presence was most needed, and threw the easy victory into the lap of the majority.

When, therefore, the fourth public session was held on the memorable 18th of July, (Monday) there were but 533 fathers present, and of these all voted Placet, with the exception of two, viz., Bishop Riccio of Cajazzo in Sicily, and Bishop Fitz-Gerald of Little Rock, Arkansas, who had the courage to vote Non placet, but immediately before the close of the session submitted to the voice of the Council. So in this way a moral unanimity was secured as great as in the first Council of Nicæa, where likewise two refused to subscribe the Nicene Creed; "What a wise direction of Providence," exclaimed the Civiltà Cattolica, "533 yeas against 2 nays. Only 2 nays, therefore almost total unanimity; and yet 2 nays, therefore full liberty of the Council. How vain are all attacks against the cecumenical character of this most beautiful of all councils."

After the vote the Pope confirmed the decrees and canons on the Constitution of the Church of Christ, and added from his own inspiration the assurance, that the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff did not suppress but aid, not destroy but build up, and formed the best protection of the rights and interests of the Episcopate.

The days of the two most important public sessions of the Vatican Council, namely, the first and the last, were the darkest and stormiest which Rome saw from Dec. 8, 1869, to 18th of July, 1870. The proclamation of the new dogma was accompanied by claps of thunder and flashes of lightning from the skies, and so great was the darkness which spread over the Church of St. Peter, that the Pope could not read the decree of his own infallibility without the light of a candle (Quirinus, Letter lxix., p. 809).

A Protestant eye witness, Prof. Ripley, thus described the scene in a letter from Rome, published in the New York Tribune (of which he is one of the editors) for Aug. 11, 1870:

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ROME, July 19.-Before leaving Rome I send you a report of the last scene of that absurd comedy called the Ecumenical Vatican Council. . . It is. . . . a remarkable coincidence that the opening and closing sessions of the Council were inaugurated with fearful storms, and that the vigil of the promulgation of the dogma was celebrated with thunder and lightning throughout the whole of the night. On the 8th of last December, I was

nearly drowned by the floods of rain which came down in buckets; yesterday morning I went down in rain, and under a frowning sky which menaced terrible storms later in the day. . . Kyrie eleison we heard as soon as the mass was said, and the whole multitude joined in singing the plaintive measure of the Litany of the Saints, and then with equal fervor was sung Veni Creator, which was followed by the voice of a secretary reading in a high key the dogma. At its conclusion the names of the Fathers were called over, and Placet after Placet succeeded ad nauseam-but what a storm burst over the Church at this moment! the lightning flashed and the thunder pealed as we have not heard it this season before. Every Placet seemed to be announced by a flash and terminated by a clap of thunder. Through the cupolas the lightning entered, licking, as it were, the very columns of the Baldachino over the tomb of St. Peter, and lighting up large spaces on the pavement. Sure, God was there-but whether approving or disapproving what was going on, no mortal man can say. Enough that it was a remarkable coincidence, and so it struck the minds of all who were present and thus the roll was called for one hour and a half, with this solemn accompaniment, and then the result of the voting was taken to the Pope. The moment had arrived when he was to declare himself invested with the attributes of God—nay, a God upon earth. Looking from a distance into the hall, which was obscured by the tempest, nothing was visible but the golden miter of the Pope, and so thick was the darkness that a servitor was compelled to bring a lighted candle and hold it by his side to enable him to read the formula by which he deified himself. And then-what is that indescribable noise? Is it the raging of the storm above? The pattering of hailstones? It approaches nearer, and for a minute I most seriously say that I could not understand what that swelling sound was, until I saw a cloud of white handkerchiefs waving in the air. The Fathers had begun with clapping-they were the fuglemen to the crowd who took up the notes and signs of rejoicing until the Church of God was converted into a theater for the exhibition of human passions. "Viva Pio Nono," "Viva il Papa Infallibile," "Viva il trionfo dei Cattolici," were shouted by this priestly assembly; and again another round they had; and yet another was attempted as soon as the Te Deum had been sung and the benediction had been given."

This voice of nature was variously interpreted either as a condemnation of Gallicanism and liberal Catholicism, or as a divine attestation of the dogma, like that which accompanied the promulgation of the law from Mount Sinai, or as an evil omen of impending calamities to the Papacy. And behold, the day after the proclamation, Napoleon III., the political ally and supporter of Pius IX., unchained the furies of war, which in a few weeks swept away the Empire of France and the temporal throne of the infallible Pope. His own subjects forsook him and almost unanimously voted for a new sovereign,

whom he had excommunicated as the worst enemy of the Church. A German empire arose from victorious battle-fields, and Protestantism sprung to the political and military leadership of Europe. History records no more striking example of swift retribution on criminal ambition. About half a dozen Protestant churches have since been organized in Rome, where none was tolerated before, except in the house and under the protection of some foreign ambassador; a branch of the Bible Society was established, which the, Pope, in his Syllabus, denounces as a pest, and a public debate was held in which even the presence of Peter at Rome was called in question.

Once before the Papacy was shaken to its base at the very moment when it felt itself most secure. Leo X. had hardly concluded the fifth and last Lateran Council, in March, 1517, with a celebration of victory, when an humble monk in the north of Europe sounded the key-note of the great Reformation.

What did the Bishops of the minority do? They all submitted, even those who had been most vigorous in opposing not only the opportunity of the definition, but the dogma itself. Some hesitated long, but yielded at last to the heavy pressure. Cardinal Rauscher, of Vienna, published the decree as early as August, and afterward withdrew his powerful " Observations on the infallibility of the Church" from the market, regarding this as an act of glorious self-denial for the welfare of the Church. Cardinal Schwarzenberg, of Prague, waited with the publication till Jan. 11, 1871, and shifted the responsibility upon his theological advisers. Hefele, of Rottenburg, who has forgotten more about the history of Councils than the Pope and his cardinals and episcopal tools ever knew, after delaying till April 10, 1871, submitted, not because he had changed his conviction, but, as he says, "because the peace and unity of the Church is so great a good that great and heavy personal sacrifices may be made for it;" i. c. truth must be sacrificed to peace. Bishop Maret, who wrote two learned volumes against Papal Infallibility, which were not refuted, declares in his retraction, that he "wholly rejects everything in his work which is opposed to the dogma of the Council," and "withdraws it from sale." Archbishop Kenrick yielded, but has not refuted his concio habenda at non habita, which remains. an irrefragable argument against the new dogma. Even Strossmayer, the boldest of the bold in the minority, lost his courage

and keeps his peace. Darboy died a martyr in the revolt of communists of Paris in March 1871. Of those opponents who, though not members of the Council, carried as great weight as any Prelate, Montalembert died during the Council, Newman kept silence, Père Gratry, who had declared and proven that the question of Honorius "is totally gangrened by fraud," wrote from his dying couch at Montreux, in Switzerland, (Feb. 1872) to the Archbishop of Paris that he submitted to the Vatican Council, and effaced" everything to the contrary he may have written."

It is said that the adhesion of the minority Bishops was extorted by the threat of the Pope not to renew their "quinquennial faculties" (facultates quinquennales), that is the papal licenses renewed every five years permitting them to exercise extraordinary episcopal functions which ordinarily belong to the Pope, as the power of absolving from heresy, schism, apostasy, secret crime (except murder) from vows, duties of fasting, the power of permitting the reading of prohibited books (for the purpose of refutation) marrying within prohibited degrees, etc. But aside from this pressure the following considerations sufficiently explain the fact of submission:

1. Many of the dissenting Bishops were professedly anti-Infallibilists, not from principle, but from subordinate considerations of expediency, because they apprehended from the definition great injury to Catholic interests, especially in Protestant countries. Events have since proved that their apprehension was well founded.

2. All Roman Bishops are under an oath of allegiance to the Pope, which binds them to preserve, defend, increase and advance the rights, honors, privileges and authority of the holy Roman Church, of our lord the Pope and his successors.

3. The minority Bishops defended Episcopal infallibility against Papal infallibility. They claimed for themselves what they denied to the Pope. Admitting the infallibility of the Council and forfeiting by their voluntary absence on the day of voting the right of their protest, they must either on their own theory accept the decision of the Council or give up their theory, cease to be Roman Catholics, and run the risk of a new schism.

At the same time this submission is an instructive lesson of the fearful spiritual despotism of the Papacy, which overrules the stubborn facts of history and the sacred claims of individual

1873.] THE NECESSITY OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION, ETC. 651 conscience. For the facts so clearly and forcibly brought out before and during the Council by such men as Kenrick, Hefele, Rauscher, Maret, Schwarzenberg, Dupanloup, have not changed, and can never be undone. On the one hand we find the results of a life-long conscientious and thorough study of the most learned divines of the Roman Church, on the other ignorance, prejudice, perversion and defiance of scripture and tradition; on the one hand we have history shaping theology, on the other theology ignoring or changing history; on the one hand the just exercise of reason, on the other blind submission which destroys reason and conscience. Truth must and will prevail at last.

ART. V. THE NECESSITY OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN COLLEGES.

By the late FRANCIS LIEBER, LL.D., New York.*

THE present professor of the theological branches in the South Carolina College has resigned his chair, and, it is understood, the question has been raised whether this chair ought not to be abolished. Under these circumstances it will not be considered presumptuous in one who must be supposed to be thoroughly acquainted with the whole operation of the college within, and its relation to the State at large, and who yields to no one in the deep interest he feels in the institution, if he states his opinion on a subject which appears to him of vital importance.

The writer of these lines is convinced that South Carolina College, as indeed every college in the Union, would be essentially defective without a chair for the evidences of Christianity, and biblical knowledge in general, and without an officer whose

[*We are permitted to publish the following article, found among the papers of the late Dr. Lieber. It was probably written about 1850, when the author was a Professor in South Carolina College. His life-long devotion to education, as well as his distinguished learning and ability, give great weight to the opinions he here advocates, on a question more urgent and important now than it was when this paper was written.-EDS.]