Page:Petri Privilegium - Manning.djvu/336

22 ordered; which truth forbade: and he taxed his ingenuity to make the whole account in the highest degree odious or ridiculous; which revealed his motive. The reader will bear in mind that not one particle of the following elaborate description is true, or had even a shadow of truth. But nobody would perceive the fine verbal distinctions on which the writer would defend himself from a charge of deliberate falsehood.

On June 8, we read as follows:—

'The British public have some reason to regret that the pressure of subjects nearer home, and more directly concerning this country, has put their interest in the Œcumenical Council somewhat in abeyance. A great event is at hand. There can no longer be any doubt that at the approaching Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, the 29th instant, the priceless blessing of Papal Infallibility will be vouchsafed to the world. The day is the Feast of St. Peter in our Calendar, and it is usually called St. Peter's Day at Rome, the Apostle to the Gentiles having been associated only to disappear. The day is on this occasion to be observed as a day of days, and the era of a new revelation. Fireworks, illuminations, transparencies, triumphal arches, and all that taste and money can do to demonstrate and delight, are already in hand, and, whoever the guests, the marriage feast is in preparation. … An extraordinary effort is to be made. Rome is to excel herself in her mimic meteors, her artistic transfigurations, her new heavens and new earths, her angelic radiance, her divine glories, and infernal horrors.