SECOND LETTER. _Rome, Dec. 18, 1869._—After the solemn receptions, and the formal opening of the Council, visits, audiences, and homages, the time for serious business has arrived, and the Fathers have emerged from the dim twilight of early synodical dawn into the clear daylight. People have begun to get mutually acquainted, and to question one another. The first chaotic condition of an exceedingly mixed assemblage, some of whose members scarcely understand one another, or not at all, has been succeeded by a sort of division, through the _rapprochement_ and closer combination of men of similar views. As we related before, two great parties of very unequal strength have organized themselves, and the shibboleth which caused this division is the question of Papal Infallibility, which is universally and consistently taken to imply that whoever is resolved to vote for this dogma is also ready to give his vote for all the articles of the Syllabus, and generally for every dogmatic proposition emanating from the Pope. The Synod is unquestionably the most numerous ever held; never in the early or mediæval Church have 767 persons entitled to vote by their episcopal rank been assembled. It is also the most various in its national representation. Men look with wonder at the number of missionary Bishops from Asia, Africa, and Australia. If one considers the constant complaints of want of funds in the missionary journals, the great distance, the difficulty and expense of the journey, and how much these men are wanted in the ill-organized state of their dioceses, with so few priests, the question occurs, Who bears the cost, and what means were employed to rob so many millions for a long time of their spiritual guides? Meanwhile most of the Bishops are pupils of the Roman Propaganda, and obedient to every hint of its will. And the more the new dogma is combated, the more necessary is the imposing _consensus_ of five quarters of the world—of Negroes, Malays, Chinese, and Hottentots, as well as Italians and Spaniards. More than two-thirds of the Council are either completely agreed, or at least won over to the necessity of making the personal infallibility of the last 256 Popes, and their future successors, an article of faith now. Since the original design of carrying it by simple acclamation has been given up, Manning has renounced the _rôle_ assigned to him of initiating it. But the Bishops of the Spanish tongue on both sides the ocean—in South America and the Philippine Isles—have declared, in a meeting held in the apartments of their Cardinal, Moreno, that they are ready to propose the dogma. A Roman Cardinal said lately of Bishops of this sort, “If the Pope ordered them to believe and teach four instead of three Persons in the Trinity, they would obey.”