History of the Church in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. By K. R. Hagenbach, D.D. Translated by the Rev. I. F. Hurst, D.D. 2 vols. New York: Scribner.
This author, who is a moderately orthodox Protestant, is well acquainted with German Protestantism, and his work will therefore be useful to those who wish to study the phases of that rapidly dissolving view of Christianity.
The Life, Passion, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Being an Abridged Harmony of the Four Gospels in the Words of the Sacred Text. Edited by the Rev. Henry Formby. With an entirely new series of engravings on wood, from designs by C. Clasen, D. Nolen, and others. New York: Catholic Publication Society. 1870.
Fr. Formby is well known as a writer of great taste and remarkable skill in preparing books for children and grown people who require reading that is easily understood. His pictorial series has long been popular in England, and will now be republished, with the author's permission, by the Catholic Publication Society. The present volume is the first of the series. It is a continuous narrative taken from all the four Gospels, according to the Rhemish version, judiciously compiled according to the best harmonies, and abridged in such a way as to simplify without curtailing in any important respect the history. The illustrations are numerous and spirited, and, with one or two exceptions, are pleasing. The book is a charming one, as well as one most useful and important for children. Nothing can be more suitable, also, for good, plain Catholics, who ought by all means to be familiar with the Gospel history, and who will find this arrangement of it much better for their use than the Gospels themselves read separately. This book ought to be in every Catholic family, day-school, and Sunday-school, and to be circulated by the ten thousand.
The Library of Good Example. In twelve volumes. New York: P. O'Shea. 1870.
This series is mainly composed of tales, etc., already before the public in manifold guises. Hence an enumeration of the titles of the several volumes, or a review of their contents, would be to our readers "a thrice-told tale." We will only say that, in our opinion, although they are admirably adapted for the perusal of children, the temper, at least of the juvenile reader, in search of "fresh fields and pastures new," will not be improved by the discovery that, in expending his pocket-money for the Library of Good Example, he has, for the third time, in some instances, purchased the same book. In one respect, however, this series is an improvement on its predecessors—it is not illustrated.