remember, at the time of the centenary of St. Peter's Martyrdom, when the Holy Father first announced his intention to convene the General Council, one of the oldest and most experienced of foreign diplomatists expressed to me his great alarm. He predicted exactly what came to pass in the beginning of the Council. His diplomatic foresight fully appreciated the political dangers. They were certainly obvious and grave; for no one perhaps, at that time, could anticipate the majestic unity and firmness of the Council, which exceeded all hopes, and has effectually dispelled all fears.
For three hundred years, the Church dispersed throughout the world has been in contact with the corrupt civilisation of old Catholic countries, and with the anti-Catholic civilisation of countries in open schism. The intellectual traditions of nearly all nations have been departing steadily from the unity of the Faith and of the Church. In most countries, public opinion has become formally hostile to the Catholic religion. The minds of Catholics have been much affected by the atmosphere in which they live. It was to be feared and to be expected that the Bishops of all the world, differing so widely in race, political institutions, and intellectual habits, might have imported into the Council elements of divergence, if not of irreconcilable division. Some had indeed met before, at the Canonizations of 1862 or 1867: but for the most part the Bishops met for the first time. The Pastors of some thirty nations were there, bringing together every variety of mental and social culture and experience: but in the midst of this variety there
