Page:Petri Privilegium - Manning.djvu/326

12 the world in many tongues, long before it met, that the Council would not be free. Nevertheless, the minority persevered with heroic courage, logic which nothing could resist, and eloquence which electrified the most insensible, until a tyrannous majority, deaf to reason and incapable of argument, cut discussion short by an arbitrary exercise of power; and so silenced the only voices nobly lifted up for science, candour, and common sense.

This done, the definition of new dogmas became inevitable, and the antagonism between the ultra-romanism of a party and the progress of modern society, between independence and servility, became complete.

Such is the history of the Council written ab extra in the last nine months. I believe that every epithet I have given may be verified in the mass of extracts now before me.

A leading English journal, ten days after the Definition of the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff, with great simplicity observed, 'It is curious to compare the very general and deep interest taken by all intelligent observers in the early deliberations of the Council with the equally marked indifference to the culmination of its labours. Every rumour that came from Rome six or seven months ago was canvassed with great eagerness, even by men who cared little for ordinary theological disputations: while the proclamation of the astonishing dogma of papal infallibility has produced in any but ecclesiastical circles little beyond a certain amount of perfunctory criticism.'

The main cause of this contrast is, of course,