“‘Fecisti patriam diversis gentibus unam;Profuit invitis, te dominante, capi;Dumque offers victis patrii consortia jurisUrbem fecisti quod prius orbis erat.’”
“‘Fecisti patriam diversis gentibus unam;Profuit invitis, te dominante, capi;Dumque offers victis patrii consortia jurisUrbem fecisti quod prius orbis erat.’”
“‘Fecisti patriam diversis gentibus unam;Profuit invitis, te dominante, capi;Dumque offers victis patrii consortia jurisUrbem fecisti quod prius orbis erat.’”
“‘Fecisti patriam diversis gentibus unam;
Profuit invitis, te dominante, capi;
Dumque offers victis patrii consortia juris
Urbem fecisti quod prius orbis erat.’”
The Illustrated Catholic Family Almanacfor 1878. New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co.
This annual, neat, compact, and perfect in all its mechanical arrangements—the labor of many busy and well-stored minds condensed into a portable form—has just been issued. To say that it equals its predecessors, which have found so much favor with the public, would be doing it great injustice. In every respect it is far superior, and shows palpable evidence that its conductors, appreciating the growth in public taste as well as the increasing desire for reliable information on important Catholic subjects, have left no effort untried to satisfy the wishes of their readers. This is particularly noticeable in the illustrations, which we consider to be not only good pictures but genuine works of art. The portraits of Archbishop Bayley, Bishops Von Ketteler and De St. Palais, and the venerable Jesuit Father McElroy are not only excellent likenesses of those deceased prelates, but the best specimens of wood-cut portraiture we have yet seen on this side of the Atlantic. The other engravings, of which there are about a dozen, are alike creditable to the artist and suitable for the pages of such a publication. The reading matter, however, will probably most attract the attention of the majority of purchasers, many of whom will doubtless wonder where a great portion of it could possibly have been discovered. Thus, in addition to the lives of the ecclesiastics above mentioned, and biographical sketches of the venerable Sister Mary Margaret Bourgeois, Frederic Ozanam, Columbus, and others, we have an elaborate History of Printing, a description (with fac-similes) of “The Earliest Irish Madonna,” accounts of the Libraries of the Bollandists and of the Eremites of York; an archæological sketch of the oldest churches of the world, an explanation of the antiqueCross of St. Zachary, arésuméof the labors of the Franciscans in California, and a well-digested mass of astronomical, chronological, and statistical information which cannot help proving of incalculable value as matters of reference.
Evidences of Religion.By Louis Jouin, S.J. New York: P. O’Shea. 1877.
There is nothing more gratifying to Catholics who watch the progress of their religion in this country than to find that the church in the United States is beginning to supply her own literature, and more especially her polemical literature, which she needs most of all. Within the last few years several controversial works and books of instruction have been written in this country which are far better adapted to our people than the standard works of foreign authors; and the time, we trust, is not far distant when we shall be fully supplied with a well-adapted course of polemics of our own, and be no longer dependent on the writings of men in lands which are often more or less out of harmony with the American mind.The Evidences of Religionis one of the books of which we stood most in need, and the wonder is that it was not written long before. Perhaps, however, it is as well that no one attempted it before Father Jouin; for we doubt if any other attempt could have been so entirely successful.
The book is a marvel of condensed matter and thought and argument. In its 380 octavo pages are summed up the philosophical treatiseDe Certitudineand theological tractDe Locis Theologicis; and it contains in addition a refutation, short, sharp, and decisive, of the latest errors in philosophy, politics, and religion.
Christianity rests on facts, not on mere theories. The science of the day pretends to deal with facts, and in every case to accept them, so that in our controversies with the pseudo-science of the times there is nothing more important than to bring out clearly and strongly the facts on which the certainty of the Christian faith rests. This Father Jouin has done, and in his book we have the whole groundwork on which Christianity is based spread out before us in perspective; the outline is complete, though ofcourse, in the limited space which he allowed himself, he has not been able to bring out each detail in full. Yet he assures us in his preface that nothing essential has been left out, and we have verified his assertion. Altogether this is just the sort of book, in our opinion, that is needed to combat the errors of the age, and to serve as an antidote to the poison of rank infidelity and materialism with which the very atmosphere around us is charged.
The author tells us that he designs the work more especially as a text-book for students in the higher classes of our Catholic colleges, and we sincerely hope that it may be adopted in every Catholic college throughout the country. Our Catholic instructors fully realize the importance of giving their students a thorough grounding in the evidences of their religion, and Father Jouin’s book in the hands of a good professor can be made the basis of a thorough course of such instruction.
Not alone to students in colleges do we recommend the study of this work, but to every intelligent educated Catholic, who should investigate the reasons on which his religion is founded, and be able to answer for the faith that is in him. Let our Catholic lawyers and doctors and business men take it up, and they will find in it sufficient to convince them of the reasonableness of their creed. It will furnish them, moreover, with conclusive arguments against the absurd theories and false views of religion which are being advanced every day in their hearing.
The greatest enemy that the Catholic Church has to contend with, both without and within, at the present day, is ignorance of her true position and teaching, and we eagerly invite and encourage every study and investigation that may in any way help to dispel it.
It is to be regretted that so valuable a work has not been brought out in a worthy manner. It is neither well printed nor well put together.
The New Vesper Hymn-Book: A companion toThe New Vesper Psalter; containing a collection of all the hymns sung at Vespers throughout the year (classified according to metre), set to music, either for unison or four voices, with accompaniment, and including the best of the plain chant melodies, together with the words infull, and the versicles and responses proper to each hymn. The whole compiled and edited by Charles Lewis, Director of the Cathedral Choir, Boston, Mass. Boston: Thos. B. Noonan & Co.
At the present stage of the revival of Gregorian Chant, the true song of the church, we can commend this little work as one which will doubtless be found useful in many churches whose organists are unable to harmonize the chant or the singers to read its proper notation. We wish, however, that the editor had given all the hymns as found in theVesperale, as the musical airs which are substituted are not worthy to supplant the original melodies. The style of notation is that usually adopted in translations from the old form of four lines and square notes. Could not the editor have done better, so as to give to those unaccustomed to plain chant some idea of its movement and expression? There is no mark given to designate accented from unaccented notes, and, lacking this, we defy any one who is not familiar with the traditional movement of a phrase to give its true expression.
We think the spacing of notes and phrases as given in the old style should be preserved—that is, the notes upon each syllable should be printed close together, and a wider and distinct space left between syllables and words. An intelligent system of writing plain chant upon the modern musical staff is yet to be invented. We have been told that in some places the Tonic Sol-Fa system is being attempted, with what success we have not learned.
Lotos Flowers, gathered in Sun and Shadow.By Mrs. Chambers-Ketchum. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1877.
Mrs. Chambers-Ketchum is already known to the readers ofThe Catholic Worldthrough her poems, “Advent” and “A Birthday Wish” (appearing under the name of “Twenty-one” in the present collection), published in its pages during the present year. Her verse is pure in thought and written out of a woman’s heart full of love and enthusiasm. With true Southern fervor she revels in the luxuriant flora of her home, and in the landscape of all her pictures she takes a dear delight. Evenso unsightly an object as a Mississippi steamboat-landing grows picturesque under her hand, and do we not feel soft Italian air as we read?—
“Peaceful standThe sentinel poplars in their gold-green plumesBeside the Enzo bridge. Where late the hoofsOf flying squadrons scared th’affrighted landThe soft cloud-shadows chase each other nowO’er violet gardens.”
“Peaceful standThe sentinel poplars in their gold-green plumesBeside the Enzo bridge. Where late the hoofsOf flying squadrons scared th’affrighted landThe soft cloud-shadows chase each other nowO’er violet gardens.”
“Peaceful standThe sentinel poplars in their gold-green plumesBeside the Enzo bridge. Where late the hoofsOf flying squadrons scared th’affrighted landThe soft cloud-shadows chase each other nowO’er violet gardens.”
“Peaceful stand
The sentinel poplars in their gold-green plumes
Beside the Enzo bridge. Where late the hoofs
Of flying squadrons scared th’affrighted land
The soft cloud-shadows chase each other now
O’er violet gardens.”
As with many another poet, the ease with which Mrs. Chambers-Ketchum writes is at times a snare, leading her to accept too readily a hackneyed term or word, surrendering after too slight a struggle to the tyranny of rhyme. In her verse, also, there is sometimes a lack of smoothness that would set despair in the heart of the faithful scanner.
Was it because our ears were sick with a certain slang of “culture” that, when we stumbled over Krishna in the “Christian Legend,” we felt a strong desire to banish these Indian immortals to that Hades where languished the gods of Greece until Schiller called them forth to run riot in the field of religion as well as of art? And is not the term “legend” a strange misnomer, for the New Testament narrative of the raising of Lazarus? For Mrs. Chambers-Ketchum’s verse is essentially Christian and womanly, and even so short a notice of it would scarcely be complete without a mention of “Benny,” who, with his kitten and his “baby’s sense of right,” is already dear and familiar to the mothers and children of our whole country, whose kindly hearts will surely give to Benny’s mother their sympathy in his loss.
Surly Tim, and Other Stories.By Francis Hodgson Burnett. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1877.
Unfortunately for our first impression of the merit of the little volume of which “Surly Tim” is the initial story, we began our reading with “Lodusky,” attracted to it by the locality of the tale, its hill people and dialect being a loadstone to us, but lately returned from similar surroundings. But as even in our mountain Edens we find the trail of the serpent, so in “Lodusky” we seemed to be treading the familiar path of moral irresponsibility and the tyranny of personal magnetism, and we craved the flamingsword of the archangel to put the evil to flight.
Nor did our impression grow fairer on turning to “Le Monsieur de la Petite Dame.” But in “One Day at Arle” and in “Seth” we welcomed truly the author’s strong and exquisite pathos. In these pictures of the sorrow of the laboring classes the author draws with a pencil full of feeling, working under a sky whose hue is the leaden monotone of modern French landscape painting; a break of sunshine here and there, but the light seems to fall, after all, on earthly stubble and the dumb, almost soulless faces of patient cattle that know nothing beyond their daily furrow and the mute, faithful service they bear a kindly hand at the plough.
We are reminded of the pathos of Robert Buchanan’s North-Coast verse, and we close the little volume sadly, almost as if all human sorrow wherein is no Christian joy stood at our threshold, asking from us an alms we had no power to give.
Repertorium Oratoris Sacri: Containing Outlines of Six Hundred Sermons for all the Sundays and Holidays of the Ecclesiastical Year; also for other solemn occasions. Compiled from the works of eminent preachers of various ages and nations by a secular priest. With an introduction by the Rt. Rev. Joseph Dwenger, D.D., Bishop of Fort Wayne. New York and Cincinnati: Fr. Pustet, Typographus Sedis Apostolicæ. 1877.
This publication is to be continued in monthly parts, each part containing the outlines of two sermons for each Sunday and holiday for one quarter of the year. There will be four volumes of four parts each, so that when the work is completed there will be eight sermons for each occasion.
It will, if it fulfils the promise of this first number, be the best and most complete collection of the kind ever published so far as we are aware. It hardly needs to be said that plans of sermons such as are here given are very much more valuable to a preacher than the actual sermons themselves; for there are few who can give with much effect the words of another, to say nothing of the trouble involved in committing them to memory. The sermons of great pulpitorators are indeed extremely useful and deserving of study as models of style; but a few will answer that purpose as well as a thousand.
The work is in English, being designed principally for use in this country. It is most earnestly to be hoped that it will receive the liberal support which it certainly deserves.
Nicholas Minturn.A Study in a Story. By J. G. Holland. 1 vol. 12mo. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1877.
We prefer Dr. Holland’s stories to his essays. He possesses fine descriptive powers; his genial humor captivates the reader; his power of analysis is searching. No one can readNicholas Minturnwithout recognizing the author’s ability to lay bare the vices and follies of the various classes with whom his hero is brought in contact. In doing this, however, Dr. Holland is apt to forget their redeeming virtues. This is his great fault as a novelist. He lacks the power to vitalize the subtle traits that appeal to our humanity. There is no bond of union between his people and us. He is unable to centralize our interest. When disaster overtakes the ocean steamer there is not a single figure to start out from the group and wring a groan of compassion from us. We listen to the wailing of despair and the shriek of terror with as much apathy as if it arose from a distant battle-field. In all other respects the story is far superior to the great mass of light literature.
The Eternal Years.By the Hon. Mrs. A. Montgomery, author ofThe Divine Sequence, alsoThe Bucklyn Shaig,Mine Own Familiar Friend,The Wrong Man,On the Wing, etc. With an introduction by the Rev. S. Porter, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1877.
The Eternal Yearsis a republication of a series of articles fromThe Catholic World. A number of thoughtful readers of our magazine have expressed the great interest with which they have read those articles and their desire to know the name of the author. They will be pleased to see that they are now published in a volume under their author’s name.On the Wingwill be remembered as having been one of the most popularof the series of sketches taken from scenes in European life and incidents of travel which we have from time to time published. Mrs. Montgomery possesses a very versatile talent as a writer, and passes with facility “from grave to gay, from lively to severe.” Whatever she writes is always both instructive and pleasing.
The Sunday-School Teacher’s Manual; or, The Art of Teaching Catechism. For the use of teachers and parents. By the Rev. A. A. Lambing, author ofThe Orphan’s Friend. New York: Benziger Brothers. 1877.
Father Lambing has done for Sunday-school teachers what M. Amond, the curé of St. Sulpice, and Father Porter have done for those engaged in the sacred ministry of the pulpit.
This manual, written in a clear and popular style, supplies a need that should have been more felt than it was. It gives those in charge of Sunday-schools a true idea of their very important mission, a deep sense of the responsibility that rests upon them, points out the various qualifications necessary for the faithful discharge of their duties, and contains many useful instructions which will aid them in becoming effective catechisers.
Iza: A Story of Life in Russian Poland.By Kathleen O’Meara. London: Burns & Oates. 1877. (New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co.)
This book, by a lady who since its first appearance has become distinguished in the higher walks of literature, has been republished at a very seasonable time, when the Eastern war, and the novel pretensions of Russia to be considered the friend and protector of oppressed nationalities, have once more called public attention to her barbarous treatment of the gallant Poles. The scenes are laid in Poland; the characters, which are few and clearly drawn, are Polish or Muscovite, and the plot, though simple and natural, is well and artistically wrought out. The theme of the whole story is the oppression of the Polish nobility by the shrewd, keen, and unscrupulous agents of the czar, wherein the generous, high-spirited and confiding patriotism of the one class is strongly contrasted with the accomplished villainy ofthe other. Though the superstructure is, of course, a work of pure fiction, it is based on well known historical facts. The entire work is written with great care and accuracy as to names, places, costumes, and local customs, the situations are highly dramatic, and the moral effect produced on the reader is healthful and salutary.
The attention of readers will be directed to the advertisement of complete sets ofThe Catholic WorldandThe Young Catholicas suitable and valuable Christmas presents. Bound volumes ofThe Young Catholicmake the very best present that could be offered to children. The reading matter is interesting, the illustrations are really excellent, and the puzzles and charades afford unfailing amusement for the long winter evenings.
The Catholic Worldis now in its twenty-sixth volume. It constitutes a library, and a most valuable and varied library, in itself. In it is everything that could be desired. Theology and philosophy have their departments, filled by men of known and recognized competence, master minds indeed in those higher sciences. The literary articles and reviews are acknowledged by the secular press to be unsurpassed in power, grace, and strength. The polemics of the day find their true solution inThe Catholic World, which has told upon the non-Catholic mind in this country as no other magazine or publication has been able to tell. There is an abundance of fiction and light literature in its pages, a fiction that has knownhow to be interesting without being dangerous, and good without being dull. Many stories that have already made their mark in the literary world and won deserved fame for their authors began by passing through the columns of this magazine. All the leading and absorbing questions of the day are taken up and discussed in it by men thoroughly equipped and fitted for so important a task. IndeedThe Catholic Worldmay fairly claim to be a channel through which the very best Catholic literature of the day, in all its forms, passes, a guide to and in all the questions of the day, and a compendium from year to year of all that is best and most worthy of attention in the higher sciences, in physical science, in politics, in literature, and in art. His Eminence the Cardinal has recently kindly taken occasion to “congratulate the Catholics in America on possessing a magazine of which they may be justly proud,” and trusts “that they will contribute their share to makeThe Catholic Worldstill more useful to themselves and to the Church at large.” No words could add strength to this commendation and appeal; and it is to be hoped that Catholics will take both to heart. No intelligent Catholic in this country should be without a magazine that is peculiarly and designedly his own. Yet are there thousands of intelligent persons who are without it, who probably do not know of its existence. It is for those who do know it and appreciate it to make it known among their friends. Taken in the very lowest sense, no man has yet complained that inThe Catholic Worldhe did not receive the full, and more than the full, value of his money.
THECATHOLIC WORLD.
THECATHOLIC WORLD.
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.