certain obvious advantages. For one thing, it seemed a long time to wait, from one General Council to another, in order to get an absolutely true definition in doctrine or morals.' And was not the pope at any rate superior to the Council? was not he, and no body of bishops, however venerable, the Rock upon which the Church was founded? And is it not fitting that the absolute ruler should also be the absolute teacher? Such considerations favored the attributing of this power to the see of Rome.

As a matter of fact, the see of Rome had been exercising it already. For it was in 1854, for example, that Pius IX., without convoking a council, set forth, on his own authority, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception-which had been rejected by such men as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, the chief theologians of the fifth and the thirteenth century—and demanded, on pain of the Church's anathema, that it be thenceforth universally accepted. In the decreeing of this new article of faith, then, we may recognize an effective preparation for the enactment of the decree of papal infallibility, which was soon to be accomplished under the management and influence of this same energetic pontiff.

True, the proposal that the Chair of Peter, apart altogether from the General Council or any other authority, should be declared infallible, was strongly resisted by bishops, scholars, writers, and others. In England and Ireland especially it seems to

'Not, however, that frequent ex cathedra definitions in doctrine or morals for the whole Church are to be had even from an infallible pope. There has been none, I think, since the session of the Council which defined and declared his infallibility. "What is the advantage of a rapid-firing gun,” it has been asked, "if one never fires it?"

To resist it now means excommunication. Yet how, in the light of historic knowledge, can it be accepted? Let a Modernist tell:

"Your Eminence: a boy in his teens, as ignorant as he was morally vicious, was once elected to be the Vicar of Christ. He had not at the moment of his election the most rudimentary knowledge of his catechism. You maintain that the great Christian tradition and deposit of the faith was suddenly interfused into that empty, godless little brain; that he had only to look within himself in order to instruct the whole episcopate as to the true sense of revelation. Plainly your Church-theory is tenable only on the supposition of a continual miracle as wonderful as the conversion of

have gained very little foothold. Still it persisted and gathered strength. It was the simplest and most logical outcome of the situation. Above all, the Curia willed it and worked for its realization. So when the time had grown ripe for defining the Roman faith on this question, Pope Pius convoked the Vatican Council, which, on the 18th of July, 1870, enacted the canon of papal infallibility. Not declaring the Roman Pontiff incapable of error in his personal opinions, it does declare him incapable of error in defining a doctrine concerning faith or morals for the whole Church.

Thus the center of government was now asserted to be, and for all papists made to be, the center of teaching. Christian unity was completely defined. The centralizing idea which for long years had wrought with irregular but often renewed energy had now finished its task triumphantly. The General Council lay prostrate at the foot of the papal throne. The official word of one man became the universal law, from which there was absolutely no appeal.

True enough, this one man's infallibility consists, as it has been pertinently said, in "his inability to confess that either he or his predecessors erred even where their errors are most manifest." But, nevertheless, it is now officially defined as historic, genuine, divine; and accordingly the Church as lawmaker, administrator, judge, and teacher, is the Pope.

Shall we again be reminded that the papal dream of unity has failed of fulfillment? In the attempt to realize it the see of Rome. repelled the Eastern Church till the ecclesiastical separation of East and West became irreparable. Later, in the Protestant Reformation, it hopelessly lost the strongest, most enlightened, and most progressive nations of the world. In some lands, indeed, it crushed the rising dissent-and in torture-chambers so

water into wine, and which would give us a right to look for a uniform and superhuman wisdom in the supreme government of the Church, for which there is not a vestige of historic evidence." (Tyrrell, "Medievalism: A Reply to Cardinal Mercier," pp. 59, 60.)

terrible that in comparison the Imperial persecutions of the early Christians were moderate and merciful. But in others the ancient witness was repeated of men and women invincible in faith and courage,

"Who wrapped the robe of flame around them, thanking God,"

and multiplied the number of their fellow-believers. And where this Roman unity, enforced with both natural and supernatural terrors, seemed most successful, there the spiritual failure has of necessity shown the deepest. For its success was gained at the expense of Christian truth and the liberty of the sons of God.

Again, what was the territorial extent of Rome's ecclesiastic unity at the height of her power? It was the Southern and Western Europe of the Middle Ages-a plain and easily manageable field compared with the Christian world of the twentieth century. What was the intellectual condition of the people united under the absolutism of her government? They were potentially active-minded, but as yet of the night and of darkness-asleep in ignorance, the prey of gross intimidating superstitions, without science, without historic knowledge or criticism, without initiative, without independence of thought. True, in that medieval time "the brain drank in the ecclesiastical belief as the lungs breathed the air;" but it was an unenlightened brain. It was destitute both of the science which was yet to be and— far worse deprivation-of the New Testament which had been hidden securely away.

But alike through successes and failures, in the "ages of faith" and in the ages of enlightenment, the papal policy, much modified from time to time in administration, remains essentially the same. At all hazards unity of organization, under one monarchical head, has been maintained. This unlawful empire of the soul stands to-day a marvel of organic strength and completeness. While many thousands of those whom it counts in its membership are indifferent or unbelieving, other thousands are ready to

'Fairbairn, "Catholicism, Roman and Anglican,” p. 279.

go to the ends of the earth, braving every hardship and danger, in its service. Giant Pope, indeed, as Bunyan described him over two hundred years ago, may have "grown so crazy and stiff in his joints that he can do little more than sit in his cave's mouth" in impotent anger-so far as his relations to heretical Christians are concerned. Yet within his own immense constituency he is still the recipient of great reverence and obedience.

Meantime it remains, and doubtless it will remain when the heavens shall have passed away, that not without freedom can spiritual unity be achieved, and not without the knowledge of the truth can the prison walls of the soul be broken down.

XV.

UNITY: THE COUNCIL.

THE Conciliar idea may lay claim to universality. People accept it as a matter of course, without ever inquiring whether there was a time when it was strange or unknown. So long as men are what they are, imperfect in wisdom and inclined to open their minds to one another, it is inevitable that they should assemble, formally or informally, for discussion and conference. And so long as they have to live in divers trying social relations-such, for instance, as that of government-it is inevitable that beliefs, usages, and laws should be proposed for consideration and action at their meetings. The same idea is illustrated whenever one man asks advice of another. It appears in numberless everyday forms. Any two or three persons met together, though it be but casually on the street, talking over some matter of common interest, and trying to reach a unanimous decision, illustrate the essential principle of the Roman Senate, the Jewish Sanhedrin, the Council of Nice, the Second Hague Conference, or the International Court of Arbitration-a dewdrop showing pictures of the sky.

"Where there is no counsel purposes are disappointed:

But in the multitude of counselors they are established."

Now in both Church and State the council, like the chief officer of government-the bishop, or president, or monarch—stands committed to the principle of unity. However numerous or discordant the voices with which it speaks within its own doors, the aim is to speak finally and out of doors with a single voice, so as to unify as well as to guide or govern the people in whose behalf it acts. Whether it be an advisory or an authoritative body, this is true. If advisory, it is intended that all shall follow its advice; if authoritative, that all shall keep its laws. Therefore, whatever other function it may perform, a council cannot be con