A hundred years ago
From the 'Spectator,' 11 December 1869—The first Council of the Vatican, which is said by moderate critics to have been convoked in order that it may be not only the last as well as the first of the Vatican but the last CEcumeni- cal council of any kind,—since who would grope about the edge of a reflecting telescope for celestial intelligence, when the object searched for was most clearly reflected in its very focus?—met on Wednesday, December 8, —"the feast of the Immaculate Conception,"- 803 fathers strong. The Vatican,--a temporary planetary appendage to our contemporary the Tablet, which is to be devoted to recording the events of the Council,—remarks that this Coun- cil numbers more than the members of the first three Councils, those of Nictea, Constantinople, and Ephesus taken together; and that it includes representatives from Siam, Burmah, Chinese Tartary, Mantchouria, from Japan, from Costa Rica, from Hudson's Bay, from Senegambia, from Abyssinia, in a word, from almost all the sees represented in the first Councils and a great many of which the world of the first Councils had never even heard.
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