The Allocution delivered by the Pope on the 12th March,
and fully reported in Monday's Times, is much the most effective
address he has made since the occupation of Rome by the Italian Government. And for this there is a good reason. In the first place, he " meant business," to use the phrase accepted by Sir Stafford Northcote on behalf of the present Government in rela- tion to county finance ; and in the next place, in the " Clerical Abuses Bill," of which we have said enough in another column, he had a grievance concerning which even Protestant, and still more Catholic countries, are likely to side with him, rather than with the Italian Parliament It is curious to observe how the stronger ground the Pope stands on in pointing out to Europe that the liberty of teaching and moral exhortation is now threatened with severe penalties,—penalties such as no Dissenting sect in England would tolerate, without raising an agitation that would disturb the whole nation,--has, instead of inflating and exaggerating, really chastened and subdued his style. It is true there are still many of the wonted Papal amenities of speech,—such as ' vomiting-forth,' applied to the utterances of his enemies,—but on the whole, the Allocution is, for Papal speech, reticent and telling. It ends with something like even Puritan vigour :—" Let them fear of whom it is written, I saw those who committed iniquity and sowed troubles and reaped troubles perish at the whisper of God, and they were consumed at the breath of His anger.' But for those who fear God, who fight in His name, who hope in His power, is prepared mercy and aid, nor is there room for doubt that, His being the cause, His the battle, He will guide the combatants to victory."
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