more disappointing end to the high hopes and excited anticipations with which the adversaries of the Catholic Church cheered on the opposition at the opening of the year, cannot be conceived. They little knew the men whom they were mortifying and dishonouring by their applause. They forgot that Bishops are not deputies, and that an Œcumenical Council is not a Parliament. And when, of the eighty-eight who on the thirteenth of July voted Non placet, two only repeated their Non placet on the eighteenth, proving thereby that what two could do eighty might have done, the World was silent, and has steadfastly excluded the Constitution De Romano Pontifice from the columns of its newspapers.
Here is the simple and self-evident reason of this pretended loss of interest in the Council. It is the affected indifference of those who, having staked their reputation on the issue of a contest, have been thoroughly and hopelessly disappointed.
Before I conclude this part of the subject, I will give one passage as a supreme example of what I have been describing. I take it from the chief newspaper in England. It is from an article evidently written by a cultivated and practised hand. It appeared when the definition was seen to be certain and near. It was intended to ruin its effects beforehand. The writer could not narrate what had taken place, because it was before the event; nor what would really take place, because nothing was known: but what he thought would excite contempt, that he pleased to say would take place. Nevertheless, he spoke as if the events were certain, and already so
