It has been alleged and persistently maintained by the enemies of the Holy See, that Pius IX. sought only to promote his own importance by convening a General Council. Of this calumny the foregoing words, which so plainly and distinctly set forth the purposes of the council, afford an abundant refutation. No man holding a great public office can fulfil faithfully the duties of that office without exalting his own character in the estimation of mankind. Ought he then, because such things exalt him, to leave them undone? This would, indeed, be mistaken humility. Councils, although not an essential element in the government of the church, are had recourse to in times of difficulty, in order to settle doctrinal disputes, promote morality and establish or restore discipline. With the exception of the Apostolic Council of Jerusalem, no council was held for the first three hundred years of the church’s existence. The church, nevertheless, as regarded her spiritual state, was highly prosperous and extended rapidly. Councils came as exigencies arose, and when there was no insuperable impediment to their assembling. They were in their time a source of great and lasting good, whilst their record remains shedding light on the centuries as they pass. There had already been eighteen Œcumenical Councils, that of Trent, held three hundred years ago, having been the last. Causes like to those which occasioned the earlier councils, although in a different state of the world and human society, appeared to call for such action on the part of the church as should powerfully influence the passing age, and cause the light of Divine revelation to penetrate the dark places of the nineteenth century. It was resolved, accordingly, to convoke the Œcumenical Council of the age. BISHOPS, ETC., BIDDEN TO THE COUNCIL.