TENTH LETTER.

Rome, Jan. 15, 1870.-On Sunday last the Pope gave audience to a great crowd of visitors,-some 700 or 1000, it is said, at once, and took occasion to express before them his displeasure at the Opposition Bishops. He said there were some Prelates who lacked the temper of perfect faith, and hence arose difficulties, which however he, the Pope, should know how to overcome. In Church matters no attention was to be paid to the judgment of the world, as he himself despised it, for the Church's kingdom is not of this world. It has hitherto of course been held in the Church that the judgment of the world—that is, of their flocks, who constitute their own immediate world-is exactly what the Bishops ought to attend to very much, and to avoid giving offence to them and perplexing their consciences in matters of religion.

The prohibition to hold large episcopal meetings, com

municated to the French Bishops only through Cardinal Bonnechose, is not obeyed either by the French or Germans, who continue to take counsel together. The united Germans and Hungarians have accepted in substance an address drawn up by Cardinal Rauscher, and on Sunday, January 9, bound themselves by a reciprocal obligation, with forty-three signatures, to vote against and combat in all conciliar methods the erection of Papal Infallibility into a dogma. The Austrian Prelates stand foremost in clearness, decision, and courage. Rauscher, Schwarzenberg, Haynald, and Strossmayer know what they want, are full of true love for the Church, understand the greatness of the danger, and are perfectly aware that no positive gain, nor any of the important reforms so urgently needed, can be expected from this Council-the Spanish and Italian phalanx is too strong and impenetrable for that,—but they hope, at least, by energetic resistance to ward off positive mischief from the Church.

The French on their part are active; Cardinal Mathieu, who returned to Rome, January 5, has opened a saloon in his house for the deliberations. Next to Dupanloup, Bishop Place of Marseilles, Meignan of Châlons, Landriot of Rheims, and Ginoulhiac of Grenoble, speak

most decidedly. There are some thirty-five like-minded with them, and the inopportunists among them and the Germans are gradually coming to perceive that their position is quite untenable, and that to persist in treating Infallibility as a mere question of time and convenience, is to give their adversaries a safe and easy victory. But the Germans are further advanced in this conviction than the French. The now famous Infallibilist Address seems to have been simultaneously hawked about from two quarters, viz., by the trio of Manning, Deschamps, and Spalding, and by Martin and Senestrey. Who conposed it, and how many Bishops have signed it, is stil uncertain; the movement has come to a dead-lock, periaps because the Spaniards, who talk of presenting an address of their own, don't want to sign it. Several Italians too refused to sign, and so the result has not been as satisfactory as was hoped, although it can hardy be doubted that the dogma will have 450 or 500 votes when it is laid before the Council.

It is a characteristic feature of the case, that throughout Laly prayers are offered in all the monastic communties still surviving, and in all zealously Catholic famiies, for the definition of the new dogma. The fact is mentioned in English journals, and I have heard it

confirmed here. It reveals the patriotic feeling, that Papal Infallibility is an Italian possession more or less profitable to every member of the nation. "The Pope," as one hears it said here, "will always feel and think above all as an Italian; his decrees are manufactured by a Court nine-tenths of whom, at least, are Italians, anc with his infallibility under our management, we Ital ians shall be able to dominate and make capital out of all other nations, in so far as they desire to be Catholic" The Italian is generally a good calculator. However, Italian priests and prelates feel and know right well what every nation and national Church owes to itself. If the Papacy belonged to any other nation, the Italions would never dream for a moment of acknowledging he system of Papal absolutism with its grand prop of Ppal Infallibility. One soon observes, in conversing vith these Monsignori, how they despise in their hearts the French and German Ultramontane Bishops, whib at the same time admitting the correctness of their vews, and praising them liberally for rolling in the dust before the infallible Curia, and crying out to the Romars, as that orator Ekebolius cried out to the Emperor Juian, "Only trample us under your feet, the salt that has lost its savour."

Thirty-five German Bishops have declared at the beginning, that they are ready to subscribe the abovementioned counter address against the dogma of Infallibility, pretty fully expressed in the form of a petition to the Pope, and among them are included those who were before of opinion that they had sufficiently discharged their duty by the letter they sent to him from Fulda. This is a praiseworthy example of harmony, but at the same time the greatness of the danger, which has now become evident to even the most trustful mind, is shown by the fact that all present at the consultation on this address bound themselves in writing to subscribe it. It is needless to say that the Tyrolese and the pupils of the Jesuits, with Bishop Martin, held aloof from the meeting.

Another proof was given on this occasion of the very different measure dealt to the two parties. The Infallibilist Address was at once printed, though everything else here has first to undergo the most rigorous censorship. The Roman censors would, of course, have refused their imprimatur to the counter address, and there was some scruple felt about printing it out of the country, as though by an evasion of the Papal laws, and so it cannot be printed at all. Even Bishop Dupan