his own confession it is not always so: for he is witness that it is not so in this case. Why, then, would he not say so? I will gladly answer the question he has put.

The reasons, then, why the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff ought to be defined were publicly stated as follows, in 1869, before the Vatican Council met; and some or all of them, I believe, prevailed in determining the Council to make that definition :

'Those who maintain that the time is ripe, and that such a definition would be opportune, justify their opinion on the following reasons:

1. Because the doctrine of the Infallibility of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, speaking ex cathedra, in matter of faith and morals, is true.

2. Because this truth has been denied.

3. Because this denial has generated extensive doubt as to the truth of this doctrine, which lies at the root of the immemorial and universal practice of the Church, and therefore at the foundation of Christianity in the world.

4. Because this denial, if it arose informally about the time of the Council of Constance, has been revived, and has grown into a formal and public error since the closing of the last General Council.

'5. Because, if the next General Council shall pass it over, the error will henceforward appear to be toler

ated, or at least left in impunity; and the Pontifical censures of Innocent XI., Alexander VIII., Innocent XII., and Pius VI. will appear to be of doubtful effect.

6. Because this denial of the traditional belief of the Church is not a private, literary, and scholastic opinion; but a patent, active, and organised opposition to the prerogatives of the Holy See.

'7. Because this erroneous opinion has gravely enfeebled the doctrinal authority of the Church in the minds of a certain number of the faithful; and if passed over in impunity, this ill effect will be still further encouraged.

8. Because this erroneous opinion has at times caused and kept open a theological and practical division among pastors and people; and has given occasion to domestic criticisms, mistrusts, animosities, and alienations.

'9. Because these divisions tend to paralyse the action of truth upon the minds of the faithful ad intra ; and, consequently, by giving a false appearance of division and doubt among Catholics, upon the minds of Protestants and others ad extra.

10. Because, as the absence of a definition gives occasion for these separations and oppositions of opinion among pastors and people, so, if defined, the doctrine would become a basis and a bond of unity among the faithful.

'II. Because, if defined in an Ecumenical Council, the doctrine would be at once received throughout the world, both by those who believe the Infallibility of the Pontiff and by those who believe the Infallibility of the Church, and with the same universal joy and

unanimity as the definition of the Immaculate Conception.

12. Because the definition of the ordinary means whereby the faith is proposed to the world is required to complete the treatise "De Fide Divina."

13. Because the same definition is required to complete the treatise "De Ecclesia, deque Dotibus ejus."

14. Because it is needed to place the Pontifical Acts during the last three hundred years, both in declaring the truth, as in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and in condemning errors, as in the long series of propositions condemned in Baius, Jansenius, and others, beyond cavil or question; and still more, to make manifest that the active Infallibility of the Church, between council and council, is not dormant, suspended, or intermittent; and to exclude the heretical supposition that infallible decrees are left to the exposition and interpretation of a fallible judge.

15. Because the full and final declaration of the divine authority of the Head of the Church is needed to exclude from the minds of pastors and faithful the. political influences which have generated Gallicanism, Imperialism, Regalism, and Nationalism, the perennial sources of error, contention, and schism.

'For these, and for many more reasons which it is impossible now to detail, many believe that a definition or declaration which would terminate this long and pernicious question, would be opportune; and that it might for ever be set at rest by the condemnation of the propositions following:

'I. That the decrees of the Roman Pontiffs in mat