loup has been refused permission to print his answer to Deschamps. The address will probably be subscribed by the Bishops of each nation in separate batches, so that there will be five addresses, coinciding in substance. Forty-seven Germans and Hungarians are reckoned on-so many have subscribed alreadyand thirty-five French. The Anglo-Americans have somewhat altered the wording of the address, and say they can command twenty-five signatures. But what is most remarkable is, that a considerable section of the North-Italian Bishops from Piedmont and Lombardy now come out as opponents of Infallibilism, and give promise of twenty-five signatures for the counter address. The decisive point with them is their relation to the Italian nation and government, for the Infallibilist dogma must inevitably lead to a hopelessly incurable rupture between it and the Church. To these must be added six Irish and four Portuguese, making in all an Opposition of from 140 to 150 votes.

The great question daily mooted in the Vatican is now, how Infallibility can be erected into a dogma in spite of the resistance of the Opposition minority, for there is no longer any illusion as to an obstinate residue of anti-Infallibilist protesters being sure to be left, after

allowing for the fullest effects of all the alluring seductions used. Precedents are sought for in the history of Councils where the majority has passed decrees according to its own will, without regard to the opposite representations and negative votes of the minority. But no such precedents are to be found. At all Councils from Nice downwards the dogmatic decrees have always been passed only with entire or approximate unanimity. Even at Trent, where the Italians, commanded from Rome through the legates, dominated everything, many very important decrees were abandoned after being drawn up, as soon as a few Bishops only had pronounced against them. If only this fatal precedent of the Tridentine Synod could be got rid of! The Jesuits investigate and refine, but, unluckily for them, one of their own body, Father Matignon, in 1868, when an Opposition was still believed to be impossible, himself established the fact, and justified it on doctrinal grounds; and that is made use of now. So there is nothing left but to labour indefatigably for the conversion of opponents. But people in Rome seem not to

1

1 Études de Théologie, Janvier 1868, p. 26:-"Le Concile n'imposait rien à notre foi, qui n'eût obtenu à peu près l'unanimité des votes. L'obligation de croire est une chose si grave, le droit de lier les intelligences est un droit si auguste et si important, que les pères pensaient n'en devoir user qu'avec la plus grande réserve et la plus extrême délicatesse."

know " "qu'on ne prend pas les mouches avec du vinaigre;" and that methods of coercion, intimidation, and discrediting character, are not quite the most effectual means, psychologically, for converting adverse Bishops, is clear from the tone again and again manifested in the speeches on the Schema, which has gained conspicuously in sharpness and explicitness. On January 10, a Northern Prelate, distinguished for gentleness and refinement, but accustomed to parliamentary contests, said he had been obliged to speak in the vigorous style usual in his own country of the entire absence of real freedom in the Council, for the insolence of the other party was becoming daily more intolerable.

ELEVENTH LETTER.

Rome, Jan. 17, 1870.-It is a remarkable phenomenon that Pius IX., who is every way inferior to his predecessors of this century in theological culture, lets himself be so completely dominated by his passion for creating new articles of faith. Former Popes have indeed had their hobbies: some wanted to aggrandize and enrich their families; others, like Sixtus VI., were zealous in building, or, like Leo x., in fostering art and literature, or they waged wars like Julius II., or, finally, they wrote learned works, and composed many long Bulls full of quotations, etc., like Benedict XIV. But not one of them has been seized with this passion for manufacturing dogmas; it is something quite unique in the history of the Popes. Herein, therefore, Pius IX. is a singular phenomenon in his way, and all the more wonderful from his hitherto having kept aloof from theology, and, as one always hears, not being in the habit of ever reading

theological books. If it is inquired how this strange idiosyncrasy has been aroused in the soul of a Pope who began his reign under such very different auspices, as a political reformer, the answer given by every one is, that it is the Jesuits, whose influence over him has been constantly growing since he took Father Mignardi of that Order for his confessor, and who have created and fostered in him this passion for dogmamaking.

The displeasure and discontent of the Bishops finds constant nutriment in the conduct of the Curia. They say that if these momentous propositions had been laid before them in good time, some months before the opening of the Council, so that they might have carefully examined them and pursued the theological studies requisite for that purpose, they should have come duly prepared, whereas now they are in the position of having to speak and vote on the most difficult questions almost extempore. The attacks and objections directed against the first part of the Schema in their speeches have not applied so much to the separate articles as to the general scope and tendency of the whole, and I have not been able to ascertain anything more certain about the matter, for the real elaboration of the Schema, and dis