truth; they are self-complacent; they imagine themselves to have received from heaven an extraordinary mission like the prophets; they assume the right to dictate to the infallible authority of the Church; to satisfy them, we must become syncretists, and ask them in what is it their pleasure that the Catholic Church should modify in its doctrines, its ceremonies, and its discipline; men of fine phrases, and not of action; more of show than of reality" (p. 117). During his residence at Berlin, M. Laemmer entered upon a careful preparation for the degree of doctor of divinity. He devoted himself more and more to the study of the Fathers; the works of St. Hilary of Poitiers on the Trinity left him an humble and firm believer in that august mystery. In 1856 his mind received a fresh and more decided impulse in the direction of the Church. In that year the Berlin faculty of theology gave as the subject of the concursus, _Give an exposition (from the documents) of the Roman Catholic doctrine, contained in the memorial presented to Charles V. at the Diet of Augsburg, in as far as it appears to throw light on the true Evangelical doctrine set forth in the Augsburg Confession._ This subject was chosen for the concursus by Lehnerdt, who felt that Catholic theology, from the beginning of the Reformation to the Council of Trent, was almost entirely unknown. M. Laemmer having resolved to become one of the competitors, at once set about the necessary study. He first examined the Protestant confessional books, in order to fix the points at issue between them and their adversaries. If he were to trust these authorities, nothing could be clearer than the stupid ignorance of the Catholics, and the wisdom of the Protestants. But the declamation with which this was urged appeared to him to be the language of passion. He determined to learn from their own writings the character of the Catholic theologians so soundly abused by their opponents. He first examined the _Official refutation of the Augsburg Confession_, the joint work of the flower of the Catholic theologians, Eck, Faber, Wimpina, etc.; next he came to the various works published by them, before and after 1530, against the various successive developements of Protestantism; then came the German theology of Berthold Chiemsie; the Confession of Cardinal Hosius; Erasmus; Tetzel; Henry VIII.; Fisher, Bishop of Rochester; Ambrosius Catharinus; the Sorbonne; Sadoletus; Contarini; the minutes of the conferences held at that epoch in Germany and Switzerland; the Pontifical instructions in Rainaldi and Leplat, and last, the acts of the Imperial Diet, as far as they touched on religious and ecclesiastical questions. In all, he had to study seventy Catholic works of the period.