There are many indications that the wishes of the clique of zealots, who wanted to get the infallible Pope made out of hand on St. Joseph’s day, will not be realized, but that a longer interval will have to be allowed. The _Schema_ “on Faith” prepared by the Commission, viz., by the above-named Bishop Pie, and containing the philosophical and theological matter for the Council, was to have been distributed last week, and even Bishops of the minority had received professedly confidential notice of it; but no such distribution took place. So the Session of this week too will fall through, and it is not easy to see how this first fruit of the Council can well be imparted to the expectant world before Easter. And here I constantly come across the view that the postponement of the discussion on the grand _Schema de Ecclesiâ_, with the article on infallibility, is done with a purpose. The Opposition is still too strong and compact; it is hoped that some members will be detached from it every week, and that several will leave Rome; some Austrians are gone already. Everything depends on making the Opposition so small and weak, that they may be walked over, and may seem only to exist as a captive band of German Barbarians to grace the triumphal procession of the Latins, and then to be surrendered to those “exécuteurs des hautes œuvres de la justice de Rome,” MM. Veuillot and Maguelonne, the editors of the _Univers_ and the _Correspondance de Rome_.(65) This delay is of course a severe trial of patience for the majority who are hungering after the new bread of faith. I will not conceal that even among the highest Roman dignitaries the infallibilist dogma provokes expressions of discontent. Are they honestly and sincerely meant? The voting will show. The _mot d’ordre_ has gone forth to correspondents of foreign journals, to say that the whole Opposition is thoroughly broken up, and that some are deserting and the rest running away. But as yet these are wishes rather than facts. As far as I can see, the French and German Bishops, who wish to maintain the ancient doctrine of the Church and reject the new dogma, hold firmly together. Some Bishops said, directly after the publication of the supplementary _Schema_ on infallibility, that their only choice lay between a schism or a false doctrine; nothing else was left them except to resign their Sees. And your readers would be astonished if I could venture to mention their names—names of the highest repute.