NEW PUBLICATIONS.
Ethics, or Moral Philosophy. By Walter H. Hill, S.J., Professor of Philosophy in the St. Louis University, author of Logic and Ontology, or General Metaphysics. Baltimore: Murphy & Co.; London: Washbourne. 1878.
We rejoice to learn that Father Hill’s first volume of the course of philosophy has met with great success. We have been long desiring to see the second part in regular order, namely, the Special Metaphysics. This is, undoubtedly, the most difficult part to treat in a satisfactory manner, as well as the one most controverted among Catholic writers, particularly as regards cosmology. Precisely on this account we were especially curious to hear Father Hill’s exposition of the debated questions, and perhaps this is also the reason why he has postponed this part of his work, and published first his Ethics. Ethics is equally important, and even more generally necessary and useful. We are, therefore, glad to welcome the Ethics of Father Hill, hoping that he may hasten, as much as his heavy labors in the work of teaching and in that of the sacred ministry will permit, the completion of his Metaphysics.
This volume is, like the first one, an English text-book of the same grade and quality with our standard Latin text-books in philosophy. It is suited for the educated reader and for the higher classes in college. Both volumes are above the capacity of pupils of a lesser degree of intellectual development and instruction. If it is possible to bring the study of philosophy down to the level of this class of pupils without reducing the science to a merely nominal and superficial condition, the text-book fitted for this purpose still remains a desideratum. For the general reader and the pupil who is able to understand it this manual of ethics will prove of great service. It has always been the rule and practice of the illustrious Society of Jesus to follow in instruction the doctrine of St. Thomas, as understood by the great body of Catholic theologians and philosophers, in all those particulars in which such a common understanding exists. In ethics, happily, there does exist such a common and generally accepted doctrine in regard to all chief and important topics, and there is consequently a great degree of unity and harmony in the teaching imparted by Catholic professors to their pupils. Without doubt it is the safest and most practical method to make the text-books of theology and philosophy, and the lectures of the class-room, conform to this common doctrine. Deeper and more original and free discussions of difficult and undecided or imperfectly-elucidated questions belong to another class of works.
Father Hill’s text-book may be taken as a safe and sound exponent of the system of ethics contained in our approved Latin manuals and taught in our seminaries and colleges. In substance its doctrine is scholastic, the doctrine of Aristotle, St. Thomas, Suarez, Bellarmine, Liberatore, and the generality of similar authors of approved reputation. The great number of original texts, with translations, which are interwoven with the author’s own exposition, gives the ordinary reader a notable advantage, by making him acquainted with the great writers on ethics, and furnishing a guarantee of the fidelity with which their ideas are presented by the author.
A minute criticism of the work before us in its minor details would occupy too much space for a mere notice. We are obliged, therefore, to content ourselves with a general expression of our favorable opinion of the manual as a whole, and of the treatment given to the principal topics in its several parts, and the briefest possible notation of particular points of remark. The first chapter, on the Ultimate End of Man, presents sufficiently for a treatise of such limited compass the twofold relation of humanity by nature and by grace to God as the Final Cause. One statement (p. 21), that “it is not simply impossible for God to make a creature so perfect that intuitive vision of the divine essence would be connatural to it,” we cannot concur in, and it is contrary to the common opinion that grace elevates its subject “super omnem naturam creatam atque creabilem,” so admirably defended by Father Mazzella in his De Deo Creante. We think, also, that the author confuses the abstractive with the discursive process in the same context, and refer to Liberatore’s exposition of the nature of angelic knowledge and the similar knowledge proper to the state of separated spirits, in his work Deli Uomo, for our reasons of dissent from the exposition of Father Hill. The qualification of “unnatural,” used in respect to a desire of the soul to see God intuitively, on page 23, seems to us objectionable, on account of the use of a term at least ambiguous, and liable to be taken as signifying a positive opposition between nature and a final term which transcends its specific active force. The remainder of the whole division of General Ethics, comprising the following chapters: ii., Action of Man as a Rational Being; iii., Principles of Moral Goodness; iv., The Passions; v., The Virtues; vi., Law; vii., Civil Law; viii., Conscience, is in our opinion admirable, and we find nothing to criticise. We are particularly pleased to see that the author refutes a common fallacy that sin is an infinite evil, meriting an infinite punishment. It is most important at this time, when the doctrine of endless punishment is so generally and violently assailed, that the exaggerations and fallacious arguments which cling around it should be cleared away, and only that which is the real doctrine of revelation be presented, sustained by rational arguments which are solid, which has been done by Liberatore, and also by Father Hill in his section of this subject.
In the second part, on Special Ethics, four chapters are included: i., Rights and Duties; ii., Special Duties; iii., Man as a Social Being; iv., Civil Society. We are glad to see that Father Hill distinctly asserts the rights of rational creatures before God, a most important point against Calvinistic, Jansenistic, and rigoristic exaggerations of the doctrine of God—absolute dominion and divine sovereignty, which make theology odious and drive many minds toward atheism in their intellectual despair. The question of veracity, lying, and mental reservation, which Grotius said made him sweat, is too briefly treated for a satisfactory enucleation of its difficulties, especially as the author departs from the common opinion of Catholic moralists. We are rather disposed to favor his view, which has strong reasons in its support, though not prepared to express an opinion that it is altogether complete and sufficient.
In treating the great question of civil society, with the subordinate question of the origin and legitimacy of government, etc., the author has shown great judgment and discrimination. He adheres to the theory of Suarez, Bellarmine, and the great body of the ablest Catholic authors, respecting political society. Ultra-monarchical and ultra-democratic theories are equally indefensible, and both are mischievous. We trust that loyal citizens of our republic who are reasonably conservative will find evidence, in Father Hill’s calm and moderate statements, that the Catholic religion is admirably suited to give stability to our own national institutions, notwithstanding its total opposition to the European liberalism and radicalism that would fain overthrow the constitutions and governments of the Old World.
In respect to style, the main point in a work of this kind is to make its ideas clearly and distinctly intelligible. The author, in general, has succeeded in his effort to accomplish this result as well as the necessity of adhering to the phraseology of Latin authors would permit. Sometimes, however, succinctness and condensation produce ambiguity and obscurity—a defect which we suspect in some instances is partly or entirely owing to errors in printing. Again, there are some words used in a way which is not conformed to the English idiom—as, for instance, the word “avert,” used intransitively, and the phrase to “put an action.” There are many minor faults of this sort which can be easily corrected in a second edition. Let us, by all means, have the other volume as soon as possible. The whole, when complete, will serve a most important end, by extending among intelligent readers of English books a knowledge and taste for scholastic philosophy. This taste, when awakened, will demand much larger and more thorough works on the same subjects. We think, moreover, that those who write these works must break away from the trammels of an artificial Latinized style and write in idiomatic English, like Dr. Newman and the best writers in the Dublin Review and Month. We desire to see works on Catholic philosophy which are as fine specimens of pure English idiom as those written by Liberatore in his native language are of a charming and literary Italian style.
I. A History of the United States for the use of Schools, Academies, and Colleges. By John R. G. Hassard, author of Life of Archbishop Hughes, Life of Pius IX., etc. 1 vol. 12mo, illustrated.
II. An Introductory History of the United States for the use of Schools. Arranged on the Catechetical Plan. 1 vol. 16mo, illustrated. New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co. 1878.
In this history Mr. Hassard has performed a very rare feat. He has made a school-book which, while being in every respect a thorough school-book, is full of interest from cover to cover. There is not a dull page in it.
Of course the first thing that commends this book to Catholic teachers and students is that it is written by a Catholic, and Mr. Hassard’s eminent qualifications for the preparation of such a work are too well known to need any mention here. The part that Catholics played, not only in the discovery of this continent but in its exploration and colonization; the part borne by them in the War of Independence and in the later history of these United States, has been carefully forgotten, or slurred over, or misrepresented, or omitted altogether in the average history set in a boy’s hand at school. This is not history; and to remedy this capital defect, we take it, has been the chief object of Mr. Hassard’s book.
He has done his work thoroughly and in an excellent manner. He is nowhere aggressive; he is simply historical from first to last. Where Catholicity comes in he gives it its place; where it does not enter he never drags it in. He is concerned with facts, and he attends chiefly to them. How he has succeeded in grouping them together, in collecting the tangled threads of events that are scattered over a vast continent, where so many nations and tribes of men and forms of religion and government contended for the mastery; the patient skill with which he has woven these into a bright, clear, and picturesque whole, can only be judged by those who read the book, which, for our own part, we could not set down until we had read it through. The history begins with the discovery of the continent, and brings us down by easy yet rapid stages to our own times. The story of the Spanish colonies, the French, the English, the Dutch, are all given due prominence. The work of Catholic missionaries in exploring the continent and attempting to convert the native tribes is briefly yet fully set forth.
The long struggle for national independence is given with great skill, force, and clearness, and indeed these qualities characterize the whole work. It is very plain that the author had everything clear in his own mind before he sat down to inform others. The result is a clean-cut and complete whole, with no important omissions, no waste, and no redundancy. The narrative is invariably spirited and flowing, and to students is in itself a model of clear, strong, simple English. It is wonderful, too, to see how, with the brief space at his command, the author has contrived to throw in at the right time those little personal allusions, pictures, or reminiscences of famous men and events that lend its charm to history and so aptly illustrate the times. Indeed, the gifts here displayed by Mr. Hassard are obviously those that would lend grace, strength, and dignity to a much more ambitious, though not more useful, work than that before us. The sense of historical truth and accuracy plainly predominates in the author’s mind.
His efforts to produce a history that was much needed, yet had hitherto remained unwritten, have been ably seconded by the publishers. The text is a delight to the eye; the illustrations, though many, are unexceptionally excellent; the little maps thrown in here and there are of great use in illustrating the text; and the questions at the foot of the page are all that either student or teacher could desire. It is impossible to commend such a work too heartily. It simply stands alone.
We have often heard the just complaint that Catholics had no history of the United States which they could safely use in their schools—none, at least, which was satisfactory. That complaint can exist no longer.
The Catechism of United States History is made from the larger work, and is in every way suitable for parish schools and junior classes in academies. The narrative is continuous, so that it can be read without the questions as a regular history.
Le Progres du Catholicisme Parmi les Peuples D’Origine Anglo-Saxonne depuis l’annee 1857. Par Mgr. De Haerne, Membre de la Chambre des Representants (de la Belgique). Extrait de la Revue Catholique de Louvain. Louvain: Peeters. 1878.
This pamphlet is an evidence of the awakening of a great interest in Catholic Europe in the Catholic Church existing and increasing within the dominion of the British Empire and the republic of the United States. Ample justice is done by the author to the great Celtic element which pervades the church in English countries, although the term Anglo-Saxon appears so distinctively in his designation of the territory which he has made the object of his investigations. It is almost impossible to give an account of a pamphlet so full of statistics without translating the whole bodily. The author has made it as full and correct as he could, considering the means within his reach. The defects are those of his sources of information, and his few mistakes are those which a foreigner would easily make—as, for instance, in making Seton Hall College an institute of the Jesuits, and attempting to enumerate the generals of the army of the United States who have become converts. A translation of this interesting pamphlet made by a competent hand, with the corrections and additions in respect particularly to our own country and British America which a fully-informed writer living among ourselves could make, would furnish some very valuable information both to the friends and the enemies of the Catholic religion. We owe grateful acknowledgments to the eminent Belgian prelate and statesman for his excellent and elaborate essay, and for his kindness in favoring us with a copy.
I. Ancient History. II. History of Rome. III. History of the Middle Ages. Adapted from the French of Rev. P. F. Gazeau, S. J. New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co. 1878.
Whoever knows the above works in their original French will be glad to see them in their present convenient, cheap, and attractive English form. The series makes delightful reading, even in a desultory sort of way. They are full of sound learning and philosophical inference; indeed, it would be hard to find books containing more wealth of research in so small a space. As might be expected, the style is concise and yet smooth, flowing, and agreeable.
Such books as these are needed. Without denying the zeal and learning of most of our teachers, it is still safe to say that few of our higher students ever finish a course of history. The difficulty lies with the text-books generally in use. They are for the most part so large and full of detail that the pupil leaves school without a fair knowledge of the events connected with the Roman Empire, the formation of the modern states of Europe, the conversion of the barbarians, the Crusades, the events that led up to the Protestant Reformation, and the important changes and revolutions that have occurred since that period, because all or most of the time available for history has been consumed in the epochs preceding the time of our Saviour.
The Ancient History is a complete compendium of the history of Egypt, Assyria and Babylonia, Media and Persia, Phœnicia and Carthage, Greece, Macedonia, Alexander’s Empire and the states founded on its ruins. The History of Rome treats of the Eternal City and its dominion from the time of Romulus to that of Romulus Augustulus.
The History of the Middle Ages, of which we have before us advance sheets, is now in press. Scholars will be surprised by its wonderful combination of learning, sagacious reflections, and convenient grouping of events. Its narrative stops with the taking of Constantinople (1453). A Modern History of the same series is in preparation, and will follow as soon as possible. It will bring the series down to our own times.
The orthography of the proper names is made to conform to the practice of the best modern English and American writers. The judgment and learning of the American editor are apparent in the many wise alterations and additions which he has made. Review questions are given at the end of each chapter, except in the Middle Ages, where the questions will be printed at the end of the book, so as not to break the continuous appearance of its pages for the general reader. The three books may be gone through in one term of ten months without any resort to “cramming,” and we can recommend them to our high-schools, academies, and colleges as the most compact, complete, and continuous set of histories yet given to the Catholic public.
Dosia. From the French of Henry Greville. Boston: Estes & Lauriat. 1878.
It has been hinted that Henry Greville is the nom de plume of a French lady who lived for some time in Russia. The sex of the writer may be readily judged from the book itself, which is decidedly feminine both in plot and in dialogue. Its sketches of Russian society are in a measure very neutral in color; and as to the two facts that peculation is very active in Russian official circles, and that extravagance is very common among the “crack” regiments at St. Petersburg, these are so very well known that the story, if written to exhibit such phases of society, is superfluous, as that information could better be obtained by reading some standard work of travels in Russia. As a novel it is trifling and flimsy, and the authoress cannot compare with Daudet either in dramatic force or beauty of diction. The plot is feeble, but the dialogue is often amusing and the situations on certain occasions not wanting in interest.
A Saint in Algeria. By Lady Herbert. (Reprinted from the Month.) London: Burns & Oates. 1878.
A Saint in Algeria is the record of one of those lives ever living in the bosom of the church of God—a link in the vast unbroken chain of saints binding through all the centuries the church suffering on earth with the church triumphant in heaven.
We recommend this little memoir of Margaret Bergésio (better known as Agarithe Berger) to those who look on the past ages only as the days of faith and of a charity that faileth not. In the life of this pure mountain blossom of Piedmont, transplanted to the thick atmosphere of Lyons and finally finding its perfection among the hills of Algeria, these mournful souls may, in the midst of the seeming decay they weep, find consolation in a new name added to a saintly list that in future years may make some Kenelm Digby sigh for the earnest and active faith of the church in the nineteenth century.
And the devoted Agarithe has found in Lady Herbert a loving biographer, who writes with a fervor and simplicity worthy of the high humility of the holy heroine.
Legends of Holy Mary. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1878.
As we read the preface to this little book we feel our weapons of criticism trembling in their sheath, since, should we use them, we find ourselves well-nigh denied any seat in that kingdom whereof Holy Mary is queen; while our critic’s spoils lie out of our reach safe in her hands amid whose lilies, as once wrote St. Bernard, our earthly offerings lose their stain and wear only the whiteness of the heavenly bloom.
The writer of the present volume has gathered from ancient gardens, in the devotional spirit of old-time minnesinger, a nosegay of legends breathing the pervading presence of her who is the “mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope,” the ever-merciful mother of the poor children of Eve.
Few can fail to gather some sweetness from such a nosegay—one that among its blossoms counts that fair one of Provence whose perfect perfume fills one of Adelaide Procter’s most perfect poems teaching the completeness of the mercy of God:
“Only Heaven
Means crowned, not vanquished, when it says,
‘Forgiven!’”
THE YOUNG CATHOLIC.
The Young Catholic, published by the Catholic Publication Society Co., enters this month on its ninth year. It may be that some persons who are interested in this kind of literature have not yet seen the Young Catholic. For their benefit we would say that it is a monthly paper of eight pages for children and young people. It is finely illustrated and filled with original matter that is at the same time entertaining, instructive, and edifying.
As a literary work, our young people may well be proud of the Young Catholic. It can take its place beside the best literature of that kind in our country.
It is most suitable for Sunday-schools, convent schools, etc., and the low price at which it is published brings it within the reach of all. The following is the table of contents for September:
Thinking over the Actions of the Day; illustrated. Hero Priests. The Sparrow and her Children. Twilight Talks. Beautiful Things. The Mocking-Bird; illustrated. Heroism of a Little Girl. The Holy Rupert of Bingen. What is He? illustrated. Talk by the Fireside; illustrated. Insects of August. A Lake Asleep. The Little Cricket. Perils of Missionary Life; illustrated. Stockings. The Farmboys, Chap. III. Hymn to St. Aloysius, with music, composed by a pupil of Loretto Convent, Enniscorthy, Ireland. A Letter from “Martha from the Country.” Letters from “Uncle Ned’s Sunbeams.” Enigmas, Riddles, etc.
TERMS, PAYABLE IN ADVANCE.
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In sending money, a post-office order ought to be procured, and where this cannot be had the letter should be registered. Every postmaster is obliged to register a letter if required; the cost is fifteen cents extra. Large clubs can be divided into fives, tens, etc., and sent to different post offices and addresses.
Address The Catholic Publication Society Co., 9 Barclay Street, New York.
We need scarcely call the attention of our readers to the new serial from the pen of Miss Kathleen O’Meara, which has just begun, and which will run through our next volume. We have no doubt that Pearl will prove to our readers, as it has proved to us, to be by far the finest story that this accomplished writer has yet given us.
Footnotes
[1]. Del Regionalismo in Italia—Civiltà Cattolica, Quad. 656.
[2]. Cf. what Joubert says of Racine: that “his genius, too, lay in his taste,” and that he is “the Virgil of the ignorant.”
[3]. “And stand and listen with arrected ears”—atque arrectis auribus adsto. We may add that to our mind Simmons’ version of this simile, which we regret not to have space to quote, is one of the very best.
[4]. Dr. Johnson never learned it. “His heroic lines,” he said of Cowley, “are often formed of monosyllables; but yet they are often sweet and sonorous.”
[5]. “Eld the mouldy-dull, and empty of all sooth,” is Mr. Morris’ equivalent for “verique effeta senectus,” Æn. vii. 439.
[6]. Mr. Matthew Arnold’s remark to a like effect in his admirable essay on translating Homer was curiously anticipated by Tickell in the preface to his (or Addison’s) version of the first book of the Iliad, where he says the double epithets of the Iliad, “though elegant and sonorous in the Greek, become either unintelligible, unmusical, or burlesque in English.” He adds: “I cannot but observe that Virgil, that sunge in a language much more capable of composition than ours, hath often conformed to this rule.”
[7]. Mr. Morris here unaccountably sacrifices an opportunity. Decurrens aureus arce the Latin is, and yet he gives us “castle” instead of “burg,” which, in his own translating dialect, is the true meaning of arx. To such shifts will rhyme reduce the ablest translators!
[8]. Spare the submissive and crush the haughty.
[9]. Three Years of my Life. By Dr. Conrad Martin, Bishop of Paderborn. Mainz, 1877.
[10]. Drei Jahre aus meinem Leben.
[11]. Ibid. p. 3.
[12]. Ibid. p. 8.
[13]. Ibid. p. 14.
[14]. Ibid. p. 15.
[15]. Ibid. p. 16.
[16]. At Künigstein, in Nassau.
[17]. Drei Jahre aus meinem Leben, p. 23.
[18]. Ibid. p. 30.
[19]. Ibid. p. 37.
[20]. Ibid. p. 41.
[21]. Ibid. p. 45.
[22]. Ibid. p. 51.
[23]. Ibid. p. 83.
[24]. Ibid. pp. 160, 169.
[25]. Mr. Bayard Taylor.
[26]. This church is now that of San Justo y San Pastor which perpetuates the memory of the holy image by a chapel and confraternity of Our Lady of Montserrat, as well as by frequent pilgrimages to the mountain itself.
[27]. The Moors called Montserrat Gis Taus—the watch-peaks or towers.
[28]. History of Spanish Literature.
[29]. There was formerly an old sculpture in this palace of the counts of Barcelona, representing the prince in the arms of his nurse, and the hermit of Montserrat at their feet. This is now in the museum of antiquities in the old convent of San Juan at Barcelona.
[30]. The apostolic chamber, called in Rome the Reverenda Camera Apostolica, dates from the pontificate of Leo the Great, who constructed in the year 440 a small but elegant suite of chambers which served as a sanctuary for the bodies of the apostles SS. Peter and Paul until proper crypts, called Confessions, had been prepared for them beneath the high altars of their respective basilicas at the Vatican and on the Ostian Way. When these relics had been deposited in their present resting-places, the Leonine sanctuary was used, as a strong and venerable place, to contain the public treasury of the Holy See, which was given into the safe-keeping of certain officials called camerarii. Their successors are the present chierici di camera, who are eight in number and form one of the great prelatic colleges of Rome. The present institution was reorganized by Pope Urban V. in the fourteenth century. The cardinal-chamberlain is ex officio its head, and it acts as a board of control over the finances.
[31]. It is known to all visitors to Rome that Pius IX. prepared a beautiful tomb for himself before the high altar of St. Mary Major’s.
[32]. Roman bibliophilists anxious to possess—what is rare indeed—a complete set (una biblioteca, as the Italians say) of the funeral orations pronounced over the popes, and of the hortatory discourses addressed to the Sacred College about to enter conclave, eagerly contend at book-sales for these pamphlets, which are always in the choicest Latin of the age, and sometimes have a sentimental value on account of the subsequent fortunes, or misfortunes, of their authors. They are much more than mere literary curiosities for book-worms to feed upon. The form of the title-page, excepting of course in proper names and dates, is about the same in all; for instance, Oratio habita ad Collegium Cardinalium in funere Innocentii IX., Pont. Max., vi. Id. Januarii, 1592: Romæ, 1592, in 4to: by Father Giustiniani, a famous Jesuit; and Oratio habita in Basilica SS. Apostolorum Petri et Pauli pridie Kalend. Aprilis, 1721, ad Emos. et Rmos. cardinales conclave ingressuros pro Summo Pontifice eligendo: Romæ, ex Typographia Vaticana, 1721, in 4to: by Camillo de Mari, Bishop of Aria.
[33]. Arnulfus of Seez apud Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, tom. iii. p. 429, says that on this occasion the cardinals told the elect of their choice: Si acquiescis, exhibemus obsequium; si recusas, exigimus de inobedientia pœnam; and on his still hesitating parabant excommunicationis præferre sententiam.
[34]. This notarial function which the first master of ceremonies here performs is the reason why he is always an apostolic prothonotary; but his title to this prelatic rank rests entirely on custom, since he is not appointed by papal brief, as others are. It is by a similar analogy, although in matters theological, that the master of the Sacred Palace, who is always a Dominican, ranks with the auditors of the Rota.
[35]. “Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and queens thy nurses: they shall worship thee with their face toward the earth, and they shall lick up the dust of thy feet.”—Isaias xlix. 23, which St. Jerome interprets of the apostles; but in Peter’s successors all honors and prerogatives continue. A very learned writer of the last century, Gaetano Cenni, has gone profoundly into the historical and antiquarian part of this singular and most venerable custom, in his dissertation Sul Bacio De’ Piedi Del Romano Pontefice, which is the thirty-fourth of the third volume of Zaccaria’s great collection of dissertations on subjects of ecclesiastical history—Raccolta Di Dissertazioni Di Storia Ecclesiastica.... Per cura Di Francesco Antonio Zaccaria, etc. Seconda edizione. Four vols. Rome, 1841.
[36]. The celebrated antiquarian Cancellieri has written with his usual diffuseness and erudition on this matter in a little work, Notizie sopra l’Origine e l’uso dell’ Anello Pescatorio, etc., etc., published at Rome in 1823.
[37]. Briefs, says the learned Benedictine Mabillon, De Re Diplomaticâ (lib. ii. cap. xiv.), brevi via, seu manu, remotis omnibus ambagibus, absolvuntur; quippe quæ a Pontifice, ut plurimum sponte et absque rei longa discussione conficiuntur.
[38]. We had the good fortune once to pick up at a book-sale in Rome for a few cents a rare and curious little book on this topic, which gives the very marrow of the subject in a very agreeable form: Lettera di A. L. Nuzzi, Prelato Domestico Del Sommo Pontefice Sull’ Origine ed Uso Del Nome PAPA. Padova, 1 Settembre, MDCCXCVIII.
[39]. In our last number we published an article on the works of this illustrious Catholic layman by one closely connected with him. Immediately on receiving the sad news of Dr. Marshall’s death we wrote to his friend, Mr. T. W. Allies, who will be known to our readers as the author of The Formation of Christendom, asking him to prepare for The Catholic World a more adequate notice than we had seen of one who had done so much for the Catholic cause. The result is the present article, which, though it comes after the other, will be none the less pleasing to our readers, coming from such a pen as that of Mr. Allies, and dealing as it does rather with the personal life and character than with the public work of its subject.—Ed. C. W.
[40]. The Roman Correspondent of the London Tablet, February 23, denies the truth of this “project” so far as Cardinal Manning is concerned.—Ed. C. W.
[41]. If I knew there was one fibre in my heart which was not all God’s I would instantly pluck it out.—St. Francis de Sales.
[42]. St. Francis draws many beautiful illustrations from this mythical bird. The ancients asserted that when age had exhausted the strength of the phœnix it built a funeral-pile of aromatic gums and wood on the top of some high mountain, and, ascending it when the sun was in his meridian splendor, lit the pile by the fanning of its wings, and was consumed to ashes. From these ashes sprang another phœnix.
[43]. The narrowest street in Munich; hence the name.
[44]. The name of the park in Munich.
[45]. Valley of the Inn.
[46]. These are made afresh every year on the feast of the Epiphany.
[47]. An instrument not unlike a guitar.
[48]. Petites Ignorances de la Conversation. Par. Charles Rozan. Paris: Hetzler. 1877.
[49]. We may here mention that the finest elm in France is probably that in the court of the Deaf and Dumb Institution in the Rue St. Jacques in Paris. It is 50 metres in height and 5 in circumference, the last remaining of the 6,000 feet of trees planted under Henri IV. We mention this merely for the sake of our European readers, not for those accustomed to the sylvan giants of the Western world.
[50]. Henri III. instituted this order in memory of the three great events of his life which had happened on the Feast of Pentecost—namely, his birth, his election to the crown of Poland, and his accession to the throne of France.
[51]. Le Palais Archiépiscopal de Bénévent. Par Mgr. X. Barbier de Montault, prélat de la maison de Sa Sainteté. Arras: A. Planque et Cie. 1875.
[52]. The word palace is, by us, reserved for exceptional edifices that are vaster, loftier, and more highly ornamented than the dwelling of a merely private individual. But the Italian, who loves sonorous epithets, is more indiscriminate in its application. His word palazzo is susceptible of two meanings, one referring to the edifice, and the other to the person who inhabits it. In the latter sense it is applied to the residence of any high dignitary or person of office, however little in accordance it may be with his station. It is his rank which gives importance to his dwelling, and a name that sets it apart and prevents it from being confounded with the houses of people merely in easy circumstances.
[53]. In order to correspond fully to the wish expressed so gracieusement by the Rev. Father Hecker, founder of the Paulists, to have the plan of a building, with its ornamentation, in conformity with Roman traditions, we have taken the principal features of the palace at Beneventum as the model of that which the Catholics of America propose offering the cardinal of New York. The development of this architectonic and iconographic project will be the subject of a special essay.—Note of Mgr. Barbier de Montault.
[54]. In an official paper at Dijon, dated Sept. 26, 1511, mention is made of an obscure dungeon under the name of cachot d’enfer.
[55]. St. Barbato’s triumphal entrance into Beneventum was by a gateway that has preserved the name of Porta Gloriosa.
[56]. In tribulatione sua (Isa. xxv. 4).
[57]. De angustia sua (Job xxxvi. 15).
[58]. These quotations are often modified—the idea, rather than the exact words, being aimed at.
[59]. There are three portraits of Cardinal Orsini in the cathedral, taken at different periods of his life. The forehead is high and well developed. The eye is pleasant and sympathetic, but keen and penetrating. The nose has a bold outline, indicative of his energetic will. The mouth is contracted at the corners, giving it an expression of bitterness and dissatisfaction. The face is full, and tells of life and vigor.
[60]. Die deutschen Plenarien (Handpostillen) 1470-1522. Dr. J. Alzog. Herder. Freiburg in Breisgau. To this most interesting and valuable brochure of the distinguished German ecclesiastical historian the writer is chiefly indebted for the substance of the present article.
[61]. Dans lequel sont décrits les livres rares, précieux, singuliers, et aussi les ouvrages les plus, estimés. Ve édit. Paris, 1860-1865, en vi. tomes.
[62]. Glossarium mediæ et infimæ latinitatis.
[63]. These “examples” constituted a literature apart, to which reference will be made later, characteristic of the middle ages, of which scholars like Grimm speak with more respect, because more knowledge, than many more modern and less discriminating writers.
[64]. Bampton Lectures, 1876. Witness of the Psalms to Christ and Christianity. Dr. William Alexander.
[65]. A paraphrase of Apocalypse ii. 17 and iii. 20.
[66]. The German translations of the Bible, in part or complete, of which the library of the University of Freiburg possesses copies, are as follows: 1. 1466, Strassburg, folio, in 2 vols., printed by Eggestein. 2. 1472-1474, Strassburg or Nuremberg, large folio, 1 vol., printer not named, the chief source from which the following editions were compiled. 3. 1474. Augsburg, Günther Zainer. 4. 1474, Augsburg, 1 vol., large folio, Antony Sorg. 5. 1483, Nuremberg, large folio, 2 vols., Antony Koburger. 6. 1485, Strassburg, small folio, 2 vols. 7. 1490, Augsburg, small folio, 2 vols., Hans Schösperger. 8. 1507, Augsburg, folio, 1 vol., but very defective. 9. 1518, Augsburg, small folio, 2 vols., the first missing, Sylvanus Otmar. 10. 1534, the Old and New Testaments, Mayence, folio, 1 vol., Dietenberger (of which six other editions were printed at Cologne between 154- and 1572). 11. 1534, The Old and New Testaments translated directly from the Hebrew and the Greek texts, Frankfort-on-the-Main, Christian Egenolff. 12. The Old and New Testaments, according to the text authorized by Holy Church, 1558, Ingoldstadt, small folio, 1 vol., Dr. John Ecken.
[67]. By heaven, throughout this discourse, Dante means, simply, planetary influence. The lesson taught by Marco Lombardi is the same as that which Shakspere puts into the mouth of Cassius:
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
[68]. It is well to note in connection with this passage that Dante was, up to the time of his banishment by a political faction, a Guelph, the Guelphs being then the patriotic party in Italy, and supporters of the pope in his resolute opposition to the foreign invasion under Frederic Barbarossa. During his exile Dante changed his politics and joined the Ghibellines. Had he lived in our own days it is certain that he, whose faith was so high and clear, would have shared the openly expressed convictions of all responsible men and competent judges in this matter, that the temporal authority of the Holy See is necessary, as things now are, to the full liberty and full exercise of its spiritual authority. Dante’s opinion, as above expressed, is that of a political partisan in bygone times. Were he living to-day, instructed by the lessons of the centuries which have passed since he wrote, there can be no doubt that he would adhere to his earlier, truer, and more patriotic political convictions and see no impossibility of the union of “The twofold splendors of a double sun in Rome” in the person of Rome’s lawful and historic pontiff and king.—Ed. C. W.
[69]. Under the nom de plume of “Jean de Nivelle.” See Le Soleil for Jan. 4, 1878.
[70]. The diet of a French peasant is frugal in the extreme. His two meals usually consist of cabbage-soup—in which on Sundays and other special occasions a morsel of bacon is boiled—accompanied with rye bread. We have known a very well-to-do couple make half a rabbit last them four days in the way of meat. Many kinds of fungi are common articles of diet with the French peasantry. They cook them with vinegar “to kill the poison.”
[71]. St. Bernard.
[72]. Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist. By W. E. Channing. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1873.
Thoreau: his Life and Aims. A Study. By H. A. Page. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co. 1877.
[73]. Perhaps this peak, encircled by other peaks, is so styled from the curious dance of this region, called Lo Salt, performed by four men and four women. At a certain part the former pass their hands under the arms of the women, and raise them in the air in the form of a pyramid, of which their white caps form the summit.
[74]. Jasmin.
[75]. Beginnings of Christianity.
[76]. Caxton Celebration, 1877. Catalogue of the Loan Collection of Antiquities, Curiosities, and Appliances connected with the art of Printing, South Kensington. Edited by George Bullen, Esq., F.S.A., Keeper of the Printed Books, British Museum. London, Trübner; xix.-472 pp.
The Bibles in the Caxton Exhibition. MDCCCLXXVII.; or, A Bibliographical Description of nearly one thousand representative Bibles in various languages chronologically from the first Bible printed by Gutenberg in 1450-1456 to the last Bible printed at the Oxford University Press the 30th June, 1877.... By Henry Stevens G.M.B., F.S.A., M.A., etc. London: H. Stevens. 1877. 8vo, pp. 151.
[77]. Office of the Blessed Virgin, with other prayers.
[78]. The clown appears early in “What you Will.” It has become the fashion to call our Catholic institutions, schools, etc., sectarian, because apparently the sects are bitterly opposed to them; and institutions in which the Protestant sects have complete control and enforce their views are called non-sectarian. No one would imagine that “religious sectarianism” here is a euphemism for “Protestant intolerance.”
[79]. We have always indulged the hope that the use of the Sarum Missal on some patronal feast will be permitted in the primatial church of England, as the Ambrosian and Mozarabic are in Italy and Spain, to show conclusively that we are the identical body who used that liturgy before the Reformation.
[80]. While writing we read the following from Blades’ Life of Caxton to a Catholic girl in her teens: “No. 57. Death-Bed Prayers. A Folio Broadside:
“From the language of these prayers it is evident that they were intended for use by the death-bed. They were probably printed in this portable form for priests and others to carry about with them. Although short, their interest is great, and the reader may not be displeased to read them in the following more modern dress than that of the original:
“‘O glorious Jesu! O meekest Jesu! O most sweetest Jesu! I pray thee that I may have true confession, contrition, and satisfaction ere I die; and that I may see and receive thy holy body, God and man, Saviour of all mankind. Christ Jesu without sin; and that thou wilt, my Lord God, forgive me all my sins, for thy glorious wounds and Passion; and that I may end my life in the true faith of all holy church.’”
“What a stupid man!” exclaimed my young hearer. “That is not any prayer for a priest to say by a dying person; it’s a prayer for a happy death, and is it not a beautiful one?’” She was certainly right, and a Catholic child could teach many of these people.
[81]. To the same purport is this colophon on Bartholomæus’ De Proprietatibus Rerum, issued by Wynken de Worde about 1495:
“And also of your charyte call to remembraunce
The soule of William Caxton, first prynter of this boke,
In laten tongue at Coleyn, hymself to auance
That every wel disposyd man may theron loke.”
[82]. Stevens admits that there was no necessity for actually doing the printing of Bibles in England. “The educated of England, however, were not ignorant of the Scriptures, for Coburger, of Nuremberg, and probably other Continental printers, had established warehouses in London for the sale of Latin Bibles as early as 1480, and perhaps earlier.”
[83]. The Paulist Library in New York might have sent a fine copy of the ninth edition, printed in 1482, the very year Luther was born.
[84]. We have never seen the Latin Bible printed by Norton at London, in 1680, but think that the text of the Vulgate was not followed.
[85]. The natural history and topography of the 1611 Bible are ludicrously incorrect, because they abandoned the Vulgate and translated at random. Yet the Vulgate was translated from the Septuagint, and revised in the Holy Land by St. Jerome with the aid of Jewish scholars who knew the geography and natural history of the country. The Septuagint was made in Egypt, while Hebrew was still the language of the nation, by men thoroughly acquainted with their native country. Was it not sheer madness for gentlemen in England in the seventeenth century, with a mere smattering of Hebrew, to think that they could render geographical and zoölogical terms more accurately? Is not their presumption the real matter to be sneered at?
[86]. Written according to Dutch rather than English. This is very odd. Beggi is pray; takkitakki is much talkee (say); jamjam is yam (bread). “Give we to-day the yams for we!”
[87]. Like Caxton, a Catholic, the writer has, like Caxton, written, translated, edited, printed, and published, and has had for years behind his chair in his dining-room an engraving of Caxton examining his first proof-sheet. His interest in Caxton is, therefore, almost personal.
[88]. Dante does not overestimate the importance of this little town of middle Italy to a religious mind. Every Christian must be piously impressed by the subjoined inscription over the gate of Assisi which greets a traveller coming from Rome.
These words are believed to have been the dying benediction of St. Francis as he looked out from his pallet over the roofs of the mountain city which has become through him a place of pilgrimage:
Benedicta tu civitas a Domino:
Quia in te multi servi Altissimi habitabunt:
Et a te multi animi salvabuntur:
Et de te multi eligentur in regna æterna.
Blessed be thou, O city! by the Lord!
For in thee many servants there shall dwell
Of the Most High; and many souls, restored
Through thee to grace, shall be redeemed from hell;
And many shall be called to their reward,
In everlasting kingdoms, ... from a cell.
[89]. From the French of Père Félix, published as an article in the Revue Catholique des Institutions et du Droit (April number, 1878). The article is a reproduction of one lecture out of a series, on the subject of socialism, given at Grenoble, and shortly to be published entire by Jouby-Roger, Rue des Grands Augustins, Paris.
[90]. Queen of Charles I., and in whose honor the colony was called Maryland.
[91]. Ps. lx. 3-5.
[92]. The man Hoedel, who sought to kill the emperor, stated that he belonged to this school; he had swung around the circle, and had ended as an “anarchist.”
[93]. But this interference is now to be insisted upon, for Prince Bismarck has instructed the Parliament to pass laws for the suppression of the publication and spread of socialistic and revolutionary doctrines.
[94]. Just as the emperor and the chancellor are now urging upon Parliament the passage of laws to restrict the right of public meeting and of free speech on the platform and in the press.
[95]. It is now being debated there under the direct orders of the emperor and the chancellor.
[96]. We give this passage literally, in order to furnish an indisputable evidence of the animus of Dr. Bamberger when he writes of the church or of Catholics. We shall see, as we go along, how this spirit colors his reasoning.
[97]. Dr. Bamberger utterly misrepresents the attitude of the Roman Catholics in Germany towards the socialists. In the debate of May 23-24 in the Reichstag, on the proposed restrictive measures against the socialists, the Catholic members aided in defeating the government’s bill: on the very rational ground that the laws already in existence were sufficiently strong to accomplish all that the government required, if only they were properly applied. In any case it is to be hoped that a man may defend freedom of speech and public assembly without necessarily being ranked among the socialists. Men may defend right principles without at all defending a wrong application of them. The Protestants and National Liberals who, in this instance, joined with the Catholics in condemning what was essentially a tyrannous measure, were not “hypocrites.” All condemned alike the wicked attempt on the life of the German emperor. But even that attempt did not justify what practically amounted to a wholesale gagging of the German people.—Ed. C. W.
[98]. As a matter of fact, Mr. Eccarius could not have gone to this congress at all had not the London correspondent of one of our New York journals furnished him with the necessary funds for his journey, taking his letters as payment. Mr. Eccarius, who is an able writer and personally an estimable man, made excellent use of his visit, as the London Times took his letters from the congress and paid him at the rate of £2 a column for them.
[99]. Here Dr. Bamberger portrays at great length and in a bantering manner the demands of those who believe that the state can remedy all evils, and describes with humor the various programmes for state administration of domestic life, public amusements, education, and what not. He quotes the Italian proverb that “a fool in his own house is smarter than a wise man in another’s mansion,” and says that the state falls into folly when it penetrates the houses of its subjects and regulates for them their domestic economy.
[100]. St. Eucher.
[101]. Le Oranti of the archæologists.
[102]. John xvi. 26.
[103]. The Natural History of Atheism. By John Stuart Blackie, Professor of Greek at the University of Edinburgh. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1878.
[104]. Children dying in original sin, though children of wrath, are not necessarily “hell-deserving sinners,” as the author objects. Most Catholic theologians maintain with good reasons that they will be in a state of natural happiness, though debarred from the vision of God.
[105]. See The Catholic World for February, 1874, where we have proved that all efficient cause is infinitely more perfect and of an infinitely better nature than any of its effects (“The Principles of Real Being,” p. 584).
[106]. Proverbs, cap. viii.
[107]. A building in the Munich cemetery to which all are taken immediately after death—no exception, save for the royal family.
[108]. Words by Jean Paul.
“And as ’tis not for tongue to tell,
For love knows naught of time or space,
So diving down my eyes’ deep well,
Find graven on my heart thy face.”
[109]. “Who took the shape of that sweet bird.” Reference is here made to the story of Procne, wife of Tereus, King of Thrace, and sister of Philomela. To revenge herself on her husband, Procne murdered their child, Itys, cut him into pieces, and served up the flesh to the father. Tereus, discovering the truth, pursued and was on the point of overtaking her when, at her prayer, she was changed by the gods into a nightingale, and her sister Philomela into a swallow, according to Probus, Libanius, and Strabo.—Purg. ix. 15.
[110]. This is Haman, who was hanged upon the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai, as we read in the Book of Esther; but Dante’s word is crocifisse.
[111]. “A damsel,” etc. This was Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus and Amata. Lavinia had been secretly promised in marriage by her mother to Turnus, King of the Rutuli. The marriage was displeasing to the gods, and the oracles declared that Lavinia should marry a foreign prince. The foreign prince was Æneas, who, on his arrival in Italy, became the friend and ally of Latinus, and won his favor as suitor to Lavinia. Turnus thereupon declared war against both, and was killed in battle by Æneas. Amata, having been informed prematurely of the death of Turnus, and enraged at being unable to prevent the marriage of Lavinia with Æneas, hanged herself in despair.
[112]. “Never Creator ...” In this passage Virgil explains to Dante the nature of love according to the mediæval philosophy, viz., God is love. “Deus caritas est,” and so are all created things, as derived from him. Love in man is natural or rational—that is, of the mind. Natural love, or the love towards all things necessary to one’s preservation, cannot err. Rational love can err in three ways: first, when directed to a bad aim—that is, to evil; secondly, when directed excessively to earthly pleasures; thirdly, when directed feebly to those things truly worthy of love, the celestial. As long as love turns to the Primal Good, the celestial, or seeks with due check the inferior, or terrestrial, it cannot be the source of wrong, or sin. “But when it swerves to ill,” ... etc.
[113]. “Whence may’st thou ...” Love is the source of good works, as of bad ones; thus, according to St. Augustine, “Boni aut mali mores sunt boni aut mali amores.”
[114]. “Hatred of Him ...” Love cannot turn against its subjects (viz., men cannot hate themselves); and as these subjects cannot exist separate from their First Being, they cannot therefore hate God. (Men may deny or blaspheme, but not hate, God.) It follows, therefore, that, as no bad love can be directed against one’s self or against God, that it can only be against one’s neighbor, and this can be in three forms: viz., by Pride, or the love of good to ourselves and of evil to others; by Envy, or the love of evil to others, without cause of good or evil to us; by Anger, or the love of evil to others on account of real or imaginary evil to us.
[115]. “... Languid love ...” Sloth; indolence to seek the true good, which is God.
[116]. “There is another good ...”—the love of this world and earthly pleasures.
[117]. “Tripartite ...”—three other bad loves: Avarice, Gluttony, Lust.
[118]. See The Catholic World for February, 1878, “Confession in the Church of England,” by the Right Rev. Mgr. Capel, D.D.
[119]. These are not the exact words, but they express the exact sense of St. Thomas in the following passage: Beatitudo est bonum perfectum quod totaliter quietat appetitum.... Objectum autem voluntatis, quæ est appetitus humanus, est universale bonum. Summa Th., 4, ii. q. 2. a. 5.
[120]. Mélanges, French translation, vol. i. Essay on the Maxim, No Salvation out of the Catholic Church.
[121]. Philipp, ii. 8-11.
[122]. Rom. viii. 19-23.
[123]. Rom. ix. 19-21.
[124]. The writer, for whose opinion we have all respect, has the advantage over us of a personal knowledge of Mr. Bright, and an acquaintance with his public career to which we cannot pretend. So far, however, as our knowledge goes, our estimate of Mr. Bright is far from agreeing altogether with that of the writer. We always believed Mr. Bright to be a man of large heart, of generous impulse, and of large mind, circumscribed by certain defects of education and inherited prejudice; but always a man wishing to see right done and to do right.—Ed. C. W.
[125]. A lecture by the Rev. Dr. F. C. Ewer, “Catholic Truth and Protestant Error,” reported in the New York Tribune of May 11, 1878.
[126]. The largest number at the Exhibition was on a Sunday, when upwards of 111,000 entered the building.
[127]. For a full description of these excellent associations see The Catholic World, January, 1878, “Catholic Circles for Working-men in France.”
[128]. The Place des Pyramides in the Rue de Rivoli is on the site of the ancient ditch of the fortification in the Faubourg St. Honoré, and is known to be the spot where Joan of Arc was wounded.
[129]. Ecclesiasticus xxiv.
[130]. It was published in France in 1684 under the title of L’Ecole Chrétienne.
[131]. Prayer of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation:
“It is through the Heart of Jesus, my way, my truth, and my life, that I approach thee, O Eternal Father. Through this divine Heart I worship thee for all who worship thee not; I love thee for all who love thee not; I acknowledge thee for all the wilfully blind who through contempt acknowledge thee not. I wish by this divine Heart to fulfil the duty of all men. In spirit I traverse the whole world to seek all the souls ransomed by the most precious Blood of my divine Spouse, in order to satisfy thee for them all by this divine Heart. I embrace them in order to present them to thee through it, and by it I ask of thee their conversion. Wilt thou, O Eternal Father, suffer them to be ignorant of my Jesus, or live not for him who died for all? Thou beholdest, O divine Father, that they live not yet. Oh! make them live through the divine Heart.
[132]. 1. Gottheit, Freiheit und Unsterblichkeit. Von L. A. Feuerbach. Leipzig.
2. The Essence of Christianity. Idem. Translated by George Eliot. London.
3. The Religion of Humanity. By O. B. Frothingham. New York.
[133]. Hecuba.
[134]. M. Emile Souvestre has done more than almost any of his countrymen, except M. de la Villemarquée, to illustrate and set forth the Breton character.
[135]. A corruption of chat-huant (screech-owl), the cry of which bird the brothers, who were salt-smugglers, used as a signal to inform one another of their whereabouts at night.
[136]. The Breton has preserved a thoroughly Celtic hatred of his ancient conqueror. “Yes,” said a little peasant girl, describing a shipwreck; “I saw them buried here in the sand; they were Saxons, you know, not Christians; and many an evening I have come with the village children to dance on the graves of the Englishmen who were turning to dust below there.”
[137]. Namely, of Anne, daughter of Francis II., the last duke, to Charles VIII., and after his death to Louis XII. of France. Brittany was her dowry.
[138]. The insect popularly known as dragon-fly the Bretons call nadoz-aër, or “needle of the air.”
[139]. Goazenn-Hêault—Breton expression for a ray of sunlight piercing the clouds.
[140]. Chercheur de pain, Klasker—the Breton name for beggar.
[141]. Treid lué zo éné voutou—i.e., he must be an idiot.
[142]. Genowek—a Breton insult equivalent to “imbecile.”
[143]. Faou, in the department of Finisterre (the ancient Pays de Cornouailles), was so called.
[144]. We are not to take literally, says M. Souvestre in a note, these Breton exaggerations. The church of Rumengol (corruption of remed-ol = tous les remèdes) is remarkable without being a wonder; the golden statues are gilded figures of rude workmanship, and the spire is far from being comparable to that of Kreisker at St. Pol de Léon.
[145]. Pen-god or pen-scod—literally, a maul-pate, the Breton shillelagh.
[146]. Pennérèz—Breton for heiresses, marriageable girls.
[147]. Lovers met behind the gable end, because there there were no windows from which they could be overlooked; hence the expression for courtship, to talk behind the gable.
[148]. Morzolik an ankou the Bretons call the wood-louse, in allusion to its faint, regular rapping. Cf. our Death-watch.
[149]. The precise distance at which the Bretons locate hell.
[150]. The following article was recently found in Chicago among the posthumous papers of Judge Arrington, who died in that city nine years ago, a convert to the Catholic Church. It was written twenty years previous, when he was struggling to escape from the meshes of pantheism, and seems to be a vigorous effort to prove to his own satisfaction the reality of a personal, rational Deity.
Some of the illustrations are recognized as having been used in a similar article published in the Democratic Review about thirty years ago, which was extensively copied, and even translated into the French and German languages. The present is a much more elaborate statement than that, as if the author still dwelt upon the subject, and as the years rolled on wished with increasing knowledge to more strongly substantiate to his intellect what his higher nature so instinctively craved.
At the bar Judge Arrington stood almost without a peer in the great Northwest for legal learning and oratorical power. Whenever he indulged in the luxury of literary and poetical composition he showed an ability that promised a like pre-eminence in those pursuits, had he devoted himself to them.
This struggle of a great mind to fling off the incubus of modern error, whose every maze he had thoroughly explored, coupled with his subsequent conversion to Catholicity and his saint-like death in its communion, is an admirable practical illustration of the truth that nothing short of the light and grace to be found only in the true church of Christ can ever thoroughly satisfy a great soul.
[151]. Judge Arrington had devoted much time and attention to studying the nature and results of sagacity in animals; but he so distinctly saw that they are not responsible agents, and that the harmonious and orderly results produced by them—as, for example, the mathematical regularity of the cells of bees—are to be attributed not to them but to the Author of their wonderful instinct, that he does not even pause to treat this as an objection to his proposition or to draw a distinction between mediate and immediate causes.
[152]. Written for a children’s “May Cantata.”
[153]. Numbers xvii.
[154]. Nothing could give a truer idea of the fog of misconception and ignorance that envelops every subject connected with Catholicity in England than an incident which occurred to the writer in the course of last summer. He had applied to the editor of an influential monthly of high standing, published in London, for permission to contribute a paper on the Bollandist Acta. The editor in reply said that he should be happy to receive an article on such a subject, adding, “They were old friends and benefactors of mine.” The phrase was somewhat puzzling; but it was fully explained to the writer by a literary friend of great experience as referring to the respectable family of the late Baron Bolland, a judge of the English Exchequer Court. The Catholic Bollandists were strangers even in name to the popular editor.
[155]. Among the numerous errors in the few lines devoted to the Bollandists in the new Encyclopædia Britannica, not the worst is the statement that Père Bolland was only a short time engaged on the Acta. More than one-half of a life of sixty-nine years was spent in the production of five folio volumes for his own share, besides superintending the preparation of others.
[156]. Particulars may be found in the Bibliothèque des Ecrivains de la Comp. de Jésus, of the Pères de Backer, S.J. Liége, 1854. Also in Nicéron, Histoire des Hommes Illustres, II.
[157]. Costello’s translation.
[158]. The white cross of Savoy, won by a chivalric knight of the ages of faith, but which one now learns to loathe in Italy—the cross of torture: crux de cruce—for Pius IX. of blessed memory.
[159]. The more ancient writers use this expression in the sense of enjoying the pleasures of the country or making good cheer, without any invidious meaning. Voltaire is one of the first to imply by its use a life of luxurious and sensual indulgence.
[160]. Æneas Sylvius.
[161]. Renan. Vie de Saint Paul, chap. vii. p. 126.
[162]. Renan, Vie de Saint Paul, c. vii. p. 135.
[163]. Ecclesiasticus xxiv.
[164]. It was recently said that there were three kinds of dancing: the graceful, the ungraceful, and the disgraceful.
[165]. Redondillas are stanzas of four short lines. This paragraph on versification reads curiously to ears accustomed to the pentameter blank verse of the English drama, stately at times and sprightly when need be, and, indeed, capable of infinite variety. The Spanish plays of to-day are written in very short metre, and French tragedies still rhyme.
[166]. Napoleon thought a big nose to be a sign of intellect, says history, mother of lies. Fiddlesticks! He chose men with big noses because they were easier to lead. An army of snub-noses would never have gone to Moscow.
[167]. It will occur to the ingenious reader, as indeed it has to the ingenious writer, that it would have been much simpler and more natural to ask Pauline to write her wishes. So it would. But then André was a poet and a genius, and—this is a romance. Besides, who knows but Pauline might have been locked up at the critical moment and denied writing materials?
[168]. It was the very incident here related, and which in its main outlines is historically true, that led to a police regulation forbidding the intrusion of masked outsiders into wedding parties and other festivals.