Page:The True Story of the Vatican Council.djvu/161

Rh Europe in all languages, and almost every day for eight months, discharged every weapon of ridicule, sarcasm, and misrepresentation against the Pope and the Council. Solid argument there was little indeed. But the world is more swayed by ridicule than by argument. The havoc made in France in the last century by the spirit of mockery is recorded in history as a terrible example of the deadly evil which can be wrought by so contemptible an agency. But there was in activity another and a darker power. The indiction of the Council had hardly been published when "Janus" appeared, true to his name, double-faced and double-tongued—a book more full of false accusations than any that ever came from nominally Catholic hands. Published in all languages, and greedily devoured by those who are not of the Catholic unity, no book has perhaps placed more stumbling-blocks in the way of men who were seeking the truth. The odium, suspicion, and prejudice excited by it in the minds of our separated brethren will cost many who were on the threshold of truth the grace which is beyond all price. In the face of these boisterous winds, the Council of the Vatican, trusting to its Divine Master, launched out into the deep. For eight months it held on its way without changing its course, bearing unmoved the stress of the storm. But though the Council was unmoved, indi-