the French army, it was able to apply considerable pressure upon
the Vatican. The interests of England were less directly
involved, but it happened that at this moment Mr. Gladstone was
Prime Minister, and Mr. Gladstone entertained strong views upon
the Infallibility of the Pope. His opinions upon the subject were
in part the outcome of his friendship with Lord Acton, a
historian to whom learning and judgment had not been granted in
equal proportions, and who, after years of incredible and indeed
well-nigh mythical research, had come to the conclusion that the
Pope could err. In this Mr. Gladstone entirely concurred, though
he did not share the rest of his friend's theological opinions;
for Lord Acton, while straining at the gnat of Infallibility, had
swallowed the camel of the Roman Catholic Faith. 'Que diable
allait-il faire dans cette galere?' one cannot help asking, as
one watched that laborious and scrupulous scholar, that lifelong
enthusiast for liberty, that almost hysterical reviler of
priesthood and persecution, trailing his learning so discrepantly
along the dusty Roman way. But, there are some who know how to
wear their Rome with a difference; and Lord Acton was one of
these.

He was now engaged in fluttering like a moth round the Council
and in writing long letters to Mr. Gladstone, impressing upon him
the gravity of the situation, and urging him to bring his
influence to bear. If the, Dogma were carried-- he declared, no
man who accepted it could remain a loyal subject and Catholics
would everywhere become 'irredeemable enemies of civil and
religious liberty'. In these circumstances, was it not plainly
incumbent upon the English Government, involved as it was with
the powerful Roman Catholic forces in Ireland, to intervene? Mr.