_Rome, Dec. 24, 1869._—The first part of a tolerably comprehensive document, or _Schema_, has been distributed, it is said, to the Bishops, “sub secreto pontificio,” and no less than seventeen parts equally comprehensive are to follow. The _Schema_ of a dogmatic constitution _contra multiplices errores ex Rationalismo derivatos Patrum examini propositum_ is a sort of doctrinal compendium, divided into chapters, and, as is easily seen, is only an amplification of the opening propositions of the Syllabus. In this way we shall have the unprecedented occurrence of a Papal decree, extending to the length of a book, issued with the approval of the Council. If it is received and promulgated in this shape, it will create astonishment by its wholly unconciliar form. It is thrown into a declamatory shape; it indulges in complaints and reproaches about the blindness and misery of men, who have fallen into so many deadly errors, even materialism and pantheism; it carries on its front the impress of the new Jesuit school, and seems to be inspired by the aim of bringing before the contemporary world, in their crudest form, all the hardest and most offensive principles of particular doctrinal schools, which it has hitherto been endeavoured to soften or set aside. For the originator of this tractate assures us that the aversion of men for such doctrines is only one of the poisonous fruits of Rationalism. Here is a characteristic specimen. At that Florentine Synod of 1439, which bequeathed such painful recollections both to East and West, Eugenius IV. had it defined “that the souls of those who die only in original, or in actual mortal sin, descend into hell, but are unequally punished.”(25) This proposition has sadly tormented theologians, and they have devised all sorts of ways of softening or explaining it, even assuming the very doubtful authority of this Council, which was rejected by the whole Gallican Church. For even the most resolute faith recoils in horror from the logical inference, that God has created the human race in order from generation to generation to plunge into hell far the larger portion of mankind, simply because they have not received the baptism which in most cases was never offered them. The vast gulf between this proposition and the Scriptural doctrine that God is Love, and wills all men to be saved, no theologian has undertaken to bridge over. But the Roman Jesuit to whom we owe this _Schema_ really thinks these are just the doctrines best adapted to cure men of this age of the fatal Rationalism they have fallen into.(26) This reminds one strongly of Antonelli’s saying, that these Fathers have a special talent for ruining whatever they touch.