health. . . . The definition of the
Vatican Council completes and fixes for ever the external authority
of the Church against the heresies and errors of the last three
centuries. . . . None but the declared enemies of the Church and
misdirected Catholics can fail to see in this the directing
influence of the Holy Ghost.

"The Vatican Council has placed the Church in battle array, unmasked
the concealed batteries of her enemies; the conflict will be on a
fair and open field, and it will be decisive. The recent hostility of
the governments of Europe, and especially of Italy, against the
Church, has shown the wisdom of the Vatican Council in preparing the
Church to meet the crisis. The definition leaves no longer any doubt
in regard to the authority of the Chief of the Church.

"For my part I sincerely thank the Jesuits for their influence in
bringing it about, even though that were as great as some people
would have us believe. . . . This had to be done before the Church
could resume her normal course of action. What is that? Why, the
divine external authority of the Church completed, fixed beyond all
controversy, her attention and that of all her children can now be
turned more directly to the divine and interior authority of the Holy
Ghost in the soul. The whole Church giving her attention to the
interior inspirations of the Holy Spirit, will give birth to her
renewal, and enable her to reconquer her place and true position in
Europe and the whole world. For we must never forget that the
immediate means of Christian perfection is the interior direction of
the Holy Spirit, while the test of our being directed by the Holy
Spirit and not by our fancies and prejudices, is our filial obedience
to the divine external authority of the Church.

"If for three centuries the most influential schools in the Church
gave a preponderance in their teaching and spiritual direction to
those virtues which are in direct relation to the external authority
of the Church, it must be remembered that the heresies of that period
all aimed at the destruction of this authority. The character of this
teaching, therefore, was a necessity. There was no other way of
preserving the children of the Church from the danger of this
infection. If the effect of this teaching made Catholics childlike,
less manly and active than others, this was under the circumstances
inevitable.

"The definition of the Vatican Council, thanks to the Jesuits, now
gives