We have here another series of the excellent Advent Lectures of F. Preston, which have done so much good in the instruction of the faithful and the conversion of numbers of persons to the true faith. Carefully prepared and solid discourses on the great Catholic principles, dogmas, doctrines, laws, and rites—in fact, on all the topics of religion universally—are especially necessary and useful in our time and country. Besides the additional good accruing to that which has been done by the preaching of these discourses through their more general dissemination among the laity, their publication is a great benefit to the clergy, as giving examples of the best kind of preaching, and furnishing a stimulus and a help to efforts of the same kind.
The present series of lectures on the Pope is fully equal to the former publications of the author in ability and excellence, if not superior to them. The subject, at any rate, makes it far the most interesting and important of any. F. Preston has merited well of the church by his zealous and efficient devotion to the cause of the Pope and the Holy See, and his continual efforts to instruct the Catholic laity in sound doctrine in this most essential matter. In this volume he has given us a lecture on the supremacy, another on the Papal infallibility, a third on the temporal sovereignty, and a fourth on the Pontificate of Pius IX. At the end, the decrees or constitutions of the Vatican Council and several recent allocutions of the Holy Father are given in Latin and English; and the whole is concluded by a carefully and critically prepared chronological list of the Sovereign Pontiffs, in which we are glad to see the Avignonian and Pisan claimants of the tiara relegated to their proper place on one side, while the succession is continued through the Roman line, which is unquestionably the true one. The lecture on infallibility is especially marked by solid learning and ample citations from the fathers, proving conclusively that this article of the faith was explicitly held and taught from the beginning. The style is grave and serious, copious and flowing, and warmed with a spirit of fervent love to the souls
of men. It is the style, not of a mere essayist, but of a preacher. It is, therefore, far more pleasing and popular in its character than that of most books on the same topic. Every Catholic in the United States ought to read it, and we doubt if any book has been published on the Pope equally fitted for general circulation in England and Ireland. Neither is there any so well fitted to do good among non-Catholics. We hope no pains will be spared to give it a wide and universal circulation.
It is most important and necessary that all Catholics should be fully instructed in the sovereign supremacy and doctrinal infallibility of the Pope, and the strict obligation in conscience of supporting his temporal sovereignty.
Mr. Coddington has published this volume in a superior manner, with clear, open type, on very thick and white paper, and adorned it with an engraved portrait of the beloved and venerable Pius IX. Once more we wish success to this timely and valuable series of lectures, and thank the reverend author in the name of the whole Catholic public for his noble championship of the dearest and most sacred of all causes—that of the Vicar of Christ.
Antidote to “The Gates Ajar.” By J. S. W. Tenth thousand. New York: G. W. Carleton & Co. 1872.
Mr. Carleton appears to be convinced that “de gustibus non est disputandum” by a bookseller, but rather that provision is to be made for all tastes. On the back of this little pious pamphlet we find advertised The Debatable Land, by Robert Dale Owen; The Seventh Vial, containing, we conjecture, a strong dose, by Rev. John Cumming; Mother Goose with Music, by an ancient, anonymous author; At Last, a new novel, by Marian Harland, etc. The Antidote is a rather weak and quite
harmless dose, done up in pretty tinted paper. The writer naively asks, on p. 23: “Who would not like to fly away in the tail of a comet?”—a question which any little boy would answer in the affirmative, but cruelly dashes our hopes to the ground by telling us that “all this is mere conjecture.” Again, on p. 26, he gravely reasons thus: “As to families in heaven living in houses together, as if they were on earth, that is simply impossible. When children marry here, they leave their parents, and have homes of their own; their children do likewise, and so on ad infinitum. Those who would live together in heaven would be only husbands and wives and the unmarried children. And as to the married who are not all happily united here, are they to be tied together for ever whether they like each other or not?” The little pamphlet is concluded by two pieces of poetry, one of which is pretty good, the other one of those cantering hymns which are such favorites at the week-evening prayer-meeting:
“We sing of the realms of the blest,
That country so bright and so fair,
And oft are its glories confessed;
But what must it be to be there?”
The doctrine of Miss Phelps’s antagonist is more orthodox than hers, without doubt, so far as it goes, but it is presented in such a way as rather to provoke a smile than to convince or attract the mind of any one who is not already a pious Presbyterian. Our Presbyterian and other Evangelical friends contrive to make religion as sad and gloomy as a wet afternoon in the country. Even heaven itself has but small attractions for those who are not depressed in spirits, when described in the doleful strain which is supposed to be suitable to piety. Miss Phelps, as well as other members of the gifted and cultivated Stuart family, and many of similar character and education, revolted from the dismal system of Puritanism. She yearned after a brighter