No one in Rome, or elsewhere, could be found better qualified for this position than this eminent and well-known cardinal, who has for so many years, and so ably, presided over the congregation specially charged with superintending the world-wide missions of the Catholic Church. Born in the year 1798, he was in his early boyhood when Napoleon annexed Italy to his empire. When the conqueror, in order to bind the country to him, ordered that a number of the sons of the noble and most respectable families of Italy should be sent to the Ecole Polytechnique at Paris, to be educated, as it were, under his own eye, the bright-eyed Alessandro Barnabò was selected with others. He continued in that school until the fall of Napoleon restored Pius VII. to Rome. The lad could soon return home likewise, and devote himself, according to the aspirations of earlier years, to the service of God in the sanctuary. He pursued his ecclesiastical studies with distinction under De Rossi, Finotti, Graziosi, Palma, and the giant professors of those years in Rome; became priest; and naturally, with his learning, his energy, his amiability, was soon selected to give assistance in the congregations for the transaction of ecclesiastical business of the church in Rome. In due time he became secretary to the Congregation of the Propaganda, and made himself familiar with the affairs and men of the church throughout the world. Subsequently raised to the cardinalate, amid the applause of Rome, he succeeded Cardinal Fransoni in the prefectship of the same Congregation of the Propaganda where he had been secretary, and over which he, for many years, presided with an executive ability not equalled since the days of Cardinal Capellarò, afterward Gregory XV. This election having been finished, the bishops then entered on the examination of matters of ecclesiastical discipline, several _schemata_, or draughts, on which had been presented to them for private study some time before. It is the ordinary usage of councils to examine matters of faith and matters of discipline as nearly _pari passu_ as can conveniently be done. It seems this usage will be observed in the Vatican Council. There is a fundamental difference between matters of faith and matters of discipline.