Pontificate of Pius IX. By J. F. Maguire, M.P. London: Longmans. 1870. (From the author.)
Mr. Maguire is well known on both sides of the Atlantic as an able and upright member of the British Parliament, representing an Irish constituency, as the editor of one of the best Catholic newspapers in the English language—the Cork Examiner—and as the author of several interesting books. The present volume, published two years ago, has just been sent to the editor of this magazine by the author, for which courtesy he will please accept our thanks. It is a revised and enlarged edition of a work already well known and extensively read in this country, under the title “Rome and its Ruler.” The author has made many additions to it, and has brought it down to the year 1870, so that its value is, we may say, trebled, so great are the events which have crowded these later years of our glorious Pontiff now happily reigning. It is impossible to exaggerate the value and importance of a work like this. In momentous interest, the topics of which it treats are on a level with those of the Sacred History itself. The means of information for English readers are scanty. Mr. Maguire is a loyal and devout Catholic, an able, well-informed, and conscientious statesman and historian. It is therefore of the utmost consequence that his book should be circulated and read extensively. We trust the demand for it will be such as to induce American publishers to make ample provisions for supplying the American public with this most necessary and valuable work.
Travels in Europe and the East. By Rev. J. Vetromile, D.D. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1872.
This is a volume of quite large size, handsomely printed, and ornamented with a fine portrait of the reverend author, who is an Italian priest, for many years laboring as a missionary among the Indians of the State of Maine. The style is easy, agreeable, and entertaining, and the book is very much like a cosy afternoon chat with an intelligent and travelled gentleman about the scenes and countries he has visited. Reading the description of the pleasant home and delightful circle of friends which the author has left, we can better appreciate the great sacrifice he has made in banishing himself to the Indian settlements of Maine, and we are sure he will make a friend of every reader of his book.
Memoirs of the Establishment of the Church in New England. By Rev. James Fitton. Boston: P. Donahoe. 1872.
Father Fitton is the oldest priest in New England, having exercised his sacerdotal ministry there during forty-seven years. At the time when, in company with one other young deacon, he was ordained priest by Bishop Fenwick, there were only three other priests in that prelate’s diocese, which embraced all New England. Father Fitton is entitled to the reverence and gratitude of all the Catholics of New England, as one who has been an apostolic missionary and a laborious parish priest for almost half a century. He is also worthy of confidence and credence as a competent and truthful witness and annalist of the principal facts and events in the history of the Catholic religion in New England. He has prefaced his history of the church as existing in modern times by an interesting account of the ancient mission in Rhode Island during the residence of the Northmen at Newport, and of the early Indian missions. This is the romantic part of the history. The rest of it is prosaic and commonplace, and yet of great value, and made interesting by the great results which have come from small and humble beginnings. Every priest and layman in New England ought to have this book and read it attentively, and it is worth the perusal of all those out of New England who take an interest in the progress of the Catholic religion in the United States of America.
Hornehurst Rectory. By Sister Mary Frances Clare. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1872.