On the 8th of January, 1438, the Cardinal of the Holy Cross, by the Pope's authority, opened the council at Ferrara. The Cardinal Julian and the other legates had now withdrawn from Basil and joined the Pope; few of the Bishops, however, had as yet arrived at the new council, because the Emperor of the West, and other secular princes, prevented their leaving Basil. Charles VII, King of France, particularly denounced the severest punishment against any French Bishop who should go to Ferrara. Eugenius arrived there on the 27th of January, and presided at a congregation which was held on the 8th of February, and at the second session which was held on the 15th of that month; the Greek Emperor arrived on the 4th of March, and three days afterwards the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Greek deputies entered Ferrara, and were introduced to the Pope.

On the 14th of March, the prelates who remained at Basil, and who, after the departure of the legates, had chosen as their president Cardinal Aleman, Archbishop of Arles in France, protested against the authority of the council of Ferrara. Henceforth they were gradually diminishing in numbers and proceeding in a mock trial of the Pope, during the remainder of that year.

Having made several preliminary regulations, subsequently to the arrival of the Greeks, for the more minute discussion of the points of difference, the sessions were adjourned for six months; during which the several points were debated thrice every week, the speakers on the side of the Greeks being Mark of Ephesus and Bessarion of Nice; and on the side of the Latins, Cardinal Julian and Cardinal de Ferrara. The first session of the united Greeks and Latins was held on Wednesday, the 8th of October; the sessions continued until the 10th of the succeeding January; when upon the breaking out of sickness at Ferrara, at the request of the Florentines, and their engagement to pay the expenses of the Greeks, the council was, upon the suggestion of the Pope, transferred to Florence; at which [city] the first session was held on the 26th of February, 1439. The conferences and sessions continued and the articles of Union were nearly complete, when on the 9th of June, Joseph, the venerable Patriarch of Constantinople, who, during twenty-three years, had filled that See, died at Florence, having been fully reconciled to the Pope, whom he acknowledged to be the successor of St. Peter and Vicar of Jesus Christ, and the head of the Universal Church. On the 25th of June, the re-union of the Greeks and Latins was subsequently concluded at Florence; and on the same day the good prelates who remained at Basil, pronounced sentence of deposition against Eugenius. On the 6th of July, the last session was held at

Florence, in which both Greeks and Latins united and subscribed the articles of re-union.

Contrary to the entreaties of the Western Emperor, and of others who still adhered to them, the prelates of Basil proceeded to elect a person to fill what they called the vacant See, and Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, who, after the death of his wife, lived in a splendid sort of religious retirement, was chosen, and consecrated by the Cardinal of Arles; this anti-pope assumed the name of Felix V. Eugenius admonished the retired duke to lay down his pretentions, under pain of excommunication to him and his adherents.

The prelates at Basil excommunicated Eugenius and his adherents. Very few even of those who adhered to the council of Basil treated Felix as Pope. His son Louis, Duke of Savoy, and some others of the Swiss, were almost his only adherents. The few clergymen, for there was now scarcely a bishop remaining, who were at Basil, adjourned their council in May, 1443, to meet again at Lyons, in France, at the end of three years; but they did not meet. Eugenius died in 1447, and was succeeded by Nicholas V, whom the Catholic world acknowledged, and to whom Felix himself submitted two years afterwards, bitterly lamenting his erroneous proceedings; and thus was this schism concluded.

I have thus laid before you the statement of facts, and I ask whether this unfortunate schism was a difference of doctrine: and whether the succession of the Apostolic See was lost? Was this such a difference as exists between Baptists and Methodists? Mark White's conclusion:

"And now, I will ask, is this the unity, the harmony, without which your writers contend that the Church of Christ cannot exist? Is it thus that the necessity of your interpretation of the Scripture passages, on which the system of infallibility has been erected, is sanctioned by experience? Can you still close your eyes against the demonstration contained in my preceding letter, because variations and dissent are in the train of its consequences?''

I answer; this, unfortunately, is not unity of charity, it is not unity of peace, and harmony of brethren, but there is not here any want of unity of doctrine; there is here still to be found that unity of principle which, properly applied to facts, will in time produce unity of affection and harmony of action. Here there are excited passions, embittered opposition, but an adherence to the great doctrine of the unity of the Church, and the necessity of preserving unchanged the despotism of faith and the constitution of the government, and because this was preserved the troubled ocean became calm, discord ceased, and when passion subsided schism was extinguished.

The contention was not about the correct interpretation of passages of the Holy Scripture, nor about [the question] whether Christ revealed a particular doctrine, nor concerning the truth of a moral principle, nor even regarding a doctrinal fact: upon those subjects we believe the judgment of the Church to be infallibly correct. But the question was one of easy solution, though rendered difficult by the circumstances with which it was entangled: it was not in any manner a question of faith. If White showed us two contradictory propositions of doctrine or of morals taught by the same, or by different general councils, indeed our principle must yield.

Viewing this in its most unfavorable light, we should say that supposing the majority of Bishops to have been at Basil, and the minority with the Pope at Florence, and both to have been in contradiction, neither would be infallible, because the tribunal which we believe to be gifted by heaven with that prerogative, must consist of the Pope and the majority of the Bishops in full accord. What would be said to the witling who should give us this sapient argument? "You say that your laws must be assented to by the President and a majority of the House of Representatives, and a majority of the Senate. But a majority of the representatives passed a bill of which the President disapproved, and after the constitutional close of the session, the representatives still continue in session; the President, with the advice of the Senate, reprimands them for this violation of custom and usage; and they declare that the President has lost his power, and proceed to declare him deposed, and the Senate to be traitors. Now, unless you acknowledge that he is constitutionally deposed, that the person whom they have chosen and whom the Senate rejects and condemns, is the true constitutional President, you can never prove that Congress has power to pass a law; for to pass a law, the House of Representatives must have power, but if you deny their power in this case, you deny their power altogether, and if they have no power, are you not wrong in observing any law enacted by the Congress?" Just such an argument as this, those wise and learned gentlemen who support White, use against us. Judge you of its value.

I trust that you plainly perceive that even in this most afflicting state of the Church, there was no deviation from faith, no denial of the Papal supremacy, no change of the principles of Church government, no loss of the succession, and that they who differed as to facts agreed in doctrine.

Yours, and so forth,

B. C.

LETTER LIV.

CHARLESTON, S. C., Feb. 4, 1828.

To the Roman Catholics of the United States of America.

My Friends,-Having seen the nature of the divisions by which the Church was unfortunately rent at the time of the great schism, and at the period of the Council of Florence; it is now clear that on neither occasion was there any diversity of doctrinal belief amongst its members, consequently there was perfect unity of faith. White having endeavored to play upon the differences, and to insinuate a diversity of belief which he dared not assert, proceeds as if to answer our defence. In his page 105, and so forth, we have the following passage:

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Our troubles and dissensions, however, (you are taught to answer) are limited to externals; those of the Protestants affect the unity of the faith.' Such is the last shelter, the citadel, of your infallible Church theory. See, then, the series of assumptions, doubts and evasions of which that theory consists, and observe its inevitable consequences. 1. You assume that which is in question, the necessity of an infallible judge of faith. 2. Upon the strength of that assumption, you interpret certain passages of the Scripture, so that they are made to prove the existence of such a judge. 3. You are then in doubt as to the identity of the judge himself, without being able to determine by any fixed rule, whether the supernatural gift of infallibility belongs to the Pope alone, or to the Pope and the general council. 4. When to evade this difficulty, you avail yourselves of the term Church, as embracing the privileges of the Pope and council; you are still obliged to contrive another method, which may meet the objections arising from such dissensions between the assembled bishops and their head, as took place in the instances above mentioned. This you do by allowing no council to be infallible till it has been approved by the Pope, and thus resolve Church infallibility into the opinion of the Roman See. 5. And finally, You intrench yourselves within the distinction of infallibility on abstract doctrines of faith, and liability to practical error. Now, observe, I entreat you, the consequences to which the whole system leads. The only sensible mark of a legitimate council, being the approbation of the Pope; and the only sensible mark of a legitimate Pope, being his undisputed possession of the See of Rome; you have, in the first place, entailed the gift of the infallibility upon the strongest of the rival candidates for that see; and, as moral worth is, by the last distinction, denied to be a necessary characteristic of the vicar and representative of Christ, you have added, in the second place, one chance

more of having for your living rule of faith that candidate who shall contend for the visible badge of his spiritual and supernatural office, under the least restraint of moral obligation. If we find, therefore, upon consulting the history of the Popes, that no Episcopal See has oftener been polluted by wickedness and profligacy, the fact is explained by the preceding statement. What chance of success to be head of the Christian Church could attend a true disciple of Jesus Christ, when a Borgia was bent upon filling that post? Gold, steel and poison, were the familiar instruments of his wishes; whilst the belief that faith was still safe in the custody of such a monster, prevented opposition from the force of public opinion. The faithful still revered in Alexander VI, (be the blasphemy far from me!) the true representative of Christ on earth."

It is not easy to know what he would be at in this place. If he means to prove want of unity in our Church, as would seem to be his object in the first lines: he makes no reply to what he gives as our answer. But from what follows he appears rather to turn again upon infallibility, which indeed must ever be a thorn in the side of every innovator.

Let us see those "assumptions, doubts and evasions," of which he so magisterially disposes. "You assume that which is in question, the necessity of an infallible judge of faith." Indeed we do not, but we prove it by a very simple process: such as, the following: "Faith is the belief of what God has taught." "We cannot believe what he has taught, without certainly knowing what it is." "We cannot know with certainty what God has taught except from a witness which can neither deceive us nor be deceived herself respecting what has been revealed by God." "A witness of that description is infallible." "Therefore, in order to have faith we find it necessary to have a judge of faith whose judicial testimony will be infallibly correct." White is kind enough to inform us that "there are but few, indeed, who can take second true step in reasoning." I trust I shall not be considered arrogant in believing that I have here taken three or four true steps, and that I have demonstrated what White so flippantly says we assume. I shall try another process for the same conclusion. "Any testimony which is not infallibly correct might lead me to error." "If the Church be not an infallibly correct witness, I can never be certain that she will teach me the doctrine of Christ;" "Neither am I myself infallible," "nor is any other individual or collection of individuals infallible." "Thus I can

not be certain of knowing the doctrine of Christ from the Church, from my own opinion of the Scriptures, nor from the opinion of any other