mission to Eugenio Cecconi, then canon of the Metropolitan Church of Florence, and now archbishop of the same see, to write the history of the Vatican Council. All authentic documents relating to it were put into his hands. The first volume, entitled Storia del Concilio Ecumenico Vaticano scritta sui Documenti Originali, has been published. It extends over the period from the first conception of convoking an Ecumenical Synod to the close of the preparations for its work. I propose to give a condensed account of this first period, following closely the text of the Archbishop of Florence, and of the documents printed in the appendix to his work. I cannot omit to commend this volume to all who appreciate the purity of the lingua Toscana, of which it is a rare example. Its simplicity and transparent purity belong to the classical period of the Italian language.

It was on the 6th of December 1864, that Pius the Ninth for the first time manifested his thoughts on the convoking of an Ecumenical Council. He was presiding in the Vatican Palace over a session of the Congregation of Rites, consisting of cardinals and officials. After the usual prayer by which all such sessions are opened, the officials were bid to go out. For some time the Pope and the cardinals remained alone. The officials were then re-admitted, and the

business of the congregation was despatched. This unusual event caused both surprise and curiosity.

Pius the Ninth, in that short interval, had made known to the cardinals that for a long time the thought of convoking an Ecumenical Council as an extraordinary remedy to the extraordinary needs of the Christian world had been before his mind. He bade the cardinals to weigh the matter each one by himself, and to communicate to him in writing, and separately, what before God they judged to be right. But he imposed rigorous silence upon them all.

This was the first conception of the Vatican Council. The duty of weighing and delivering a written and separate opinion on the subject of convoking an Ecumenical Council was thus imposed on all cardinals then in Rome.

In the course of two months fifteen written opinions were delivered in. Others soon followed, until the number reached twenty-one.

The Archbishop of Florence, after a careful study of all these documents, has analysed and distributed the matter of them into the following heads. They treat of

1. The present state of the world.

2. The question whether the state of the world requires the supreme remedy of an Ecumenical Council

3. The difficulties of holding an Ecumenical Council, and how to overcome them.

4. The subjects which ought to be treated by such a Council.

(1.) In describing the present state of the world no reference was made by the Cardinals to its material progress in science, arts, or wealth, but to subjects strictly in relation to the eternal end of our existence. Under this aspect it is affirmed in these answers that the special character of this age is the tendency of a dominant party of men to destroy all the ancient Christian institutions, the life of which consists in a supernatural principle, and to erect upon their ruins and with their remains a new order, founded on natural reason alone. This tendency springs from two errors-the one that society, as such, has no duties towards God, religion being an affair of the individual conscience only; the other that the human reason is sufficient to itself, and that a supernatural order, by which man is elevated to a higher knowledge and destiny, either does not exist, or is at least beyond the cognisance and care of civil society. From these principles follows, by direct consequence, the exclusion of the Church and of revelation from the sphere of civil society and of science; and, further, out of this withdrawal of civil society and of science from the authority of revelation spring the Naturalism, Rationalism,

Pantheism, Socialism, Communism of these times. From these speculative errors flows in practice the modern revolutionary Liberalism, which consists in the assertion of the supremacy of the State over the spiritual jurisdiction of the Church, over education, marriage, consecrated property, and the temporal power of the head of the Church. This Liberalism, again, results in the indifferentism which equalises all religions, and gives equal rights to truth and error. The Consultors also treat of freemasonry, which substitutes for the Church of God a Universal Church of Humanity.

They then go on to speak of the infiltration of rationalistic principles into the philosophy of certain Catholic schools, and of their attitude of opposition to the divine authority of the Church. From this they pass to the internal state of the Church; to its discipline, which, since the Council of Trent, has become in many things inapplicable to the changed conditions of the world. Finally, they treat of the education of the clergy, the discipline of the monastic orders, and the disregard of the ecclesiastical laws by the laity in many countries.

(2.) For these and the like reasons almost all the cardinals were of opinion that the remedy of an Ecumenical Council was necessary-that is, to use the language of the schools, by a relative, not an

absolute necessity. They say that though Luther was condemned by the pontiffs, the Council of Trent was thought to be necessary to give greater weight and solemnity to the condemnation. So also, though Pius the Ninth had condemned a long series of errors, it was expedient that the condemnation should be reported and published with the united voice of the whole episcopate joined to its head. They expressed the hope that if the whole Catholic episcopate in Council assembled should point out to the peoples and sovereigns of the Christian world the true relations of the natural and supernatural orders, the rights and the duties of the governors and the governed, it might serve to guide them in the confusion and obscurity which reign over the political order in this age of revolutions.

Only two cardinals out of twenty-one thought an Ecumenical Council not to be required—the one being of opinion that Councils are to be called only when some grave peril to the faith exists; the other that the subjects to be treated were of too delicate a nature, and that the external helps needed for the celebration of a Council did not now exist.

One also declined to give an opinion, referring himself to the judgment of the Supreme Pontiff.

Four, who thought a Council to be the remedy required by the evils of these times, nevertheless