All the other civilized nations, with scarcely an exception,(7) sent their bishops to the general assembly of the Church. France supplied the greatest number, eighty-one. The kingdom of the Two Sicilies came next, being represented by sixty-eight bishops. Next came the States of the Church, sending sixty-two bishops. From Great Britain and Ireland, with the colonies, including Canada, went fifty-five bishops to the great council. Austria and Hungary were nobly represented by forty-three bishops. Spain and the United States of America sent each forty prelates, and the States of South America, thirty; whilst of the Oriental rites there were forty-two bishops. Piedmont, Tuscany, Lombardy and Venetia, together with Modena and Parma, Prussia, Bavaria, Mexico, Belgium, Holland, Portugal, Switzerland, the Isles of Greece, and even the Turkish empire, cheerfully willed that the Catholic prelates of their lands should bear their part in the grand Œcumenical Council which was now about to assemble. All these, with the cardinals, abbots, mitred abbots and generals of religious orders, who were also members of the great assembly, made up the goodly number which has already been adverted to.(8) SUBJECTS WHICH IT WAS PROPOSED TO DISCUSS IN THE COUNCIL. The subjects for discussion were expressed in _schemata_, or draft decrees, which were drawn up by a “congregation,” or, as we should say, a committee of one hundred and two ecclesiastics, who were cardinals and others learned in theology and canon law, selected from many nations on account of their superior wisdom and experience. By these alone the _schemata_ were prepared. They bore not so much as the shadow of the supreme authority. So the council was perfectly at liberty to accept or reject, to change or to modify them, as it should deem fit and proper. Of this we are assured by the words of the Pope, who, in his “Constitution,” at the commencement of the council, informed the bishops that he had not given any sanction to the _schemata_, and that consequently in regard to them there was complete freedom. The _schemata_, six in number, were very comprehensive. It is deeply to be regretted that the council was not allowed time to discuss them all. They concerned: 1. Catholic doctrine in opposition to the manifold errors flowing from rationalism. 2. The Church of Christ. 3. The office of bishops. 4. The vacancy of sees. 5. The life and manners of the clergy. 6. The Little Catechism.