Already many symptoms of uneasiness betray themselves. Pius IX. said the other day to a German Prince of the Church, who formerly gave his opinion against the Immaculate Conception, and has now again pronounced openly against the Infallibilist dogma, _Ce dogme de l’infaillibilité passera, comme l’autre, malgré vous_. On the other hand, the _Regolamento_ has excited great discontent, for it unmistakeably indicates the design of giving the Pope the decision, and making the Bishops only consultors. Had the assembly been in some degree prepared for it, and had time allowed them for coming to an understanding, there would certainly have been opposition to it. But the heads of the French episcopate have only just come together, and no attempt even has been made to bring the German and French Bishops into communication with each other. And a feature of Roman policy about the Council, now first introduced, is not exactly calculated to promote confidence and a happy expectation of the prosperous results of the Synod. I mean the rigid secrecy. According to the last directions, all, bishops and theologians, are to maintain the strictest secrecy about everything, and the preliminary labours, as is well known, had to be carried on under the seal of secrecy of the Holy Office (the Inquisition). Nothing was communicated to the Bishops themselves, who came to Rome in complete ignorance of what they were to vote about—a procedure without any precedent in Church history. It really seems sometimes as if the object was to turn the Church topsy-turvy, and take pleasure in doing exactly the contrary to what the Church of earlier ages did when nearer her original foundation. Formerly the idea of a Council was associated with the notion of the fullest publicity, and the common participation of all the faithful; the deliberations were conducted with open doors, and all were admitted who wished to hear them,—for from the beginning all secrecy was strange and unnatural to the Church, which was distinguished from heathenism in the very point of neither having nor tolerating any esoteric doctrine or secret compact. But the Roman _prelatura_ too shares the Italian predilection for making mysteries,—as evidenced in the number of secret societies in the Peninsula,—and then the Jesuits of the _Civiltà_, and their French and German copyists, had so solemnly promised that the Council would provide in its decrees a sure and effective remedy for humanity, sorely diseased as it is, and threatened with destruction. As yet we have waited in vain for any intelligible intimation of what this panacea is to be. Beyond Papal Infallibility and the Syllabus, nothing has transpired. Were the curtain to be drawn back at the beginning, and the secret betrayed,—that the much lauded panacea is only moonshine, and that the Council is not in a position to prescribe any other medicine to the patient named mankind than the usual and well-known remedies of faith,