mitted by our Lord Jesus Christ full power to feed, to rule, and to govern the universal Church."
'But there are other things beside which excite our love and gratitude towards you. We admire and rejoice over the heroic courage with which you have opposed this world's pernicious stratagems; and your efforts to keep the Lord's flock in the way of salvation, to guard it against the seductions of error, and defend it against the force of the powerful and the subtlety of the falsely wise. We admire that zeal which knows no weariness; with which, embracing in your apostolic care the peoples of the East and West, you have never ceased to provide for the good of the universal Church. We admire the noble spectacle of the good Shepherd which you afford to the race of mankind, that is plunging deeper into evil day by day; one which strikes the minds of the very enemies of the truth, and arrests even unwilling eyes by its intrinsic excellence and dignity.'
By these words the bishops did not confirm the acts of the Pontiff as if they needed confirmation, nor accept his declarations of truth and condemnations of error as if they needed their acceptance. They did not intend or imply that the supreme Pontifical acts since 1862, in the form of Allocutions, Briefs, Encyclicals, and the Syllabus, were of imperfect and only inchoate authority until their acceptance should confirm them. Nothing was further from the thoughts of the pastors of the Church. They recognised the voice of Peter in the voice of Pius, and the
C
