ULTRAMONTANISM PROM AN HISTORICAL POINT OP VIEW. lGd 
Not but that there has long been constant dissatisfaction 
among the more far-sighted and independent of her sons. The 
names of Wessemburg, Hirscher, Sailer, Schmidt, Eosmini,. 
Gioberti, Curci, Lamennais, Lacordaire, and even Montalembert 
himself, will remind us that continual protest against the 
working of the Koman system was raised by men of genius and 
character in various lands. But all these men agreed in one 
point. However necessary reform might be, resistance to 
authority was a thing not to be thought of. So each one of 
them was silenced in turn, and died in distress and isolation. 
And as it is a notorious fact that unsuccessful resistance 
strengthens the hands of those in power, the reforms so ably and 
conscientiously urged became more and more impossible as each 
of those who had advocated them was condemned to choose 
between excommunication and retractation. One, however, of 
those men, Lamennais, when driven into exile from his Church, 
uttered a noteworthy prediction. He said that so abject was 
the spirit of the members of the Church of Borne, that even the 
noblest of causes could not stimulate their advocates into open 
resistance to Church authority. If, he added, there ever were 
such resistance, those who dared to raise the standard of 
rebellion would be stigmatised at first as fools or madmen ; few 
would join them ; and the infant community would be almost 
overwhelmed with the storm of ridicule and obloquy to which it 
was exposed. But if its members persevered, he added, they 
would by degrees attract adherents, but it would be a long 
time before they would be more than an insignificant sect. This 
prophesyhas been realised to the letter in the history of the Old 
Catholic body. 
That body owed its existence to the Vatican Council of 1870, 
which put the capstone on the Papal autocracy by decreeing 
the personal infallibility of the Pope. The summoning of the 
Council created a great turmoil in Europe. A band of German 
theologians, with Dollinger at their head, resisted the definitions 
with all their might, pointing out that they involved a change 
of doctrine of a very serious nature ; that they were opposed to 
the decrees of the Council of Constance in 1415 — decrees which 
the Council of Trent in the 16th century did not dare to touch ; 
and that they would certainly embroil the Boman Church with 
the Civil power throughout Europe. I cannot dwell on the 
history of that Council. Those who wish to study it can do so. 
in the late Mr. W. Arthur’s The Pope, the Kings, and the People. 
It is true that the history of the Council, like that of Trent, has 
come down to us in different shapes. Just as Pallavicino and 
m 2 
