Of course the opposite party, who wish to stave it off, is strong and numerous. To it belong the majority of the German and Austrian, as well as the Bohemian and Hungarian Prelates, and among the French, the Archbishops of Paris, Rheims, and Avignon, the Bishops of Marseilles, Grenoble, Orleans, Chalons, and many more. And on the point of the time being inopportune for defining the Infallibilist dogma, a portion of the “old Papal guard,”—viz., the Italian Bishops—will join them, not to speak of American and Irish Prelates. But—and in this lies their weakness—they are only held together by a very loose bond. The one point they are agreed upon is that the promulgation of the new dogma will cause great embarrassments to the Church and to themselves personally, and involve them in all sorts of conflicts. On the main question, whether this substitution of an infallible man for an infallible Church is true, and attested by Scripture and Tradition, they are themselves divided. If the confidants of the _Curia_ understand how to insert the wedge into this split, and drive it home, they may perhaps contrive to break up the whole Opposition, and carry through, by an imposing and apparently almost unanimous vote, this Alpha and Omega of ultramontanism, in which all their wishes and hopes are concentrated. Meanwhile no stone will be left unturned, and very various methods will be applied, and arguments used, in working upon different Bishops. The earnest desire of the Holy Father will be urged on some soft-hearted Prelates; they will be told that the only way the Council can rejoice his heart amid his bitter trials, and brighten the evening of his life, is by freely offering him that crown of personal infallibility which former Popes have striven for, but never obtained. To others it will be intimated that the Council itself must look like a play with the chief figure left out, or an abortion, if the Syllabus and Infallibility are not made into dogmas, for there is no other question important enough to justify collecting 500 Bishops from five quarters of the world. Those who agree with the doctrine, but shrink for the present from the unpleasant consequences it might entail upon them, will be told, “Now, or perhaps never.” With freedom of the press established everywhere, it will be impossible much longer to keep the poison of historical criticism, so especially rife in Germany, out of the theological schools and seminaries, and so perhaps the next generation of clergy will not believe so absolutely in Papal Infallibility as the clergy in many countries do now, and then the new dogma will come at an unseasonable time, and encounter powerful opposition. Besides, it is best to lose no time in putting the iron bar of the new dogma across the way, for then all historical facts that witness against Infallibility, all results of criticism and investigation, all appeals to the forgeries and fictions which helped to