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50 by sea and land, deterred by no difficulties from hastening to the Roman See, that they may pay reverence in the person of our humility to the successor of Peter and the vicar of Christ on earth? For by this authority of example, far better than by subtil doctrine, they will perceive what reverence, obedience, and submission they ought to bear towards us, to whom, in the person of Peter, Christ our Lord said, "Feed my lambs—feed my sheep," and in those words entrusted and committed to us the supreme care and power over the Universal Church.

For what else did Christ our Lord intend us to understand when He set Peter as head to defend the stability of his brethren, saying, "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not?" He intended, as S. Leo implies, that "the Lord took a special care of Peter, and prayed expressly for Peter's faith, as if the state of the others would be more certain if the mind of their chief were unconquered. In Peter, therefore, the fortitude of all was guarded and the help of divine grace was so ordained that the stability which was given by Christ to Peter, by Peter should be bestowed on the rest of the apostles. Nay, venerable brethren, we have never doubted but that out of the very tomb where the ashes of blessed Peter rest for the perpetual veneration of the world, a secret power and healing virtue goes forth to inspire the pastors of the Lord's flock," &c.

To this the bishops unanimously answered:

We take part more fervently in the present celebration, as contemplating, in the solemnity which this day brings round again, the unshaken firmness of the Rock whereon our Lord and Saviour built His Church, solid and perpetual. For we perceive it to be an effect of the power of God, that the chair of Peter, the organ of truth, the centre of unity, the foundation and bulwark of the Church's freedom, should have stood firm and unmoved for now eighteen hundred years complete, amid so many adverse circumstances and such constant efforts of its enemies; that while kingdoms and empires rose and fell in turn, it should so have stood, as a secure beacon to direct men's