The second Letter of the famous Oratorian and member of the French Academy, Father Gratry, has just come here, and has produced a great impression. It treats of the gross forgeries by which the way for the introduction of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility has been gradually prepared, first in the ninth and then in the thirteenth century; and dwells especially on the fact that the theologians—above all Thomas Aquinas, who rules in the schools, and his many disciples and followers—were deceived by these fabrications, and that even the Popes themselves were misled by them. Gratry’s exposition is clear and convincing; but he goes beyond the middle ages. He shows how dishonestly the Breviary was tampered with at Rome at the end of the sixteenth century, and how, up to the present time the Jesuits, Perrone and Wenninger,—the latter in a truly amazing fashion—have followed the practice of citing fabulous or corrupted testimonies. One grand result of the Council its authors have not foreseen or reckoned upon, which, however, has already attained alarming dimensions; I mean the scandal it has given. They seem to have really believed with a childish _naïveté_ that the Council could be hermetically sealed up, like birds under a glass bell, and its members shut up apart,—that 3000 persons could be reduced to silence by a Papal edict about matters they feel there is the strongest necessity for speaking of. Such a notion could only grow up in the heads of Roman clerics, who are wont to look at the world beyond their own narrow sphere only through crevices of the open door, or through the key-hole. Only too much has become known. The Jesuits, the _Civiltà_, the _Univers_, the _Monde, et id genus omne_, have done their best to reveal the sharp contrast of opposite parties, and the world of to-day, sceptically disposed as it is and little inclined to cover the shame and nakedness by turning away its face, is present at a double spectacle: it witnesses the system of force and intrigue by which a Council is managed, and it watches with keen observation the process of manipulating a new dogma. Men say now, what Cardinal Bessarion said before, according to an anecdote current here, that the way Saints were canonized in his own time made him very suspicious about the older Saints and Canonizations. In the same way the Protestant and Catholic laity, who are here in such numbers at present, say, “We know and see now how matters are managed in the Church when a new dogma is to be made; what artifices, and deceptions, and methods of intimidation are employed to gain votes. Must it not have been the same at former Councils?” I have heard even Bishops here say that such thoughts pressed upon them, and were severe temptations against faith. And if these things are done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? Is it different with you in Germany? TWENTIETH LETTER.