"Pope Julius II. would have had his council of Lateran in 1512 pass for an ecumenical council. In it that pope solemnly excommunicated Louis XII., King of France, laid France under an interdict, summoned the whole Parliament of Provence to appear before him, and excommunicated all the philosophers because most of them had taken part with Louis XII. Yet this council was not like that of Ephesus, called the council of robbers. "In 1537 the council of Trent was first assembled at Mantua, by Paul III., afterwards at Trent, in 1543, and terminated in Dec., 1561, under Pius VI." See vol. Phil. Dic. "Pope Pius IX. convened a council in 1869, which in July, 1870, decreed the _personal infallability of the Pope_ in matters of faith and morals, to be a dogma of the church." Reader, if you will digest this little piece of history, you will doubtless discover good reasons for asserting the right of private judgment and the liberty of conscience. _Truth stands true to her god; men alone vascillate._ FREE-THOUGHT IN GERMANY, FRANCE AND RUSSIA, OR RUSSIAN NIHILISM. BY FITZ CUNLIFFE OWEN. LIBRARY MAG. VOL. 3. Rationalism and radicalism exist to a certain extent in every country of Europe. But the Social Democrats of Germany and Austria and the Communists of France and Spain turn with horror from Russian revolutionists, who consider the programme of the Paris commune of 1871 condemnably weak, and Felix Pyat, Cluseret and their companions as little better than conservatives. The Social Democrats and even the Communists of the rest of Europe have in view aims which, no matter how fantastic, are always of a sufficiently defined nature. They look forward to an entirely democratic form of government, and hope for a recognization of the social world, under which all capital and property would be held either by the State or Commune for the equal benefit of everybody. They are levellers, but they are not destroyers. Take the right of property from the citizens of a government and the greatest motive to industry and prosperity is gone.