not expel it from the Holy Land. Now, it could not maintain itself an hour, if the jealousies of Christians did not secure its dominion over the Christian inheritance. The time of its fall, or of its migration, cannot be far off. But as it is now, there might be no bar to the return of the East to the unity of Jesus Christ. It is but just to acknowledge that the Porte has manifested of late to its Christian subjects a singular toleration and equity. What the Council of Florence failed to do, another Council, by the help of the Spirit of God, may accomplish. There is a bond between the East and the Holy See which has never been broken; the love and worship of the Immaculate Mother of God; and by this bond, Pius IX. has drawn more closely than any other Pontiff the Churches of the East to the See of Peter. The definition of the Immaculate Conception has been recognised by Orientals to be no more than their constant and universal belief. The indiction of the Council, in whatsoever year it be, will be fixed for the 8th of December, a day of augury and power. The patriarchs and bishops of the East who surrounded Pius IX. the other day, brought to my mind the first-fruits of the nations who came up to Bethlehem. There were some who had travelled forty days—one who had travelled longer still—before he could reach an ordinary road. When I saw them surround the Vicar of our Lord and kiss his feet, almost by force, I prayed God that the day might be hastened when the sun shall arise upon Asia restored to the unity of the only fold.
