It is hard for the Bishops, even after a five months’ experience, to comprehend the rôle assigned them, and to understand that they have only been summoned to receive commands, to obey, and to do service. It is a saying current among the Monsignori that the Bishops are nothing but servants of the Pope. “Just consider the monstrosity,” said one of the youngest but most actively employed of the Cardinals to a French priest, when the famous letter of censure addressed by the Pope to the Archbishop of Paris appeared in the newspapers, “this Archbishop dares to speak of rights which belong to him! What would you say if one of your lackeys were to talk of his rights, when you gave him your orders?” FORTY-SEVENTH LETTER. _Rome, May 16, 1870._—The Bishops of the minority want to bind themselves by subscribing an agreement to vote for no formula which contains the personal infallibility of the Pope. A calculation emanating from them has been shown me, according to which the strength of the Opposition is undiminished, or rather increased. It enumerates 43 Germans and Hungarians, 40 North Americans, 29 French, 4 Portuguese, and 10 Italians. The number of Bishops from the United States who are considered to be trustworthy is especially worthy of notice. They have been greatly influenced by the recent publications of the Bishops, and particularly by the excellent work of Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis. When they first came to Rome they were nearly all inclined to the new dogma, but here their eyes have been gradually opened. The insolent and despotic treatment of the Bishops, the spectacle of adulation exhibited by persons who call themselves successors of the Apostles, and the lamentable sophistry employed in torturing historical facts—as _e.g._ the case of Honorius—all this has gradually filled these Republicans with disgust and aversion, and driven them to the opposite side. But clearly what has chiefly influenced them has been the conviction produced by the controversy that, if they take home with them the new dogma of the Pope’s political supremacy over all States, they will be exposed to the contempt and hatred of all educated America. And as many of them are Irishmen by birth, they have been reminded that, as Alexander VI. gave the American peoples to Spain, so Adrian IV. gave Ireland to the King of England and thereby brought misery on the emerald isle.