shops would curb the
intemperance of a zeal which was largely directed against their own
order, and would authentically sanction such an exposition of Catholic
ideas as would reconcile the animosity that feeds on things spoken in
the heat of controversy, and on the errors of incompetent apologists.
They had accepted the Syllabus; but they wished to obtain canonicity for
their own interpretation of it. If those who had succeeded in assigning
an acceptable meaning to its censures could appear in a body to plead
their cause before the Pope, the pretensions which compromised the
Church might be permanently repressed.

Once, during the struggle for the temporal power, the question was
pertinently asked, how it was that men so perspicacious and so
enlightened as those who were its most conspicuous champions, could
bring themselves to justify a system of government which their own
principles condemned. The explanation then given was, that they were
making a sacrifice which would be compensated hereafter, that those who
succoured the Pope in his utmost need were establishing a claim which
would make them irresistible in better times, when they should demand
great acts of conciliation and reform. It appeared to these men that the
time had come to reap the harvest they had arduously sown.

The Council did not originate in the desire to exalt beyond measure the
cause of Rome. It was proposed in the interest of moderation; and the
Bishop of Orleans was one of those who took the lead in promoting it.
The Cardinals were consulted, and pronounced against it The Pope
overruled their resistance. Whatever embarrassments might be in store,
and however difficult the enterprise, it was clear that it would evoke a
force capable of accomplishing infinite good for religion. It was an
instrument of unknown power that inspired little confidence, but
awakened vague hopes of relief for the ills of society and the divisions
of Christendom. The guardians of immovable traditions, and the leaders
of progress in religious knowledge, were not to share in the work. The
schism of the East was widened by the angry quarrel between Russia and
the Pope; and the letter to the Protestants, whose orders are not
recognised at Rome, could not be more than a ceremonious challenge.
There was no promise of sympathy in these invitations or in the answers
they provoked; but the belief spread to many schools of thought, and was
held by Dr. Pusey and by Dean Stanley, by