_Dec. 30._—The second Session of the General Congregation on the _Schema_ took place yesterday. About a third of the hall had been cut off by a partition, so that the speakers could be somewhat better understood. Among the five speakers, who, like the seven that had preceded them, pronounced for the rejection of the _Schema_, Strossmayer, and Ginoulbiac, of Grenoble, who is considered the best theologian among the French Bishops, commanded most attention. The _Schema_ was again censured for going much too far in its statements and condemnations, and it was shown that the Council, by accepting it, would enter on a wholly new path, widely different from that of the earlier Councils, where the Church would be forced into constantly narrower definitions, until a complete dogmatic philosophy, stiff and rigid, had been formalized. Strossmayer also observed on the formula of promulgation selected by Pius, which represents the Pope as a dogmatic lawgiver, and the Council as a mere consultative body called in to assist him, that it is an unheard-of innovation, departing from all conciliar traditions. This led to an opposite statement by Cardinal Capalti, one of the Presidents, and a reply from Strossmayer. As yet no single one of the host of 500 has said a word in defence of the _Schema_. The excitement is, as may be conceived, great. That even Rauscher came forward against the _Schema_ created the more sensation, as it was he who brought its author, Schrader, to the University of Vienna. EIGHTH LETTER. _Rome, Jan. 8, 1870._—One month is now gone by without any result, or, as many here say, simply wasted. The first real Session, on January 6, went off without any single decree being published. It has produced a very painful impression generally, that, for the obvious purpose of something to do, the unmeaning ceremony has been adopted of swearing to the profession of faith which every Prelate had already sworn to at his ordination and at other times. The question was inevitably forced on men’s minds whether this profusion of superfluous swearings, in an assembly of men on whose orthodoxy no shadow of suspicion had been cast, was at all fitting or reconcilable with the Scriptural prohibition of needless oaths. But the Session had been announced, and the Opposition Bishops, contrary to expectation, had found a great deal to censure in the _Schema_ in general and in detail, so that in four General Congregations nothing had been effected. The simplest plan would have been to defer the Session, and anywhere else that course would have been followed. But in Rome? That would have been a _de facto_ confession of having made a mistake, and it is here a first principle that the _Curia_ is always right. So they had 747 oaths taken, and thus the Solemn Session was held.