One might think that a man who is so unclear about the logic of history and the principles of morals belongs to the majority. However the impression produced by Ketteler’s speech was favourable to the minority, and all who have watched his attitude before the last four months, especially at Fulda, must have recognised the decided advance in the line taken by the Opposition. Many think the conversion is complete, and the great wound of the Opposition—its containing members ready sooner or later to turn renegades—finally closed. The Bishop of Mayence was at first believed to be the author of the pamphlet he has distributed, but it was not composed under his eye or under his influence, nor even at his suggestion, and bears no trace of his mind. The general line is Maret’s, but his leading idea, that in case of a conflict a Council is superior to a Pope, does not occur in it. Ketteler must have acquired a great deal of Roman experience and non-Roman development before he would denounce a papal decree to his country and his diocese as uncatholic. But the advance which he, like others, and more than many others, has already made, is unquestionably a gain, and gives a peculiar force to his words. But it has damaged and discredited the minority that so many Bishops are more careful about the position and influence of the Church than about the purity of doctrine. I must return once more to Manning’s speech of May 25, as it was very interesting and important. He asserted roundly that infallibility was already really a doctrine of the Church, which could not be denied without sin (_sine publico peccato mortali_) or proximate heresy (_proximâ hæresi_), and therefore they did not want to make a new dogma but simply to proclaim an existing one. In these bold but highly significant words Manning pointed to what many better men choose to be blind to. He no longer acknowledges the opponents of the doctrine as brothers in faith, as members of one and the same Church, since they do not satisfy his conditions of orthodoxy; his faith and theirs are not the same. He has been the first to proclaim this great truth in Council, and it is time for the minority to ask themselves, whether unity still really survives in the sense hitherto maintained against Protestants, whether the foe is really still outside and has not penetrated into the inmost sanctuary of the Church, for the temple must be cleansed before the nations are converted. The minority can no longer live in peace with Manning and his like, or imagine that the contest does not threaten the very existence of the Church. Manning has indeed said that he does not think the decree strong enough. The Spaniards agree with him, and an open difference on this point has arisen in the Deputation. The great majority would be glad to find a formula less offensive to the Opposition, but Manning has the Pope on his side, and gets him worked upon by certain sacristan-like natures, like the