"IT'S WRONG!"

This is no mysteryOr juggler's playWhich here is told.What lock can stayHim who the keyOf heaven doth hold?

"It's wrong! It's wrong!" the whole day longMy hidden censor has piped the song,Till my ears are tingling like a gongWith—"It's wrong! It's wrong!"Out by my chamber window there,In the mulberry-tops, in the August air,The mock-bird sings his devil-may-care—"It's wrong! It's wrong!"Rash birdy! have you no monishing fear—Chiding a monarch as you do here?I'm regal in all this little sphere!"It's wrong! It's wrong!"You laying down law for the village queen,Who from her envied height sereneGives a code to its best, I ween!"It's wrong! It's wrong!"Ha! see, I am decking my "throat of snow"With his costly gems, (he called it so.)What if little Barefoot beg below?"It's wrong! It's wrong!"Look, little sage, in my bright blue eyes!Their color was caught from the summer skies.He says it; and ah! he is very wise."It's wrong! It's wrong!"Ha! self-wise bird, I am fooling you.My lover is not more gallant than true,And we'll go tripping it through the dew—"It's wrong! It's wrong!"What! wrong to go by the shiny birchThat shades the lane to the village church?Wrong, may be, to leave you in the lurch?"It's wrong! It's wrong!"O birdy! I'll be a love-in-the-mist,In my loom-fog veil, when the bride is kissed,Blushing through filmy folds—ah! hist!"It's wrong! It's wrong!"Well, welladay for the wedding-bells!Arch-misanthrope, what is this he tellsAs whistle and chime go down the dells?"It's wrong! It's wrong!"

"It's wrong! It's wrong!" the whole day longMy hidden censor has piped the song,Till my ears are tingling like a gongWith—"It's wrong! It's wrong!"

Out by my chamber window there,In the mulberry-tops, in the August air,The mock-bird sings his devil-may-care—"It's wrong! It's wrong!"

Rash birdy! have you no monishing fear—Chiding a monarch as you do here?I'm regal in all this little sphere!"It's wrong! It's wrong!"

You laying down law for the village queen,Who from her envied height sereneGives a code to its best, I ween!"It's wrong! It's wrong!"

Ha! see, I am decking my "throat of snow"With his costly gems, (he called it so.)What if little Barefoot beg below?"It's wrong! It's wrong!"

Look, little sage, in my bright blue eyes!Their color was caught from the summer skies.He says it; and ah! he is very wise."It's wrong! It's wrong!"

Ha! self-wise bird, I am fooling you.My lover is not more gallant than true,And we'll go tripping it through the dew—"It's wrong! It's wrong!"

What! wrong to go by the shiny birchThat shades the lane to the village church?Wrong, may be, to leave you in the lurch?"It's wrong! It's wrong!"

O birdy! I'll be a love-in-the-mist,In my loom-fog veil, when the bride is kissed,Blushing through filmy folds—ah! hist!"It's wrong! It's wrong!"

Well, welladay for the wedding-bells!Arch-misanthrope, what is this he tellsAs whistle and chime go down the dells?"It's wrong! It's wrong!"

CONCLUDED.

Every step toward emancipation, however halting and feeble, was of great consequence, since it established a precedent—and precedents in England have often the force of law. Thus, the act fifth, George IV., chapter seventy-nine, permitted persons to hold office in the receipt of customs, without taking any oath but that of allegiance. This was a gain, trivial in itself, yet, under the circumstances, not to be despised. The same thing was true of Mr. George Bankes's bill, relieving English Catholics from penalty of double assessment of land-tax. It was introduced and passed in 1828. While recording Canning's services to the cause which Catholics had at heart, we must not forget to show how ready he was, on the other hand, to combine with his colleagues when Ireland had to be oppressed and persecuted. In 1825, they agreed, with one mind, to put down the Irish Catholic Association, because they saw how powerful an instrument it would become, in O'Connell's hands, for the attainment of freedom. The bill by which they suppressed it was called, by the Liberator, "the Algerine Bill." But in the same year an attempt was made, with very doubtful sincerity, to modify the maddening effect of this suppression by conferences with O'Connell, Sheil, and other lay Catholics of influence, by inducing them to assent to a proposal, made by way of compensation, for the pensioning of the Catholic clergy, and the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders.[187]These were to be "the two wings" of a Catholic relief bill, and to this offer O'Connell was induced to adhere. The measure was introduced by Sir Francis Burdett, in April, 1825. It passed the Commons by a considerable majority; and was then, as might have been expected, thrown out by the Lords, who were fortified in their opposition by the Duke of York. Thus the great work of emancipation was again postponed. Though there had been points in Canning's conduct which were displeasing to Catholics; though, with strange inconsistency, he resisted the repeal of the test and corporation acts, which by relieving dissenters would have relieved Catholics also; though he was sharply attacked by Brougham, and charged with pleading their cause without the smallest idea of success, and with betraying those whom he appeared to befriend, yet they listened with delight to his speech in behalf of their claims a few months before his death. They placed their confidence in him, and looked forward to his premiership as the season of their deliverance. But as Pitt had resigned office in consequenceof his attachment to the Catholic cause, so it was Canning's fate also to taste the bitter fruits of befriending an oppressed and hated communion. The frowns of royalty, the fury of Tories, and the perfidy of Whigs, combined with the insidious growth of disease to bring him down to the grave harassed and worn.

Arecess governmentfollowed. Lord Goderich had been a supporter of the Catholic claims; but mediocrity such as his could not be expected to hold its place long at the head of affairs, and still less to conduct a momentous and vital question to a happy issue. That question, like all others of equal magnitude, had to be settled out of parliament before it could be carried within its walls. The monster meetings assembled in Ireland at the call of O'Connell brought the matter to a crisis, and convinced all reasonable men that concession could not long be delayed. Yet the Duke of Wellington, who succeeded Lord Goderich in 1828, and Sir Robert Peel still ranged themselves on the side of the opponents of emancipation. The Lords, in the month of June, rejected a motion pledging them to a favorable consideration of the measure. Vesey Fitzgerald, however, an Irish liberal, was made president of the Board of Trade, and required, according to English law, to be reelected as member of parliament before he could hold his office in the government. It was a glorious opportunity for the Irish, and they embraced it manfully. At the suggestion of Sir David Roos, an Orangeman,[188]and of an intimate friend named Fitzpatrick, O'Connell proposed himself as a candidate for Clare, in opposition to theprotégéof the government, Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald. In such a conflict the odds were all but desperate; yet O'Connell was victorious, althoughlegallyineligible. He was declared duly returned; and he was the first Catholic elected by an Irish constituency since the reign of James II.

That election was, in effect, the triumph of emancipation. It sunk deep into the minds of the chiefs of the opposition. The greatest statesmen had long been wavering in secret. Lord Liverpool had been convinced some time before his death that the time for yielding the point was drawing nigh, and that he would soon have to support the Catholic claims, if not as a premier, at least as a peer. Sir Robert Peel had, in 1825, requested Lord Liverpool to relieve him of office on the ground that emancipation could no longer be deferred. Three years later, he announced to the Duke of Wellington his resolution to support the claims he had so long resisted, and declared that, in pursuit of that "great object," he was ready to sacrifice "consistency and friendship." Little did the majority, either of his friends or foes, imagine how deep a change his mind had really undergone.

It would hardly be too much to say the same of the duke. He was the only man in England who could carry emancipation, and the only man who did do it. He was that power in the state which the circumstance required. He accomplished in England, though with far different aims and feelings, what the lyre of Thomas Moore effected in Irish homes, and the eloquence of O'Connell on the fields of Tara and Clontarf. The test and corporation act being repealed, his way was cleared. Persons holding office under the crown were no longer obliged to qualify themselves by receiving the Lord's Supper in the Established Church. He began, therefore, byspeaking on the Catholic claims with studied ambiguity. Though he declared that his opinions on this subject were as decided as those of any one in the house, he added that he should oppose emancipation until he should see a great change in the question. That change was fast coming over it. He knew that the Commons would then pass no very arbitrary laws; that they would not require candidates for a seat in parliament to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy on the hustings; that without emancipation it would be impossible to disfranchise the forty-shilling freeholders; that others would be elected besides O'Connell; and that they could not be prevented from taking their seats and representing their constituents without a civil war. The duke, though a great general, was not a man of blood. He was not an impracticable man, though a Tory. He knew how to "take occasion by the hand," and to do that of which St. Philip Neri says there is not a finer thing on earth—make a virtue of necessity. He was influenced in the matter by no abstract principle of justice, no enthusiasm in favor of the oppressed, no sympathy with a proscribed faith; but he sincerely loved his country, and he came by degrees to feel convinced that her interests were consulted best by altering the basis of her constitution in church and state. He sought, indeed, securities from those whom he proposed to relieve, and he purchased at their hands the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders in Ireland; but, on the other hand, he was willing to endow the Catholic Church in the sister isle, and to apply three hundred thousand pounds per annum toward the payment of the priests. To this part of his plan Peel could not be induced to consent, and it was subsequently abandoned. Great as Wellington was in war, he was greater in peace—greater in his victory over Protestant prejudices, and as the champion of the rights of an injured people and a persecuted creed.

On the 5th of March, 1829, Sir Robert Peel (then Mr. Peel) brought forward a bill for the relief of Catholics. It wasthebill long desired, clamored for, dreaded; which was to alter fundamentally the character of English law, and change the destinies both of England and Ireland. It was preceded by a bill finally suppressing the Catholic Association, at the very time when that association was being dissolved of its own accord. The mind of Peel had been long and anxiously engaged in the study of the question as regarded Ireland. Night and day he had been examining evidence, pondering the difficulties to be overcome, and the chances of success. It was the nature of his mind to work in secret, and to manifest the result only when it became absolutely necessary. During the period of transition he voted against Catholic emancipation, but did so with manifest repugnance. Whatever decision the house might come to, he said, he should give it his best acquiescence; and if the measure should be carried, he should use his earnest endeavors to reconcile Protestants to it. When it was proposed to admit Catholic lords into the upper house, he offered but slight opposition to the bill, nor did he object to granting English Catholics the same electoral rights as were enjoyed by their brethren in Ireland. His Tory friends were offended by his moderation; for they loved "the falsehood of extremes," and they could not comprehend his anxiety to promote education among the Catholic as well as among the Protestant part of the population. They would not recollect how many indications he had given of a possiblechange in his future conduct in reference to emancipation. They knew not, or they affected to forget, that two years before Canning died, he had expressed to Lord Liverpool his conviction that emancipation must pass, and had offered to resign. So long ago as 1821, he had declared, in reply to Plunket, that even if his own views prevailed, "their prevalence must be mingled with regret at the disappointment which he knew the success of such opinions must entail upon a great portion of his fellow-subjects." He should, he said, "cordially rejoice if his predictions proved unfounded, and his arguments groundless."

There were those who perceived the current his thoughts were taking, and among them was the Duke of Clarence, afterward William IV. One of the duke's sons told Cardinal Acton that, when he returned home one night from a very late division in the House of Commons, of which he was a member, he went to his father's dressing-room, and was asked by the duke how the division on emancipation had gone; and when he was told that the bill had been lost, the duke said,

"That rascal, Peel, will adopt emancipation, will carry it, and take the glory from us who have fought for it all our lives."[189]

No less remarkable were the words used by the Duke of Clarence when, at last, Wellington and Peel introduced, with all the weight of government recommendation, the great bill for Catholic relief. He wished, he said, that the ministers had been as united in 1825 as they proved in 1829. "It will be forty-six years next month," he added, "since I first sat in this house; and I have never given a vote of which, thank God! I have been ashamed; and never one with so much pleasure as the vote I shall give in favor of Catholic emancipation."

It would be foreign to our purpose in this place to relate the circumstances attending the passing of the bill, and the admission of O'Connell into the House of Commons. We are concerned, not so much with these events, as with the premiers who brought them about. Peel did not acquire the confidence of the Irish whom he had emancipated. O'Connell regarded him with implacable aversion, and nothing could exceed the hatred and distrust with which he was treated by the Tories who had once been his friends. It was nothing to them that the change of his politics had been the result of long and arduous study; that he had taken nothing for granted, but required proof of every statement made by those who sought to convert him to their side. They had not seen what we possess—the posthumous volumes edited by Peel's trustees, Lord Stanhope and Mr. Cardwell—and they could not, therefore, judge of the laborious and conscientious search by which he arrived at his conclusions; and even if they had seen them, it is probable that they would have reproached him for investigating the subject in a hesitating frame of mind, and for beating out for himself and many of his followers a path of apostasy.

Eighteen years passed by before any other measure of importance affecting Catholic interests was laid before the houses of parliament. The influence of emancipation in a liberal direction was felt deeply in the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, which but for that previous act of justice would have been impossible. The Duke of Wellington prepared the way for Lord Grey, just as Grey and his colleagues, by shaking the power of the aristocracy anddestroying the rotten boroughs, led in the issue to the more extended reform bill carried by the late Lord Derby, to the extension of the suffrage to all householders and a large proportion of lodgers, and to the passage of the Irish Church bill. During the premierships of Lord Melbourne and of Sir Robert Peel the questions of free-trade and the abolition of the corn-laws absorbed public attention, and the Catholic topic was all but set aside. The paltry grant to Maynooth was made a yearly subject of hot debate, and a few thousands per annum were grudgingly bestowed on an Irish college for the education of priests, while the Protestant establishment in that island continued to be the most richly endowed in the world in proportion to the number of its members. The public mind, however, was attracted and agitated by a spectacle in which parliament was not concerned, and which in all the course of legislation in favor of Catholics had never been contemplated. This was the extraordinary progress of Catholic ideas, doctrines, and practices in the University of Oxford, and among the clergy of the establishment. The excitement which this produced had reached its height when, in February, 1847, a bill intended to supplement the emancipation of 1829 was introduced by Mr. Watson, Lord John Manners, and Mr. Escott. At that time Lord John Russell was premier, with Grey, Palmerston, Macaulay, and Granville among his colleagues. They were little inclined to favor Catholicity, though in matters of politics they usually adopted a liberal line; and, considering that in 1829 there had been 2521 petitions presented to the Lords against emancipation, and only 1014 in support of it—2013 to the Commons against it, and only 955 in its favor—considering that of 238 newspapers in the United Kingdom in 1829, though 107 had been in its favor, 87 had been against it and 4 neutral—it was not surprising that the relief bill of Lord John Manners did not find as many strong supporters as it deserved. The country was alarmed at the spread of "popery," and the bill in question seemed designed to quicken its pace and widen its conquests. It would, if it had been carried, have removed some remaining disabilities; but the loss of the bill did not in reality affect in any very great degree the freedom of Catholics or the progress of their religion. The premier, Lord John Russell, in the same year—1847—when discussing the question of national education, stated that, if a desire were entertained to have schools for Catholics, and for such only, he would be in favor of it; but he reminded his hearers that "of all the half-million which had been already spent under the direction of the treasury, and in accordance with the minutes of the council on education, not one shilling was given in aid of the Roman Catholic schools;" and in the issue Catholic children were excluded from all participation in the grant of £100,000 a year which formed part of the government scheme of education brought forward by the prime minister. This is enough to prove how lukewarm Lord John Russell was in his wish to promote education among Catholics; and it is enough, also, to lessen our surprise at that monstrous display of intolerance and bad statesmanship with which he signalized his ministry in 1851.

It was two months after the close of the session in 1850, that a papal rescript establishing a regular hierarchy in England, and parcelling out the country into dioceses, was published by the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, and produced a commotion altogether disproportioned tothe cause. The document was simple and ordinary in its character, and if issued in reference to any other country but England, would probably have attracted no attention, and certainly have excited no surprise, terror, indignation, and wrath. Among the English it was received like the news of a French invasion. It was denounced as a "papal aggression," and the prime minister, instead of allaying the storm, which he might easily have done, lashed the waves to fury by his letter to the Bishop of Durham. He affected to be taken by surprise, whereas the holy father had himself shown the brief to Lord Minto, Lord John Russell's father-in-law, who had been residing in Rome in a diplomatic capacity. Lord Minto had raised no objection to the publication of the document, nor offered any suggestion as to the mode of procedure. It was Cardinal Wiseman, therefore, and the Catholics of England and Ireland, who were taken by surprise when the premier, who had spent his life in promoting "civil and religious liberty," suddenly effaced the inscription from his banner, and stood forward as the most prominent assailant of Catholics in the kingdom. It was the more inconsistent and absurd in him to act thus, because the right of the Catholic bishops to designate themselves by the titles of their sees was recognized by common usage, by the servants of the government, and in one act, at least, of parliament. Lord John's inflammatory letter to the Bishop of Durham was followed by a speech from the throne, couched in very high-flown and pompous language about the necessity of maintaining unimpaired the "religious liberty" which no one had sought to invade except the premier and his friends.

The queen's speech was followed in due time by a bill for preventing the "assumption of any title, not only from any diocese now existing, but from any territory or place in any part of the United Kingdom, and to restrain parties from obtaining by virtue of such titles any control over trust property." Never was a more foolish measure carried through parliament; firstly, because it made not the smallest change in the existing state of things—it did not prevent a single bishop from using on proper occasion the title of his see, as conferred on him by papal authority; secondly, it was not even intended to be carried into effect. Lord John Russell and his colleagues never dreamed of summoning bishop after bishop into court, and compelling them to pay the fine of £100 each, or go to prison. Such a proceeding would have enlisted popular feeling immediately on their side. All the wisest heads in parliament—men like Lord Aberdeen, Sir James Graham, and Mr. Gladstone—warned the premier of the folly he was committing in pandering to the wishes of an illiberal and panic-stricken multitude.

The opposition offered to the measure by Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Gladstone is all the more to our purpose because both these statesmen became at a late period prime ministers. Lord Aberdeen was one of those whose minds had undergone a great change on many important subjects, and there can be no doubt that he had yielded his to the plastic influence of Sir Robert Peel. Having taken part in the ministry of the Duke of Wellington, he had, in 1829, contributed to the success of the emancipation bill; and when Peel was driven from office, after abolishing the corn-laws, by the resentment of the protectionists, he had followed his master into retirement, and declined a place in the cabinet which was offered to him by Lord John Russell. Itwas not likely, therefore, that he would in 1851 betray the principles which he held sacred, and aid in swelling an insensate cry. He saw clearly that the ecclesiastical titles bill had the double defect of being persecutive if carried into operation, and contemptible if passed only to lie dormant. He accordingly resisted it with all the more dignity because he knew that resistance was, for the time being, fruitless.

Mr. Gladstone has not been consistent in his politico-religious career. In 1838, he appeared in print as the resolute champion of "church and state," recommending the exclusion of all persons not of the Established Church from participation in the advantage of subsidies granted for religious purposes. In 1839 and 1840, he opposed the admission of Jews into parliament, and the assistance afforded by the state to dissenters for the education of their children. He upheld that unjust establishment in Ireland which he has since overthrown; and in 1845 he resigned his place in the cabinet in order that he might be perfectly free to vote as he pleased on the grants to Maynooth and the endowment of Peel's colleges in Ireland. When out of office, he supported both these measures, and rendered himself very obnoxious to many of his supporters at Oxford by the growing affection he manifested for liberal measures. The year 1847 saw him pleading for diplomatic relations with Rome, and complaining that the government had not communicated with the holy see before establishing the queen's colleges in Ireland. In accordance with these generous and enlightened views, Mr. Gladstone saw with disgust the intemperate conduct of the premier and the parliament in the case of the ecclesiastical titles bill. He contended that the influence of the Protestant church in England could never be maintained and extended by temporal enactments; that the papal rescript for assigning sees and titles to Roman Catholic bishops did not interfere in any way with the political rights of Englishmen; and ought not to be made the occasion of a hostile, oppressive, and impotent act of parliament.

"We, the opponents of the bill," he said, "are a minority, insignificant in point of numbers. We are more insignificant, because we have no ordinary bond of union. What is it that binds us together against you but the conviction that we have on our side the principle of justice—the conviction that we shall soon have on our side the course of public opinion?"

Events have proved how completely his words were true. The ecclesiastical titles bill is now regarded with scorn, and treated with ridicule. Earl Russell has confessed his mistake, and Catholics, whom it was intended to humiliate, are quite indifferent to a prohibitory measure which was never meant to be enforced. The reform bill carried through both houses by Disraeli and Lord Derby made the disestablishment of the Irish Church possible; the nation, freely represented, pronounced in its favor; and the measure was passed. A sense of justice, if not a feeling of repentance, has come over the public mind; and a brief space of time has sufficed to dispel prejudices that were the growth of ages. Mr. Gladstone, as leader of the liberal party, has been chiefly instrumental in producing this change; but it would be unfair not to specify Mr. Bright as another most powerful agent in bringing about the result. So long ago as 1852, the former gentleman declared his opinion that if Mr. Spooner's annual motion against the Maynooth grant should ever succeed, and "the endowment were withdrawn, the parliament which withdrew it must be prepared to enterupon the whole subject of the reconstruction of the ecclesiastical arrangements in Ireland." These words were considered remarkable at the time, and appear even more so when viewed by the light of recent events. They plainly foreshadowed that sweeping measure which we have recently seen him triumphantly carry. They pointed to a radical alteration in the existing unfair and anomalous relations between the church of the many and the church of the few in the sister isle. They left it, indeed, undecided whether "levelling up" or "levelling down" should be tried; whether the several churches, Roman, Anglican, and Presbyterian, should be all reduced to the voluntary systems, as in the United States, or whether the Roman Catholic clergy should be raised by the state to equal privileges and emoluments with those enjoyed by the Protestant pastors.

In the year 1868, it became manifest that the conservative and the liberal parties alike were agreed as to the necessity of doing something with the Irish Church. It also became apparent that the leading men in each party favored respectively the two plans just alluded to—the "levelling up" and the "levelling down" process. Lord Derby, with his son Lord Stanley, Mr. Disraeli, and other conservatives, were inclined to make the Catholic clergy in Ireland stipendiaries of the state; but they did not boldly and honestly propose any such measure for the consideration of parliament. The difficulties which faced them were greater than they could hope to overcome. The Catholic bishops of Ireland had distinctly refused to close with any offer of stipend for the priests. They asked for impartial legislation, but not for pay. This difficulty amounted almost to an impossibility; for of what avail was it to vote emoluments to those who would not accept them? But there was another obstacle of almost equal magnitude, which consisted in the unwillingness of the English people to endow "popery" in any shape. One half of the electors under the new reform bill were persons not in communion with the Church of England; and these, together with many Anglicans, approved the voluntary system in preference to national state churches of any kind. Lord Mayo, therefore, the Secretary of State for Ireland, was studiedly ambiguous in setting forth the intentions of the government in regard to Irish ecclesiastical matters. They were willing to establish and endow a Catholic university in Dublin, and to do something (no one could discover exactly what) in the way of "levelling up." Mr. Gladstone instantly exposed the absurdity of these crude and vague intimations. He declared in the most emphatic manner that the Irish Church must cease to exist as an establishment, and it soon became apparent that the liberal party were determined to aid him to the utmost in accomplishing his design. It was an extraordinary climax. The most popular man in the kingdom—a Protestant representing a Protestant constituency, and the premier-to-be of a Protestant queen and a Protestant cabinet—was willing and eager, in the name of the people, to disestablish and disendow that church in Ireland which had for three centuries been the pledge of Protestant ascendency and the main support of English and Protestant landlordism in that island.

His foremost opponents were the late Lord Derby and Disraeli, each of them prime ministers at different periods. Their opposition was the less formidable because they were both men of mixed politics. Lord Derby had been by turns the friend and the foe of Catholic liberty and equality. He defendedthe Irish establishment against Joseph Hume in 1824; but he supported, under therégimeof Earl Grey, the cause of emancipation in 1832. He aided in relieving the Irish Catholics from the payment of tithes, and he helped to strike off the chains of the negro by presenting a bill for their liberation; but, on the other hand, he resisted with all his might the appropriation clause in an Irish Church bill of 1834, and even quitted office because he would not give it his countenance. To sequestrate any part of the property of the Irish establishment and apply it to secular purposes was, in his eyes, to commit a sacrilege and to violate a common right. To this feeling he continued to adhere, and to the last opposed the Irish Church bill intended to disestablish and disendow the Protestant Church in Ireland. He intimated, however, to the peers who were of his party, that he did not think it their absolute duty to oppose the bill as he had done. For the sake of consistency he voted against it, while not a few of them did otherwise, seeing how many evils might arise from their resistance to the will of the Commons and the majority of the electors. Yet it was he and Mr. Disraeli who made the passing of this bill possible and inevitable. It was the reform bill which they introduced, and which extended the suffrage to all householders and many lodgers, that made the liberal party stronger, and the abolition of the Irish establishment necessary. It is strange, indeed, that Lord Derby, who offered so dogged a resistance to free-trade and the abolition of the corn-laws, who, with Lord George Bentinck and Mr. Disraeli, headed the forces of the protectionists, should have been the means of developing the democratic element in the British constitution to a degree previously unknown and unsought, even by the liberals. It is strange, passing strange, that he should thus have brought about indirectly the measures he most wished to avert; and the fact of his having so acted is sufficient to stamp him as a second-rate statesman, and hardly worthy of a philosopher's name.

It would, we believe, be scarcely unjust to apply the same remark to Disraeli, notwithstanding his literary fame. He is too crotchety ever to be the great leader of a great party. What Willis said of him was true: "In a great crisis, with the nation in a tempest, Disraeli would flash across the darkness very finely; but he will never do for the calm right hand of a premier." His literary reputation preceded his political celebrity, and will outlast it. His mixed politics—his dubious radical-toryism or tory-radicalism—like theplusandminusin an equation, cancelled each other, neutralized his influence, and confounded his arguments by mutual disagreement. He discarded triennial parliaments and vote by ballot, defected to the Tories after coquetting with the radicals, and thus laid himself open to O'Connell's keenest abuse. "His life," the Liberator said, "was a living lie. There were miscreants among the chosen people of God, and it must certainly have been from one of these that Disraeli descended. He possesses just the qualities of the impenitent thief who died upon the cross, whose name, I verily believe, must have been Disraeli." Certain it is, that even the friends and admirers of Mr. Disraeli repose in him little confidence. They never feel sure as to what he really is, or what he may become. He is an enigma and a sphinx. He has often embraced principles to make himself a name, and he has often sustained them in spite of unpopularity. "It is quite a mistake," he said on one occasion,"to suppose I ever hated Peel. On the contrary, he is the only man under whom I should like to have served. But I saw very clearly he was the only man it would 'make' me to attack, and I attacked him." Here is a key to Disraeli's character. The only premier he would like to have served under was one whose ruling principle was expediency; yet even this premier he was willing to oppose in order to rise in the political and social scale. So he, at the head of "Young England," denounced free trade in corn, and applied the system of protection to the state religion. He was, like Lord Derby, intensely opposed to the disestablishment and disendowment of the Protestant Church in Ireland; but he was willing to endow Catholicity in Ireland to a certain extent, and thus make the state to be, like himself, an assemblage of contradictions—a builder up at the same moment of Babylon and of Zion.

All roads, it is said, lead to Rome; and in like manner it may be affirmed that all English prime ministers since the revolution have led Rome-ward more or less. All have been employed in raising the valleys and levelling the hills, that a straight path might be made for the majestic march of the restored and ancient faith. Every thing has told in favor of thegens lucifuga, the despised and persecuted Catholics, who shunned the light of day. If one and the other premier sought to oppress them anew, as Walpole did in his day, and Lord John Russell in our own, the unrighteous attempt recoiled sooner or later on its promoters, and ample reparation was made in the long run by a sense of justice being awakened in the popular mind.

The prime ministers of England, be it remembered, have been in some sense its kings—nay, more than kings. The real king has often been a cipher; the queen—as for example, Queen Caroline—has been above her lord; and the premier—as, for instance, Sir Robert Walpole—has controlled them both. And if this was the case in the last century, much more is it so now. England is in fact a republic, though nominally a monarchy. It is an aristocratic republic; and the prime minister being responsible to parliament, and representing for the time being the voice of parliament and the popular will in the council chamber of the sovereign, is himself the chief executive in the government, and holds in his hands more real power than any one besides in the kingdom. The monarch before whom he bows, and to whom he seems to defer, is in reality a puppet of which he works the wires. King George IV. was as nothing compared to King Wellington, and King William IV. was but amiddyunder the command of Earl Grey. Queen Victoria at the present moment (and we say it with sincere respect for that excellent and sovereign lady) is but a shadow to the substance Gladstone, and will be but a shadow to any prime minister who may succeed him. It was not so entirely with her grandfather. He was really a king. He ruled himself, and often very unwisely; but times have changed. Political and religious emancipation has conferred on Catholics an importance in the state which is altogether new, and conversions on a large scale during a quarter of a century have been a concurrent cause of their occupying a high and honorable position in society. No prime minister, therefore, can now ignore them, much less can he molest them. In every session of parliament some obloquy cast on them in former ages is removed. The lord chancellor of Ireland is now a Catholic, and very soon the lord lieutenantof Ireland may be so too. Every office of state, even the highest, will in all probability be in a short time opened to the Catholics, and the unjust law which excludes them from the crown, and prohibits members of the royal family from marrying them, will be swept away. If a Catholic were to be made premier now, it would not be more surprising than it was that Wellington should emancipate Catholics in 1829 or that Gladstone should demolish the Irish establishment in 1869. Providence has wrought wonderfully in behalf of the church already in England, and what has been done should be taken by us as a pledge of what is yet to be. Meanwhile, it will be well to remember gratefully, where gratitude is due, the labors of Protestant prime ministers for the removal of Catholic disabilities; and in order to do so adequately, we must make every allowance for the prejudices in which they were brought up, and the obstacles which lay so thickly in their path. We must not deny them all merit because they have yielded to the force of circumstances, but believe that they probably would not thus have yielded if there had not been in them some noble and virtuous impulse, some personal attachment to truth and justice. The stronger their original repugnance to concession, the more deeply they felt convinced in earlier years of the importance of maintaining intact the Protestant constitution in church and state, the more credit assuredly is due to them for having broken the spell of their youth, admitted that their ideas were erroneous, and faced a thousand reproaches and unmeasured obloquy in their determination to place the liberties of their fellow-subjects on a broader and better basis. The day has arrived in England when the Protestant premier and the Catholic primate shake hands, not merely as private friends, but also as representative men; and when they were seen not long ago in familiar intercourse at the foot of the steps of the throne in the House of Lords, they were for the moment living signs and symbols of that vast and happy change which has come over the relations between the English government and its Catholic subjects.

FROM THE SPANISH.

Fernan.Come, Uncle Romance, tell me one of your stories.

Uncle R.But, Señor Don Fernan, if they are not worth the telling?

Fernan.Never mind; you must know that many people are pleased with Andalusian stories, and I am told that they write them.

Uncle R.Then what I tell your honor is going to be printed! It makes me laugh; for you see I thought that those high-flying folks who go to college liked nothing but Latinity. However, with the help of God, I shall do as your worship commands, since those that give us good-will aid us to live, and gratitude is a duty that none but the base-born refuse to pay. I will go on telling; your worship will go on writing itdown, and leaving out mistakes, and shaving off the roughness of my way of saying things, till it sounds like print; and your worship can write to thoseyou-sirs, "My journeyman and I made this between us. If it is good, I did it; and my journeyman, if it is bad." Shall it be a story of enchantment?

Fernan.The first that occurs to you; if you invent it, all the better.

Uncle R.O señor! I can't invent. Those inventions are flashes of the mind; mine is too dull, Don Fernan; but I'll tell you a story that I've known ever since I cut my teeth. I've lost them all now; so your worship can judge what date it must bear.

Fernan.The older the better. Stories are like wine, age improves their flavor.

Uncle R.Well then, señor, there was once a rich tradesman who was father to a very fine son. He brought him up like a king's child, and, besides the accomplishments of a gentleman, in which the boy came to excel, had him taught in all branches as if he had meant to make him doctor of every thing. The son grew to be a young man with a will of his own; bearded and dashing; and for gallantry there was not another like him.

One day he told his father that the place had become too narrow for him; he could not content himself in it, and he wanted to go away.

"And where do you want to go?" asked the father.

"To see the world," answered the young man.

"You are like the grasshopper that jumps he don't know where," said the tradesman. "How are you to get along in those strange countries without experience?"

"Father, 'He that has knowledge may go where he will,'" the son replied; and as the old cock had allowed the young one to run so much to wings that he couldn't hold him, the youth took his arms, his horse of noble stirp, and set out to see the world.

When he had travelled three days through wilds and thickets, he came up with a man who was carrying a double cart-load—that is to say, a hundred and fifty arrobas of taramee upon his shoulders.

"Friend," said the young gentleman, "you carry more than a church mule. What is your name?"

"I am called Carry-much Carry-more, son of The Stout Carrier," answered the man.

"Would you like to come with me?"

"If your worship is as much for taking me as I am for going, yes."

So they went on together.

At the end of an hour they found a man who was blowing hard enough to burst his cheeks; sending forth more wind than the bellows of the forge of thatBulcan[190]who, they say, was a giant blacksmith, of those you hear tell about.

"What are you doing here?" asked the gentleman.

"Don't speak, your worship," said the man, "for I mustn't leave off blowing. I have to keep forty-five mills a-going with my wind."

"And what is your name?"

"Blow-hard Blow-harder, son of The Hard Blower," answered the man.

"Will you come with me?"

"Indeed will I!" said the man; "for I'm ready to collapse with blowing, day in and day out, as many days as God has put into the world."

A little further on, they stumbled upon a man who was lying in wait, listening.

"What are you doing here?" asked the gentleman.

"I am waiting to hear a swarm of mosquitoes rise out of the sea."

"Why, man! if the sea is a hundred leagues off?"

"And what of that, if I hear them?"

"What is your name?"

"Hear-all Hear-every-thing, son of The Good Hearer."

"Will you come with me?"

"With all my heart, since your worship is so kind; the mosquitoes will announce their approach presently."

The four went along in love and fellowship till they came in sight of a castle so musty, lonesome, and cloaked with gloom that it appeared more like sepulchre of the dead than habitation of the living. While they were drawing nearer, the sky was growing each moment more threatening, and, as they reached the castle, it burst into a torrent of rain; for size and sound, every drop might have been a cascabel.

"My master's worship needn't mind it," said Blow-hard; "we'll soon see what'll become of the storm." And he began to blow. The clouds, thunders, and lightnings scampered across those skies in such hurry and confusion that the sun stood squinting after them, and the moon staring open-mouthed with astonishment.

But this was not the worst; for when they got to the castle, they found that it had neither gate, nor door, nor postern, nor sign of an entrance.

"I told your worship well," said Hear-all, who had more fear than shame, "that this ugly-faced castle was only for a nest of magpies, and refuge of owls."

"But I am tired, and I must rest," said the gentleman.

"Give yourself no uneasiness, your worship," said Carry-much; and he immediately brought a big boulder, which he placed against the wall of the castle. They climbed up by this, and went in through the window. In the hall they found tables spread with the most famous dishes; all kinds of liquors, jugs of pure water, and bread of the finest quality. When they had eaten till they could stuff no longer, the gentleman wanted to explore the castle.

"Señor," said Hear-all, "if you meet somebody that asks, 'Where is this ball rolling to?' One should not make free in another's house unless he is well posted."

"Who's afraid?" said Carry-much. "We are not going to do any thing wrong; and if one draws a straight furrow, nobody will follow him with a plough."

"Let us get away from here, my master!" cried Hear-all, whose flesh was creeping with fear. "This castle is not in the grace of God; for I tell your worship that I hear noises under ground that sound like lamentations."

But the gentleman paid Hear-all no attention. His servants followed him, and they went on exploring those corridors and passages that were more intricate than if a lawyer had built them, until they came into a yard that was like an arena for bulls.

They had hardly set foot in it, when a serpent with seven heads, each one more fierce than the others, seven tongues like lances, and fourteen eyes like coals of fire, glided out to attack them.

Carry-much, Blow-hard, and Hear-all, more scared than rats found out of the hole, ran as if they would run out of their trowsers; but the gentleman, who was as valiant as the Cid and as strong as a Bernardo, drew his sword, and with four strokes, and four back-strokes, cut off the creature's seven heads in less time than you could saytilen! The biggest of the seven glared at the gentleman foran instant with its savage eyes that darted fire and blood, and then gave a bound into the middle of the yard and disappeared through a hole which opened in the ground to receive it.

At the gentleman's call, the three who had fled came back, and were well astonished at their master's bravery.

"Be it known to you," said the cavalier, who was looking, without seeing bottom, down the hole the serpent's head had gone into, "that we are going now to the fields to get hemp and palm-leaves to make a line that will reach to the floor of this well." They did so; and the four spent four years making rope. At the end of that time they felt it touch bottom. The master then told Hear-all to slide down it and see what was below there, and come back and let him know. But Hear-all stuck to his supports, as upright as a palm-tree in a gully that no wind moves, and said that he'd be smashed first and go down in pieces.

Then the master told Blow-hard to go. Blow-hard took fast hold of the rope, and descended night and day till he got to the bottom, where he found himself in a palace like the famous ones you read of, and in the presence of the Princess of Naples, who was lying on a bed with her face downward, weeping tears as big as chick-peas. She told him that Lucifer had fallen in love with her, and would keep her enchanted there until one willing and able to fight and vanquish him should present himself. 'Here is one already who is going to undertake the enterprise,' said Blow-hard, and he drew in a long breath, which was scarcely drawn when Lucifer appeared in person. The sight of him frightened Blow-hard so that he ran and climbed to the top of a door. Lucifer unhinged the door with one thwack of his big tail, and it fell to the ground with Blow-hard, and broke one of his legs.

We will leave him with his bitter cud, and go back to the gentleman, who, tired of waiting for Blow-hard to come up, asked Hear-all what was going on down there in the bowels of the earth. Hear-all told him what had passed, and that now he could hear Blow-hard complaining of a broken leg. Then the gentleman sent Carry-much, who assured him that he would shoulder Lucifer and bring him up, if he weighed more than all the lead of the Sierra Almagrera. But, step by step, it happened to Carry-much just as it had to Blow-hard, except that he got an arm broken instead of a leg.

"I will go down myself," said the gentleman, when Hear-all related to him what had taken place.

When he reached the palace and saw the Princess of Naples, he fell into such love with her wonderful beauty that he prepared himself for the encounter with a double ration of valor.

Christians! such a fight as there was then between the good cavalier and the cursed dog of a Lucifer the world has never seen; as, naturally, it would not see, since Lucifer never comes to fight above here in his own form. But the gentleman crossed himself, and, as every man must who commends his cause to God, vanquished the devil. He did more; for he cut off one of his ears.

The state Lucifer would be in at seeing his ear in the hands of a Christian, I leave to your consideration. His yells had such an effect upon Hear-all that he repeated every jerk and spring. You would have said that he was being repeatedly stung by a tarantula.

"Give me my ear!" shouted Lucifer in the voice of a trumpet.

"You will give me a good ransom if you get it," answered the cavalier;"for I have taken it like a true knight in fair combat; therefore, I shall make three conditions with which you must comply."

"Insolent braggart!" said Lucifer.

"Oh! you may spit out the gall; but I warn you that I am going to pickle your ear and show it for money," replied the cavalier.

Lucifer danced with rage.

"What are your conditions, low-born, ill-bred, and worse-thriven?" he demanded.

"The first is, that you instantly return this princess to her own kingdom and palace," said the cavalier.

There was nothing for it but to comply; so Lucifer placed the princess in her royal palace, and then said to the cavalier, "Give me my ear."

"No," replied the cavalier; "you must first transport me, with my three servants and such a kingly suite as becomes your vanquisher, to the court of Naples, and into a suitable lodging, which you will have prepared for me."

"It does not suit me, little bully, to have you diverting yourself, and triumphing at my expense."

"Very well. I will publish, with the sound of a clarion, that you have lost an ear. We shall see then if you can disguise yourself as a notary, lawyer, agent, money-lender, or lover, without being found out in less than no time."

"Now," whimpered Lucifer, after he had placed the cavalier in Naples, with great riches and an immense retinue, "give me my ear."

"I have it here," said the cavalier, "and I don't want it, for it smells of sulphur; but you have yet to fulfil the third condition."

"What is it, impudent upstart?"

"I am not quite ready to tell it. In the mean time, have patience, which, if it will not serve you to gain heaven, will be of use to you in getting back your ear."

Lucifer changed from poison to the essence of venom. "You are seven times worse than I," said he to his vanquisher. "By the soul of Napoleon! there is more knavery on earth than in hell. But you shall remember me! By my horns and tail, I swear it!" And off he went, pulling at his remaining ear for vexation at finding himself outwitted by a Christian.

Well, when the princess saw the cavalier so finely gotten up, and with such a splendid following, she recognized him, and told her father that he was her saviour! and that she wished to marry him. They were married;and I was there, and saw, and came away, and nothing was said to me; for I slipped in and out without being seen;[191]mindful of the saying, "Neither to wedding nor christening go unbidden."

But, señor, you must know that, after the wedding-bread was eaten, the princess and the cavalier led a cat-and-dog's life together; for the woman's temper and manners had become so bad and intolerable while she remained under the power of Lucifer that no one else could abide them. So, when the devil appeared to beg for his ear, the cavalier said to him,

"I am going to give it to you; but you must comply with the last condition I impose for its ransom."

"Knave! Mountebank! You would damn me if I were not damned already! And what is this last condition?"

"That you take my wife again," responded the cavalier; "for you are like for like, Peter for John."

NUMBER TWO.

We intimated in our last number our intention of presenting each month to the readers ofThe Catholic Worldan article on the progress, and, so far as we could, on the proceedings of the Vatican Council, now in session. We shall endeavor, in so doing, to state facts, the accuracy of which we can guarantee. Misstatements, silly, absurd, and not unfrequently mischievous, are sent by "our own correspondents," to fill the columns of hostile newspapers; and they may sometimes disturb the minds and sadden the hearts of the unwary. We wish to give such an account as shall correct such errors and misstatements, by an accurate and impartial statement of the truth. Our form of a monthly publication may subject us to some delay, and to the disadvantage of saying much which our readers will have already seen in the daily and weekly press. But on the other hand, it will secure for us fuller and more accurate knowledge of our subject than could be obtained at an earlier period, and may enable us, perhaps, to form a more mature judgment on many points. Our aim is to give a series of articles, which our readers may preserve and refer to hereafter. In writing them, we are guided by information derived from the best sources.

The amount and the variety of misstatements and of mistakes about the council and its doings, that have fallen even under our own eyes, would seem incredible. The talent of fiction seems to have attained a truly marvellous development. We tried to classify them. There were fictions to blame, and fictions to praise, fictions droll, fictions malicious, fictions stupid, fictions about persons, fictions about things, fictions about words, fictions about the past, fictions about the present, fictions in the shape of conjectures of the future, fictions gay and witty, fictions solemn and dull, fictions pious, and fictions blasphemous.

But then even this stream of incorrect statements, the result of imagination striving to eke out a scanty knowledge of facts, or of prejudice looking at every thing through a distorted medium, is poured forth to satisfy, if it can, the cravings of the public, and is an additional evidence of the intense and universal interest the Council of the Vatican has excited. Men may misrepresent it, they may hate it, or fear it. They cannot despise it. It seems they cannot be silent about it.

The time has not yet come to speak of the results of the deliberations of this venerable body. Perhaps it is well that it is so. As yet, our minds are still dazzled and preoccupied by the outward splendor and the striking external aspects of the council. Everywhere in Rome, you hear men commenting on these points, and comparing the present œcumenical council with those which the church has celebrated in the past centuries of her existence.

But once before in her history were so many bishops gathered together. In the second Lateran Council, assembled by Pope Innocent III., in 1139, about one thousand bishops united. The next largest number was at Chalcedon in 451, where six hundredand thirty bishops assembled; and next to that came the second Council of Lyons in 1274, under Gregory X., at which five hundred were present. Of the other councils, one had over four hundred bishops, five over three hundred, and the others all fell below that number.

Since the day of the opening not a few additional bishops have arrived, and the total number now taking part in the present council cannot fall below seven hundred and fifty. The Vatican Council stands, therefore, by a mere count of numbers second on the list. But, as a representation of the entire world, it far exceeds all that have preceded it.

The remarkable punctuality with which the council was opened is a subject of surprise and gratification, and may well be looked on as a signal evidence of the protection of divine providence. It has not always happened that councils could meet at the time and the place first indicated in the bull for their convocation. Sometimes only a comparatively small number of bishops could assemble; and weeks and months, and perhaps a year would pass by, before such a number could gather together as to render the opening of the council advisable. The difficulties of journeying were great. Oftentimes political jealousies, and the wars of nations, interfered to delay and embarrass, if they could not altogether thwart, the meeting, as well as the action of the council. Something of this kind was anticipated by many in the present instance. When, in 1867, Pius IX., in his address to the assembled bishops, stated his purpose of holding a sacred œcumenical council of the bishops of the whole world, in order that, with their united counsels and labors, necessary and salutary remedies might, by God's help, be applied to the many evils under which the church suffers, the heart of the Catholic world thrilled with delight. But among infidels and non-Catholics, and even lukewarm Catholics, or those of little faith, there was many a jest and many a sneer. Many a paper assured its readers that the council would not, could not assemble; and some, who thought themselves well informed, declared that before the day for opening it would arrive, Garibaldi would be in Rome, and Pius IX. a wanderer and a fugitive, far from the Vatican. Plans were even then being laid to bring this about; and, ere many months rolled by, a well-prepared and vigorous attempt was made to carry them into effect. The attempt signally failed. The battle of Mentana forbade its renewal in that shape for some time to come; and the storm, at one moment so threatening, passed by. The council was called, and the place and the day of its meeting appointed. What Garibaldi and his party had failed to effect by arms, diplomacy now attempted in another guise. The chief minister of a so-called Catholic power professed to entertain great apprehensions of the possible results of the council, and sent a secret circular to the courts of the other Catholic nations of Europe, urging the expediency of united action in such shape as might control the decisions of the council. Had the plan been adopted, and the spirit in which it was conceived been carried out in the details, the result would probably have been what the originators intended, and what indeed some of their papers announced to the world as already determined on. The council would have been postponed, perhaps would not have met at all. But this plan failed too. The circular was received coldly, and the proposal fell to the ground. Under the guiding hand of Providence, all was peaceful. The bishops (save those under the Czarof Russia) were free to travel in peace; and they came at the voice of the chief pastor. From the volcanic and coral islands of the Pacific, from Hudson's Bay and Labrador and Canada, from Brazil, La Plata, and Chili, from the golden shores of California, from rugged New England and the fertile valley of the Mississippi, from mysterious Egypt, and the classic isles of Greece, from the sacred hills and cities of Palestine and Syria, from the stricken remnants of Assyria and Media, from Persia, India, Burmah, Siam, and China, bishops were journeying toward the central city of the Catholic world. The antipodal Australia and New Zealand sent still others. From every country of Europe, Hungary, Bohemia, Illyria, Austria. Prussia, Bavaria, and Würtemberg, France, Spain, and Portugal, England, Holland, Belgium, Scotland, and Ireland, the Island of Saints, they came, not merely a few delegates, but it seemed the entire episcopal bodyen masse. Distance and difficulties of the journey were no obstacles; even old age and infirmities seemed to have lost the power of retaining these prelates at home. Among the arrivals in Rome over a score had passed eighty years of age, and one, not the least vigorous among them, had reached the mature age of ninety-five. And so it came to pass, under the blessing of Heaven, that in this nineteenth century, in which even that profound statesman and excellent Catholic, Count De Maistre, once said it would be simply impossible to convene a general council of the church, all difficulties have vanished, and without one hour's delay or postponement, the Vatican Council, exceeding all others save one in its number of prelates, and far surpassing that one in its intrinsic grandeur, was opened in the majestic Basilica of St. Peter, on the day and the hour originally appointed. We may trust that the blessing of Heaven will continue with it, and that its results will be commensurate with the prayers and hopes of the Catholic world, in promoting the glory of God, in establishing the kingdom of Christ our Lord on earth, and in leading men to Christian holiness and eternal life.

In our former article we gave an account of the grand spectacle presented at the opening session. In the present one, we will speak of the general congregations, or committees of the whole, as we would term them, in which most of the work is to be done. The curious observer will find here many of those old rules and forms from which the modern and civilized world has derived our existing codes of parliamentary rules. It is interesting to observe the points of agreement and of disagreement. For of later years, in our mundane parliaments, the strife of party spirit, and sometimes the necessity of settling a question by a given time, have brought in various devices unknown in those older and quieter assemblies for the purpose of shutting off debate, or overcoming the reluctance of a minority for a speedy vote.

An œcumenical council is, under one point of view, a deliberative assembly of the entire Catholic Church. The sovereign pontiff, who, as successor of St. Peter, the head of the apostolic college in the see of Rome, is head of the Catholic Church and the centre of unity, presidesex-officio. As his right and his power were not bestowed on him by the church, but were instituted by her Divine Founder as an essential part of her organization, it follows that they do not cease, or suffer suspension, on occasion of, or during the holding of a council.

His office in reference to councils has been recognized from the beginning. A Council of Alexandria, intheir letter to Pope Felix II., in the year 362, wrote: "We know that in the great Council of Nice all the bishops unanimously declared that councils should not be held save with the judgment of the Roman pontiff," and Julius I., in his first letter to the eastern churches, appealed to the ancient laws of the church, which forbade "the holding of councils without the knowledge and assent of the Roman pontiff, because the Holy Roman Church held the primacy over all the churches." In the first place, then, an œcumenical council must besummonedby the authority of the pope. In the second place, hepresidesin the councilex-officio, either personally or by such legates as he may send. The First Council of Nice in Bithynia was held in 325. Three hundred and eighteen bishops were present, all of them (save half a dozen) patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops from the east. Osius, a bishop of Spain, and two priests from Rome, presided in the name of Pope Sylvester. Meletius of Antioch, and afterward St. Gregory of Nazianzum, presided in the name of Pope Damasus in the First Council of Constantinople, in 381. St. Cyril of Alexandria presided at the Council of Ephesus in 431, in the name of Pope St. Celestine I. St. Leo the Great sent two bishops, Pascasinus and Lucentius, and two priests, Boniface and Basil, who conjointly represented him, and presided over the Fourth General Council at Chalcedon, in the year 451. The same right has been exercised in every succeeding œcumenical council. Nor could it be otherwise. The body cannot be separated from the head without destroying the life of the church. The gates of hell would then have assuredly prevailed over her.

A third right and office of the sovereign pontiff in relation to œcumenical councils is that ofconfirmingand giving force to their decrees. His is the supreme duty and charge of confirming his brethren in the faith. Pope St. Damasus expressed the Catholic doctrine and practice on this head fifteen hundred years ago, when he wrote to the bishops of an African council, "You well know, that to hold councils without the authority and approval of the Roman see is not according to the Catholic spirit; nor do we meet any councils that are held as legitimate which were not supported by its apostolic confirmation." The words of Pope Damasus were then specially significant and emphatic. Not a quarter of a century before, in 363, six hundred bishops had assembled at Rimini, and, under pressure from the Emperor Constantius, had passed decrees which Pope Liberius reprobated. At once, and ever since, that Council of Rimini has been held as utterly destitute of authority.

An œcumenical council, therefore, to be truly such, must be convoked by the sovereign pontiff, or by his authority, must be presided over by him, either in person or by his legates, and its acts must be confirmed and sanctioned by him.

To say he has the duty of judging when the necessities or dangers of the church render it proper to summon a general council, in order to meet or to remedy them, implies obviously that he will propose to the council the matters on which he calls for their judgment and their coöperation with him. As presidentex-officio, it is his duty to make such arrangements in accordance with the spirit of religion, and the usages of former councils, as will facilitate and expedite the action of the council, and allow the bishops to return as quickly as possible to their flocks.

In the present instance, the sovereignpontiff has done this chiefly by the brief,Multiplices inter, and by the labors of the five preparatory commissions, which have for nearly a year and a half been studying up the subjects which are to form a portion of the matter to be discussed and decided on by the council.

We have already spoken of this apostolic letter,Multiplices inter. It was dated November 27th, and having been printed in pamphlet form, was delivered to the bishops on December 2d, nearly a week before the opening of the council. There are ten chapters in it, several of which set forth the mode of procedure which will be followed in the council in the transaction of business.

Chapter ii. is as follows:

"Although the right and duty of proposing the matters to be treated in the Holy Œcumenical Council, and of asking the judgments of the fathers on them, belongs only to us and this apostolic see, yet we not only desire, but we exhort, that if any among the fathers of the council have any thing to propose which they believe will tend to the general benefit, they shall freely propose it. However, as we clearly perceive that this, unless it be done in proper time and mode, may seriously disturb the necessary order of the business of the council, we direct that such proposals be offered in this mode, to wit: 1. Each one must be put in writing, and be directly delivered to a special congregation (committee) composed of several cardinals and fathers of the council, to be appointed by us. 2. It must regard the general welfare of the church, not the special benefit of only this or that diocese. 3. It must set forth the reasons for which it is held useful and opportune. 4. It must not run counter to the constant belief of the church, and her inviolable traditions. The said special congregation shall diligently weigh the propositions delivered to it, and shall report to us their recommendation as to the admission or exclusion of them, in order that, after mature deliberation, we may decide whether or not they shall be placed before the council for discussion."

We may say here that this special committee has been appointed, and is composed of twelve cardinals and fourteen prelates. Of the cardinals five are usually resident in Rome, three are from sees in Italy, one is French, one Spanish, one German, and one (Cardinal Cullen) from Ireland. Of the prelates, two are patriarchs from the East, one is French, two Spanish, four Italians, one South American, one (Archbishop Spalding) from the United States, one Mexican, one English, one Belgian, and one German. This committee is thus an admirable synopsis, as it were, of the entire council. Their duties may hereafter be delicate and responsible. So far, we believe, they have not been called on to act.

Chapters v. and vii. of the same apostolic letter set forth that, for the rapid furthering of business, there shall be six other standing committees, the members of all of which shall be elected by ballot, in the council: 1. On excuses for non-attendance, or for leave of absence, to consist of five members. 2. On grievances and complaints, likewise to consist of five members. 3. On matters of faith, to consist of twenty-four members. 4. On matters of discipline, with twenty-four members. 5. One on regular orders, with twenty-four members; and 6. One on oriental rites and on missions, to consist of twenty-four members. These last four committees, ordeputations, as they are termed, will be presided over each by a cardinal, to be appointed by the pope.

Chapter vi. appoints the officers and attendants required in the council. Prince John Colonna and Prince Dominic Orsini are sergeants-at-arms. What a change from the days, seven centuries ago, when their ancestors would meet only as rivals at court, or antagonists in the field! The Rt. Rev. Joseph Fessler, of Germany, is named secretary of the council, with an undersecretary and two assistants. Seven notaries are named, and eight scrutatores or tellers, for receiving and counting the votes. Among these last is Monsignor Nardi, well known to the foreign visitors to Rome. The promotors, masters of ceremony, and ushers are also named in this chapter.

Finally, the sovereign pontiff, who would preside in person only in the solemn sessions, designated five cardinals who, in his name and by his authority, would preside in the general congregations. They were Cardinals De Reisach, De Luca, Bizzarri, Bilio, and Capalti.

The apostolic letter also set forth how the several committees of theologians had preparedschemata, or draughts, as we would term them, on various points belonging to the general purposes of the council. The Holy Father declared that he had abstained from giving to these draughts any sanction of approval. They would be placed in the hands of the bishops for their serious study and for their discussion, (integra integre,) freely, and as to every part.

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