gdom of Naples, and the Right Rev,
Edward Fitzgerald, Bishop of Petricola (Little Rock, Arkansas), in the
United States of America. Immediately after the confirmation of the
"Constitution," these two prelates, advancing to the Papal chair, solemnly
declared their adhesion to the act of the council. The four dissentient
cardinals--Rauscher, Schwarzenberg, Mathieu and Hohenlohe--who had left the
council when the fourth session was held, also, in their turn, expressed
their assent to the decision of the assembled Fathers. The opposing
bishops did in like manner. All of them, not excepting Strossmayer, Bishop
of Sirmium, who was the most eloquent orator of the minority in the
council, and who appeared to hesitate longer than the rest, ended by
promulgating all the decrees of the council in their respective dioceses.
This is more than could be said of Nicea, Chalcedon and Constantinople.
For the first time, no bishop persisted in resisting the decisions of an
OEcumenical Council. It was now acknowledged by the whole episcopate that
those measures were timely, wise and salutary, which the Church, ever
guided by the Spirit of God, had deemed it proper to adopt, but which so
many, awed by the spirit of unbelief which was abroad, had judged were
inopportune.

It may have been merely a coincidence. But there can be no doubt that
grandeur was added to a scene, in itself sufficiently imposing, when, as
on Sinai of old, lightning flashed and thunder pealed, as the Fathers of
the Council solemnly rose to give their final vote. "The _placets_ of the
Fathers," writes the correspondent of the London _Times_ (Aug. 5, 1870),
"struggled through the storm while the thunder pealed above, and the
lightning flashed in at every window, and down through the dome and every
smaller cupola. '_Placet!_' shouted his Eminence or his Grace, and a loud
clap of thunder followed in response, and then the lightning darted about
the Baldacchino and every part of the church and council-hall, as if
announcing the response. So it continued for nearly one hour and a half,
during which time the roll was being called, and a more effective scene I
never witnessed. Had all the decorators and all the getters-up of
ceremonies in Rome been employed, nothing approaching to the solemn
grandeur of the storm could have been prepared, and never will those who
saw it and felt it forget the promulgation of the first dogma of the
church." Less friendly critics beheld, in this