restore discipline.
With the exception of the Apostolic Council of Jerusalem, no council was
held for the first three hundred years of the church's existence. The
church, nevertheless, as regarded her spiritual state, was highly
prosperous and extended rapidly. Councils came as exigencies arose, and
when there was no insuperable impediment to their assembling. They were in
their time a source of great and lasting good, whilst their record remains
shedding light on the centuries as they pass. There had already been
eighteen OEcumenical Councils, that of Trent, held three hundred years ago,
having been the last. Causes like to those which occasioned the earlier
councils, although in a different state of the world and human society,
appeared to call for such action on the part of the church as should
powerfully influence the passing age, and cause the light of Divine
revelation to penetrate the dark places of the nineteenth century. It was
resolved, accordingly, to convoke the OEcumenical Council of the age.

BISHOPS, ETC., BIDDEN TO THE COUNCIL.

It was the duty of the Commission of Direction to decide as to who had a
right to be called to, and to sit in, the council. This commission
consisted of five cardinals who were presidents, eight bishops and a
secretary, the Archbishop of Sardis. There was no difference of opinion. A
question, however, arose as to the right of vicars-apostolic to be invited
to the council. They were bishops, indeed, but without ordinary
jurisdiction. Hence the doubt as to their right to be called. Neither
their admissibility, if invited, nor of their decisive vote when admitted
was at all questioned. The precedents and practice of the Holy See were in
favor of their being called. It was also dreaded lest their exclusion
should give rise to questions as to the oecumenicity of the council. All
bishops, undoubtedly, were entitled to be invited. It was decided,
therefore, that bishops, vicars-apostolic, should be bidden to the
council. The Bulls by which former councils had been convoked called
together archbishops, bishops, etc. The law, therefore, making no
distinction between bishops in ordinary and such as were vicars-apostolic,
neither could the commission. _Ubi lex non distinguit nec nos distingnere
debemus_.

It was a far more serious matter to invite "the bishops of the Oriental
rite who are not in communion with the Apostolic See." An earnest and
affectionate letter of invitation was addre