24 SEPTEMBER 1870, Page 2

The great majority of the German Catholic Bishops (most of

whom opposed the Infallibility definition) have, as we always expected, given in, and declared the authority of the Council final. There was never any substantial choice between that course and open schism. To maintain that the Council was not free, in any sense at all in which that could not also be said of the first four Councils for example, was so monstrously absurd, that a bishop had no choice between leaving the Church and submission to the Council. One or two German Bishops,—the Bishop of Rottenburg, for instance,—still stand out ; but these, we should suppose, are preparing to leave a Church whose authority they have evidently as much renounced as have the Bishops of our own English Church.