t is a truth now, was a truth in the
first age, when it was not even dreamed of; it was a truth in the
twelfth century, when it _was_ dreamed of; it was a truth in the
seventeenth century, when it gave rise to so many scandalous divisions
and conflicts; and yet it was not till December 1854 that Infallibility
pronounced it to be a truth, and so momentous a truth, that no one can
be saved who doubts it. Will any Romanist kindly explain this to us? We
can accept no excuses about the variety of opinion in the Church, or
about the darkness of the age. No haze, no clouds, can dim an infallible
eye. Infallibility should see in the dark as well as in the daylight;
and an infallible teacher is bound to reveal all, as well as to know
all.

And how happens it, too, that the Pope is infallible in only one
science,--even the theological? In astronomy he has made some terrible
blunders. In geography he has taken the earth to be a plain. In
politics, in trade, and in all ordinary matters, he is daily falling
into mistakes. He cannot tell how the wind may blow to-morrow. He cannot
tell whether the dish before him may not have poison in it. And yet the
man who is daily and hourly falling into mistakes on the most common
subjects has only to pronounce dogmatically, and he pronounces
infallibly. He has but to grasp the pen, with a hand, it may be, like
Borgia's, fresh from the poisoned chalice or the stiletto, and
straightway he indites lines as holy and pure as ever flowed from the
pen of a Paul or a John!

The road now led down upon the lake, which lay gleaming like a sheet of
silver beneath the morning sun. We entered the poor, faded, straggling
town of Desenzano, where the usual motley assemblage of commissionaires,
albergo-masters, dwarfs, beggars, and idlers of all kinds, waited to
receive us. The poor old town crept close in to the strand, as if a
draught of the crystal waters would make it young again. It reminded me
of the company of halt, blind, and impotent folk which lay at the pool
of Bethesda. So lay paralytic Desenzano by the shores of the Lake Garda.
Alas! sunshine and storm pass across the scene, clothing the waters and
the hills with alternate beauty and grandeur; but all changes come alike
to the poor, tradeless, bookless, spiritless town. Whether summer comes
in its beauty or winter in its storms, Desenzano is old, withered, dying
Desenzano still. I hurried to an albergo, swallowed a cup of coffee, and
rejoined the