the world in many tongues, long before it met, that the Council would not be free. Nevertheless, the minority persevered with heroic courage, logic which nothing could resist, and eloquence which electrified the most insensible, until a tyrannous majority, deaf to reason and incapable of argument, cut discussion short by an arbitrary exercise of power; and so silenced the only voices nobly lifted up for science, candour, and common sense.

This done, the definition of new dogmas became inevitable, and the antagonism between the ultraromanism of a party and the progress of modern society, between independence and servility, became complete.

Such is the history of the Council written ab extra in the last nine months. I believe that every epithet I have given may be verified in the mass of extracts now before me.

A leading English journal, ten days after the Definition of the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff, with great simplicity observed,' It is curious to compare the very general and deep interest taken by all intelligent observers in the early deliberations of the Council with the equally marked indifference to the culmination of its labours. Every rumour that came from Rome six or seven months ago was canvassed with great eagerness, even by men who cared little for ordinary theological disputations: while the proclamation of the astonishing dogma of papal infallibility has produced in any but ecclesiastical circles little beyond a certain amount of perfunctory criticism.'

The main cause of this contrast is, of course,

not far to seek. The writer proceeds to assign the cause, and in so doing passes at once, with a gravity befitting the occasion, to a disquisition on Sir William Hamilton's theory of perception, and on the gigantic gooseberry.'

Such is the earnestness and the sincerity with which English journals, even of high repute, have treated the subject of the Ecumenical Council.

Let me, also, assign the cause why the un-Catholic and anti-Catholic world took so clamorous an interest in the opening of the Council, and in the end affected so ill-sustained a tone of indifference. I know of no public event in our day the explanation of which is more transparent and self-evident. It is this.

เ

When the Council assembled, it was both hoped and believed that the Roman Curia' and the Ultramontane party' would be checked and brought under by the decisions of the Bishops. A controversy had been waged against what was termed 'Ultramontanism,' or 'Ultra-Catholicism,' or 'Ultra-Romanism,' in. Germany, France, and England. When I last addressed you I used the following words, which I now repeat, because I can find none more exact. They have been fulfilled to the very letter.

'Facts like these give a certain warrant to the assertions and prophecies of politicians and Protestants. They prove that in the Catholic Church there is a school at variance with the doctrinal teaching of the Holy See in matters which are not of faith. But they do not reveal how small that school is. Its centre would seem to be at Munich; it has, both in France and in England, a small number of adherents. They

are active, they correspond, and, for the most part, write anonymously. It would be difficult to describe its tenets, for none of its followers seem to be agreed in all points. Some hold the infallibility of the Pope, and some defend the Temporal Power. Nothing appears to be common to all, except an animus of opposition to the acts of the Holy See in matters outside the faith.

'In this country, about a year ago, an attempt was made to render impossible, as it was confidently but vainly thought, the definition of the infallibility of the Pontiff, by reviving the monotonous controversy about Pope Honorius. Later we were told of I know not what combination of exalted personages in France for the same end. It is certain that these symptoms are not sporadic and disconnected, but in mutual understanding, and with a common purpose. The antiCatholic press has eagerly encouraged this school of thought. If a Catholic can be found out of tune with authority by half a note, he is at once extolled for unequalled authority and irrefragable logic. The anti-Catholic journals are at his service, and he vents his opposition to the common opinions of the Church by writing against them anonymously. Sad as this is, it is not formidable. It has effect almost alone upon those who are not Catholic. Upon Catholics its effect is hardly appreciable; on the theological Schools of the Church, it will have little influence; upon the Ecumenical Council it can have none.'*

Many publications had appeared in French, Eng* Pastoral on 'The Ecumenical Council, 1869,' &c. pp. 132,

lish, and German, from which it became evident that a common purpose and plan of co-operation had been formed. Certain notorious letters published in France, and the infamous book 'Janus,' translated into English, French, and Italian, proclaimed open war upon the Council within the unity of the Catholic Church. This alone was enough to set the whole anti-Catholic world on fire with curiosity, hope, and delight. The learning, the science of the intellectual freemen of the Roman Church were already under arms to reduce the pretensions of Rome.

A belief had also spread itself that the Council would explain away the doctrines of Trent, or give them some new or laxer meaning, or throw open some questions supposed to be closed, or come to a compromise or transaction with other religious systems; or at least that it would accommodate the dogmatic stiffness of its traditions to modern thought and modern theology. It is strange that any one should have forgotten that every General Council, from Nicea to Trent, which has touched on the faith, has made new definitions, and that every new definition is a new dogma, and closes what was before open, and ties up more strictly the doctrines of faith. This belief, however, excited an expectation, mixed with hopes, that Rome by becoming comprehensive might become approachable, or by becoming inconsistent might become powerless over the reason and the will of men.

But the interest excited by this preliminary skirmishing external to the Council, was nothing compared to the exultation with which the anti-Catholic opinion and anti-Catholic press of Protestant countries,

Governments,

and the anti-Roman opinion and press even of Catholic countries, beheld, as they believed, the formation of an organised 'international opposition' of more than a hundred Bishops within the Council itself. The day was come at last. What the world could not do against Rome from without, its own Bishops were going to do against Rome, and in the world's service, from within. I shall hereafter show how little the world knew the Bishops whom it wronged by its adulation, and damaged by its praise. They were the favourites of the world, because they were believed to be fighting the Pope. In a moment, all the world rose up to meet them. politicians, newspapers, schismatical, heretical, infidel, Jewish, revolutionary, as with one unerring instinct, united in extolling and setting forth the virtue, learning, science, eloquence, nobleness, heroism of this international opposition.' With an iteration truly Homeric, certain epithets were perpetually linked to certain names. All who were against Rome were written up; all who were for Rome were written down. The public eye and ear of all countries were filled, and taught to associate all that is noble and great with the international opposition;' all that is neither noble nor great, not to say more, with others. The interest was thus wrought up to the highest pitch; and a confident expectation was raised, and spread abroad, that the Council would be unable to make a definition, and that Rome would be defeated. I can hardly conceive a keener or more vivid motive of interest to the anti-Catholic world than this. For this cause Rome was full of correspondents, our