Tyrol never exhibited at any time such a demonstration of the world-wide organisation and central authority of the Church as these last three weeks in Rome. Trent is not the tomb of the Apostle. Legates presided there: here was the Vicar of our Lord in person. At the Council of Trent, hardly a hundred bishops were present: on the Centenary of S. Peter's Martyrdom, five hundred bishops of the Church surrounded the throne of his successor. But it may be said that the Centenary was but a pageant: the Council of Trent is a power, which for three hundred years has governed the Church. This is most true: nor can three days be compared with three hundred years; nor a Canonisation and a few Allocutions be weighed against eighteen years of supreme authority in defining the faith and legislating for the Church. Let us compare, therefore, this great Pontifical act only with the visible manifestations of Trent; and it will be within the bounds of moderation to say that neither the opening nor the closing of that Council so drew to itself the eyes of the whole world, nor so reflected the unity and universality of the Church, as this Centenary.
But if it would be unreasonable to compare these few days of festival in Rome with eighteen years of legislation in Trent, it would be equally unreasonable, and most superficial, to estimate the moral significance of this Centenary by the ceremonies and solemnities of those three weeks. This event may be taken, I believe, to be the opening of
