New Publications.
The Clergy And The Pulpit In Their Relations To The People.
By M. l'Abbé Mullois, chaplain to the Emperor Napoleon III. and Missionary Apostolic.
Translated by George Percy Badger.
First American edition.
12mo, pp. 308. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 126 Nassau Street. 1867.
This work of the learned and pious Abbé Mullois has attained an immense popularity in France, where it was issued a few years ago under the title of Cours d'Eloquence Sacrée Populaire; ou, Essai sur la Manière de parler au Peuple. It is the first of a series of essays which appeared subsequently, designed as hints to the clergy in their pastoral ministrations, especially in the pulpit.
It is one of the most noticeable books that have been issued by the Catholic press, and cannot fail of receiving as cordial a welcome with us as it has already received in France. Its remarkable characteristic is the apostolic simplicity of its style, and its bold, manly tone. The author's principal object is to direct the attention of the clergy to the necessity of cultivating a popular style of eloquence in their discourses and instructions to the masses. But, in order that the sermon be popular, and reach the hearts of the people, the preacher must himself be popular. He must be a man loved by the people, engaging both their admiration and reverence by his manner and his language when addressing them, and above all, by loving them. Hence, the author wisely treats of the preacher before he treats of the sermon. The first chapter is devoted to the elucidation of his great maxim: "To address men well, they must be loved much." Have many rules of eloquence if you will, but do not forget the first and most essential one: Love the people whom you would instruct, convert, reprove, sanctify, and lead to God. "The end of preaching is to reclaim the hearts of men to God, and nothing but love can find out the mysterious avenues which lead to the heart. We are always eloquent when we wish to save one whom we love; we are always listened to when we are loved. … If, then, you do not feel a fervent love and profound pity for humanity—if, in beholding its miseries and errors, you do not experience the throbbings, the holy thrillings of charity, be assured that the gift of Christian eloquence has been denied you," which is the good abbé's polite way (so truly French) of saying, "Don't preach."
He is not above indulging in a little bit of humor now and then when he wishes to say something a little severe, so as to take off the edge: "Just look at the young priest on his entrance upon the sacred ministry. He is armed cap-a-pie with arguments; he speaks only by syllogisms. His discourse bristles with now, therefore, consequently. He is dogmatic, peremptory. One might fancy him a nephew of one of those old bearded doctors of the middle ages, such as Petit Jean or Courte-Cuisse. He is disposed to transfix by his words every opponent, and give quarter to none. He thrusts, cuts, overturns relentlessly. My friend, lay aside a part of your heavy artillery. Take your young man's, your young priest's heart, and place it in the van before your audience, and after that you may resort to your batteries, if they are needed. Make yourself beloved—be a father. Preach affectionately, and your speech, instead of gliding over hearts hardened by pride, will pierce even to the dividing of the joints and marrow; and then that may come to be remarked of you which was said of another priest by a man of genius who had recently been reclaimed to a Christian life: 'I almost regret my restoration, so much would it have gratified me to have been converted by so affectionate a preacher.' … Apostolical eloquence is no longer well understood. It is now made to consist of I hardly know what; the utterance of truths without any order, in a happy-go-lucky fashion, extravagant self-excitement, bawling, and thumping on the pulpit. There is a tendency in this respect to follow the injunctions of an old divine of the sixteenth century to a young bachelor of arts. 'Percute cathedram fortiter; respice Crucifixum torvis oculis; nil dic ad propositum, et bene praedicabis.'"
It is certainly a great mistake, although a common one, that what is called popular preaching is relished only by the poor and illiterate, and, indeed, is only fit for them. The author's sentiments on this subject are so just and well timed that we venture to give them in the following extracts from the preface of his second volume.
"True popular preaching is not that which is addressed exclusively to the lower orders; but that which is addressed to all, and is understood by all. Such is the import of the word popular. When a man is said to be popular, it implies that he meets with sympathy on all sides; from among the upper, the lower, and the middle classes of society. When we say, charity is popular, we mean that it finds an echo in the breasts of all. The Gospel is essentially popular; hence Christian eloquence also should be popular at all times and in all places; as well in large cities as in small towns and country districts: unless an exceptional audience is addressed, and there is only one such in France, namely, that of Notre-Dame at Paris.
"This is what a sermon ought to be: A learned academician listening to it on one side, and a poor illiterate woman on the other, both should derive therefrom something to enlighten their minds and improve their hearts.
"We, the clergy, are debtors to all. How can we denounce injustice from the pulpit if we exhibit an example of it in our own persons? This is a matter involving a sacred trust, which has not met with adequate consideration; for how can we preach charity when we deprive the poor of that which is their due—the bread of knowledge? We should deem it an atrocity to retain the alms given to us for the needy; and does not our faith tell us that it would be a still greater crime to withhold from them the saving truths of the Gospel? … It is one of the great glories, one of the great powers of the ordinance of preaching, that the word preached should embrace all without any exception; and we are sadly to blame for having renounced that vantage-ground. Hence it is that our sermons nowadays are dry, meagre, artificial, inefficacious, and no longer exhibit that fulness and life, that broad effusion of thought, those throbbings of the heart and thrilling accents of the soul, which bespeak a double origin; indicating that what we utter is at once the voice of God and the voice of the people.
"I am going to speak without any reserve. Painful as the subject may be, it is desirable that the clergy should be made thoroughly aware of it. Go where you will in France, you meet with numbers of excellent and eminently intelligent men who say: 'I really cannot account for it; but I can no longer bear listening to sermons, for they weary me dreadfully. The phraseology generally used is humdrum and threadbare, and the matter consists of an incoherent mixture of rhetoric and philosophy, art and mysticism, of which nobody understands any thing. Then, again, their monotonous uniformity throughout is enough to send even those into a doze who have lost the habit of sleeping. I sincerely believe that I should do better by abstaining; but for the sake of example, I resign myself to enduring them.' And be it remembered, that these are the remarks, not of the ill-disposed, but of devoutly religious men; proving the necessity of some large reform, since it would be idle to suppose that such concurrent testimony from all parts of France is unfounded. The same men, be it remarked, after listening to a genial, diversified, popular, and sterling discourse, will readily exclaim: 'That's the thing that I want! That's what does me good! That's what I like!'
"We must revert, therefore, to the genuine style of evangelical preaching, which is that of a father addressing his numerous family, and who wishes to be understood by all his children from the eldest to the youngest.
"But we must not be deluded into thinking that such popular preaching is easy: on the contrary, it is very difficult of attainment; for it involves no less a task than that of speaking a language which shall be level to the comprehension of the masses, and at the same time adapted to educated minds. Would you master that task? Study much, study every thing: theology, literature, the Holy Scriptures, more especially the Gospel; acquire a deep insight into the human heart; and, withal, cultivate your own mind till it can digest all knowledge. Then write and speak like one who has really drawn what he utters out of the good treasures of the heart, and in such a way that all who hear you may be ready to say: 'Really, what he states is very simple; it is sound sense; it is right. It is just what I would have said myself under similar circumstances.' Let us recall what has already been remarked elsewhere—that a little study withdraws us from the natural, whereas much study leads us to it. Reveal your heart, your soul; for, after all, the soul of man, that masterpiece of God's hand, will always carry more weight than all the embellishments of philosophy or rhetoric."
Let this zealous author speak of what he will, he invariably comes back to his first principle: "Love the people, if you would have any influence with them for good." Each chapter reveals the fact that this thought is the one which is uppermost in the writer's mind, and, therefore, the one he desires to impress the more deeply upon the minds of his readers. He knows how to tell plain, homely truths without offence, and criticise severely the faults of his brethren without acerbity or presumption.
It is a book that will do good, a great deal of good, and we commend it most heartily to all our readers, who will assuredly derive much pleasure and no little profit from its perusal.
The translation has been made by a finished scholar, and leaves nothing to be desired for purity of style or fidelity to the original. The volume is published in a finished and elegant style.
Essays On Religion And Literature.
By Various Writers.
Edited by Archbishop Manning.
Second Series. London: Longmans, Green & Co.
New York: For sale by The Catholic Publication Society.
The titles of these essays and the names of their authors will give our readers a good idea of the character and value of this volume:
Inaugural Address, Session 1866-7, the Most Rev. Archbishop Manning, D.D.;
On Intellectual Power and Man's Perfection—Dangers of Uncontrolled Intellect, W. G. Ward, Ph.D.;
On the Mission and Prospects of the Catholic Church in England, F. Oakley, M.A.;
Christianity in Relation to Civil Society, Edward Lucas;
On the Philosophy of Christianity, Albany J. Christie, M.A., S J.;
On some Events Preparatory to the English Reformation, H. W. Wilberforce, M.A.;
On the Inspiration of Scripture, Most Rev. Archbishop Manning, D.D.;
Church and State, Edmund Sheridan Purcell;
Certain Sacrificial Words used by Saint Paul, Monsignor Patterson, M.A.
It is impossible for us to enter here into an extended review of all these very remarkable essays. They were read at different meetings of the English Catholic Academia, founded six years ago by the present Archbishop of Westminster, and which has for its object, as the same illustrious prelate and scholar informs us in his present inaugural address, "the maintenance and defence of the Catholic religion, both positively and in its relation to all other truth, and polemically as against all forms of erroneous doctrines, principles, and thought." This first address is a short but comprehensive sketch of the state of religion in England, in which the present condition and prospects of the faith are contrasted chiefly with what they were thirty years ago.
The second and third papers are designed to uphold the following thesis: The perfection of man consists exclusively in the perfection of his moral and spiritual nature, intellectual excellence forming no part of it whatever. We cannot help but think the author has taken a great deal of trouble to prove a truism; for his definition of perfection is closely restricted to moral and spiritual perfection. We do not imagine that the antagonists he summons up from the ranks of "muscular Christianity," and from the present atheistical school in England, would contend that pure intellect, in the sense used by the author, would afford more than a subordinate service to man's spiritual welfare, such as he himself proves in a second proposition. The greater part, if not the whole, of these antagonists to Catholic asceticism know nothing of what they are discussing. They suppose, and falsely so, that the Catholic Church teaches that the soul advances in spiritual perfection precisely at the expense of intellectual excellence; that the saint becomes the more holy as he becomes the more stupid; that the cultivation of the reasoning power is not only useless but a positive hindrance to spiritual perfection. It is not surprising that our opponents make the most of intellectual acquirements, of physical health and strength, and exalt the animal above the spiritual, because they deny in toto the moral state of man as Catholic theology, both moral and ascetic, supposes it to be. They contend that there is nothing wanting in man's moral nature, any more than in his purely intellectual nature. Both are weak, it is true, and should be strengthened and perfected, but the results of moral weakness, which we call sin and imperfection, are to be regarded in the same light as one would the results of ignorance in science. Sin is simply a mistake, culpable to the same degree as a false deduction in physics or mathematics would be for want of better information and scientific knowledge. Hence, it is easy to see how these philosophers neither value nor in fact comprehend the exercises of the spiritual life, and look upon all self-abnegation and mortification of the senses as degrading. "Purification of the soul" would be nonsense, because the soul does not need purification. It needs only advancement, enlightenment, and nurture, both in its spiritual and intellectual part. That a man should apply himself to the perfection of his spiritual nature without equal care to advance in worldly science, and keep his muscles well developed, his stomach full, and his body fashionably and comfortably clothed, is something which the worldly wise cannot understand. How should they when they rate the spiritual no higher than, if not below, the intellectual? Human greatness with them consists in physical and intellectual power; and they think the world is far more benefited by a regiment of soldiers and a board of trade than by a community of monks and an association of prayer.
But too much care cannot be taken when we attempt to argue for the thesis proposed in this essay. There is danger of giving our adversaries an impression that we are contending for the very things of which they accuse us. The intellect is not something evil which is to be crushed, else we should not look for a saint in a Chrysostom, an Augustine, a Thomas of Aquinas, a Bonaventura, or among those thousands of men and women of great genius and surpassing intellectual power, whose works are the glory of the world as they are of religion.
But one of the exercises of asceticism, say our opponents, is to mortify the intellect. Yes, just as I mortify my sight by restraining it from resting upon vain or immoral objects, my appetite from too full an indulgence, my love for music from dangerous display or vain gratification, or, what is at least as good a reason, because I really have not the time to give my intellect, my appetite, my love of the beautiful in art, poetry, and music all that they demand. I have a far higher object in life, and that is, to make my soul pure and agreeable to God. These other and inferior objects are worthy in themselves of attention, but as for me I am too busy to spend either much thought or time upon them.
Those good people whose God is their belly, or whose highest aspiration in life is to see their name on the title-page of a book, doubt either the sanity or the sincerity of one who says that he loves to think about God a great deal better than he does about what he is going to have for dinner, and chooses rather to make a meditation than to read the morning newspaper. Such an one is perhaps just as hungry as another for both animal and mental food, but he puts away that anxious thought about dinner, he declines the invitation to hear Parepa, and smashes his violin, or consigns his mathematics to oblivion, because it happens that some or all of these things are found to have a tendency to take away his thoughts from God; and as to voluntary suffering, my philosopher, I am sure that it cost one of these "degraded ascetics" more pain to smash his violin than all the disciplines he ever took in his life. What need was there to smash it? Because it stood in his way, and because sacrifice is the sweetest and most nourishing food the soul can feed upon. And the same for his vanity, too, you say. Possibly. But do you acknowledge that there is such a thing as vainglory, which may arise in the heart and degrade it, thus placing a hindrance to its perfection? I know you do, for you are constantly accusing the Catholic saints of it. Well, then you must allow that mortification of such a tendency is necessary for man's perfection; and having once granted the necessity of mortification for one thing, you have given up the question. Let us hear no more of "degrading asceticism," or of the "unmanliness and superstition of bodily austerities."
The fault of this essay consists in the fact that the writer says he uses the word "intellect" in its popular sense, while his argument supposes it to be taken in its abstract, philosophical sense. In relation to the question at issue, the popular sense is not the philosophical one. The question of human perfection, as put by the enemies of the church and the railers at her ascetic principles and practices, is: Does not the Catholic Church teach that man perfects himself alone in the spiritual order, and that all human science is but vanity and vexation of spirit, and, therefore, better left aside? And is not this as a consequence a "degrading" standard to set before humanity, and one which tends to superstition, ignorance, mean-spiritedness, as well as criminal neglect of health and personal cleanliness? Is not intellectual ability a talent, and was not the servant of the gospel condemned for returning his to his lord unimproved? This question the writer of the present essay does not meet, as we had hoped he would. For ourselves, we judge, as the writer acknowledges in his second essay, if we read him aright, that there is such a thing as intellectual perfection, artistical, mechanical, and even muscular perfection, each in their own order, but inferior in character, aim, and end to the perfection of the spiritual nature, which latter perfection it is not only lawful but obligatory to cultivate, even at the expense of either of the former.
To advance in spiritual perfection is the first and highest duty of man. "Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice." If one can advance in any other perfection at the same time without detriment to the first, all well and good. There is no danger that the devil's Advocate will object to his canonization on the score of his great intellectual superiority, his wonderful mechanical genius, or the firmness and beautiful development of his muscles. But let any of these things prove detrimental to his spiritual perfection, as they without doubt frequently do, then he must shut up his books or smash his violin, as the case may be.
The essay by Mr. Wilberforce, On some Events Preparatory to the English Reformation, will be found an exceedingly interesting paper. That On the Inspiration of Scripture, by Archbishop Manning, presents a concise view of the teaching of the church, and the different opinions of Protestant and Catholic theologians on that subject. All the essays are, in fact, literary productions of a high order, and merit the perusal of every scholar of English Catholic literature.
Lacordaire's Letters To Young Men.
Edited by the Count de Montalembert.
Translated by the Rev. James Trenor.
Baltimore: Kelly & Piet. 1867.
This volume is composed of letters written to his young friends whilst the author was engaged in the most arduous and responsible duties. They are not studied productions of the great Dominican's literary genius, but rather simple outpourings of paternal love and solicitude toward those young men for whose spiritual direction he was at once so wise a guide, so zealous a pastor, and so warm a friend. They reveal the wealth of affection which enriched his own heart, and the consecration of that affection to the highest and noblest purpose of life—the perfection and salvation of souls. These letters have been published that other young men may also listen to his wise counsels, and receive that direction and encouragement which the writer was so eminently qualified to bestow.
Those which refer to the painful steps that fidelity to the truth and loyalty to the church led him to take in reference to M. de la Mennais will be found exceedingly interesting. There is no book that we could wish to see more extensively circulated among and read by the young men of our day than this collection of letters. The perusal of them will do much toward strengthening that bond of holy friendship and mutual confidence which exists between youth and the priesthood, so truly beneficial to the one and full of consolation to the other.
Extracts From The Fathers And Church Historians.
W. B. Kelly,
8 Grafton Street, Dublin.
For sale by the Catholic Publication Society,
126 Nassau Street, New-York.
This volume contains choice selections from the fathers, faithfully translated into English.
Modern History; from the coming of Christ and change of the Roman Republic into an Empire, to the year of our Lord 1867, with questions for the use of schools.
By Peter Fredet, D.D.
22d edition, revised, etc.
1 vol. 12mo, pp. 566 and 38.
Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1867.
A Compendium Of Ancient And Modern History—with questions, adapted to the use of schools, with an appendix, etc.—from the Creation to the year 1867.
By M. J. Kerney, A.M.
1 vol. 12mo, pp. 431.
Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1867.
These works are excellent epitomes of history, and are very popular in the Catholic schools of the United States and the Canadas. The first of them, Fredet's History, is a useful volume, and gives the reader a clear and correct idea of modern history, especially if he has not time to read the more voluminous histories of the various countries of the world. The present edition of both these volumes is brought down to the year 1867, and the account of our late terrible war is written with candor and without bias, the bare facts and dates of battles being given. They are gotten up in good, serviceable style for schools.
The Bohemians Of The Fifteenth Century.
Translated from the French of Henri Guenot,
by Mrs. J. Sadlier. New-York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.
This is a very correct translation of a beautiful little tale by M. Guenot, illustrating the peculiar habits and manner of living of that strange people, generally called Gipsies, who appeared in Europe about the time selected by the author for his illustration. The story is well told in the original, with an attention to time and place characteristic of the best French writers of fiction, and in the English version before us it loses nothing in accuracy or even in vivacity of style. It is an excellent book for young readers, and will doubtless find a large circulation among that class.