THE JESUITS IN ENGLAND.
THE NOVITIATE:
Or, A Year among the English Jesuits: a Personal Narrative. With an Essay on the Constitutions, the Confessional Morality, and History of the Jesuits. By Andrew Steinmetz. In one vol. post 8vo. price 10s. 6d. bound in cloth.
“This is a remarkable book—a revealer of secrets, and full of materials for thought.... It is written with every appearance of strict and honourable truthfulness. It describes, with a welcome minuteness, the daily, nightly, hourly occupations of the Jesuit Novitiates at Stonyhurst, their religious exercises and manners, in private and together; and depicts, with considerable acuteness and power, the conflicts of an intelligent, susceptible, honest-purposed spirit, while passing through such a process. If our readers should be disposed to possess themselves of this volume, it will be their own fault if the reading of it be profitless.”—British Quarterly Review.
“This is as singular a book of its kind as has appeared since Blanco White’s ‘Letters of Doblado,’ with the advantage of dealing with the Jesuits in England instead of Popery in Spain. * * * It will be found a very curious work.”—Spectator.
“If it be desirable to know what is that mode of training by which the Jesuit system prepares its novices for their duties, this is the book to inform us, for it is a chronicle of actual experience.... The work of Mr. Steinmetz is throughout marked by great fairness, ... he neither conceals nor exaggerates: a spirit of candour pervades the whole narrative.... Could we know the experience of other novices, we should find that all have undergone, with more or less of intensity, the process so vividly described in this volume.... It is written in an extremely animated style. The author’s thoughts are original, and the passages relating to his personal history and feelings are agreeably introduced, and add to the interest of his narrative. It is a sufficient proof of his accuracy that, though the Jesuits have many pens in this country, not one has been hardy enough to impugn a sentence of his statements.”—Britannia.
“Mr. Steinmetz writes a most singular and interesting account of the Jesuit seminary, and his way of life there.... He seems to be a perfectly honest and credible informer, and his testimony may serve to enlighten many a young devotional aspirant who is meditating ‘submission’ to Rome, and the chain and scourge systems. There is nothing in the least resembling invective in the volume.”—Morning Chronicle.
“At a time when Jesuitism seems to be rising once more, any work on this subject comes very opportunely. How the writer became a member of this mysterious body gives a key to the character of the man himself and the spirit of his book.... This narrative is well written, and as interesting as we expected.”—Weekly Chronicle.
“An unvarnished account of the Jesuits’ College at Stonyhurst, its discipline and routine of observances and customs,—of these we have the most minute details, and the whole is a faithful picture of a remarkable condition of life.... From this curious book you may form some idea of the Jesuits and their course of proceeding.”—Literary Gazette.
“This is a curious volume, of no little interest and eloquence, written by a scholar and an enthusiast.”—Atlas.