Mr. Giles is of Irish birth, and for many years officiated and preached as a Unitarian minister. There can be no doubt that his Irish patriotism is sincere and enthusiastic, and yet, as we read, we feel as though something were wanting. For reasons that can be perfectly well understood without detailed explanation, Irish patriotic character always appears incomplete without Catholicity. Oliver Goldsmith and the Duke of Wellington are as much of Irish birth as Dr. Doyle and Daniel O'Connell; but how much more essentially Irish to every one are the two latter than the two former. The Catholic reader of these lectures sadly misses what he feels to be most essential. Take, for instance, the lectures on O'Connell, Gerald Griffin, and Dr. Doyle, which are among the best, and he perceives the absence of an element of appreciation that nothing but Catholic sympathy could supply. These papers have high merit as oral lectures, and precisely because of this merit they fall short of their reputation when read. The effective lecture is not necessarily an effective essay. There are certain elements nowadays almost indispensable to the success of a lecture, and they happen to be precisely those which detract from its literary merit. The redundancy of anecdote is one of these elements, and Mr. Giles was strongly given to it.
The book is, nevertheless, pleasant reading, although such essays as "The Christian Idea in Catholic Art and in Protestant Culture" afford additional proof—if any were needed—of the barrenness of Protestantism in art.
Order and Chaos: A Lecture, delivered at Loyola College, Baltimore, in July, 1869. By T. W. M. Marshall, Esq. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1869.
Mr. Marshall, who is both one of the most solid and altogether the wittiest of English writers, delivered this lecture in Baltimore before a select audience, on the eve of his return to England. It is a well-reasoned argument, clothed in the author's usual choice and happy style, and spiced with a seasonable amount of his humor. Its topic is the order prevailing in the Catholic Church contrasted with the disorder which rules among the sects, as a proof that the former is of God, while the latter are of man. We quote the following extract, which contains a well-delivered blow at the disunionists:
"You are asked to believe, by those who prefer the temple of chaos to the sanctuary of God, this monstrous proposition: that although disorder is inexorably banished, as we have seen, from every other part of his dominions, as a thing abhorrent to the Divine Architect, it finds its true home and congenial refuge precisely in that spiritual kingdom of which he is at once the lawgiver and the life. Brute matter knows nothing of it; earth, and sea, and sky refuse to give it a place; the very beasts of the field obey a law which regulates all the conditions of their existence; but confusion and chaos, which can find a home nowhere else, reign, and ought to reign, in the Christian church, and in the kingdom of souls! That is the proposition which is deliberately maintained, at this hour and in this land, by men whose profession it is to teach others eternal truth. They gravely assert that religion—which, when it is divine, is a bond of union stronger than adamant, and when it is human, is the most active dissolvent, the most powerful disintegrating agent which divides and devastates modern society—gains by ceasing to be one, and that Christianity derives its chief vitality from the very divisions which make it contemptible in the sight of unbelievers, and had often provoked the scorn and derision even of the pagan world. As this statement may seem to you impossible, even in this nineteenth century, which is tolerant of all absurdities in the sphere of religion, I will quote to you the very words of one of the most conspicuous preachers of this land, who holds a high position in the hierarchy of chaos. I take them from one of your own local journals, of the second of this month, (June.) You know that of late years many Protestants, weary of their ceaseless conflicts and ashamed of their unending divisions, have begun at last to sigh for the unity which they have lost, and that in England they have even formed a society with the express object of bringing together what they ignorantly call 'the different branches of the church.' We are told, however, by the journal to which I allude, that the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, vehemently rejecting every such project, lately 'preached against the schemes of church union, whether planned by pope, protestant, or pagan'—pray understand that these are not my words—and added this characteristic dissuasive from unity. 'The strength of the Christian religion lies,' he said—in what do you suppose? in its truth, its holiness, or its peace? no, but—'in the number of the existing denominations.' The hands fall down in reading such words. 'I pray,' said He who will judge the world, 'that they may all be one as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee.' I sincerely trust, replies Mr. Beecher, that they never will be one. 'Be perfect,' said St. Paul, 'in the same mind and the same judgment.' It is much more important, rejoins Mr. Beecher, that you should maintain your divisions and perpetuate your differences, for in them lies the strength of Christianity. 'Sects,' observed the same apostle, 'are the work of the flesh.' Mr. Beecher judges them more leniently, and warns his hearers, as you see, against the mistake of St. Paul. Yes, these human teachers have come at last to this. They know so well that supernatural unity is beyond their reach, that they have come to hate it, and to call it an evil! Yet even they will not deny that it was the unity of the first Christians which conquered the heathen world; and when the victory was accomplished, and the surviving pagans had only strength enough left to beat themselves against the ground where they had fallen, they also cried out in their impotent rage, 'Execranda est ista consensio'—cursed be this unity of the Christians. They had found it to be invincible, but did not know that it was divine. Mr. Beecher dares not say openly, 'Cursed be the unity for which Christ prayed,' for even his disciples, though they can bear a good deal, could not bear that; but he is not afraid to say, 'Blessed be chaos!' 'Confusion, thou art my choice!' 'Disorder, be thou mine inheritance!' Let us wish him a happier lot, both in this world and the next."
In Heaven we know Our Own; or, Solace for the Suffering. From the French of the Rev. Father Blot, S.J. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1869.
We would call special attention to this delightful little book. The lady translator has conferred a very great service on English-speaking Catholics; nor on Catholics alone, but also on all professing Christians "of good-will," who,
"Here in the feeble twilight of this world
Groping,"