r paper than the _Times_, which makes the
following admission on occasion of the Vatican Council which opened in
1869: "Seven hundred Bishops, more or less, representing all
Christendom, were seen gathered round one altar and one throne,
partaking of the same Divine Mystery, and rendering homage, by turns,
to the same spiritual authority and power. As they put on their
mitres, or took them off, and as they came to the steps of the altar,
or the foot of the common spiritual Father, it was IMPOSSIBLE
not to feel the UNITY and the power of the Church which they
represented" (16th Dec., 1869). Here, then, is the most influential
journal certainly of Great Britain, perhaps of the world, proclaiming
to its readers far and wide, not simply that the Roman Catholic Church
is one, but that her oneness is of such a sterling quality, and of so
pronounced a character that it is impossible--mark the word,
impossible!--not to feel it. Yet men ask where the Church of God is to
be found. They ask for a sign, and lo! when God gives them one they
cannot see it, nor interpret it, nor make anything out of it: and
prefer to linger on in what Newman calls "the cities of confusion,"
than find peace and security in "the communion of Rome, which is that
Church which the Apostles set up at Pentecost, which alone has 'the
adoption of sons, and the glory and the covenants and the revealed
law, and the service of God and the promises,' and in which the
Anglican [or any other Protestant] communion, whatever it merits and
demerits, whatever the great excellence of individuals in it, has, as
such, no part". But this is a digression. Let us return to our
subject.

The incontestable value and immense practical importance of the Papal
prerogative of infallibility have been rendered abundantly manifest
ever since its solemn definition nearly forty years ago. In fact,
although the enormous increase of the population of the world has not
rendered the position of the Sovereign Pontiff any easier, yet he is
better fitted and equipped since the definition to cope promptly and
effectually with errors and heresies as they arise than he was before.
We do not mean that his prerogative of infallibility is invoked upon
every trivial occasion--one does not call for a Nasmyth hammer to
break a nut--but it is always there, in reserve, and may be used, on
occasion, even without summoning an Ecumenical Council, and this is a
matter of some consequence. For, though time m