gium, the Austrian empire, including Hungary, Bavaria, Poland, and the Rhenish provinces of Prussia, which formerly belonged to the ecclesiastical electorates, profess the Catholic religion as that of the state, or, according to the expression of the French charte, that of the majority of the people. In America, all the countries which once formed part of the Spanish dominions, both in the southern and northern portion of the continent, and which are now independent states, profess exclusively the same religion. The empire of Brazil is also Catholic. Lower Canada and all those islands in the West Indies which belong to Spain or France, including the Republic of Hayti, profess the Catholic faith; and there are also considerable Catholic communities in the United States of North America, especially in Maryland and Louisiana. Many Indian tribes, in the Canadas, in the United States, in California, and in South America, have embraced the same faith. In Asia there is hardly any nation professing Christianity which does not contain large communities of Catholic Christians. Thus in Syria the entire nation or tribe of the Maronites, dispersed over Mount Libanus, are subjects of the Roman see, governed by a patriarch and bishops appointed by it. There are also other Syriac Christians under other bishops, united to the same see, who are dispersed all over Palestine and Syria. At Constantinople there is a Catholic Armenian patriarch who governs the united Armenians as they are called, large communities of whom also exist in Armenia proper. The Abbé Dubois, in his examination before a committee of the House of Commons in 1832, stated the number of Catholics in the Indian peninsula at 600,000, including Ceylon, and this number is perhaps rather underrated than otherwise. They are governed by four bishops and four vicars apostolic with episcopal consecration. A new one has just been added for Ceylon. We have not the means of ascertaining the number of Catholics in China, but in the province of Su-Chuen alone they were returned, 22d September, 1824, at 47,487 (Annales de la Propag. de la Foi, No. xi., p. 257); and an official report published at Rome in the same year gives those in the provinces of Fo-kien and Kiansi at 40,000. There are seven other provinces containing a considerable number of Catholics, of which we have no return. In the united empire of Tonkin and Cochin-China the Catholics of one district were estimated at 200,000 (Ibid., No. x., p. 194), and, till the late persecution, there was a college with 200 students, and convents containing 700 religious. Another district gave a return, in 1826, of 2955 infants baptized, which

would give an estimate of 88,000 adult Christians. A third gave a return of 170,000. M. Dubois estimates the number of native Catholics in the Philippine islands at 2,000,000. In Africa, the islands of Mauritius and Bourbon are Catholic, and all the Portuguese settlements on the coasts, as well as the Azores, Madeira, the Cape Verd, and the Canary Islands."

On the 8th of December, 1854, a new article was added to the Roman Catholic faith. Hitherto it had been a question among Roman Catholics whether the Virgin Mary was or was not conceived free from original sin, that is, without any inherited depravity; St. Bernard, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Catharine, the Dominicans, &c., had denied the immaculate conception; but Pope Pius IX., having previously sent a circular on the subject to all the bishops of the church throughout the world, and obtained the assent of a large majority of them, publicly declared the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary to be a doctrine of the church, and accordingly the following is now officially inserted as "Lesson VI." "on the 8th of December, at the Festival of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary."

"From the Acts of Pope Pius IX.

"But the victory of the Virgin Mother of God, at her conception, over the worst enemy of the human race, which victory divine declarations, venerable tradition, the constant sentiment of the church, the singular unanimity of the bishops and of the faithful, and the remarkable acts and constitutions of the chief pontiffs were now wonderfully illustrating; Pius IX., chief pontiff, assenting to the wishes of the whole church, determined to proclaim with his own supreme and infallible oracle. Therefore on the sixth day before the ides of December[= Dec. 8th] of the year 1854 in the Vatican Basilica, in the presence of a great assembly of the Cardinal Fathers of the Roman church and also of Bishops from remote regions, and with the applause of the whole world, solemnly pronounced and defined: That the doctrine which holds the Blessed Virgin Mary to have been at the first instant of her being conceived, by a singular divine privilege, preserved free from all stain of original sin, was revealed by God and is therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.”

"The First Ecumenical Council of the Vatican," whose sessions began on the 8th of December, 1869, has likewise made its additions to the authoritative standards of the church in its two dogmatic decrees. Of these, the first, "on Catholic faith," promulgated April 24, 1870, is divided into four chapters, reaffirming, in opposition to rationalism, naturalism, &c., the doctrines of the church in respect to God the creator of all things, to divine revelation, to faith, and to the relation of faith and reason; and closes with canons corresponding to chapters and anathematizing all who do not receive the views therein set forth by the council. The second dogmatic degree, in respect to the supremacy and infallibility of the pope, is the great work of the council, and, on account of its importance, is here given at length, as translated from the original Latin and published in "The Catholic World" for September, 1870.

"FIRST DOGMATIC DECREE ON THE CHURCH of christ, published IN THE FOURTH SESSION OF THE HOLY ECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN. PASSED JULY 18, 1870.

"Pius, Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, with the approbation of the Holy Council, for a perpetual remembrance hereof.

“The eternal Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, in order to render perpetual the saving work of his redemption, resolved to build the holy church, in which, as in the house of the living God, all the faithful should be united by the bond of the same faith and charity. For which reason, before he was glorified, he prayed the Father, not for the apostles alone, but also for those who, through their word, would believe in him, that they all might be one, as the Son himself and the Father are one (John xvii. 1-20). Wherefore, even as he sent the apostles, whom he had chosen to himself from the world as he had been sent by the Father, so he willed that there should be pastors and teachers in his church even to the consummation of the world. Moreover, to the end that the episcopal body itself might be one and undivided, and that the entire multitude of believers might be preserved in oneness of faith and of communion, through priests cleaving mutually together, he placed the blessed Peter before the other apostles and established in him a perpetual principle of this two-fold unity,

and a visible foundation on whose strength 'the eternal temple might be built, and in whose firm faith the church might rise upward until her summit reach the heavens' (St. Leo the Great, Sermon v. (or iii.), chapter 2, on Christmas). Now, seeing that in order to overthrow, if possible, the church, the powers of hell on every side, and with a hatred which increases day by day, are assailing her foundation which was placed by God, we therefore, for the preservation, the safety, and the increase of the Catholic flock, and with the approbation of the sacred council, have judged it necessary to set forth the doctrine which, according to the ancient and constant faith of the universal church, all the faithful must believe and hold, touching the institution, the perpetuity, and the nature of the sacred apostolic primacy, in which stands the power and strength of the entire church; and to proscribe and condemn the contrary errors so hurtful to the flock of the Lord.

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CHAPTER I

"Of the institution of the apostolic primacy in the blessed Peter.

6

"We teach, therefore, and declare that, according to the testimonies of the Gospel, the primacy of jurisdiction over the whole church of God was promised and given immediately and directly to blessed Peter, the apostle, by Christ our Lord. For it was to Simon alone, to whom he had already said, 'Thou shalt be called Cephas,'* that, after he had professed his faith, Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God,' our Lord said, 'Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona; because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in Heaven; and I say to thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.'† And it was to Simon Peter alone that Jesus, after his resurrection, gave the jurisdiction of supreme shepherd and ruler over the whole of his fold, saying, 'Feed my lambs ;' 'Feed my sheep.' To this doctrine so clearly set forth in the sacred

Scriptures, as the Catholic church has always understood it, are plainly opposed the perverse opinions of those who, distorting the form of government established in his church by Christ our Lord, deny that Peter alone above the other apostles, whether taken separately one by one or all together, was endowed by Christ with a true and real primacy of jurisdiction; or who assert that this primacy was not given immediately and directly to blessed Peter, but to the church, and through her to him, as to the agent of the church.

"If, therefore, any one shall say, that blessed Peter the Apostle was not appointed by Christ our Lord, the prince of all the apostles, and the visible head of the whole church militant; or, that he received directly and immediately from our Lord Jesus Christ only the primacy of honor, and not that of true and real jurisdiction; let him be anathema.

"CHAPTER II.

"Of the perpetuity of the primacy of Peter in the Roman pontiffs.

"What the prince of pastors and the great shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, established in the person of the blessed apostle Peter for the perpetual welfare and lasting good of the church, the same through his power must needs last for ever in that church, which is founded upon the rock, and will stand firm till the end of time. And indeed it is well known, as it has been in all ages, that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and head of the apostles, pillar of the faith and foundation of the Catholic Church, who received from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of mankind, the keys of the kingdom of heaven, to this present time and at all times lives and presides and pronounces judgment in the person of his successors, the bishops of the holy Roman see, which was founded by him, and consecrated by his blood. So that whoever succeeds Peter in this chair, holds, according to Christ's own institution, the primacy of Peter over the whole church. What, therefore, was once established by him who is the truth, still remains, and blessed Peter, retaining the strength of the rock, which has been given to him, has never left the helm of the church originally intrusted to him.†

"For this reason it was always necessary for every other church, that is, the faithful of all countries, to have recourse to the Roman

* Council of Eph. sess. iii. St. Peter Chrys. Ep. ad Eutych.

† S. Leo, Serm. iii. chap. iii.