soon and how readily difficulties have been made up since the definition of the Infallibility of the Pope in his teaching office! The chief country of these difficulties was Germany, and what has been the spectacle presented to our view since the definition of In fallibility, and the publication of Bishop Fessler's pamphlet upon its true meaning? Those Bishops who doubted the opportuneness of the definition, or who in other ways hesitated to receive it, and who, for conscience' sake, absented themselves from the final and decisive session,[1] have since become the chief confessors and witnessess of the doctrine, before a cruel and persecuting government! Nor has any word of reproach against the Council or the Holy See escaped them in their many trials. Never has an Episcopate been more unanimous, or more patiently endured persecution for the faith. On the other side, viz. of those who have denied the authority of the living Church, speaking in her last and most numerous assembly, what is the spectacle which is presented to us by Dr. Schulte and his friends at the present moment? Not content with assailing the Vatican Council and Pope Pius IX., they assail all Councils, all sayings and doings of Popes since the first eight centuries, differing therein in nothing but name from other Protestant and heretical sects, whose principle is really identical with their own. Both the one and the other have their reward: the one, the Archbishop of Cologne, is earning a martyr's
- ↑ See the account given by Bishop Fessler of their conduct, in the first chapter of his work.
