know the decrees of the Vatican Council; and to know them is to obey. The Council will ask no civil enforcement, and it will need no civil aid. The Great Powers of Europe have long declared that the conscience of men is free from civil constraint. They will not stultify their own declarations by attempting to restrain the acts of the Vatican Council. The guardians and defenders of the principles of 1789 ought to rise as one man against all who should so violate the base of the political society in France. What attitude lesser Governments may take is of lesser moment.
May He in whose hands are the destinies of kingdoms and of nations guide the rulers of Christendom by a spirit of wisdom and justice at this crisis of their trial. This Council will assuredly be 'in ruinam et in resurrectionem multorum.' If Christian nations be desolated, then will come the alternatives of anti-Christian socialism, or the Catholic order of the world, purified in the fire and reunited to the centre of stability and justice, from which it is now departing. Those who desire such a future are busy in scattering fears, mistrusts, and falsehoods as to the acts of the Council, and even of the intentions of the Sovereign Pontiff. These ignoble tactics have been rebuked with a calm and dignified severity by the bishops of Germany, whose words I had rather use than my own: 'Never will the Œcumenical Council declare a new doctrine which is not contained in the Scriptures, or the Apostolic traditions. When the Church makes a decree in matter of faith, it does not proclaim a new dogma; it only sets in a clearer light an ancient and
