These two volumes are the first issues of the "Illustrated Library of Wonders," to be published by Messrs. Scribner & Co. They are highly interesting to the general reader, as well as to persons of scientific attainments. The accounts given of the peculiar and novel freaks of lightning are curious and instructive. The illustrations in both volumes are well executed, and make these books specially attractive to young people. In the work on optics, the telescope, magic lantern, magic mirror, etc., are fully explained.
Why Men Do Not Believe;
Or, The Principal Causes Of Infidelity.
By N.J. Laforet, Rector of the Catholic University of Louvain.
Translated from the French.
New York: The Catholic Publication Society,
126 Nassau Street.
Pp. 252. 1869.
Whoever has had the happiness of attending the Catholic Congress of Belgium must have noticed among the distinguished gentlemen seated by the side of the president the prepossessing, intellectual countenance of Mgr. Laforet, the Rector Magnificus of the University of Louvain. Although still a young man, he holds a high place among the writers who adorn European Catholic literature. His best known and most elaborate work is an excellent History of Philosophy. In the present volume, which is quite unpretending in size, and written in such a simple and easy style as to be easily readable by any person of ordinary education, he has, perhaps, rendered even a greater service to the cause of religion and sound science than by his more elaborate works. It is an excellent little treatise on the causes of infidelity, which has already produced happy fruits among his own countrymen by bringing back a number of persons to the Christian faith, and we trust is destined to accomplish a still greater amount of good in its English as well as its French dress.
Mgr. Laforet assigns as the causes of the infidelity which prevails, unhappily, to such a considerable extent in our days, ignorance of the real grounds and nature of the Christian religion, materialism, and the consequent moral degradation which it has produced. He denies in a peremptory manner that it has been caused by progress in science or the more perfect development of the reasoning faculty, and supports this denial by abundant and conclusive proofs. The origin of modern infidelity he traces historically and logically to Protestantism, showing that it has been transplanted into France and other Catholic countries from England and Germany. Anti-Catholic writers are fond of retorting upon us the charge that Protestantism breeds infidelity by the countercharge that Catholicity breeds infidelity. They say that it lays too great a burden on reason by teaching, as Christian doctrine, dogmas that intelligent, educated men cannot receive without doing violence to their reason. They point to the infidelity that prevails to a certain extent among educated men in Catholic countries as a proof of this assumption. The writer of an article in a late number of Putnam's Monthly, entitled, "The Coming Controversy," has reiterated this charge, and alleges the fact that some of the educated laymen belonging to the Catholic Church in the United States do not approach the sacraments, as an evidence that they have lost their faith, which is a corroboration of the alleged charge against the Catholic religion of breeding infidelity in intelligent, thinking minds. The whole of this specious argument is a fabric of sand. In the first place, it is no proof that men have lost their faith because they do not act in accordance with it. The entire body of negligent Catholics are not to be classed among infidels, any more than negligent Jews or Protestants. Nevertheless, we would call the attention of those Catholic gentlemen of high standing who neglect the practice of their religious duties, and fail to take that active part on the side of the church and of God which they ought to take, to the scandal they thus give and to the occasion which the enemies of the church take from their criminal apathy to revile that faith for which their ancestors have suffered and contended so nobly. Neither is it true that anywhere in the world the apostates from the faith are superior in intelligence and culture to its loyal adherents. We hear too much of this boasting from free-thinkers and infidels of their intellectual superiority. On the field of philosophy and positive religion they have been completely discomfited by the champions of religion. Some of their ablest men have passed over to our camp convinced by the pure force of argument, as, for instance, Thierry, Maine de Biran, Droz, and to a certain extent Cousin. Many others, and recently one most notorious individual, Jules Havin, the chief editor of the infamous Siècle, of Paris, have repented at the hour of death. D'Holbach, one of the chiefs of the infidel party in France, thus writes: "We must allow that corruption of manners, debauchery, license, and even frivolity of mind, may often lead to irreligion or infidelity. … Many people give up prejudices they had adopted through vanity and on hearsay; these pretended free-thinkers have examined nothing for themselves; they rely on others whom they suppose to have weighed matters more carefully. How can men, given up to voluptuousness and debauchery, plunged in excess, ambitious, intriguing, frivolous, and dissipated—or depraved women of wit and fashion—how can such as these be capable of forming an opinion of a religion they have never examined?" [Footnote 62] La Bruyère says, "Do our esprits forts know that they are called thus in irony?" [Footnote 63] It is no argument against either Catholicity or Protestantism that infidelity exists in Catholic or Protestant countries. Before this fact can be made to tell in any way against either religion it must be proved that it contains principles which lead logically to infidelity, or proposes dogmas which are rationally incredible, and thus produces a reaction against all divine revelation. This has never been done, and never can be done in respect to the Catholic religion. So far as Protestantism is concerned, it has been done repeatedly and can be done easily. We do not rejoice in this; on the contrary, we grieve over it, and our sympathies are with those Protestants, such as Guizot, Dr. McCosh, President Hopkins, and others who defend the great truths of spiritual philosophy, of Theism, the divine mission of Moses and Christ, and other Christian doctrines against modern infidelity. Nevertheless, we cannot help pointing out the fact that they are illogical as Protestants in doing this, and are unable, after giving the evidences of the credibility of Christianity, to state what Christianity is in such a manner as completely to satisfy the just demands of human reason, or to justify their own position as seceders from the genuine Christendom.
[Footnote 62: Système de la Nature, tom. ii. c. 13. Cited on page 106. ]
[Footnote 63: Les Caractères, ch. xvi. Cited on page 188.]
Our own youth are exposed to the temptation of infidelity on account of their imperfect religious education, and the influence of the Protestant world in which they live, saturated as it is with the most pestilent and poisonous influences of heresy, infidelity, and immorality. Good Protestants they will never become. They can only be good Catholics, bad Catholics, or infidels. Our friends of the Protestant clergy have no reason, therefore, to count up and exult over those who are lost from the Catholic fold, for Satan is the only gainer. Let us have a sufficient number of clergy of the right sort, an ample supply of churches, colleges, schools, and Catholic literature, and we will engage that the desire for a purer and more spiritual religion will never lead our Catholic youth to become Protestants, or the desire for a more elevated and solid science make them infidels. Such books as the one we are noticing are of just the kind we want, and we recommend it warmly to all thinking young men and women, to all parents and teachers, and to all readers generally.
The Montarges Legacy.
By Florence McCoomb.
Philadelphia: P. F. Cunningham. 1869.
We thank the gentle author of this charming story for the satisfaction derived from its perusal. Not wishing, by entering into detail of plot or incident, to diminish the pleasure in store for its readers, we will merely say that, while sufficiently exciting, it is by no means morbidly sensational; that the characters are well portrayed; the incidents varied; the dialogue not strained, yet not monotonous; the descriptive portion easy and natural; and that, pervading all, is a true Catholic spirit.