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Europe, inviting them to unite in opposition to the Council, which was to meet on the 8th of December in that year. A document was sent, dated the 9th of April, 1869—that is, eight months before-with the signature of Prince Hohenlohe, then minister at Munich, the internal evidence of which revealed the hand from which it came. object of these documents was to inspire all the civil powers of Europe with suspicion and alarm, and to combine them in active resistance to prevent the definition of the infallibility of the head of the Church. Prince Hohenlohe in his despatch said: "The only dogmatic thesis which Rome would wish to have decided by the Council, and which the Jesuits in Italy and Germany are now agitating, is the question of the infallibility of the Pope.' How Prince Hohenlohe should know the wish of Rome with such exclusive precision, he did not tell us. He then goes on to say: I thought the initiative in so important a matter should be taken by one of the great powers; but not having as yet received any communication on the subject, I have thought it necessary to seek for a mutual understanding which will protect our common interests,' &c. A schedule of questions was then proposed to the theological faculty at Munich, intended to elicit answers for the purpose of obstructing the definition by alarming the powers of Europe. Answers were returned in the sense desired. But the questions and answers lost much of their effect because they were believed to come from the same hand. Nevertheless an extensive political and diplomatic party or conspiracy was formed, with the intention of hindering the expected definition. In the month of June following, Prince Hohenlohe addressed a second despatch to the governments of Europe. The Spanish minister, Olozaga, threatened the Church with the hostility of a league of France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Bavaria. An Italian minister addressed a circular to his diplomatic agents at the courts of Europe, inviting the powers to prevent the assembling of the Council. A joint despatch was sent by the Bavarian and Italian governments to the French government, urging the withdrawal of the French troops during the Council, to insure the freedom of its deliberations, or, in other words, to anticipate the 20th of September, 1870.

An anonymous document was received by the bishops, which appeared simultaneously in French, English, German, Italian, and Spanish, elaborately arguing against the opportuneness of defining the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. It was in certain countries distributed to the bishops by their governments. Such was the activity displayed in the ecclesiastical and diplomatic bodies. But there were other agencies at work. The newspapers of every country in Europe began to assail the future Council. Men of every sort of religion and of every shade of unbelief, by every kind of opposition from argument to derision, endeavoured to diminish beforehand the authority of the Council. It was said that it would not be cecumenical, because the

Protestants would not sit in it; it would not be free, because the Pope would overbear the bishops. Then it was said that the bishops would not be able to discuss in Latin; that the Council would make new dogmas of matters not revealed; that no one would believe its definitions, or pay attention to its decrees. Janus had supplied all the adversaries of the Catholic faith and of the Catholic Church with a large vocabulary of vituperation, which was copiously directed against both.

12. The effect of this deliberate, wide-spread, and elaborate attempt to hinder the definition of the infallibility of the head of the Church, by controlling the Council and obstructing its freedom, was as might be expected. It insured the proposing and passing of the definition. It was seen at once that not only the truth of a doctrine, but the independence of the Church, was at stake. If the Council should hesitate or give way before an opposition of newspapers and of governments, its office as Witness and Teacher of Revelation would be shaken throughout the world. The means taken to prevent the definition made the definition inevitable by proving its necessity. It was no longer a desire or conviction of individuals, but a sense of duty in the great majority of the bishops. But to this we shall have to return hereafter.

II. Having thus brought down the external events from the Centenary to the eve of the Council, we must take up again the narrative of the preparations that were making in Rome. We have seen that, by reason of the disturbed state of Europe and of Italy, the preparations were suspended in 1866. They were resumed on the 28th of July, 1867, and were continued without interruption until they were completed just before the assembling of the Council.

1. The Commission of Direction consisted of five cardinal presidents, with eight bishops, and the secretary, the Archbishop of Sardis. Twenty-four Consultors were appointed for the Commission of Dogma, nineteen for that of Discipline, twelve for the Commission on Religious orders, seventeen for the Commission of Foreign Missions and the East, and twenty-six for the Commission of Mixed or Politico-ecclesiastical Questions. The entire number of Consultors was one hundred and two, of which ten were bishops, sixty-nine secular priests, and twenty-three (regulars: of these eight were Jesuits, four Dominicans, two Augustinians, one Barnabite, one Conventual Franciscan, one Minor Observant, one Benedictine, one Carmelite, one Servite, one minister of the Sick, and one Oratorian. Of these hundred and two thirty-one were from various nations invited to Rome.

The first question to be decided by the Commission of Direction was as to who had the right of sitting in the Council.

There could be no doubt as to the right of the episcopate at large; but a question arose as to bishops who had no ordinary jurisdiction such as vicars apostolic. There could, also, be no doubt as to their admissibility if invited, nor of their decisive vote when admitted.

But the question was as to their right to be called. The decision arrived at was that it was fitting that they should be called to the Council according to the precedents and practice of the Holy See, and also lest their exclusion should give rise to questions as to the œcumenicity of the Council. The principle of this decision was that the Bulls by which councils have been convoked call together archbishops, bishops, &c.;' therefore the axiom, Ubi lex non distinguit, nec nos distinguere debemus,' takes effect.

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A letter of earnest and affectionate invitation was then written 'to all bishops of the Churches of the Oriental Rite who are not in communion with the Apostolic See.' This letter was presented to the patriarch of the Orthodox Greek Church, but he did not see fit so much as to open it. It was on that day, we are told, that four millions of Bulgarians notified to the same patriarch their withdrawal from his jurisdiction.

A letter was also written to all Protestants and other nonCatholics.

At the Council of Trent the same invitation was given, but with no happier result. Julius the Second published the condition on which they were invited-namely, a recognition of the divine authority of the Church. On no other condition could the Church invite them without abdicating its divine commission.

2. It will be hereafter seen of how great importance was also another question decided at this time by the Commission of Direction—that is, to whom it belongs to form the order or method by which the proceedings of the Council should be regulated. After full discussion and a careful examination of the precedents of former councils, it was concluded that the forming of such order could ultimately belong to no authority except to the same which alone has the power to convene, to prorogue, to suspend, and to confirm the Council, or even to withhold confirmation from any or all of its acts. It was manifest that whensoever the head of the Church had invited the bishops in Council to express their pleasure as to the order to be observed, it had been done by way of prudence and from the desire to satisfy every reasonable wish. The experience of all numerous assemblies and even of General Councils shows that a supreme power of direction is often needed; and if this be true in assemblies of one nation, and with identity of habits and interests, how much more in an Ecumenical Council of many nations, among whom, being men, national sympathies and antipathies are often strong, notwithstanding their unity in faith. On the 29th of June, 1869, it was therefore decided that the right of regulating the Council belonged to the authority which convened it, and that it was of the highest prudence to retain that right in the hands of him who is the head not only of the Council but of the Church. The importance of this, which may be called a vital law of the Church, will appear in our future narrative.

3. The chief points provided for in the order of proceedings were as follows:

(1.) The proposition or introduction of matters to be treated.
(2.) The mode of discussion and of voting.

(3.) The attendance of the bishops.
(4.) The justification of absence.

(5.) The precedence in session.
(6.) The possible variances.
(7.) The mode of living.

(8.) The nature, number, and office of the officials of the Council. (9.) The oath, or obligation of secrecy.

These points were defined after prolonged deliberation by the body of Consultors and published afterwards in the form of an Apostolical Constitution. All but the first two and the last points may be passed over in silence here; but on the right of proposition, the mode of discussion, and the secret, it may be well, in a narrative of the Vatican Council, to state briefly the course which was laid down.

We have already seen that there exists in the divine constitution of the Church no absolute necessity for the holding of councils-that the assembling of all bishops in one place is an usage of prudence, the expediency of which must be ultimately decided by the only authority which extends over all. No one but the head of the whole Church can lay on the bishops of the whole Church the duty of coming together. An archbishop may convene his province, and a patriarch his region of provinces, but no local authority can convene the universal episcopate. Therefore no one can constrain the head of the Church to convoke a council. It is an act of his own free will, guided by reasons of prudence, in order to obtain counsel upon the needs of the whole Church. He may, as we have seen that Pius the Ninth did, invite the fullest and widest counsel to ascertain beforehand what matters should be introduced or proposed for discussion; and having done so, the self-evident dictates and the first instincts of prudence prescribe that the programme of subjects be fixed, precise, and limited. They can be limited by no authority except by that which is

supreme.

But, inasmuch as in the course of discussion, and in the prolonged duration of a Council, it may be found that some subjects of moment have been passed over, or that new and important questions may emerge, provision was made for the introduction of new matter by the appointment of a special commission chosen by the Pontiff out of the members of the Council to assist him by their advice as to the introduction of any other propositions beyond those contained in the original programme. Every bishop was thereby able to lay before this commission, in the form of a written petition to the Pontiff, any subject he might desire to see proposed to the Council. The Commission of VOL. I.-No. 2.

Postulates, as it was called, after examination reported its judgment to the Pontiff, who gave orders as he might see fit. Anybody who will with a just and sincere mind weigh the reasonableness and the sufficiency of this provision cannot fail to acknowledge that without such a limit the discussions of an Ecumenical Council might be prolonged to any duration; any subject, howsoever needless and injurious, might be forced into discussion; the treatment of the most vital matters delayed, obstructed indefinitely, and even defeated altogether; the bishops detained for months or years from their dioceses, or the Council so thinned by their departure as to reduce it to a minority, and that, it may be, of the most pertinacious and the least pastoral bishops of the Church. Such, indeed, would be the way to expose the Council to the imputation of intrigues, cabals, and cliques. So much for its reasonableness. And as for its sufficiency, no petition which had in it reason enough to approve itself to a representative commission of five-and-twenty bishops chosen for their prudence and experience would be rejected; and certainly no petition which could not stand that ordeal ought to be proposed. The limitation of the right of proposition and the Commission of Postulates were the two securities of the Council itself against any unreasonableness or imprudence of its own members. The adversaries of the Vatican Council will not deny that, according to their estimate of its members, such securities were not needless; and the friends of the Council will acknowledge that in a body of 700 men there might well be found some for whom such temperate restraints were not unwise.

4. The other point of chief importance was the method of discussion. It would be unnecessary, and indeed impossible in the space of this short narrative, to give all the reasons which were alleged, and either accepted or laid aside by the Commission of Direction, as to the best mode of conducting the discussions. It may be truly said that this most critical and difficult question was treated with a minuteness and a fulness which left nothing unweighed. Passing over the reasons, we will explain the method.

It was decided that the preparatory labours of the 102 theologians and canonists should be digested into schemata, or draft decrees-that is into a definite and positive form giving the result of the patient labours of those who had been chosen out from many nations for their learning and experience.

These schemata were altogether the work of the bishops and theologians who prepared them. They had not so much as the shadow of the supreme authority upon them. The liberty of the Council to accept or to reject, to change or to modify them, was completely secured. The Pope, in his Constitution at the outset of the Council, told the bishops that the schemata had received no sanction from him, so that they might deal with them in all freedom.