THE year 1870 will be for ever memorable in the annals of Roman Catholicism, as the fatal date which inaugurated the decline and fall of the spiritual empire of the Vatican. The insane party which has taken upon itself the direction of the Vatican Councils, may boast of having done more to ruin the Roman Church than her bitterest adversaries have ever accomplished. Let us take a rapid survey of what has passed at Rome since the opening and first constitution of the Council which we have more fully characterized in a previous article. We there described the components of the assembly, and pointed out the attitude and proportionate numbers of the two great parties into which it is divided. We showed the evils resulting from the primary decree which limited the right of initiation, confining it entirely to a commission nominated exclusively by the Pope. All free or enlightened concert was thus arrested respecting the great dogmatical and ecclesiastical commisNEW SERIES.-VOL. XII., No. 3..

sions. This regulation excited the strongest opposition; we have seen how it was met, and with what infatuation things were pushed to the extreme by the Ultramontanist leaders, who found in the Pope a ready tool. If unity of design is a great merit, the Vatican Council may be termed a rare master-piece, for it revolves round one single idea-to exalt the Papacy, and to sacrifice to it every right and every vestige of liberty that remains in the Church; in a word, to carry religious centralization to the highest point, and to constitute Rome the head, the centre, the focus of ecclesiastical life. This design was evident in every question that has arisen ; but it is above all conspicuous in that of "Infallibility," which would complete it at one blow, without the slightest restriction. We will endeavor to trace its development through the intrigues and passions of the one party, and the noble but powerless resistance of the other.

An important manifesto from the French

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