“Da tuis fidelibus
In te confitentibus
Sacrum septenarium.”
Sacrum Septenarium—the sacred seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, amongst which we find the “spirit of understanding and of knowledge.” All the gifts of the Holy Ghost doubtless require to receive their due share of honor and cultivation. But in a generation which has gone so widely and so terribly wrong by the way of a perverted and deceived intellect, the cause of faith in the world demands that the battle be fought with a special determination on the ground of the intelligence. If Satan relies on the perversion of the mind for leading them away from belief in the truth and divinity of the revelation brought by Moses, and perfected by the coming and ministry of one greater than Moses, St. Michael must contend with Satan for the possession of the body of Moses. The more the spirit of deception that has gone abroad seeks to discredit the Mosaic revelation, which is the forerunner in the world of the
revelation of Jesus Christ, the more we must diligently persevere and insist that all who are willing to listen should stir up within themselves the gifts of the spirit of understanding and knowledge, and qualify themselves to resist and confront the spirit of error wherever they meet with it and on all fitting occasions. Every Catholic family ought to be a centre or focus of Christian information. In every household there ought to be books containing the narrative of the works of God through the line of his great saints, beginning from the sacred narrative of Moses downwards to the present time. Sacred history is the true tower of strength to the cause of faith.
This study should not, as it has heretofore generally been, confined to ancient history; for, though we may find in the Old Testament the wonderful working of God in his intercourse with his creatures, and see developed and completed his works and promises to his chosen people, we have, under the new dispensation and in the history of the Catholic Church, as indubitable proofs of the promises and fulfilment of them in the fulness of time by our divine Maker. The history of the Popes, for example, from St. Peter to Pius IX., is replete with providential incidents, astonishing the worldly and baffling the so-called wisdom of the sceptical. The perpetual rejuvenation of the church herself when apparently crushed and disintegrated beneath the load of kingly oppression and the lawlessness of the mob, is in itself not only a perpetual miracle, but the evident fulfilment of the promises of the Founder to be with her all days even to the consummation of the world. The lives of the grand throng of saints, martyrs, confessors, and missionaries—the glory and pride of the church—their sufferings, triumphs, and miracles;
their love of art and literature, and all that makes life holy and beautiful, are fraught with lessons before which even the story of Abraham’s sacrifice and Joseph’s forgiveness sink into comparative insignificance. Sacred history should be read as a whole, from the beginning of time to the present day, giving to the more ancient part its proper share of attention, not only for its own sake but as prefiguring the more perfect system of Christianity. But the history of the Church deserves and should receive our chiefest and most marked attention.
The book of the Rev. Henry Formby, which, under its simple title, contains a concise and chronological narrative of sacred history from the creation down to our own times, in this respect is one of the most useful publications that has recently appeared from the English press, and, though but an abridgment of a much more voluminous work on the same subject, it preserves all the essential features of the original with singular simplicity and lucidity of style. The title gives but a faint idea of its merits, for in truth it is not a mere collection of stories in the general acceptation of that term, but short, succinct, and correct historical sketches of events related in the Old Testament, and a condensed and necessarily short history of the church from its foundation. The arrangement of the subject is admirable, and, in view of the vast field of Biblical lore to be traversed, and the numerous historical facts of the first importance to be touched on, at least in the confined limits of one volume, there are displayed a clearness of narration, and a nice appreciation of the salient points in the spiritual progress of the human race, that make the book easy to be read and understood by even the most ordinarily instructed person. In fact, if
the author had substituted “pictures” for “stories” in his title-page, he would have been more correct.
A general knowledge of the history of the creation, and of God’s once chosen people, the Jews, as well as an acquaintance with that of the church herself, the perfection of what was imperfectly prefigured under the old dispensation, ought to be an essential ingredient in the education of every Catholic child and of every adult, no matter what may be his condition in life; but heretofore the undertaking has been so laborious on account of the want of elementary books on those all-important subjects, that but little was generally known of the workings of Providence in ancient times, and the typical significance of many of the events related in the Old Testament, except by the learned few. Even the early history of the church has been practically a sealed book to the English-speaking masses, whose ideas of her long years of suffering, persecution, and final triumph have been of the most indefinite and oftentimes erroneous character. We have to thank Father Formby for supplying this defect in our Catholic literature, and in future there can be no excuse for ignorance of at least the origin, labors, and progress of the religion we profess. In about one hundred and sixty pages, the half of his book, devoted to the Christian era, he presents to us very complete and exact, if not very elaborate, views of the leading events in the history of the church for over eighteen centuries. In addition to this, he has appended to many of the sections in the part occupied with the pre-Christian period short moral reflections, and institutes comparisons between the old and new order of things, which are not only edifying, but highly instructive, particularly to young readers. For example, with reference to the days of
the creation of the world, he remarks:
“Jesus Christ rested in the tomb from the work of redemption on the Sabbath or seventh day, and arose again from the dead on the first day of the week. For this reason, the Christians no longer keep holy the original Sabbath, but the Lord’s day, or first day of the week, in memory of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”