Page:The True Story of the Vatican Council.djvu/107

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The True Story of the Vatican Council.
95

sion. This was on the 8th of April. On the same day the second chapter as amended was passed. The third and fourth were passed on the 12th of April the one unanimously, the other all but unanimously. The whole was then put to the vote. There was no Non placet, but there were eighty-three Placet juxta modum. All these amendments were then sent in as before and printed in a quarto volume of fifty-one pages. On the 19th of April the report was made, and the amended text was unanimously accepted. In passing this one schema the interval between the 14th of March and the 19th of April was consumed; seventy-nine members of the Council spoke; three hundred and sixty-four amendments were made, examined, and voted upon; six reports were made by the commission upon the text, which, after its first recasting, had been six times amended.

The decree was finally adopted unanimously by six hundred and sixty-seven votes in the third Public Session, on the Dominica in Albis or Low Sunday, April 24, and confirmed by the Pope, who spoke as follows: "The decrees and canons contained in the Constitution just read were accepted by all the fathers, no one dissenting; and we, the Sacred Council, approving, by our apostolical authority so define and confirm them." He then went on to address the Council: "You see, beloved brethren, how good and