o expect that this question, which had often occupied
the attention of the bishops, would be brought before the Council; and
the demand for a reform could not have been withstood. The difficulty
was anticipated by sweeping away as many censures as it was thought safe
to abandon, and deciding, independently of the bishops, what must be
retained. The Pope reserved to himself alone the faculty of absolving
from the sin of harbouring or defending the members of any sect, of
causing priests to be tried by secular courts, of violating asylum or
alienating the real property of the Church. The prohibition of anonymous
writing was restricted to works on theology, and the excommunication
hitherto incurred by reading books which are on the Index was confined
to readers of heretical books. This Constitution had no other immediate
effect than to indicate the prevailing spirit, and to increase the
difficulties of the partisans of Rome. The organ of the Archbishop of
Cologne justified the last provision by saying, that it does not forbid
the works of Jews, for Jews are not heretics; nor the heretical tracts
and newspapers, for they are not books; nor listening to heretical books
read aloud, for hearing is not reading.

At the same time, the serious work of the Council was begun. A long
dogmatic decree was distributed, in which the special theological,
biblical, and philosophical opinions of the school now dominant in Rome
were proposed for ratification. It was so weak a composition that it was
as severely criticised by the Romans as by the foreigners; and there
were Germans whose attention was first called to its defects by an
Italian cardinal. The disgust with which the text of the first decree
was received had not been foreseen. No real discussion had been
expected. The Council hall, admirable for occasions of ceremony, was
extremely ill adapted for speaking, and nothing would induce the Pope to
give it up. A public session was fixed for the 6th of January, and the
election of Commissions was to last till Christmas. It was evident that
nothing would be ready for the session, unless the decree was accepted
without debate, or infallibility adopted by acclamation.

Before the Council had been assembled a fortnight, a store of discontent
had accumulated which it would have been easy to avoid. Every act of the
Pope, the Bull _Multiplices_, the declaration of censures, the text of
the proposed decree, even the announcement that the Counci