was signed by seventeen, including all the chief Bishops of Germany. The others, if silent, cannot be doubted. The leading Bishops of Austria and Hungary, who may be taken as representing the Episcopates of these countries, have in like manner declared themselves. The Clergy and the faithful of these kingdoms, with the rarest exceptions of an individual here and there, are, as they have always been, of one mind in accepting the definition with joy. Ireland has spoken for itself, not only in many dioceses, and by its Bishops, but by the Triduum, or Thanksgiving of three days, held in Dublin with great solemnity and with a concourse, as I am informed by direct correspondence, such as was never seen before. Of England I need say little. The Clergy of this diocese have twice spoken for themselves; and the Clergy of England and Scotland have given unequivocal witness to their faith. As we hear so much and so often of those among us who are called 'the old Catholics,' that is, the sons of our martyrs and confessors; and as their name is so lightly and officiously taken in vain by those who desire to find or to make divisions among us, you. will not need, but will nevertheless be glad, to know, that both by word and by letter I have received from the chief and foremost among them, express assurance that what the Council has defined they have always believed. It is but their old faith in an explicit formula. Among the disappointments to which our adversaries, I regret so to call them, but truth must be spoken, have doomed themselves, none is greater than this. They have laboured to believe and to make others believe that the Catholic Church is
