Alice Murray was the niece of Mr. Elbray's first wife. Her parents died while she was quite young, and Mr. Elbray brought her up as his daughter, as he had no children of his own. He was rich, a self-made man, and a worldly-minded Catholic, paid little attention to the duties or requirements of his religion, but made money his God. He became acquainted with a strong-minded, designing widow, who manages to make him marry her, and from that moment Alice Murray had actually no home. The ambitious wife had her own daughter to provide for, and her whole energies were bent on getting rid of Alice, which she succeeded in accomplishing. From her adopted home Alice went to her uncle Bradley—her mother's sister's husband—who procured her a district school. Even here, though miles away from her, the new Mrs. Elbray, beside intercepting all letters between Alice and her uncle, got up a charge against her of having stolen a gold chain presented to her by her dear departed husband. This was done to prevent Alice returning to her uncle, who was ever regretting her absence. But the crafty woman succeeded; Alice is discarded, and the result is, that Mrs. Elbray's daughter makes a brilliant match, and all the Elbray family move to New York, where old Elbray is ruined by his wife and her daughter's husband, and has to go to the almshouse, where he is discovered by a priest who knew him, and Alice is informed of the poverty of her uncle. She hesitates not a moment, accepts the hand of the lover she had previously refused, because she wished to pay back her uncle all the money he had spent on her, and the new-married couple go straight to New York, rescue the uncle from the almshouse, and take him home with them, where he lives in peace.
The picture of the Bradley family is a beautiful one—just what a good Catholic family should be; in fact, all of Miss Hoffman's family pen-pictures are good. Her great weakness lies in her dialogues; they need more animation and sprightliness; and her very bad characters are better drawn than her very good ones. For instance, in Mrs. Elbray, an ambitious, proud, self-willed and worldly woman, we have decidedly the best depicted character in the book. She labors for a purpose, a bad purpose it is true, and succeeds, although the success was her ruin. Had Alice used for a good purpose one half the energy Mrs. Elbray did for a bad one, a world of suffering would have been saved her, but then Alice Murray would not have been written. We wish the writers of our Catholic stories would allow their good characters to act like living men and women, not mere machines, throwing the responsibility of all their troubles and tribulations upon God, and leaving it all in his hands to see justice done; but teach them to use the means God gave them to help themselves.
We have said that Miss Hoffman's descriptions of American country life and scenery are good. There is one pen-picture on page 170 that will remind many of similar scenes. The story is thoroughly Catholic in tone and sentiment, but is not of the belligerant class. There are no religious discussions indulged in for the sake of displaying one's theological knowledge; but the whole atmosphere of the book—the whole sentiment is Catholic, and the reader feels it, just as one in reading à Kempis would know and feel that the writer was a devout, practical Catholic.
The typographical execution of the book might easily be improved by employing a better proof-reader and the use of better type.
Chips From A German Workshop.
By Max Müller, M. A.
2 vols. crown 8vo, pp. 374, 402.
New York: Charles Scribner & Co.
These two volumes consist of various essays, lectures, etc., which Professor Müller has published from time to time during the intervals of his long years of labor on the Rig-Veda. They are all more or less closely connected with the great work to which he has devoted his life, and are all illustrations of a systematic religious philosophy. The first volume is devoted to essays on "The Science of Religion." The author remarks that in religion "everything new is old, and everything old is new, and there has been no entirely new religion since the beginning of the world." St. Augustine says that "what is now called the Christian religion has existed among the ancients, and was not absent from the beginning of the human race until Christ came in the flesh;" and the design of these essays is to show how the radical ideas of religion revealed by Almighty God at the beginning have undergone various changes, corruptions, and combinations, yet, though frequently distorted, tend again and again to their perfect form. Professor Müller traces these primitive ideas through the ancient religions of India and Persia, and extracts from the forbidding obscurity of Sanscrit literature a wealth of illustration, which, with his charming style and incomparable happiness in selection, he makes attractive to nearly all classes of readers. He studies the matter not as a theologian but as a coldly critical man of science; and his reasoning is, of course, directly in support of the truths of revelation. The second volume contains an essay on Comparative Mythology, and papers on early traditions and customs, all bearing upon the subject of the first, and many of them highly curious. At some future day, if opportunity permits, we hope to recur to these valuable "Chips," and give our readers a few specimens of their excellence.
Pastoral Letter Of The Most Rev. Archbishop and Suffragan Prelates of the Province of Baltimore, at the close of the Tenth Provincial Council. May, 1869.
Baltimore: J. Murphy & Co.
This letter of the fathers of the council of Baltimore is a renewed evidence of the paternal affection and ceaseless vigilance with which the pastors of the church watch over their flock. On many most important points, they have spoken out with a clearness that must be gratifying to every Catholic heart. First among them is Education. We quote a portion: