character, are not quite the most effectual means, psychologically, for converting adverse Bishops, is clear from the tone again and again manifested in the speeches on the _Schema_, which has gained conspicuously in sharpness and explicitness. On January 10, a Northern Prelate, distinguished for gentleness and refinement, but accustomed to parliamentary contests, said he had been obliged to speak in the vigorous style usual in his own country of the entire absence of real freedom in the Council, for the insolence of the other party was becoming daily more intolerable. ELEVENTH LETTER. _Rome, Jan. 17, 1870._—It is a remarkable phenomenon that Pius IX., who is every way inferior to his predecessors of this century in theological culture, lets himself be so completely dominated by his passion for creating new articles of faith. Former Popes have indeed had their hobbies: some wanted to aggrandize and enrich their families; others, like Sixtus VI., were zealous in building, or, like Leo X., in fostering art and literature, or they waged wars like Julius II., or, finally, they wrote learned works, and composed many long Bulls full of quotations, etc., like Benedict XIV. But not one of them has been seized with this passion for manufacturing dogmas; it is something quite unique in the history of the Popes. Herein, therefore, Pius IX. is a singular phenomenon in his way, and all the more wonderful from his hitherto having kept aloof from theology, and, as one always hears, not being in the habit of ever reading theological books. If it is inquired how this strange idiosyncrasy has been aroused in the soul of a Pope who began his reign under such very different auspices, as a political reformer, the answer given by every one is, that it is the Jesuits, whose influence over him has been constantly growing since he took Father Mignardi of that Order for his confessor, and who have created and fostered in him this passion for dogma-making.