Chapter 14

FOOTNOTES:[192]Life of Const., lib. iii. cap. 6.[193]Geschichte der Stadt Rom.ii. p. 60.[194]Serie VII. vol. ix. p. 21.[195]Vol. i. p. 14.[196]See Gury, especially hisCasus Conscientiæ. A small duodecimoDoctrina Moralis Jesuitarum(Celle, 1874), gives copious extracts from Jesuit authors with a German translation. For the English reader, Mr. Cartwright's work on the Jesuits supplies a good outline.[197]VI. i. 662-80.

FOOTNOTES:

[192]Life of Const., lib. iii. cap. 6.

[193]Geschichte der Stadt Rom.ii. p. 60.

[194]Serie VII. vol. ix. p. 21.

[195]Vol. i. p. 14.

[196]See Gury, especially hisCasus Conscientiæ. A small duodecimoDoctrina Moralis Jesuitarum(Celle, 1874), gives copious extracts from Jesuit authors with a German translation. For the English reader, Mr. Cartwright's work on the Jesuits supplies a good outline.

[197]VI. i. 662-80.

BOOK III

FROM THE OPENING OF THE COUNCIL TO THE INTRODUCTION OF THE QUESTION OF INFALLIBILITY

CHAPTER I

The First Session, December 8, 1869, or Opening Ceremony—Mustering—Robing—The Procession—The Anthem and Mass—The Sermon—The Act of Obedience—The Allocution—The Incensing—Passing Decrees—TheTe Deum—Appreciations of various Witnesses.

Atdawn, on Wednesday, December 8, 1869, the guns of Fort St. Angelo saluted the long looked for day, while from the other side of the Tiber those of the Aventine replied. The bellowing of these beasts of war awoke the city to witness a Council of the ministers of peace. As the sounds reached the ear of peasant, monk, and nun, already plodding in the dark from places outside the walls, the sky was low, and pouring down a truly Roman rain. Unlike towns round which smiling homes are sown broadcast outside of the bounds, Rome, when approached by most of the routes, first shows the city walls, and not till a good while later does it show the beginning of habitations. The poor suburbs which lie outside a few of the gates are less dreary than the space inside, where lonely roads, shut in by blank walls, lead amidst crumbling mementoes of rulers of the world, and marks of the actual reign of drones not able to master ordinary difficulties. Every now and then comes a church, or one of the two hundred and more convents and nunneries which sanctify the place. But scarcely any of these have an outline such as to yield, in twilight, the effect of either Gothic spires or Moorish minarets, or even of good Grecian colonnades.

Many a cowled figure struggled under the drenching rain along these desolate ways. One would pass the spot wherePeter was arrested by his Master, when the Fisherman uttered the famous "Lord, whither goest Thou?" and was turned back to Rome to die. Another would pass by the vale of Egeria and he might well wonder if Numa ever had to seek inspiration there in such dismal gloom. Crossing the open ground about the Lateran, some of the monks might think of the terrible morn when Totila, in mercy, halted his troops inside the gates, sending the clang of his trumpets through the dark, all over the city, to give the wretched Romans the chance of flight.

Other monks coming from St. Agnese, and entering by the Porta Pia, would reflect upon the adornment of that gate by the Holy Father, and upon its happy name which links it both with Pius IX and with its own founder. Its founder, Pius IV, signed the Creed of the Council of Trent, and Pius IX was to sign the new Creed of the Council of the Vatican. This beautiful coincidence would, with the monks, make the gate an emblem of the Church, against which the gates of hell should never prevail. If they only happened to recollect that its old nameNomentanamarked it as the Mentana Gate, the encouraging impression would rise almost to the brightness of a revelation. The day, only two years before, when the conquering crusaders marched in, and the welkin rang with shouts of "Long live Pius IX!" "Long live the zouaves!" "Long live the Crusaders!" "Long live Catholic France!" would return to memory as the pledge of mightier Mentanas. Had an invisible hand drawn aside the veil, and shown them that gate, some nine months later, admitting the Italian troops, followed by the dog Pio drawing a little cart full of Bibles; and then shown, still later, the residence of a British Ambassador to the King of Italy inside the gate, and on the outside the residence of Garibaldi, the monks would have vowed by all the saints, old and new, that the vision came from a lying spirit.

Some, again, crossing the Tiber by the Milvian Bridge, would, in spite of the blinding rain, see the figure of Constantine victoriously dominating the heights, and that of Maxentiusbeing hurled into the stream. A while afterwards, when passing near the Broken Wall, where St. Peter himself had kept watch, and with his own hand had blinded and routed the Goths, they would feel that now when his successor was to be at last duly exalted, the Apostle would surely keep the city more jealously than before; and if there was need of a Belisarius to crush the Italian barbarians, the Lord would raise him up at the intercession of Peter.

As they came further inwards, the crowds of the city were already in motion. Down from the Coelian and Esquiline were they pouring past the Coliseum, reflecting men delighting in the thought that all high things which exalt themselves against the Church would fall into her power just as the Coliseum had done; for the "high things" of the Romanized imagination are naturally material ones. The Arch of Titus, darkly outlined in the morning grey, would be the prophetic pledge that the Jews, however stubborn, would yield to the Pontiff at last. But where was the golden candlestick—where the temple vessels? After Genseric carried them off, had they ever returned? The ruinous Palatine would symbolize woes coming to modern Caesars, as sure as those which had crushed the ancient ones. Indeed, it is not impossible that some would see visions like those seen by monks of yore, who beheld the soul of the great Theodoric dragged into the crater of Stromboli.

From the Aventine, where Peter resided with Priscilla and Aquila, and which is now little but a site for monastic establishments, many would come, passing by the place where once stood the Circus Maximus. The thoughtful would there have in their eye the grand spectacles of Pagan Rome. It was by a spectacle that Romulus allured the Sabines to unity by violence; and it was by a spectacle that Pius IX was now wooing the world to wedlock with the Papacy—ready, if only able, to take short measures with the coy. But what were the shows of the old rude times to this? What if three hundred thousand pairs of eyes did gleam together on the spectacles which, with bread, made up the earthly all of theRomanplebs? They never had looked upon such an array of holy bishops, from the whole earth, as would be seen to-day. The colours for which they went mad, their idolized blues and greens, were but few, and ill-combined, compared with the colours now about to be displayed. The ancient cry, "Bread and Spectacles!" was indeed still kept alive by Roman authorities, but was to-day to be satisfied in a Christian style glorious beyond Pagan example.

Along the Via Sacra few foreigners would appear, but from the Capitoline Germans would set out. It is natural to think of some student, fresh from the pages of Gregorovius, his imagination vividly setting face to face the ancient Rome and the actual. He would think of the exclamation, "Renowned, queenly, immeasurable Rome, a sea of beauty surpassing all power of speech!" Where were the glory and the beauty now? Inside the churches and palaces indeed were masses of decoration and artistic stores of wealth, but the city viewed, on that dismal December morning, as a city, was poor and ill-kept. The glory which once compelled men at this central point to call her Golden Rome was departed. What now represented the Temple of Jupiter—its pillars on gilded bases with gilded capitals, its gates of gilded bronze, and its roof of tiles of gilded brass? There stands the Church of the Aracoeli; Jupiter is succeeded by the Bambino, a doll, carved by St. Luke, which is driven in a stately carriage round the city to the beds of the dying.

Crossing the Bridge of Sixtus the student might see vividly, as students do, the scene of that sacrilegious morning when the lone old stream, with no Horatius now, was swarthy boatmen swinging the oar with the stroke of the rover, and as each galley shot out of the bend of the Aventine, the chief, from under his turban, eyed the opening prospect of plunder with the glance of an Ishmaelite. When they rifled the grave, would the student say, if they found anything of the Fisherman, certainly they did not leave anything. If the ashes of Peter ever did rest there, were they not sent by the Saracens to await those of Wycliffe in the sea?

A pamphlet, by a Hebrew, with the title ofThe Ghetto and Rome's Great Show, reminds us that from under the flank of the Capitoline some would come out of the pen in which the Popes had, for ages, shut up the children of Israel. No doubt some travelled Rabbi would do so. Such a man would have mentally dwelt all his life among the ancients, and personally he would have seen the Pyramids and Thebes, the Tomb of Abraham, with Jerusalem, Baalbec, and probably the Remains upon the Euphrates, if not those on the Tigris. To him Roman dates were modern, and Roman monuments, though great for Europe, were on a scale comparatively small, not equalling in magnitude those of Asia, not approaching in grace those of Hellas. In his eye all the princes of the ancient monarchies laughed at the notion of Gregorovius, that the idea of a world-empire originated with the Romans—nay, no more than did the idea of the Trojan War.

Towards Pius IX personally the feeling of the Jew would be rather kindly, for he, like Sixtus V, had relieved the Hebrews from some of the severities to which they had long been subjected by preceding Popes. But this would not prevent the whole tormented past from rising in memory before the Rabbi and stirring him to hope that he might now be going to witness the last show ever to be exhibited by one of the cruel race of the Pope-Kings. The pen in which his people had been shut up, the distinguishing badge, the differential taxes, the religious worry, and the manifold enormities committed upon them in the name of Christ who loved them, of Peter who lived for them, and of Paul who gave himself repeatedly to death for them, had long helped to set him and his on hating Christ, and Peter, and Paul. "Hard as their lot was under the Caesars," says our pamphlet, "it became harder still when the ecclesiastical Head was crowned by Pepin Le Bref king of the States of the Church, and actually ruler of the world." The day was now past when the Corso, in carnival-time, rang with the shouts of so-called Christians, hailing the spectacle of Jews naked, except a girdle round the loins and ropes round their necks, forced to run races against riderlessmules, and asses, and buffaloes. For a long time this service had been performed for the sacred city by riderless horses, goaded by spiked balls slashing into their sides. Nevertheless, those former days would rise up before the Rabbi's eye, as would also the price paid for ransom. As he passed along, between him and the Corso stood the one pile still entire which to memory represented the Pagan Romanism under which his first ancestors in the city had suffered, and to the eye represented the Papal Romanism under which their descendants had continued for so many ages to groan. Dedicated by Agrippa to Cybele and all the gods, it had been rededicated by Boniface IV to Mary and all the martyrs. Though still best known as the Pantheon, its name in Rome is St. Mary of the Rotunda.

Our Rabbi would naturally, on such an occasion, compare it as it had been and as it now is; for the associations of the day would suggest to his mind that gathering of the provincials in the plain of Dura, when some of his forefathers had to bear witness against the longing natural to those who imagine themselves heads of the human species, to set up new idols, and to insist on unity by means more urgent than godly. That was the first clearly recorded scene in the fiery drama of Catholic Unity; a unity bending, breaking, or burning all nations, peoples, and tongues into religious and political submission to one human head. Probably the Rabbi would admit that there was some ground of justice in the words ofJoseph de Maistre, that the Pantheon had been devoted to all the vices, and now was devoted to all the virtues. Thus far the Christian element in Papal Romanism had asserted its moral superiority. But the Rabbi would feel that there was exaggeration upon both sides of De Maistre's assertion. The gods of the Pagans were not all personified vices, any more than are now all those of the Hindus. Many of them were so, and that is enough. On the other hand, not all the saints of the Papal Pantheon represent personified virtues, judged by any code but the sad one of the Popes themselves. The Rabbi would hardly recognize St. Peter Arbues, red withthe blood of thousands of the seed of Abraham, as one of the Virtues, any more than as one of the Graces. He would, however, recognize the correctness of Joseph De Maistre's estimate of the kind of change made by the Popes in the Pantheon. He would also admit the good judgment of M. Fisquet in selecting the following passage of De Maistre, when describing the ceremonies of Rome for Frond's history—[198]

It is in the Pantheon that Paganism is rectified and brought back to the primitive system, of which it is only a visible corruption. The name of God is exclusive and incommunicable. Nevertheless, there are manygods, in heaven and in earth. There are intelligences, better natures of deified men (hommes divinisés). Thegodsof Christianity are thesaints. Around God are assembledall the gods, to serve Him in the place and order assigned to them.

The Rabbi might say, The Law pulls down the word "gods," by applying it to magistrates, thus making it mean little; but these ignorant priests lift it up to mean something more than the Pagans ever did mean by it, as if the latter had imagined that each god was a supreme being, or something near it. De Maistre, however, had more sense. He knew that "saints" was another name for gods, only they were not to be vicious, which was no doubt the original idea.[199]

By this time the dull and dripping air would begin to vibrate with the roll of carriages. Both in the rain and under cover, the throng was pouring towards one point. From the poor streets, where once stretched the glorious Fora of the Caesars, from the old Suburra, from the regions covered by the gardens of Sallust, from the spot where the persecuting name of Diocletian and a splendid church are now locally associated, from all the flanks of the Quirinal, would the stream come pouring towards the old Field of Mars. Bishops, artists, and the models of the artists, priests and beggars, quaint peasants, handsome artisans, well-dressed tradesmen, pressed in slush and silence past the lone pillar of Trajan, nobly sad, standing amidst memories of might and signs of impotence.

In the crowd speckled by ecclesiastical and peasant costumes, many an English figure, both home and colonial, steadily made way, and many an American one, and a few of the swarthy South Americans. At least one Scotch bonnet and plaid pushed through the throng.[200]And he who wore them saw the well-known cap of the German student. Though, in general, not much addicted to attend solemnities, the Roman shopkeeper would on this occasion be well represented. His motto had hardly been "Bread and Shows," but rather "Shows and Bread." The city had, to a considerable extent, lived upon its exhibitions; and every grand one designed by the priests raised them in the eyes of shopkeepers, lodging-keepers, and cabmen.[201]

The grand Piazza of St. Peter's would have been at its grandest that day had the sky been true to the Papacy. Nothing but the heavens failed. From every opening into the Piazza flowed the eager crowds. They passed the two hundred and eighty columns, natives sheltering under theirumbrellas, strangers compelled by admiration to look up. They passed the Obelisk, those who had history in their memory, thinking of Nero and of the scenes by him enacted. They passed the Inquisition, perhaps wondering what priests were imprisoned now, and if there were any bishops, and who; perhaps thinking how strange it was that side by side should stand the memorials of Nero and the chambers of the Inquisition. Then up the steps and across the Portico. At the same time, the coaches of the great swept to the right into the Vatican. About three hundred of these were splendidly horsed, gilt round the top, gilt at all available points, hung high on springs, with four or five servants, in yellow and blue, red and green, embroidered, powdered, and in cocked hats. The few pensive monuments of retrospective royalty that still clave to the skirt of the Pontiff, formed the first line of this array. Then came the thrice-splendid princes of the Church. Each rode in his state carriage, followed, says Frond (vol. vii. p. 91), by a second carriage, "less sumptuous." and if a prince—we presume by birth—followed by a third. Then came the nuncios, ambassadors, bishops, and notabilities with starry breasts, and ribbons like streamers among the stars—stars that dazzle Romans far more than all the constellations in the sky. The Roman nobles, always splendid, were that day in their fulness of gold, and pearls, and costly array; and their equipages are said to have counted several hundreds. No less than five hundred private ones and some two thousand street carriages completed the train. Roman ecclesiastics could not help remarking, even in print, that from a one-horse hackney coach might be seen alighting a couple of bishops, and four from a two-horse one; a sight which they contrasted with the princely splendour of Constance and of Trent. At the bridge of St. Angelo, and at other important points, rose up in the rain the mounted figures of the Papal dragoons in their long white cloaks. A plentiful display of soldiers, said to amount to about six thousand, increased the variety. Black-clad Barnabite, and brown Franciscan, broad-hatted Jesuit and white Camaldolese, with all the costumes of the barrack,the convent, the nunnery, mingled with those of the drawing-room and the village festival, spangled the thickening crowd.

The clergy of the city had early assembled in sufficient number to line the whole course of the procession, until it reached the statue of St. Peter. Within, the crowd is not represented by any writer as having been excessive. Some say that the church was full, some that it was not quite so. The people arrived in wet clothing, and as none of them, least of all the monks, were given to excessive ablutions, even the correspondent of theStimmen aus Maria Laachalluded to the quality of the air. So also did the Special Correspondent of theTimes; but he remarked that "incense covers a multitude of perfumes." In the various side chapels, Masses were being celebrated, each priest, as he came up to the altar, or retired from it, being preceded by two soldiers under arms, and followed by one. There were upon duty in that temple of peace, opened for a great council of peace, one battalion of zouaves and one of the line.

The soldiers of Diocletian and Galerius, when beginning their work one February morning, while the two Emperors watched them from their palace windows in Nicomedia, would not have been so much at a loss had they entered a temple like St. Peter's, as they found themselves in the Christian church into which they then broke. "They searched in vain," says Gibbon, "for some visible object of worship. They were obliged to content themselves with committing to the flames the volumes of the Holy Scriptures." They could have found no Bible in St. Peter's to burn, unless they had taken to a sumptuous book, in a dead language, containing portions of the Gospels. But they would not have searched in vain for visible objects of worship. Just as even Father Abraham had been turned into chief idol in the Caaba by the heathen Arabs, so here the chief of the images set up was Peter. But never had he been so dressed in Galilee or Jerusalem, in Antioch or Babylon, with alb, girdle, stole, and tiara. The Popes might have ill copied the living Peter, but the bronze Peter had well copied the Popes. The Fisherman would have beensurprised at his own pluvial. As clerical writers would blush not to tell, it was of red silk, striped with gold. On his breast was a golden cross; on his right hand a golden ring, with a large ruby, and a circle of "flashing brilliants," and the left hand held a golden key all decked with precious stones. Before him burned a lamp, and four superb wax candles painted like the illuminations of books. As all men honour their gods with what they value most, the Vatican honours Peter by feeding the jeweller and laceman in his soul with marrow and fatness, and by the sight of men kissing his feet. Peter had his faults, but he never deserved to be so paganized. True, he did forget himself when he got into the palace of the Jewish priest, but not in the same way as the bishop on the Tiber forgot himself when he got into the palace of the Roman Pontiff. That, however, was Peter before he was converted. Peter, after he was converted, passed the threshold of a Roman. Then, he strengthened his brethren, not by lording it either over their persons or their faith, but by teaching a lesson in action, to the effect that no human being should ever degrade his person before a fellow-man, and that the forms of worship, as well as the spirit of it, are to be reserved for Him whom alone it is lawful for the offspring of God to adore. Peter would not break the commandment that said, "Be not ye called rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ" (Matt. xxiii. 8-10).

There in a nutshell lies the whole theory of a direct government as against one by proxy; of a father's government of adult sons, as against a master's government of slaves through upper servants; of one all-watching love, and one all-working care, as against an imperial reclusion that leaves affairs to departmental divinities. "Our Father which art in heaven," deeper is Thy love to the least of us, more tender and closer far than could be that of any patron whom we might set up! In numbering the hairs of our heads, no Vicar dost Thou employ! In drawing near to Thee, no interest of Thy freedmendo we require, for we are no longer slaves, but in Thy love, the love of a Father, dost thou invite every one of us to the adoption and therefore to the access of sons!

He, who had once shaken his brethren, did not afterwards strengthen them by telling them that they must all accept him as rabbi, father, and master in the absence of their Lord, while to him there was but one Master, Christ. Just as Peter was ready, in his own person, to keep the commandment, "Be not ye called masters," so would he have been the very first to uphold the corresponding commandment, "Call no man master." He well knew that this applied pointedly and particularly to the ministers and disciples of the religion of Christ as such; for he was one of the first to teach both due reverence and due obedience to that civil authority which the Popes live to make little more than a sword under their own power.

The Italian Protestant and the Rabbi would both watch the thousands performing the adoration of St. Peter. The Italian Protestant would think of rites to Romulus, or perhaps to Hercules, whose local story was still more mythical. The Rabbi would think with scorn of the impossibility of such a spectacle in a synagogue over a dressed-up image of Aaron, for the Jews had never reformed the decalogue. He would mentally quote Jeremiah: "The stock is a doctrine of vanities. Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the workman, and of the hands of the founder; blue and purple is their clothing, they are all the work of cunning men."[202]Educated Hindus are now often to be seen in Rome. Any of them who witnessed this scene, and heard priests complacently point out the distinctions by which simple Westerns are lulled into the notion that this is theoretically a different kind of worship from that paid to lesser gods and to images by Brahmans, would take the distinctions in his supple fingers and snap them as easily as he would so many threads of the finest Dacca looms. The Pundits were in this, as in many things, elder and abler brethren of the priests.

Friedrich, in his Doctor's robes, formed one of the promiscuous crowd; for mere theologians in Rome did not pass for much. No one has told us where Quirinus stood, or what was his toilet. It is not even clear whether his spirit was vested in a German or an English frame, although probabilities are in favour of the latter. Vitelleschi was there too, with his Roman familiarity with men, forms, and projects. And there was Lord Acton, the Roman Marchese, brother to a bishop, soon to be a Cardinal; the English Baron nephew to a Cardinal. M. Frond would be in exceedingly great glory. M. Veuillot, frightened,he says, by the rain, was in his rooms by the Piazza di Spagna, describing to theUniverswhat he calls "the moral of the ceremony"—a fact which he states long afterwards (i. p. 73). He acknowledges that he did not smell the odour of the crowd; but not on that account is he to be told that he did not see the first session. He went to the top of the Pincio about noon, saw the dome and the Vatican wrapped in fog and rain, and the sky laden as if with storms for all time. But he saw the Council as one ought to see it, and as history will see it; and never on the sunniest morning did the hill of Peter, the mountain where God dwells, appear more luminous to him.

Correspondents of theCiviltápublished on the spot, of theStimmenpublished on the Rhine, of distant journals in America and the East, were revelling in the Catholicity and brilliancy of the spectacle, and preparing to transmit across the Alps and across the seas some vibration of the transports by which every now and then they were themselves thrilled. The untonsured but inevitable correspondents of the profane Press were there, odious in forms unknown.

Liberal Catholics from different countries were there in numbers, striving to hope against hope, now thinking of the courage of their national bishops, now of the moderation of the Pontiff; and now exercising faith in the good stars of the Church, but trusting that, somehow or other, credit to the Catholic cause would result from the Council, instead of Jesuit fighting, followed by disaster, which they had too much ground to fear.

On the other hand, the Jesuits were quietly exulting in the knowledge that the days of the Liberal Catholics were numbered. "Weighed and found wanting" were words often upon their lips at that time.

The feeling of the Protestants, of all classes, was chiefly that of curiosity. Such of them as believed that Rome yet retained enough of the Christian element to be capable of reform wished that the Jesuits might fail. Those, on the other hand, who believed that at Trent Rome had written upon herself the doomirreformable, thought that the only thing now before her was to go down deeper into her own errors, and to make herself formally what she long had been virtually, the religion simply of thefait accompli, a system in which each error once committed must enter into the blood, and even form abnormal bone. Perhaps the words "judicial blindness" were never so often quietly uttered by charitable men as then, and during the months ensuing.

The tomb of Peter shared with his statue in the honours of the morn. In the ray of its lamps knelt many a figure of "fair women and brave men." The men hoped to rise braver for the coming struggle. The words of the Pontiff were vividly in the memories of the devout—words uttered to five hundred bishops. "We never doubted that a mysterious force and salutary virtue emanated from the tomb where repose the ashes of Peter, as a perpetual object of religious veneration to the world; a force which inspires the pastors of the Lord's flock with bold enterprises, noble spirit, and magnanimous sentiment."[203]Pius IX would hardly have seen the force of an inquiry, should any one have dared to make it, whether there was any known case in which one of the Apostles had in Jerusalem sent even the most ignorant of Christians to the tomb of the proto-martyr, ay, or to the tomb of tombs, in order there to seek some blessing that could not be found by going into his own closet, and praying to his Father who seeth in secret.

TheCiviltá, however, gave a more intelligent turn to this Papal suggestion—

It is to be hoped (it said) that this Council, announced on the centenary of St. Peter, convoked by a Bull dated on the day of St. Peter, and assembled round the wonderful tomb of St. Peter, will bepar excellencethe Council of St. Peter. That means the most obsequious to the prerogatives of Peter, whose divine authority, the centre and foundation of all social authority, is at the same time that which is most combated by the spirit of the world, according to the words of the Saviour, "The whole world lieth in wickedness" (1 John v. 19).

While the people waited, the bishops were robing in the Julian corridor, and the patriarchs in one of the adjoining apartments. Over the grand portico of St. Peter's is a hall, well known on Holy Thursday as the place where the twelve apostles celebrate the Supper—the hall in which the five hundred presented their salutation in 1867. This had been converted into a chapel, by the erection of an altar. Here assembled the members of the procession. Each prelate, on completing his costume, made for the hall, but was not permitted to have any attendant. It being the Day of the Immaculate Conception, the colour of the vestments was white; a rule, however, which did not bind the Orientals. The cardinals were robing in a room apart. Each of them having done so, entered the hall followed by his train-bearer. Bishops, prelates, and cardinals waited while the Pope robed. This he did in the Pauline Chapel, attended by three cardinals, two bishops, the sub-deacon apostolic, two protonotaries, and a few minor officials. They adorned him with amice and with alb, with girdle and with stole. Then did the cardinal-priest in waiting bring the censer, and the Pope put the incense on. Then did they further array him in the "formal," the pluvial, and the precious mitre. At about half-past nine o'clock, Pius IX, in all the glory of gems and garments, entered the hall, where between seven and eight hundred bishops stood before the altar, awaiting their royal head. He did not wear either the tiara or the usual golden mitre, but a specialprecious mitremade for the occasion, "This" says, Vitelleschi (p. 3), "was to indicate a certain equality with the other bishops, which, however, is confined to these little accessories of the ceremonial." The white pluvial was fastened on his breast by an enamelled clasp, about which clerical writers are particular. The clasp was set with jewels in the form of a dove, with outstretched wings, surrounded by a halo of rays, andrepresenting the Holy Ghost. The Pope passed among the Fathers holding out his fingers, in the usual manner, on this side and on that, giving them what is grotesquely called thepontificalbenediction. Then kneeling at the faldstool he took off his mitre and prayed. Two cardinals, approaching the kneeling Pontiff, placed a book before his eyes. He looked upon it, lifted up his aged but resounding voice, and sang—

Creator Spirit, come!

This strain was taken up by the choir, and the first verse was sung, all kneeling. The Pontiff then rose, put on his mitre, and was seated in his portative throne.

The portative throne is a contrivance for exhibiting a dignitary to the gaze of a multitude, which does not remind one of anything to be seen elsewhere in Europe, but does strongly remind one of the way in which a great Guru is carried in India. It is a gorgeous litter, on which is placed a gorgeous chair, under a gorgeous canopy, called a Baldachino. In the chair is seated the Pontiff. Men robed in crimson bear the litter; others bear the canopy on long gilded decorated poles, and beside it others bear gigantic fans of peacocks' feathers.

Even in a secular procession, more serious than an election triumph, this sort of chairing would be of doubtful taste; but in a religious act, above all an act done in the house of God, it would be impossible, except where the aesthetic of faith had expired, and the aesthetic of thought had long surrendered to the aesthetic of sensation. As the Pontiff was set on high a shot fired from St. Angelo told the waiting multitude that the procession was formed.

We have said that the clergy of the city lined the wholecourse of the procession on either side. This extended from the door of the hall, through some of the apartments of the Vatican, down the celebrated Royal Staircase, through the magnificent portico of St. Peter's, up the nave to the statue of the Apostle, then to the altar at his grave, and finally, to the right of that altar, into the hall of the Council. As the head of the procession emerged from the hall, the manifold costumes of the clergy formed the skirting of the lofty walls, in the apartments through which it slowly swept. The most noticeable of these was the Royal Hall,Sala Regia, where frescoes, suggestive of more swords than one, appealed, by Papal memories, to Papal hopes. There was Gregory VII giving absolution to the penitent emperor Henry IV. There was the attack upon Tunis in 1553, there the massacre of St. Bartholomew's, the League against the Turks, and Barbarosas receiving the benediction of the Pope in the Piazza of St. Mark. From the Royal Hall descends the Royal StaircaseScala Regia. All down its two flights the reverent clergy lined the way, as the "Church Princes" swept by. In the lower flight the Ionic capitals of the colonnade gracefully lengthened out the perspective, while the stately march of mitres glanced between the shafts. With a supreme sense of the importance of the act did the train pass down the noble stair; each prelate no less sustaining the dignity of the moment because just then the eye of the outer world beheld them not. In the view of a real Vaticanist a great procession is a good in itself, and a very high good, apart from its uses; or, perhaps more properly, it is felt that its effectiveness for use wholly depends upon the sense of discipline in its members.

Finally the foot of the stair was reached. The portative throne passed the statue of Constantine, the first who ever drew sword for the Church. It swept round and faced the statue of Charlemagne, the first upon whose head the Church ever set imperial crown. Each stood at an end of the magnificent vista formed by the portico—grand watchers at the door of the Pontiff, ever telling that the kings whom his Church wants are not merely nursing fathers but champions in fight. Asthe sight of their uplifted monarch burst upon the people, and that of the people upon their king, the heavy guns from the Aventine were firing alternately with those of St. Angelo, while all the bells were trying to exceed the joypeal of the preceding day. Before his Holiness reached this point, the procession had already entered the nave in slow and gorgeous order.

In front came chamberlains, chaplains, and officials of sixteen ascending grades. After these came the Fathers of the Council,—first the generals of orders, next mitred abbots, and then followed bishops, archbishops, primates, and patriarchs, in succession of still ascending rank, every man in appropriate splendour. The Orientals outshone their western brethren even more than usual; for the robes of the Latins, being confined to the white of the day, were at a disadvantage beside the eastern coats of many colours. The Senator, as the incumbent is called of a quaint old office under the Papal government, which we might call that of honorary mayor of Rome, marched between the prelates and the throne in golden robe of rich variety. He was accompanied by the conservators, whom we might call something like honorary councilmen, and also by the commandants of the three orders of guards—the noble, the Palatine, and the Swiss. Finally, sitting aloft, with the fans and the bearers, and the poles and the canopy, came the Pontiff. The moving throne was followed by a lengthened rear procession, formed of sundry officials, and closing with the priests, who had for some time been practising shorthand, in order to act as reporters.

The faithful from east and west gazed with enraptured eyes. Many were proud to recognize their own bishops; some still prouder to see their own gifts in robe or gem shining among the adornments of the day. Any Hindu present, looking at priest and soldier, might have exclaimed in the words of theBhagavad Gita: "Many a wondrous sight, many a heavenly ornament, many an upraised weapon; adorned with celestial robes and chaplets; anointed with heavenly essence, covered with every marvellous thing."[204]

From early morn, "the holiest," to use the term of one of the priestly descriptions, had been exhibited upon the altar; but out of tenderness to the throng had been veiled till the procession approached. As it entered the temple, every member of it uncovered to "the holiest." Those who were not members of the Council, after reaching the high altar, defiled to the left. The Fathers of the Council approaching the altar, each in his turn bent the knee before the Host; and then turning to the right, beheld the front of the Council Hall erected between two of the piers which sustain the great dome of Michael Angelo. Over the door was a picture, professing to represent the Eternal Father. The door was kept by the military figures of the Knights of Malta and the noble guards. Each prelate, in turn, entered the hall, bowed to the cross erected upon the altar, and was shown to the place assigned to him, according to his rank and seniority; for care was taken that the bishops should not group themselves either according to nation or according to opinion. There, standing and bareheaded, they awaited the Holy Father (Frond, vii. p. 98).

After the procession had been for some time moving up the nave, a whisper, "The cross, the cross," passed from lip to lip. The cross was borne immediately in front of the Fathers of the Council. Priest told priest of its choice beauty and immense costliness. Designed in the Gothic of the thirteenth century, and rich with gems, it represented Christ, not in His passion, but crowned, as conquering Lord, in glory. Among the expressions of delight, the proudest was, "It is a present to the Pope from the English convert, the Marquis of Bute."

The Pope did not, on this occasion, as he usually does, pass up the whole of the nave on his portative throne—a process which guide-books describe as representing the Lord of Glory entering Paradise. He now alighted at the entrance of the basilica, and, with deliberate step and thrice radiant smiles, his head alone mitred while all others were uncovered in presence of the "holiest," he marched among soldiers, priests, and subjects, a sovereignin excelsis. Before him went his hundreds of lieutenants, in attire which would have dazzledancient Pontifex, Flamen, and Augur. Every one of them was prepared to contend with princes in his cause, to set his name before that of their king, and to claim, in their respective countries, a supreme sway for his sceptre. Not a few of them had endured prosecution or prison to uphold his law against that of their country, and no note of the lyres that sounded the praises of the day was sweeter than that which commemorated the name of any martyr-bishop, hero of the kingdom of God, against the naturalism of the age.

The Cardinals had not followed the bishops into the hall. They now stood near the high altar. Two bishops were at the faldstool, with book and candle. At the altar itself stood the officiating Cardinal, with a priest, a deacon and sub-deacon, a master of the ceremonies, five acolytes bearing candles, and three clerks of the chapel. On arriving at the altar the Pontiff bowed upon the faldstool. Then the last strophe of theVeni Creatorwas exquisitely sung by the choir. To use the words of a priest, written, not for Spaniards or Brazilians, but for Germans: "Every member of the historical procession cast himself upon his knees before our God and Saviour in the form of bread, before whom all kings bow."[205]

After the adoration of the Host the Pope, still kneeling, recited aloud the prayer, "Look upon us, O God our protector!"—Protector Noster Aspice Deus—and for some time he continued reciting prayers in alternation with the choir. "Rising up," says Monsignor Guérin, "he recited a prayer to the Holy Sacrament, another to the Holy Spirit, a third to invoke the aid of the Holy Virgin and that of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, a fourth to God" (Guérin, p. 76).

The Cardinals, with their train-bearers, now turning to the right, entered the Hall of the Council, where the bishops had been waiting for some time.

As the Pope advanced to the eventful enclosure, two former comrades in one lawyer's office held the corners of his pluvial—the Cardinals Antonelli and Mertel. If these ministersdeserved half of the ill that was said of them by the common voice of Rome, or even by a writer like Liverani, who shuns private scandal, and only treats of public acts, Pius IX was not at that moment to be congratulated on the character of his companions. Confiding in the patronage of her whom he had set on high, he once more passed among the ornate hundreds of his mighty but docile servants. Approaching the altar he offered up a prayer; then passing to the throne at the far end of the Hall, he, in the words of Sambin, "dominated the whole assembly, and appeared like the teaching Christ" (p. 55).

The German Jesuit who wrote for theStimmensaid, "The bloodless offering was being presented on the altar, and soon must theinvisible Head of the Church be present in form of bread. Opposite sits His representative upon a throne; below him, the Cardinals; around, the Catholic world, represented in its bishops" (Neue Folge, vi. p. 162).

This localized presence, not yet actual, but to come at the word of the priest, was the same as that "divine presence" which Cardinal Manning, when leaving home, said many in the English Church were sighing for as having formerly been in their churches. The early Christians saw the most sublime token of God's presence in that absence of any similitude which perplexed the heathen soldiery at Nicomedia, which, in India, first perplexes and then awes the Hindu, and which to spiritual worshippers says, in the deep tone of silence—

Lo, God is here, let us adore!

At this point, rather more than twenty of the particulars set down in the program had been got through, but there were one hundred and forty-eight of them in all. It would be well worth while for any merely philosophic politician to follow them one by one, marking the directions by which every act, posture, and prayer, whether audible or silent, was prescribed. The science of government by spectacle really deserves study by men of sense, because the practice of it is so mighty with all who take an impression for a reason. Theprogram is in theActa, and those who choose to read it will find a prescription for each minutest move.

The Archbishop of Iconium, whose real office was that of Vicar of St. Peter's, approached the throne, holding his mitre in his hands; he made a profound obeisance, then drawing near, he kissed the Pope's knee. After this, mounting the pulpit, he preached, in cope and mitre, a sermon unlike that of Father Bianchi. It was long and tame, and hardly had the true Infallibilist ring. He felt that they were entering upon an untried and thorny path. "Tribulation," he said, "will arise, bitter days and innumerable sorrows" (Acta, pp. 204-214). After the sermon the Pope rose and gave the benediction, during which the cardinals and bishops stood, the abbots and generals of orders kneeling down. "It is," says Monsignor Guérin, "the Moses of the new law, with his shining brow." He then offered up a prayer, with invocation of the Church triumphant and of all saints, "the formidable army which is drawn up around the Pope and the Council, and which assures victory to the Church," as Guérin expounds it. The preacher then published the indulgences from the pulpit. Now came an interlude preparatory to a transaction of grave importance. To prescribe the action of the interlude, it required all the articles of the program from thirty-seven to fifty. To perform that action took up in a Christian place of worship probably a full half-hour of the time of seven hundred bishops, of several thousand clergymen, of Knights of Malta, of noble guards, Palatine guards, Swiss guards, of some two thousand soldiers, and of probably twenty thousand people. Two bishops, with book and candle, draw near to the throne. The Pontiff recitesQuam dilecta, etc. The sub-deacon apostolic, who is a judge of the high court of the Rota, called the Supreme Tribunal of the whole Christian world, advances. He is accompanied by two judges of the high court of the Signet, to which even the Rota, in spite of its title, is subordinate.[206]The three judges solemnly bear to the throne in a scarf of silver cloth the apostolic stockings and slippers trimmed with gold lace. ThePontiff puts on stockings and slippers. Monsignor the Sacristan takes his place at the altar ready to give out the robes. The two judges of the high court of the Signet stand at the altar ready to take the robes from Monsignor the Sacristan, and to hand them to the cardinal deacon. Then the cardinal deacon approaches the throne. The senior cardinal priest ascends the steps of the throne and takes the ring from off the Pontiff. The judges of the high court of the Signet bring the robes to the throne. Then the senior cardinal priest, assisted by the cardinal deacons, takes off from the Pontiff the mitre, takes off the formal, the pluvial, the stole and the girdle; after which he puts on the cord, the pectoral cross, the fanon, the stole, the tunic, the dalmatic, the gloves, and the white chasuble wrought with gold. The sub-deacon apostolic now bears the pallium to the throne, and one of the judges of the high court of the Signet accompanies him, bearing the pins. The cardinal deacon then puts upon the Pontiff the sacred pallium, takes the mitre and replaces it on the Pontiff. Finally, the senior cardinal priest again ascends the steps of the throne and puts on the ring which he had before taken off. And seven hundred bishops, and several thousand priests, and a couple of thousand soldiers, and some twenty thousand people, all were agreed that this was imposing, impressive, divine.

This public toilet was in preparation for what Cecconi calls "the sublime and moving rite called the Obedience"; the homage of the vassals to the ruler of the world. First the Cardinals one by one arose, slowly approached the throne, performed an obeisance, and kissed the hand of the sovereign. Then patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops, approaching in their turn, made low reverences before the steps of the throne, and, slowly drawing nigh, kissed the Pope's right knee. Abbots and generals of orders knelt before reaching the steps of the throne, rose, drew nigh, knelt again, and kissed the king's right foot. For an hour and a quarter this act of homage was continued. From the banks of the Thames and of the Seine, of the Ganges and the Hudson; from the Alps and the Andes; from historic lands of Asia, whence the light of historyhad long faded; from emerging countries in the New World, on which its first beams were beginning to strike—came forward lordly figures of men accustomed to command, and sometimes to domineer. Each, with chosen and awe-struck movement, drew near to the king of his heart and conscience, and rendered up his homage, like gold and frankincense and myrrh.

Vitelleschi, in a vein generally Roman, alluding to these "five quarters of an hour" spent in bowing, kneeling, and kissing; says, "What strength of memory is necessary for him who being humbly entitled the Servant of the Servants of God, had to keep that modest formula in mind during the whole ceremony!" But if the scene at this particular point might tax the memory of the Pope, it would surely cheer the hopes of those "august minds" that, having adapted their code to the views of confessors, were now idle spectators of the Council, while other kings were on their thrones. The ex-sovereigns of Naples, Tuscany, and Parma, looking on that display of widely-extended power, and viewing through the stained windows of a Catholic imagination the political forces represented by it, might be both excused and commiserated if they saw signs of happy days returning.

The Jesuits said, "Surely those non-Catholics who witnessed this action must have perceived that Catholicity, like unity, is found only where Christ lives, speaks, and reigns—in Peter; that is, in the Roman Church, of which Pius IX is now Peter." But we may quietly ask, Could even those writers fancy Peter, at the only Apostolic Council, seated upon a throne somewhere on Mount Zion, while John, James, and Paul came up in the presence of the assembled Church and kissed his knee, and Philip, Barnabas, and others knelt and kissed his foot? Far as the aesthetics of those Jesuits had descended, by a long materializing process, they must surely have read enough of the Holy Scriptures to feel that the scene enacted in St. Peter's, though a fine edition of a Durbar, was a sad fall from an Apostolic Council. You promise the pupils of Plato a higher wisdom than they ever knew in the Academy, and they findfor wisdom the gewgaws of Freemasons. Such a scene was bad in manners, bad in politics, and bad in religion. In manners, it tended to make men servile in a lower position and arrogant in a higher; in politics, it tended to make them either slaves or despots; in religion, it tended to make them either unbelieving or superstitious. Is it part of the penalty of Rome that barbaric forms should linger at its Court, when the spirit of Christianity has banished them from the Courts of Christian kings? Our own monarch, at the head of her two hundred and eighty millions, is too good a Christian to make her subject Rajahs, as a spectacle for her commons and her troops, come and fall down and kiss her foot. The words which commanded the followers of Christ not to exercise over one another the kind of lordship which the kings of the Gentiles exercised over them were, with pompous action, publicly trampled upon in this scene of "the obedience," and that both in the spirit and in the letter. He who complacently sat and acted out that scene in the house of God for an hour and a quarter, might better claim to represent many known in the history of ambition, than the lowly Lord of Peter.

Up to this time only sixty-seven articles of the program had been performed. Thirty more were exhausted by postures, manipulations, and devotions. The officiating cardinal-priest then came forward, bearing the reeking censer. He waved it before the enthroned priest, around whom swelled up the clouds till subject eyes looked up to him through a sacred haze, and till he looked down on his subject creatures from a sky of fragrant mist. This ceremony fulfilled, all took their seats with their mitres on, and the Pontiff, rising, delivered his allocution. It overflowed with joy and hope. It clearly pointed out the enemy to be destroyed. "A conspiracy of the wicked, mighty by combination, rich in resources, fortified with institutions, and using liberty for a cloak of maliciousness." Obviously this enemy was not a theological but a political one. Vitelleschi, who naturally heard with Italian ears, says that the language, thoughusing a cloak, was plain enough to show what enemy was meant.

As the Pontiff drew to the close of his allocution, he, with a burst of feeling, put up two invocations, one to the Holy Spirit, the other to the Blessed Virgin. After this, with contagious intensity of emotion, he threw up both hands to heaven. At a bound, the whole assembly stood up. Then he poured forth the final invocation with the fullest resonance of his wonderful tones—tones which might have served in chanting from Gerizim to Ebal. He invoked angels and archangels, Peter, Paul, and all the saints, more particularly those whose ashes were venerated on that spot. This speech from the apostolic throne, exclaims Monsignor Guérin, beginning with the liveliest joy, afterwards expressing divine agonies, concluded with firm and tranquil confidence!

Now followed another round of ceremonies, at the close of which the master of the ceremonies proclaimed, "Let those who are not members of the Council withdraw." The royal and noble spectators left the scene; the doors were closed. The Knights of Malta and the noble guard stood sentry between the faithful, who were to receive the creed as it might be shaped, and the Fathers, who were to decide for them what their creed should be. What would take place before those doors should be opened again? Persistent rumour had said that the extreme party meant to attempt an acclamation. Therefore many believed it possible that in one brief sitting the basis of infallibility might be shifted from that of an infallible Church to that of an infallible man.

Other rumours asserted that some French prelates had let it be known that if any attempt at getting up an acclamation should be made, they would leave the Council. But what might take place behind those charmed walls, who could tell? All that could be said with certainty was that now, for the first time in the history of man, one hundred and seventy millions, perhaps two hundred millions, were standing idle spectators of the process of altering their creed. They had not a single representative; not one channel of expression, not one possible resort in appeal. What used to be a general council was now a conclave; sitting behind a guard of armedmen. King and priest, councillor of state and doctor of divinity, were equally shut out. The Catholic multitude appeared indifferent. The few who were not indifferent were powerless. They had all been parties to narrowing the idea of the Church to that of the clergy. That idea was now, without the consent of any one being asked, formally narrowed from that of the clergy to that of the bishops and Court prelates. It might further be narrowed from that of the Episcopate to that of the Pope. It appears to us not very easy to call men fanatics who have done so much with mankind, when they propose and expect to do still more!

The point at which we now stand in the program of the day is the 109th Article, which is the first of several prescribing a ceremony with a substance. Bishop Fessler, Secretary of the Council, and Bishop Valenziani of Fabriano, approached the throne. The Secretary handed a document to the Pontiff. The Pope handed the document to Valenziani, who thereupon, ascending the pulpit, turned towards the throne, made a profound obeisance, took off his mitre, and read out as follows—"Pius, the Bishop-Servant of the Servants of God, with the approbation of the Holy Council." Having now pronounced the title of the decree, he again put on his mitre, seated himself, and proceeded to read the substance of the Decree. This consisted of one sentence, declaring the Council opened. In that ill-constructed hall few heard what was read; and many were wicked enough to hint that, if ill-constructed, the hall was not ill-contrived. Once more laying aside the mitre, Bishop Valenziani rose and asked, "Is the Decree now read agreed to?" The bishops were seated in their mitres, the abbots standing bareheaded. There was no formal vote. Those who understood what was said, criedPlacet, and others repeated the cry. No one dissented. This result was communicated to the sovereign, and he from the throne proclaimed—"The Decree now read is agreed to by the Fathers, none dissenting; and we decree, enact, and sanction it, as read."

These forms were exactly repeated, and a second Decree was passed. Like the first, it consisted of a single sentence, whichfixed the next public session for January 6. The two Promoters of the Council, as they were called, now advancing, first knelt on the lowest step of the throne, and then addressed the notaries, saying, "We pray you, Protonotaries here present, to draw up an authentic document, recording all and singular the acts done in this public session of the all-holy Œcumenical Vatican Council." The senior protonotary then appealing to the Majordomo and the High Chamberlain, who stood on the right hand of the throne, said, "We shall draw it up, ye being witnesses" (Frond, vii. p. 119).

The constitutional crisis had come and gone, and very few were aware of it. Those who had thought of the program as anything more than the order of a pageant, must have observed that the signification of those acts amounted to no less than putting aside the conciliar form of Decree, and adopting in its stead that of the Papal Bulls. We have already seen that Friedrich, as a Church historian, saw this at a glance. It need not be said that the ancient Councils, representing the whole Church, spoke in their own name, themselvesdecreeingandenacting. As to the only Council "over" which Pontiff Peter I "presided," it would not do to cite it as an example.[207]As late as Trent, every Decree bore upon the face of it the words, "This holy Council enacts and decrees." All the statutes of the Council of Trent, without alteration of a word, were immediately confirmed by the Pope, he having beforehand promised, in writing, to do so. The formula then used was, of course, liable to the interpretation that it indicated the superiority of the Council to the Pope. That interpretation had been actually put upon it by schools in the Church, at one time, including whole nations.

The Decrees now passed had never been before the Council for deliberation, but were handed from the throne ready made. The Pope, according to the formula, did not merely sanction, butdecreed,enacted, andsanctioned—that is, he took the part of both parliament and crown.

The Council is only mentioned as "approving" of this absorption of its own powers into those of its head. The part thus allowed to this so-called Œcumenical Council, this Senate of Humanity, in framing Decrees, is less than the part allowed to the College of Cardinals in the framing of Bulls. Take, for instance, the Bull of Convocation. It expressly says that, in issuing it, the Pope acts not only with the consent of the Cardinals, but by their counsel.

This expresses more than "with the approbation." All, therefore, that the collective episcopate did for the College of Cardinals was somewhat to curtail its relative legislative importance. Alone, both its counsel and consent were recognized. When united with all the bishops, only its consent. This looked like telling the bishops that their counsel was superfluous. In the Bull history conquered dogma. The counsel and consent of the Cardinals was the memento of the historical fact that the Bishop of Rome originally spoke with authority only when he spoke as the mouthpiece of the local clergy. In the Decree dogma conquered history. The Bishop of Rome alone was to appear as speaking with authority, and all other bishops were to appear only as approving, but neither as counselling nor confirming; as for the clergy, they were no longer of the Teaching Church. The substance of the Decrees passed was perfectly innocent. They had, moreover, the advantage of exactly copying the acts done in the first session at Trent, while destroying the forms there employed. In theActaof that Council two resolutions, declaring the Council opened, and fixing the day for the second public session, were entered as constituent acts, before the heading given to Decrees of the constituted body began to be used. The two constituent resolutions were not even headed by the name of the Council, while the name of the Pope does not occur in the heading of any of the Decrees, much less does it stand as the sole legislative authority.

At Trent it was not a private member of the Council, like Bishop Valenziani, but the first presiding legate, Cardinal De Monte, who read out the draft of a resolution, in the formof a question declaring the Council opened. To this question the Fathers "all with one consent answered,Placet." The second resolution was put in the same form. Both, as we have intimated, were entered without the heading of Decrees, and stand as the acts of a body organizing itself, but not as legislative acts of that body when organized. Every subsequent Decree is a real legislative act, and therefore bears the formal heading, "The All-Holy Council of Trent, in the Holy Ghost lawfully assembled ... ordains and decrees."[208]

The formula adopted in the Vatican Council had the advantage of determining, once for all, what that Council was to be, namely, a secret consistory of bishops, to give an approval to Papal Constitutions. Its Presidents were Cardinals, an office unknown to the Christian Church—princes simply of the Court of Rome, though most of them bear the orders of priest. Of the members of the Council a vast number, though called bishops, were really no more than mitred equerries and chamberlains. In the means it took to deprive the diocesan bishops of their inherited powers in Council, the Curia knew its men. Brought up in the sentiment that an effective "function" is the sublimest stroke of civil or ecclesiastical government, it would have been a revolt against all their instincts to disturb a pageant so unrivalled as the one in which they that day had the felicity of bearing a part. The Curia placed them in this dilemma: Either they must rise up amidst that blaze of splendour and resist the act of the sovereign at whose feet they had just bowed, or they must learn at a later stage, if they should then challenge the Rules of Procedure, that the moment for objection was past. The success of the Curia was complete. The general drew out his men for a review, and turned the Thermopylæ of the opposition without having ever seen a Spartan. Those who had come up resolved to oppose changes in their creed soon found that the one pass that mighthave been held against overwhelming odds was already in the enemy's rear. The Nine had not spent nearly ten months on the Rules of Procedure for nothing.

When this brief episode in the drama of the day had passed over, the doors were thrown open, and the spectators who had been excluded resumed their places. Many of the priests outside would feel disappointed that they had not heard the hall resound with the voices of an acclamation. That would have told that Papal infallibility was adopted without discussion. Friedrich lets it appear that he felt relieved at the opening of the doors before there had been any exulting sound, and doubtless many shared his feeling.

Rumours, persistently kept up, declared that Archbishop Manning would propose the dogma, and that the majority, breaking out into acclamation, would bear down all opposition. If such a design was ever entertained, it had been thought—some say it had been found—that it would prove wiser not to proceed so hastily. The passing of two Decrees in the form of Papal Constitutions was enough to carry "the forms of the house," while the issuing of the Rules of Procedure as a Bull, before the Council was opened, had taken away every pretext for alleging that they were open to revision by the Council itself, as being its own acts.

Archbishop Manning, on his return to England, in a pastoral, treated the rumour of an intended acclamation as if it was only laughable. A reason which he assigns for this is that Rome had had enough of acclamations, seeing that many who acclaimed infallibility in 1867 had openly turned against it. The rumours, however, were too consistent, and too well supported by the hints of theCiviltáand by the plain words of Monsignor Plantier and others, to be prudently dismissed with a smile—at least, anywhere but in England. They were not what Dr. Manning represents them, rumours of an acclamation without a definition, but of a definition carried by acclamation, as in the case of the Immaculate Conception. On the other hand, Archbishop Manning's thrust at those who had in 1867 signed language that might seem to mean everythingincluded in infallibility, without themselves intending to express that doctrine, is natural in one who had not wholly unlearned the Protestant worth of words. Nevertheless, of all grounds on which the prefects of the Pope should begin to trip one another up, the ground to be selected by preference is scarcely that of finesse in the interpretations they put on what they say. As to the part assigned to Dr. Manning personally, it is possible that the rumour represented no more than the fact that both they who hoped for an acclamation, and they who feared it, mentioned the name which occurred to them as that of the most likely instrument of such a procedure, and both happened to pronounce the same name. As if to justify this instinctive selection of both parties, Dr. Manning, on his return home, said that if the Council "had defined the infallibility at its outset, it would not have been an hour too soon; and perhaps it would have averted many a scandal we now deplore."[209]

A Roman noble thus notes the zeal of Dr. Manning—

No one is so devoted as a convert. Having himself erred for half his lifetime did not restrain him from becoming the most ardent champion of infallibility. This circumstance raised a presumption of a deficiency, on his part, in that traditional ecclesiastical spirit which is never fully acquired but by being early grounded and by long continued usage—a presumption which was justified by his excessive and intemperate restlessness. This seemed a cause sufficient to lessen his authority with the Conservative portion of the ecclesiastical world, which judges with more calmness and serenity.[210]—(Vitelleschi, p. 35.)

The real work of the day was now done. It was time to sing theTe Deum. The Pontiff sounded the first note, and was followed by the Fathers of the Council, by the choir, by the thousands outside in the Basilica. The strain was caught up in nave and aisles, in every chapel and every gallery; it mounted aloft into vaults and dome, till all who were beneath the gorgeous roof thrilled under that returning swellof exulting sound; and many felt as if the world was falling, overwhelmed with harmony, at the feet of Pio Nono.

The eighteen articles of the program still remaining contained little beyond unrobing, re-robing, and dissolving.

The people had been for seven hours in the Cathedral. It still rained in torrents. The clerical organs said the providential rain had prevented mobs in different places from making hostile demonstrations. During the time spent in the Cathedral, the people had not heard—except so far as some of them could make out the Latin—a sentence of the Word of God or of the words of man. The seven hours of the twenty thousand had been spent in an intermitting gaze. All went away, not only praising the pageant of the day, but extolling it. Friedrich quotes a diplomatist who said it was "superb." The correspondent of theTimessaid: "It has been my fortune to see many pageants in Rome, but none of them equalled, in majestic solemnity, the scene presented by the procession of bishops from all countries in the world."[211]Monsignor Guérin cried: "It offered the most majestic and enchanting spectacle which it was ever given to mortals to behold here below." M. Veuillot said that bishops were there from the rising to the setting of the sun—men who would invade regions as yet closed against them—the light-bearers and the God-bearers.[212]These old men, he added, would overthrow darkness and death, and the day would break (vol. i. p. 12). Vitelleschi remarked that there was indeed a bishop from Chaldea and one from Chicago, but the former did not represent a Catholic Chaldea, nor the latter a Catholic Chicago. Even, he added, in countries called Catholic, what proportion of the population are really of their flocks? He might have further added, And if their teaching is true, what proportion of their flocks are really Catholics?—for they teach that a doubt on any single article of faith propounded by their Church, or a doubt on one of her interpretations of a text of Scripture, taints one with heresy. How many Italianswere, on the day of the opening of the Council, free from that taint?

We are reminded of an Englishman whose name, when he was only thirty years of age, gained for him distinguished attention at the Vatican. His Protestantism was much influenced by his early study of the corruptions of Christianity at the centre of them. Had John Milton witnessed that pageant we know exactly what he would have said. First he would have shown that when the filial spirit of Christianity had been lost, the servile spirit of Paganism supervened. When men ceased to come to God as children to a father, they sought circuitous access through upper servants. Then followed what he describes in a sentence with a strong flavour of the Phædrus—

They began to draw down all the divine intercourse betwixt God and the soul, yea, the very shape of God Himself, into an exterior and bodily form, urgently pretending a necessity and obligement of joining the body in a formal reverence, and worship circumscribed; they hallowed it, they fumed it, they sprinkled it, they bedecked it, not in robes of pure innocency, but of pure linen, with other deformed and fantastic dresses, in palls and mitres, gold and gewgaws fetched from Aaron's old wardrobe, or the flamin's vestry: then was the priest set to con his motions and his postures, his liturgies and his lurries, till the soul, by this means of over-bodying herself, given up justly to fleshly delights, bated her wing apace downward: and finding the ease she had from her visible and sensuous colleague the body, in performance of religious duties, her pinions now broken and flagging, shifted off from herself the labour of high soaring any more, forgot her heavenly flight, and left the dull and droiling carcase to plod on in the old road, and drudging trade of outward conformity.... They knew not how to hide their slavish approach to God's behests, by them not understood, nor worthily received, but by cloaking their servile crouching to all religious presentments, sometimes lawful, sometimes idolatrous, under the name of humility, and terming the piebald frippery and ostentation of ceremonies, decency.—Of Reformation in England, first book.

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