NEW PUBLICATIONS.
MISCELLANEA: comprising Reviews, Lectures, and Essays, on Historical, Theological, and Miscellaneous Subjects, By M. J. Spalding, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore. Fourth edition. 2 vols. 8vo. Pp. 807. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1866.
This work has attained a well deserved popularity in the Catholic community; and we hail with pleasure this new and enlarged edition of it. Dr. Spalding has obtained the first place amongst the few of our popular writers; and by his contributions to Catholic literature will leave after him evidences of a "good fight" for the truth and faith of Christ. The Miscellanea is a book for the times, such as the Church always needs, and of which in later years we have sadly felt the want. The prolific Anti-catholic press has deluged the country with [{572}] publications of all sizes and of every character, unfair in their statements of our doctrine and practice, and but too often marked by bitter invective and wilful misrepresentation. The prejudices thus engendered and deepened must be quickly and pointedly met before the poison has had time to spread. We must not be content with a passive confidence in the inherent strength of truth. In the long run truth will prevail, we know; but there is no reason why truth should not also prevail in the short run. Our American style of making a mental meal is not very far different from that of our physical meal. We read as fast as we eat, and are not over dainty. It is perfectly marvellous what hashes of literary refuse your anti-church, anti-papal, and liberal (sic) caterer has the impudence to set before a people hungering after righteousness and truth: and it is equally marvellous that these same people so hastily gulp down the newly spiced dish, without evincing any suspicion of their having once or twice before seen and rejected the same well-picked bones and unsavory morsels.
Experience proves the necessity of providing for the American mind good solid food, cooked a la hâte, and served with few accompaniments. They are not partial to long introductory soups, and totally disregard all side-dish references and quotations. Comparisons aside, we need quick and popular answers to these popular and hasty accusations. The difficulty we experience is in the fact that the books, pamphlets, and tracts which disseminate error, contain such a mass of illogical reasoning, and are based upon so many contradictory principles, that to answer them all fully and logically would require as many octavos as they possess pages. To give a fair, unsophistical, and popular response to the questions of the day, as presented to us in the forms we have mentioned, requires no little critical skill, and real literary genius. In the perusal of the work before us we have had frequent occasion to admire these characteristics of the distinguished author. His trenchant blows decapitate at once a host of hydra-headed errors, and he displays a happy faculty of marking and dealing with those particular points which would be noticeable ones for the reader of the productions which come under the judgment of his pen. We have cause to congratulate ourselves that we have in him a popular writer for the American people. An American himself, he understands his countrymen, appreciates their merits, and is not blind to their failings. It is true we find in these pages many qualifications of the motives of Protestant antagonists and of Protestant movements generally which we wish might be read only by those to whom they apply; still the intelligent reader will not fail to observe that they were called forth by the temper of the times in which these different essays were written. The author himself observes in his preface to this edition: "As some of them were written as far back as twenty years, it is but natural to suppose that they occasionally exhibit more spirit and heat in argument, than the cooler temper and riper taste of advancing years would fully approve." And he very justly adds: "While I am free to make this acknowledgment, justice to my own convictions and feelings requires me to state, that in regard to the facts alleged, I have nothing to retract, or even, materially to modify, and that in the tone and temper I do not even now believe that I set down aught in malice, or with any other than the good intent of correcting error and establishing truth, without assuming the aggressive except for the sake of what I believed to be the legitimate defence of the Church of God."
What the learned writer here hints at, we feel to be his own profound convictions at the present day, and the wisdom of which the aspect of controversy as it is now successfully being carried on here and in Europe, also proves, that it is better to convince and to teach, than to silence. We are not, however, altogether averse to sharp reproof or good-natured ridicule where it is well deserved. Fools are to be answered, says the Holy Scripture, according to their folly; and fools not unfrequently attack the truth and do a deal of mischief. When a writer or public orator presumes to talk nonsense, or appeals to the vulgar prejudices or the fears of the ignorant, it becomes necessary to exhibit both his character and motives. Calm and unimpassioned argument is thrown away upon him, and is looked upon by the unthinking masses as a confession of weakness. Few instances, if any, can be shown where a Catholic polemic writer has treated an honorable [{573}] antagonist with discourtesy: and we venture to say that the scathing criticisms which are to be found in the work before us were richly merited, and on the whole will be so judged by the dispassionate reader.
This edition contains upward of one hundred and sixty pages of new matter, of equal interest with that of the fore-going editions.
We give it our humble and earnest commendation, heartily wishing that it may be widely circulated and read; confidently assured as we are that it will do good, and advance the cause of truth.
CHRISTIANITY, Its Influence on Civilization, and its Relation to Nature's Religion: the "Harmonial" or Universal Philosophy. A Lecture. By Caleb S. Weeks. New York: W. White & Co. 1866.
What a pity Mr. Caleb S. Weeks was not born earlier! The whole world has been running for nineteen centuries after the "Nazarene," and his "religious system," when it might have been running after Mister Weeks, and his shallow spiritualistic humanitarian philosophy! Who knows? Reading effusions of this kind, we are reminded of Beppolo's Fanfarone: