After much deliberation and painstaking, the third public session of the council came to a close.
At less formal sittings was discussed the discipline relating to bishops. On this subject thirty-seven Fathers discoursed in the council. Seven sittings were employed in discussing discipline as concerns the clergy, and thirty-seven Fathers spoke. Forty-one Fathers took part in discussing the _schema_ on the Little Catechism. The discussion occupied six sittings. There was no hurrying of matters in the council. None of the discussions were closed until none of the Fathers desired further to be heard. All the _schemata_, it is almost needless to say, having been discussed, were referred to their respective commissions, in order to be revised in accordance with the speeches and the written amendments of the bishops.
Pius IX., meanwhile, was most anxious to aid and promote the labors of the council. Notwithstanding the great increase of ecclesiastical business occasioned by the presence in Rome of so many prelates, the affairs of whose churches, as well as their own more personal matters, required no small degree of attention, he followed, with unabated interest, every stage of its proceedings, and caused a minute account to be given to him every day of what was done in the various committees. These unwonted cares, and the unusual amount of labor and fatigue which they entailed, never induced him to omit any of those devotional offices with which he was accustomed to renew and strengthen his soul. He would not hear of any hurrying in the discussions on the first _schema_--that on faith, but, on the contrary, gave due praise to the pains and labor bestowed by the Fathers on every chapter, word and sentence. It was their object to secure that complete accuracy and perfection of expression which could not fail to prove eminently useful in all time to come. As has been already remarked, the Fathers of the "Congregations" and "Commissions" labored most assiduously in preparing, for the acceptance of the council, the _schema_ on faith and doctrine. In the course of the six weeks that it was under review, seventy-nine discourses were delivered, three hundred and sixty-four amendments proposed, examined and voted upon, while six reports were made upon the text of the _schema_, which had been six times amended. The introduction, the four chapters and the eighteen canons, having finally passed the council, were approved by the Holy Father, adopted and promulgated as a Papal "Constitution," which will be known in history as the Constitution _Dei Filius_. It is a masterpiece of theological science, and may be compared to priceless gems artistically arranged by skilful hands in the richest settings.