The decisions rendered by these different congregations, and preserved in their archives from the very day of their institution to the present, form the most magnificent body of jurisprudence which has ever existed. One canonist of eminence reckons that upward of sixty thousand decisions have been delivered by the Congregation of the Council alone; a living, practical commentary on the Council of Trent. The Congregation of Bishops and Regulars publishes nearly three volumes of decrees every year, and the volumes which contain its judgments are over eight hundred in number. When we remember that nearly all these decisions are upon questions of law, disengaged from mere accessories of fact, we are amazed at the treasures of science, erudition, and reasoning which are thus accumulating from age to age in these archives, and forming an inexhaustible reservoir, in which tradition stores itself and whence justice and truth flow out upon the world. FOOTNOTES: [35] We take pleasure in laying before our readers, at this time, the accompanying translation from a recent number of one of the leading magazines of France. The eyes of the people of this country, and especially of our great cities, are being slowly opened to the necessity of some reform in the methods of judicial business. The delay and expense of legal proceedings--above all, the great uncertainty of their result, is becoming daily a matter of more and more serious consideration. In casting about the world for light upon this vexed and intricate subject, the mind of the reformer cannot fail to be guided to the mother and mistress of all nations, in whose bosom is garnered the experience of twenty-five centuries, and whose institutions are the development of that wisdom and sagacity which made pagan Rome the queen of the world, and has given to Christian Rome a sceptre whose sway is mightier and more extensive than that of the sword. We feel confident, therefore, that in presenting this article on _The Roman Congregations_ to the American public, and particularly to the legal profession, we are directing attention to what must, in a greater or less degree, be the model of all permanent and reliable civil tribunals. As applicable to the exigencies which press us most severely at the moment, we call attention to the following features of these congregations as worthy of particular investigation: 1. The life-tenure of judges and other officials, with the permanent provision made for their support in case of disability. 2. The reduction of all pleadings to a simple, definite issue, expressing in untechnical language the precise points of law or fact which are in controversy. 3. The reduction of all testimony to the form of depositions, thereby securing the sworn evidence without the mistakes and prejudices almost inseparable from the oral examination of witnesses in court.