pparent reason to doubt the fidelity of Catholics, and
would give new authority to the theory of persecution and of the
deposing power. They testified that it was unknown in many parts of the
Church, and was denied by the Fathers, so that neither perpetuity nor
universality could be pleaded in its favour; and they declared it an
absurd contradiction, founded on ignoble deceit, and incapable of being
made an article of faith by Pope or Council.[396] One bishop protested
that he would die rather than proclaim it. Another thought it would be
an act of suicide for the Church.

What was said, during the two months' debate, by men perpetually liable
to be interrupted by a majority acting less from conviction than by
command,[397] could be of no practical account, and served for protest,
not for persuasion. Apart from the immediate purpose of the discussion,
two speeches were memorable--that of Archbishop Conolly of Halifax, for
the uncompromising clearness with which he appealed to Scripture and
repudiated all dogmas extracted from the speculations of divines, and
not distinctly founded on the recorded Word of God,[398] and that of
Archbishop Darboy, who foretold that a decree which increased authority
without increasing power, and claimed for one man, whose infallibility
was only now defined, the obedience which the world refused to the whole
Episcopate, whose right had been unquestioned in the Church for 1800
years, would raise up new hatred and new suspicion, weaken the influence
of religion over society, and wreak swift ruin on the temporal
power.[399]

The general debate had lasted three weeks, and forty-nine bishops were
still to speak, when it was brought to a close by an abrupt division on
the 3rd of June. For twenty-four hours the indignation of the minority
was strong. It was the last decisive opportunity for them to reject the
legitimacy of the Council. There were some who had despaired of it from
the beginning, and held that the Bull _Multiplices_ deprived it of legal
validity. But it had not been possible to make a stand at a time when no
man knew whether he could trust his neighbour, and when there was fair
ground to hope that the worst rules would be relaxed. When the second
regulation, interpreted according to the interruptors of Strossmayer,
claimed the right of proclaiming dogmas which part of the Episcopate did
not believe, it became doubtful whether the bishops could continue to
sit without implicit submi