These essays were reprinted, the author tells us, at the request of a lady, for general circulation, with the hope of doing some good to the rising generation, and those who have the charge of bringing them up. We hope they may do good, and they certainly will if they exercise any practical influence at all upon either parents or young people. Their literary merit is undeniable. The topics they touch upon are, however, so painfully momentous that it is impossible to dwell with mere critical enjoyment upon their readable qualities as essays to be amused with during a leisure hour. Their charm of style is only to be appreciated as a means of alluring attention to the very grave and alarming truths which they contain. The author touches with a light and delicate hand upon a very sore and diseased spot in our social system, and hints, in a manner which is intelligible to the instructed without being dangerous to the innocent, at evils which may well awaken the alarm of every one who is solicitous for the well-being of the family, the community, and the race. We are especially pleased with his very sound remarks upon the luxury, extravagance, and effeminacy which are exercising such a corrupting influence upon American society. We think, however, the doctor is more successful in pointing out the evils which exist than in proposing a remedy for them. The sacramental doctrine of matrimony, the Catholic law maintaining its absolute indissolubility, the sacrament of penance, and the authority of a church which is a supreme judge and lawgiver, executed by a priesthood who are independent of the opinions, caprices, and trammels of worldly society, are alone sufficient to reform the vitiated, or preserve the integrity of youth. It were as easy to catch the devil in a mouse-trap as to renovate society by any means which Unitarian Christianity has at its disposal.
The author's very irrelevant digression upon the Catholic doctrine of celibacy adds one more to the numberless instances in which respectable writers criticise rashly without understanding their subject. He says, (p. 109,) "We know very well that theorists of extreme classes, who have noted the decrease in the number of marriages in high life, are inclined to rejoice at it, and for opposite reasons: the one class because they think celibacy to be the higher condition." After several more passages, in which the language is very ambiguous, and may easily be understood as veiling a covert insinuation against the Catholic clergy and religious communities, the author concludes his remarks thus: "We believe that a true Christian wife has a purity that angels may not scorn and many a nun might covet, and that the man who keeps his marriage vows need not ask of any ghostly monk for lessons in manly virtue. The longer we live the more we reverence God's obvious law, and the less we admire the devices of men who forbid marriage, and so undertake to be wiser than God."
It is quite the reverse of truth that a Catholic moralist, whether "ghostly" or otherwise, approves of or recommends or rejoices in a general practice of celibacy among either the wealthy or the poorer classes. The Catholic clergy recommend and favor marriage for the generality of persons as by far the best and happiest state for them. The Catholic doctrine does not disparage the purity of Christian wives, or the virtue of married men who are faithful to their matrimonial obligations. The spectral gentleman, whose lessons the doctor politely declines in advance, would probably, if he had the chance to give one, pass over the evangelical counsels, and enlarge on the moral duty of representing things as they are. The Catholic Church does not "forbid marriage." She teaches that it is a sacrament. The Greek Church has corrupted it by permitting divorce; every Protestant Church has done the same; the civil law has laid its barbarous hand upon it to drag it from the protecting power of the church. The Roman Church alone has first raised it to its proper elevation and indissolubility, and afterward defended it by her uncompromising law from desecration. We advise the doctor to turn his attention more undividedly to the work of rehabilitating marriage in the rights of which corrupt morals and legislation have deprived it, and not to distress himself with the fear lest the sacrament should be despised or neglected by Catholics.
Sermon On The Dignity And Value Of Labor.
By the Rev. Joseph Fransioli, Pastor of St. Peter's Church, Brooklyn, L.I.
This is a first-class popular sermon; plain, practical, and encouraging. That Christianity has redeemed the masses in elevating and dignifying manual labor is plain enough to the student of history. That which was a curse in Adam is turned into a blessing in Christ. It is equally true that when men forget the Christian aim of life and suffer themselves to be guided, as too large a class of our modern society does, by heathen principles, labor becomes contemptible, poverty becomes a misfortune, and the wearing of patches and rags a crime. The preacher thus fitly characterizes labor: "Work is of divine origin. It is not a human invention, or a system adopted by civil society for its wants in the different classes; it is a divine institution, an obligation imposed by God's eternal wisdom upon all men without distinction whatsoever. It is a divine institution distributing labor in its various branches among all men, not creating, properly speaking, different classes. Work is leading men towards God, the centre of perfection. Work, then, ennobles man, and the true dignity and worthiness of a man is to be measured by the proportion of his work."
Again, he is justly severe upon the modern distinction of "low" and "respectable" classes in this false sense. "The father who carries the shovel on his shoulders to dig the foundation of your buildings; the son who, early in the morning, is seen walking, tools in hand; the washerwoman and the servant girl who clean your clothes and honestly and faithfully do the work of your houses, are not low. They discharge a noble task which their families appreciate and which God will reward. Do you know who belong to the very lowest classes of men and Christians? Those that speculate on the lives of the poor laborers by building monstrous tenement houses, where bad ventilation, poor light, scarcity of water, and dilapidated rooms lead the over-crowded and over-taxed inmates to misery and a premature death. Those that sue for divorces in the courts, ride in carriages, and display themselves in public with more than one wife, more than one family, more than one God; trampling on human and divine law. Those that spend their nights in gambling, their days in hypocritical schemes, who never balance their expenses with their revenues, and consume double the amount of their salaries, and leave their bills unpaid or shamefully defraud their employers. These and many others of the same stamp, whose number is countless; these swell the figures of the low classes." This is preaching which reasons "of judgment and justice," and tells the truth without fear or favor. It is a refreshing sermon, and lacks in nothing but in having been too hastily printed, being full of typographical errors.
Frithiof's Saga.
From the Swedish of Esaias Tegnér, Bishop of Wexiö. By the Rev. William Lewery Blackley, M.A. First American edition, edited by Bayard Taylor: pp. 201, 12mo. New-York, Leypoldt & Holt. 1867.
Several translations of this beautiful poem have been made in English, each of which had its own peculiar merit. An accurately literal translation of a foreign book possesses the value of presenting to us just what the author says; but the manner of his speech, the true spirit which gives life and character to his work, must necessarily be wanting. Such was the translation of Tegnér's poem, by Prof. George Stephens, published at London in 1839. Prof. Longfellow was more successful in the poetic versions he gave in an article on the poet contributed by him to the North American Review of July, 1837. That of Mr. Blackley before us is not only a faithful translation, but is also English poetry, preserving in its style enough of the wild Scandinavian spirit to mark its origin. As a specimen we subjoin the following extract from "Frithiof at Sea." The hero is compelled to make a dangerous voyage by two kings, Helge and Halfdan, whose sister Ingeborg he is wooing contrary to their consent:
"Now, King Helge stood
In fury on the strand,
And in embittered mood
Adjured the storm-fiend's hand.
"Gloomy is the heaven growing,
Through desert skies the thunders roar,
In the deep the billows brewing
Cream with foam the surface o'er.
Lightnings cleave the storm-cloud, seeming
Blood-red gashes in its side;
And all the sea-birds, wildly screaming,
Fly the terrors of the tide.
"Storm is coming, comrades;
Its angry wings I hear
Flapping in the distance,
But fearless we may be.
Sit tranquil in the grove,
And fondly think on me,
Lovely in thy sorrow,
Beauteous Ingeborg.
"Now two storm-fiends came
Against Ellida's side;
One was wind-cold Ham,
One was snowy Heyd.
"Loose set they the tempest's pinions,
Down diving in ocean deep;
Billows, from unseen dominions,
To the god's abode they sweep.
All the powers of frightful death,
Astride upon the rapid wave,
Rise from the foaming depths beneath,
The bottomless, unfathomed grave.
"Fairer was our journey
Beneath the shining moon,
Over the mirrory ocean,
To Balder's sacred grove.
Warmer far than here
Was Ingeborg's loving heart;
Whiter than the sea-foam
Heaved her gentle breast.
......
"Now ocean fierce battles:
The wave-troughs deeper grow,
The whistling cordage rattles,
The planks creak loud below.
"But though higher waves appearing
Seem like mountains to engage,
Brave Ellida, never fearing,
Mocks the angry ocean's rage.
Like a meteor, flashing brightness,
Darts she forth with dauntless breast,
Bounding with a roebuck's lightness
Over trough and over crest.
"Sweeter were the kisses
Of Ingeborg in the grove,
Than here to taste in tempest
High-sprinkled, briny foam.
Better the royal daughter
Of Bele to embrace,
Than here in anxious labor
The tiller fast to hold.
"Whirling cold and fast,
Snow-wreaths fill the sail;
Over deck and mast
Patters heavy hail.
"The very stern they see no more,
So thick is darkness spread,
As gloom and horror hovers o'er
The chamber of the dead.
Still, to sink the sailor, dashes
Implacable each angry wave;
Gray, as if bestrewn with ashes,
Yawns the endless, awful grave."