_Te Deum_ was now chanted, the Pope intoning the sublime hymn, and with the Pontifical benediction, ended the fourth solemn public session of the Vatican Council. With this council also ended all discussion within the church on those questions in regard to which it pronounced authoritatively. No doubt the enemies of the Catholic faith would have been better pleased if there had been absolute unanimity when the final vote was taken on the widely-discussed question of infallibility. Such a coincidence would have afforded them a pretext, although, indeed, a groundless one, for asserting that there was either collusion or compulsion, whilst in reality there was complete liberty. The two Fathers who voted, nay, constituting a minority of two, acted according to their right, and it was not questioned. These Fathers were Monsignor Louis Riccio, Bishop of Casazzio, in the kingdom of Naples, and the Right Rev, Edward Fitzgerald, Bishop of Petricola (Little Rock, Arkansas), in the United States of America. Immediately after the confirmation of the “Constitution,” these two prelates, advancing to the Papal chair, solemnly declared their adhesion to the act of the council. The four dissentient cardinals—Rauscher, Schwarzenberg, Mathieu and Hohenlohe—who had left the council when the fourth session was held, also, in their turn, expressed their assent to the decision of the assembled Fathers. The opposing bishops did in like manner. All of them, not excepting Strossmayer, Bishop of Sirmium, who was the most eloquent orator of the minority in the council, and who appeared to hesitate longer than the rest, ended by promulgating all the decrees of the council in their respective dioceses. This is more than could be said of Nicea, Chalcedon and Constantinople. For the first time, no bishop persisted in resisting the decisions of an Œcumenical Council. It was now acknowledged by the whole episcopate that those measures were timely, wise and salutary, which the Church, ever guided by the Spirit of God, had deemed it proper to adopt, but which so many, awed by the spirit of unbelief which was abroad, had judged were inopportune.