The Pope has had so many millions of tracts published against him, that it is hard if he may not produce one little one in his own defence.

His Holiness may say with truth, in the words of Juvenal, Semper ego auditor tantum?
nunquamne reponam, Vexatus toties?
But, as a matter of policy, if he has got so very little to say for himself, it would be perhaps wiser if he held his tongue.

Be that as it may, the Vatican has thought fit to bring out a small brown paper tract, in answer to the celebrated, too-celebrated, pamphlet, _Le Pape et le Congres_.

The tract is of the smallest bulk, the clearest type, the best paper, and the cheapest price.

Mindful of the Horatian dictum, it plunges at once "in medias res," and starts, out of breath, with the following interjections: "The end of the world has come.