Pius IX., Pope, to His Beloved Daughter in Jesus Christ, Marie de Gentelles:
Dear Daughter in Jesus Christ—Health and Apostolic Benediction.
The expressions of respect which you address to us, dear daughter in Jesus Christ, in your name and in the name of your associates, are received by us with the most lively satisfaction, the greater that they are not limited to mere expressions nor to offers of assistance by prayer, but they are doubly grateful from the zeal you have employed in seeking to extirpate the evil of extravagance in dress so common among your sex. You have also tried to promote habits of simplicity, modesty, and piety among your sisters in the faith. By this, much evil can be prevented—nay, more, your success will be a most useful ally in the war we are now waging against the powers of darkness. Therefore, for you and for the “Union of Christian Women” devoted to this excellent work, we implore from heaven perseverance in your undertaking, never-wearying progress, and the efficacious assistance of divine grace. As a prelude of these favors, and as a pledge of our paternal affection, we grant most tenderly to you and all your pious companions the Apostolic Benediction.
Given at Rome, near St. Peter’s, April 17, 1871, in the twenty-fifth year of our Pontificate.
Pius PP. IX.
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
A Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors, Living and Deceased. From the earliest accounts to the latter half of the Nineteenth Century. Containing over forty-six thousand articles (authors), with forty indexes of Subjects. By S. Austin Allibone. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1871.
It would be strange indeed if a dictionary of authors, in three volumes, each of one thousand pages, closely printed in double columns, “the fruit of many years of anxious research and conscientious toil,” should not contain a large amount of information valuable not only to the general reader, but to the scholar and the man of letters.