and the exhibitors taking the old properties back to the vast magazines of Rome, we cannot help thinking of the poor fathers put off with glare and noise in place of conviction or peace of mind. Think of poor MacHale exhausting in vain his logic, his learning, and his powerful style, and taking back to his poor flock on the Atlantic shore a strange story of Chinese lanterns, fiery bouquets, showers of gold, and transparencies more striking even than the illustrations of our prophetic almanacks.'
When it is borne in mind that the definition of the Infallibility of the Head of the Christian Church is a subject of deep religious faith to the most cultivated nations of the world, and that a fifth part of the population of our three kingdoms was profoundly interested in the subject, I shall not refrain from saying that this article from the leading newspaper of England has as little decency as truth.
I will now endeavour briefly to sketch the outline of the Council as viewed from within. As I was enabled to attend, with the exception of about three or four days, every Session of the Council, eighty-nine in number, from the opening to the close, I can give testimony, not upon hearsay, but as a personal witness of what I narrate.
Cardinal Pallavicini, after relating the contests and jealousies of the Orators of Catholic States assembled in the Council of Trent, goes on to say that to convoke a General Council, except when absolutely demanded by necessity, is to tempt God.[1] I well
- ↑ Hist. Conc. Trid. lib. xvi. c. 10, tom. ii. p. 800, Antwerp, 1670.
