the Church
and her salutary doctrines be carried away by the idea that a subservient
council wished only to glorify their spiritual Chief by ascribing to him
imaginary personal gifts. They were incapable of any such thing. They were
an assembly of the most venerable men in Christendom, who felt all the
weight of their responsibility to God and men in the exercise of their
sacred functions. Their decision has not altered the position of the
Supreme Pastor. Any writings or discourses which he may produce in his
merely personal or more private capacity are received by the Christian
world with that degree of consideration to which they are entitled on
account of the estimation in which he is held by men as a theologian and a
man of learning and ability. It is only when pronouncing solemnly _ex __
cathedra_, as the successor of St. Peter and the Head of the Church, on
questions of faith and morals, that he is universally believed to be
divinely assisted so as to be above the danger of erring, or of leading
into error--in other words (and we cannot help who may be offended), that
he is infallible.

FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR--WITHDRAWAL OF THE FRENCH GARRISON FROM
ROME--ADJOURNMENT OF THE COUNCIL.

Events were now at hand which made it impossible for the council to hold
another session. The French Emperor had greatly fallen, in the estimation
of the people of France, from the time of his shameful abandonment of the
chivalrous Maximilian and the popular design of establishing a Latin
empire on the continent of America. In order to make amends and regain his
_prestige_, he had revived the idea, so dear to the French, of rectifying
the Rhine frontier of France by resuming possession of Luxembourg and some
other adjacent provinces. He formally intimated his design to Prussia.
That Power, however, aware of its rights and conscious of its military
superiority, declined all negotiation on the subject. From that moment
Prussia held herself in readiness to repel, with the sword, if necessary,
any insolence that, in the future, might proceed from her aggressive
neighbor, for whose tottering throne war was a necessity. The candidature
of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern for the throne of Spain now afforded a
pretext, which Napoleon III. was only too anxious to find, for provoking
by a fresh insult his powerful rival. It may be that he dreaded the
accession of strength which might eventually accrue to Prussia if the
crown of Spain were placed on