Daily Meditations, by his Eminence, the late Cardinal Wiseman.
Vol. I.
Dublin, James Duffy, 1869.
For sale at the Catholic Publication House,
126 Nassau Street.
There is a peculiar charm about all the writings of Cardinal Wiseman. It is the touch of genius, and of a great genius, whose loss the world mourns. The present volume, now published for the first time, comprises a series of meditations useful for all classes of devout persons, but more especially designed for the clergy and students in our ecclesiastical seminaries. They were written, as the Most Rev. Archbishop of Westminster informs us in a short preface, when the cardinal entered upon his first responsible office as rector of the English college in Rome. The subjects for the first six months of the year are taken from and arranged under a certain number of heads, generally repeated each week. These are,
"The End of Man,"
"Last Things,"
"Mystery of our Saviour's Life,"
"Personal Duties,"
"The Passion,"
"Sin."
"Means of Sanctification,"
"Self-Examination,"
"The Decalogue,"
"The Blessed Eucharist,"
"The Blessed Virgin."
Each meditation consists of two or three reflections, and closes with an affective prayer. "Preparations" are given, after the method of St. Ignatius, before the meditations upon the mysteries of our Lord's life. As a book of meditations, or for spiritual reading, we could earnestly commend it to the laity, who will find the greater part of it eminently suitable for these purposes, while to the clergy it will be especially acceptable, furnishing, as it does, subjects sufficiently amplified to aid them in the ready preparation of a sermon or pious conference. We have few works in good English of this kind, and the reading of authors whose style is remarkable for purity and vigor cannot fail of improving the style of a speaker. The works of the great cardinal need no praise from us on these points, and we are sure that it is only necessary to call attention to a new work from his master hand to ensure its rapid sale.
We cannot refrain from transcribing one of the many beautiful affective prayers. The meditation is on the crowning with thorns.
"Jesus, King and Lord of my heart and soul, what crown shall I give thee to acknowledge thee as such? Alas! gold and silver in my poverty I have none: my gold hath been long since turned into dross, and my silver been alloyed. I have no roses like thy martyrs, who returned thee blood for blood; nor lilies, like thy virgins, who loved thee with an unsullied heart. My soul is barren, my heart is unfruitful, and I have placed thee to reign, as the Jewish kings of old, over a heap of ruins. Long since despoiled and ravaged by the enemy, every flower hath been ploughed up, and every green plant burned with fire, and thorns alone and brambles spring up there. Of these, then, alone can I make thee a crown, my dear and sovereign Jesus. Wilt thou accept it? I will pluck up my unruly affections, that they may no more have roots, and, weaving them together into a wreath, will lay them as a sacrifice at thy feet. I will gather the thorns of sincere repentance which there each day arise and prick my heart with a sharp but wholesome smart, and with these will I make a crown for thy head, if thou wilt vouchsafe to wear it. Or, rather, thou shalt take it from my hand, only to place it with thine around my heart, that it may daily and hourly be pricked with compunction. And may the thorns of thy crown be to my soul so many goads of love, to hasten it forward in its career toward thee."
False Definitions Of Faith,
And The True Definition.
By Rev. L. W. Bacon.
Reprinted from the New Englander for April, 1869.
Mr. Bacon defines faith to be trusting one's self for salvation to Jesus Christ. "The act of faith—of intrusting one's self for salvation to the Lord Jesus Christ—includes, not as a remote consequence, but in itself, repentance, obedience, holiness, and whatever things beside are demanded in the Scriptures as conditions of salvation." Dropping all dispute about terminology, we will take faith as defined by Mr. Bacon, and prove that it is inconceivable with out the act of intellectual assent to divine revelation, which the church requires. Jesus Christ must be accredited as the Messiah by God the Father in such a way as to give rational, credible evidence to the intellect, before a man can reasonably or conscientiously trust himself to him for salvation. When he is convinced that Christ is the Saviour, and trusts himself to him, he must receive from him certain and infallible instruction as to the method of repenting and obtaining pardon, as to the nature and extent of the obedience and holiness required, and as to whatever things beside are demanded as conditions of salvation. If his Master teaches him certain doctrines, and requires his assent, he must give it as a part of his obedience. If he prescribes sacraments and communion with one certain visible church as a condition of salvation, he must obey. The question with Mr. Bacon is, therefore, not respecting the indispensable obligation of believing what God has revealed respecting the way of salvation, but respecting the medium through which that revelation is communicated, and the actual subject-matter of its contents. Mr. Bacon very reasonably revolts at the tyranny of imposing mere human and probable opinions derived from private judgment on the Scriptures as necessary to be believed for salvation. He has an independent spirit and an active mind which will not suffer him to acquiesce tamely in the dominion which certain great names and traditional formulas have hitherto held among the orthodox Protestants. He thinks for himself and expresses his thoughts in a bold and manly way. In the brochure which he has reprinted from the New Englander, the defects of the old-fashioned Puritan theology respecting justification are pointed out with distinctness, and a far better and more reasonable view presented, which includes the moral element in the disposition of the soul for receiving grace, thus rejecting the most fundamental and destructive of all the errors of Luther.