“What, then, Anglicans have to consider, the questions they have to ask themselves, are these: What do they really believe about the grace of holy orders, and even about the grace of the sacraments in general? and next, What are the conditions on which that grace is ordinarily given? And then to look whether those conditions are fulfilled within the Anglican communion. If they would seriously, as in the sight of God, consider these points, we might hope to attain to truth, which is before all things, and after truth to see peace following in her train, and union, not based on vague terms and unharmonious professions, but in ‘one body and one spirit, as called in one hope of our vocation, one Lord, one faith one baptism’” (p. 379).
[Lectures on Certain Portions of the Earlier Old Testament History.] By Philip G. Munro, Priest of the Diocese of Nottingham, and Domestic Chaplain to the Earl of Gainsborough. Vol. I. London: Burns & Oates. 1873. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
This being but the first volume of a most valuable work, we shall wait for the whole to be completed before writing a lengthy notice. We will only say at present that the solidity of scholarship which the work displays, together with its entertaining style, make it a long-desired aid to the study of the Holy Scriptures on the part of our educated laity.
What we have been most struck with in the present volume is the simple yet masterly proof of a visible church—i.e. a teaching authority—having always existed from the time of Adam; as also of the coeval use of place and ritual for the worship of God.
[The Prophet of Carmel.] By the Rev. Chas. Garside. London: Burns & Oates. 1873. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
This is a peculiar work, hardly classifiable under any conventional head in religious literature. It has the charm of refined and elegant diction, joined to the weightier recommendation of practical usefulness. It is a history of the prophet Elias, following the startling yet meagre facts of his life as revealed in the Old Testament, and drawing from them analogies wonderfully suited to our own times, lives, temptations, and hopes. It is not one of the least perfections of that incomparable Book, the Holy Scriptures, that it should apply with such marvellous truth to any time, person, or circumstance; that it should offer as living a counsel, as efficacious a comfort, as dread a warning to every individual man in his own obscure orbit of to-day as it did thousands of years ago to exalted personages in unwonted trials. It is not only the political history of one people; it is the history of the human soul at all times and in all places. Thus, the author has drawn from the mysterious records of Elias—who at first would seem but a colossal saint, utterly removed from any appreciation that would seek to go beyond admiration—parallels between human duties and human weaknesses under the reign of Achab, and the same duties and weaknesses under the rulers of our day. There is something in this book of the alluring style of F. Faber’s religious works, but without that floweriness of speech of which no one was a safe master but that prose-poet himself.
[The Valiant Woman.] By Mgr. Landriot. Translated from the French by Helena Lyons. Boston: P. Donahoe. 1873.
This collection of discourses, addressed to women on the duties of their daily life by the former Bishop of La Rochelle, now Archbishop of Rheims, is a most valuable work, and contains an epitome of everything woman should do, know, and teach. There can hardly be too much of the same tenor written on this subject, and all that is written should be sown broadcast over Christendom by the best translations. That before our notice seems a very terse one, faithful but not slavish. Indeed, a translator often has it in his power to mar the whole effect of a most important work by dressing it in such unmistakably foreign garb that it becomes unacceptable to the peculiar mind of this or that nationality. Mgr. Landriot’s discourses, though addressed to French women and to provinciales, are couched in such broad terms, and inspired
by so comprehensive a spirit, that they are equally applicable to women of all nations, whether in populous cities or retired country towns. The conditions of all classes are also so delicately brought within the circle of his consideration that even poor and obscure women may find in them as effectual guidance as the wife of a cabinet minister or of a financial magnate. True Christianity alone can inspire true cosmopolitanism, and that without violating patriotism. The spirit of petty localism, or, in fact, of any narrow-mindedness on any subject, is foreign to the wise prelate’s mind, and nowhere defaces his writings; yet, at the same time, he knows how to make skilful use of his surroundings, and take illustrations from objects constantly before the eyes of his immediate hearers. In the fourth discourse he expounds the text of Proverbs, “She is like the merchant’s ship, she bringeth her bread from afar” (xxxi. 14); and speaking as the bishop of a seaport town to a community whose interests were probably in many cases connected with the sea, he draws the most original comparisons between an ideal woman and a perfect ship. Masts, helm, rigging, cargo, ballast, compass, chart, crew, etc., nothing is forgotten, and every detail tallies with some spiritual attribute of the life of a holy and “valiant” woman. In another place he compares woman to a bridge, the support and link of many souls, and makes the bold simile very plausible by his well-chosen remarks on the united flexibility and strength required in woman’s character. There is not a point of domestic life which he does not touch upon fearlessly, not a duty he does not point out minutely. Sins of sloth, of vanity, of imprudent speech, of undue susceptibility, are all unmasked; the relations between woman and those who come in contact with her as wife, mother, mistress, or friend are all accurately sketched; her pursuits are regulated, but with no intolerant hand; her sphere mapped out, but with no niggardly restrictions. Country life and occupation are commended as healthful for the body, and leading to peace of mind and soul; good sayings, tersely expressed, are scattered here and there; as, for instance: “Virtue and vice are distinguished by the quantity of the dose; put the right quantity, and you have a virtue; take away that quantity, or exceed it, and you have a vice.” There is in the whole work a tone of moderation singularly adapted to the needs of the day, a shrinking from exaggeration in any form, and a hesitancy in condemning anything the excess of which only can be styled a sin. The lecturer leans for these moderate views on the writings of S. Francis of Sales, that rare director of virtuous women in the world. One very beautiful idea, with which we do not remember ever to have met before in any shape, is that of the “divine magnetism” exercised by Providence, and which turns the bitterest draught of human woe into a delicious nectar for those who trust in God, while “the cup of earthly happiness” held to the lips of the “spoiled child of fortune ... has infused therein a poison to disturb and agitate the inmost depths of his being.”