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

cussion of its articles in detail, has to be managed in the Commission; in the Council Hall it is impossible. As yet there have been only long speeches on either side, as in academies or in a school of rhetoric, which, for the most part, were not understood, and in which the main question-what shape the decrees are to take, if issued at all—was never grappled with.

On Friday, January 14, the debate on the Schema opened. This is occupied with the duties of Bishops-their residence, visitation of their dioceses, and obligation of frequently travelling to Rome and presenting regular reports on the state of their dioceses; the holding of Provincial and Diocesan Synods; and VicarsGeneral, The duties of Bishops are the one thing spoken of, and the design is everywhere transparent of increasing their dependence on the Curia, and centralizing all Church government in Rome still more than before. Archbishop Darboy observed on it, that it was above all necessary, in examining this second Schema, to discuss the rights of Bishops, instead of only the duties Rome assigned them. Cardinal Schwarzenberg had really opened the debate in this sense, and he had the courage to speak of the College of Cardinals, and the reforms it needed. A simple Bishop would not have