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30 individuals the liberty to force the Council to listen as long as they are pleased either to waste its time or to obstruct its judgment. In political assemblies, the house puts an end to debates by a peremptory and inexorable cry of 'question' or 'divide.' The assemblies of the Church are of another temper. But they are not deprived of the same essential rights; and by a free vote they may decide either to listen, or not to listen, as the judgment of the Council shall see fit. To deny this is to deny the liberty of the Council; and under the pretext of liberty to claim a tyranny for the few over the will of the many.

Obvious as is this liberty and right of the Council to close its discussions when it shall see fit, there exists only one example on record in which it did so. With exemplary patience it listened to what the House of Commons would have pronounced to be interminable discussions and interminable speeches. On the general discussion of the Schema De Romano Pontifice some eighty