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The Pope has.beeamdulging lc a .good Christmas brush with his enemieS, having delivered to the Cardinals on the 23rd of December an,Allocution, the text of the most important part of -which we have ciuoted elsewhere,- denouncing the German perse- cutioa'of the Church; apa..Fiayipg. ihat tha-Germans have been " shameless " in :representing thatpersecution as no real injury to it. The Germans are very angry. indeed, and the Spener Gazette calls the Pope " a new Benedetti,"—rather a feeble term of reprehension,- considering _ that the asserted insult of M. Benedetti to the King of Prussia at Ems has been dis- proved, and is now denied on both sides, as well by the German authorities as by the French. However, Lieutenant Riumm has been instructed to leave Rome, that he might not have to join in the customary courtesies on New Year's Day, and it seems verydoubt- f al if he will return. Prince Bismarck is said to have observed that the more clear it is that the Vatican won't come to an under- standing with his master, the more distinctly must the rights and privileges of the Church in Germany be limited by law, and very narrowly limited, too, we fear,—limited in the way in which the liberty of dangerous criminals is limited, by manacles and strait-waistcoats. But in politics, at least, the Pope is not only fallible; but foolish.
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