apprehension and conscientious conviction. If the comments handed in last week on the _Schema de Ecclesiâ_, and the protests against any hurrying of the discussion on it, were known to the world, the Catholic Episcopate and the strong reflux current here would appear in a very different light from what might be gathered from the previous course of things. Not a few of these opinions drawn up by the Bishops breathe a truly apostolic spirit, and deal with the Roman proposals in the tone of genuine theology. An influential theologian of a Religious Order has pronounced of one of them, that it exceeds in force and weight the treatise which appeared in Germany last year, _Reform of the Church in Her Head and Her Members_.(69) It has been urged by English prelates that it concerns their honour to resist the promulgation of a dogma, the explicit repudiation of which by the Irish Bishops was an efficacious condition of Catholic Emancipation. The American Protest contains a more threatening warning than the German, and the German is stronger than the French. After these declarations the attitude of the minority was clearly defined, and invincible by any foe from without. Their contention is, that no right exists in the Church to sanction a dogma against the will and belief of an important portion of the Episcopate, and that only by abandoning any claim to such a right can the Council be regarded as really Œcumenical. To be quite consistent, the minority ought to take no further part in the Council till this point, on the decision of which they rightly hold its authority to depend, is settled; for their protest implied the doubt whether they were taking part in a true or only a seeming Council, whether they were acting in union with the Holy Ghost or co-operating to carry out a gigantic and sacrilegious deception. Yet the words expressly stating this doubt, and making the distinct withdrawal of the theory of voting dogmas by majorities a condition of any further participation in the proceedings, were not adopted into any of the Protests. This implied that the signataries would appear in the next General Congregation, that they refrained from a suspicious attitude, and were unwilling to interpret the ambiguous order of business _in malam partem_, until facts compelled them to do so. A conflict which might have such incalculable results was to be avoided, till necessity made it a positive duty; and that was not the case as long as a favourable interpretation of the _regolamento_ continued possible.