pacem et tranquillitatem turbatam inter fideles nostros reperturi simus.

"Interea Ecclesiam Dei et Sanctitatem Vestram, cui intemeratam fidem et obedientiam profitemur, D. N. J. C. gratiæ et præsidio toto corde commendantes sumus Sanctitatis Vestræ

SIXTY-NINTH LETTER.

Rome, July 19, 1870.-On the evening of the 15th a deputation of the Bishops of the minority waited on the Pope, consisting of Simor, Primate of Hungary, Archbishops Ginoulhiac, Darboy and Scherr (of Munich), Ketteler and Rivet, Bishop of Dijon. After waiting an hour they were admitted at 9 o'clock in the evening. What they tried to obtain was in fact much less than the Opposition had hitherto aimed at: they only asked for the withdrawal of the addition to the third chapter, which assigns to the Pope the exclusive possession of all ecclesiastical powers, and the insertion in the fourth chapter of a clause limiting his infallibility to those decisions which he pronounces " innixus testimonio Ecclesiarum." Pius gave an answer which will sound in Germany like a maliciously invented fable," Je ferai mon possible, mes chers fils, mais je n'ai pas encore lu le Schéma ; je ne sais pas ce qu'il

contient." And he then requested Darboy, who had acted as spokesman, to give him the petition of the minority in writing. He promised to do so, and added, not without irony, that he would take the liberty of sending with it to his Holiness the Schema, which the Deputation on Faith and the Legates had with such culpable levity omitted to lay before him, when it wanted only two days to the promulgation of the dogma, thereby exposing him to the peril of having to proclaim a decree he was ignorant of. This Darboy did, and in a second letter to the Deputation severely censured their negligence in not even having communicated the Schema to the chief personage, the Pope.

Pius added further, whether ironically or in earnest I know not, that if only the minority would increase their 88 votes to 100, he would see what could be done. He concluded by assuring them it was notorious that the whole Church had always taught the unconditional infallibility of the Pope. Bishop Ketteler then came forward, flung himself on his knees before the Pope, and entreated for several minutes that the Father of the Catholic world would make some concession to restore peace and her lost unity to the Church and the episcopat It was a peculiar

spectacle to witness these two men, of kindred and yet widely diverse nature, in such an attitude, the one prostrate on the ground before the other. Pius is "totus teres atque rotundus," firm and immoveable, smooth and hard as marble, infinitely self-satisfied intellectually, mindless and ignorant, without any understanding of the mental conditions and needs of mankind, without any notion of the character of foreign nations, but as credulous as a nun, and above all penetrated through and through with reverence for his own person as the organ of the Holy Ghost, and therefore an absolutist from head to heel, and filled with the thought, "I and none beside me." He knows and believes that the holy Virgin, with whom he is on the most intimate terms, will indemnify him for the loss of land and subjects by means of the infallibility doctrine and the restoration of the papal dominion over states and peoples as well as over Churches. He also believes firmly in the miraculous emanations from the sepulchre of St. Peter. At the feet of this man the German Bishop flung himself, "ipso Papâ papalior," a zealot for the ideal greatness and unapproachable dignity of the Papacy, and at the same time inspired by the aristocratic feeling of a Westphalian nobleman and

the hierarchical self-consciousness of a Bishop and successor of the ancient chancellor of the Empire, while yet he is surrounded by the intellectual atmosphere of Germany, and with all his firmness of belief is sickly with the pallor of thought, and inwardly struggling with the terrible misgiving that after all historical facts are right, and that the ship of the Curia, though for the moment it proudly rides the waves with its sails swelled by a favourable wind, will be wrecked on that rock at last.

The prostration of the Bishop of Mayence seemed to make some impression on Pius. He dismissed the deputation in a hopeful temper. It was of short duration. For directly the report got about that the Pope was yielding, Manning and Senestrey (de grands effets par de petites causes) went to the Pope and assured him that all was now ripe, and the great majority enthusiastically set on the most absolute and uncompromising form of the infallibilist theory, and at the same time frightened him by the warning that, if he made any concession, he would be disgraced in history as a second Honorius. That was enough to stifle any thought of moderation that might have been awakened in his soul.