We may get a good idea of the precaution taken prior to the proclamation of an infallible decision by perusing the History of the Vatican Council, published by _Granderath_, in three volumes. He describes the proceedings with conscientious objectiveness. He shows how minutely all questions had been previously studied, with all the available means of scientific investigation, and how minutely and freely they were discussed by the most venerable representatives of the Catholic world. Cardinal _Gibbons_, Archbishop of Baltimore, gave his impressions of the Vatican Council as follows: “I happened to be the youngest Bishop that attended the Council of the Vatican, and, while my youth and inexperience imposed on me a discreet silence among my elders, I do not remember to have missed a single session, and I was an attentive listener at all the debates.... I think I am not exaggerating when I say that the Council of the Vatican has been excelled by few, if any, deliberative assemblies, civil or ecclesiastical, that have ever met, whether we consider the _maturity_ of years of its members, their _learning_, their _experience_ and _piety_, or the widespread influence of the _Decrees_ that they framed for the spiritual and moral welfare of the Christian Republic. “The youngest Bishop in the Council was thirty-six years old. Fully three-fourths of the Prelates ranged between fifty-six and ninety years. The great majority, therefore, had grown gray in the service of their Divine Master. Several Fathers of the Church, bent with age, might be seen passing through St. Peter’s Basilica to the council chamber every morning, leaning with one hand on their staff, the other resting on the shoulder of their secretary. One or two blind Bishops could be observed, guided by their servants, as they advanced to their posts with tottering steps, determined to aid the Church in their declining years by the wisdom of their counsel, as they had consecrated to her their vigorous manhood by their Apostolic labours. “But to the gravity of years the members of the Council generally united profound and varied learning....