The work consists of two Parts: “Part I. containing Benediction, the choir portions of Mass, the Serving at Mass, and various Latin prayers in ordinary use; Part II. comprising additional portions of the Mass, Requiem Mass, Litany of the Saints, Vespers, Compline, and other offices and devotions, with a short Grammar and Vocabulary.”
The only stricture we have to make regards the pronunciation of A. The author says: “A, when fully sounded, is to be pronounced as a in far. Examples: Pater, Parter; laudamus, laudarmus; ora, orar.” This is a very strange mistake. Had he heard, as we have, “Gloriar rin in excelsis,” “Benedictar res,” “super omniar rest,” etc., he would never have directed that “a should be pronounced as a in far.” We are aware that the English r is fainter than the Irish or American. Still, should not h be substituted for r in the above? Pahter,
laudahmus, orah are the exact sounds.
With this very small exception, then, we can only speak of Father Caswall’s manual with unqualified praise, and hope it may obtain the wide circulation it deserves.
Ecclesiastical Discourses delivered on Special Occasions. By Bishop Ullathorne. London: Burns & Oates. 1876. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society.)
“These discourses,” says their distinguished author in his preface, “are called ecclesiastical because they were either addressed to ecclesiastics or treat on ecclesiastical subjects. They form a volume embracing certain points of pastoral theology—a subject on which we have very little that is Catholic in our language, if we except the excellent little book by Canon Oakeley.” They will therefore be specially valuable to our clergy, while, at the same time, the bishop “trusts there is much in them which may offer solid instruction to thoughtful Catholic laymen.” One of the most important, and the one to which we particularly invite the attention of our readers, both clerical and lay, is that on mixed marriages, “delivered on occasion of the Fourth Diocesan Synod of Birmingham.” Bishop Ullathorne is not afraid to speak plainly on this subject. Indeed, his language is startling but leaves no room for question of its truth. He speaks, too, from an extensive experience of the evils resulting from mixed marriages. Here is a passage (the italics are our own), p. 89:
“It would be as unjust as ungenerous not to admit that there are Protestants who loyally keep the promises they have made in marriage with Catholics, and who truly respect the faith and religious exercises of their Catholic spouse, and fulfil their pledges respecting the education of their children. But prudence looks to what generally happens, and not to the exceptional cases. And wisdom never runs any serious risks in matters of the soul. The individuals, and even the families, that have fallen from the church through mixed marriages, amount to numbers incredible to those who have not examined the question thoroughly; and the number of Catholics bound at this moment in mixed marriages, who live in a hard and bitter conflict for the exercise
of their religion, for that of their children, and in certain cases for the soundness of their moral life, could they, with all the facts, be known, would deter any thoughtful Catholic from contracting a mixed marriage.”
The bishop has extended this discourse in order to give the early discipline of the church on the matter. He further makes his argument impregnable by citations from popes and councils. Moreover, he concludes the instruction “with an admirable passage from the synodal address published by the hierarchy of Australia”; and the condition of Catholics in Australia, as regards the ordinary excuses for mixed marriages, bears striking resemblance, be it remembered, to their position here.
Every-day Topics: A Book of Briefs. By J. G. Holland. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1876.