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Rh ception were not an Œcumenical Council, nor any council at all. They were not convened as a council. Pius the Ninth alone defined the Immaculate Conception. His act was, therefore, infallible or nothing. The world outside the Catholic Church no doubt accounted it to be nothing; but the whole episcopate and the whole Catholic unity accounted it to be infallible.

It is certain, then, that the events of 1854 powerfully awakened in the minds of both clergy and laity the thought of infallibility. In like manner the canonisation of 1862 elicited from the mind of the Church an express recognition of the prerogatives of the successor of Peter. For many years, by allocutions and apostolic letters, Pius the Ninth had been condemning the doctrines of philosophers and revolutionists. His supreme office as teacher of the Universal Church had been denied by those who endeavoured to restrict it to the dogmas of faith. In the midst of this continuous warfare, the bishops assembled in 1862, and addressed Pius the Ninth in these words:

Long may you live, Holy Father, to rule the Catholic Church. Go onward, as now, in defending it with your power, guiding it with your prudence, adorning it with your virtues. Go before us, as the Good Shepherd, by your example; feed the sheep and the lambs with heavenly food; refresh them with the streams of heavenly wisdom. For you are to us the teacher of sound doctrine, the centre of unity, the unfailing light to the nations kindled by divine wisdom. You are the Rock, the foundation of the Church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.