NEW PUBLICATIONS.
Louise Lateau of Bois d'Haine: her Life, her Ecstasies, and her Stigmata. A Medical Study. By Dr. F. Lefebvre, Professor of General Pathology and Therapeutics in the Catholic University of Louvain, Honorary Physician to the Lunatic Establishment in that town, Titular Member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium. Edited by J. Spencer Northcote, D.D. London: Burns & Oates. 1873. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
We enjoy very much the chagrin and discomfiture of sceptical physicians, scientists, and other materialists, both learned and vulgar, in view of the great number of preternatural facts, both divine and diabolical, which have been thrust upon their unwilling sight during this present half-century. Heaven and hell appear to rival each other in startling the shallow self-complacency and incredulity of the hard-headed set who have filled the world with their boastful pretence to have overcome the superstitions of ages by their experiments and inductions. They have tried hard to ignore all the supernatural or preternatural facts and phenomena of the mystic order which have multiplied around them and challenged their investigation. But this proves to be a signal failure. Especially when men who belong to their own professional fraternity, whose learning and ability in their own class of sciences are undoubted, exhibit the results of careful study and investigation by means of experiment and induction from observed facts, as proving, on their own principles, the folly of their stubborn unbelief, do they cut a very sorry figure by persisting in ignoring and giving the transeat to that which will not be ignored or passed over. The puerile banalities in vogue, such as "manifest imposture," "unscientific absurdity," "something which no intelligent person can believe," merely show to what straits the individuals are reduced who are forced to use them. They are like allusions to the color of an opponent's hair, or the shape of his nose, or the behavior of his relatives.
The effort at some kind of scientific explanation of the strange phenomena of spiritism, or the wonders of the divine mystical order which the former class of manifestations ape, which is occasionally attempted, fares no better. It breaks down at a certain point. Up to that point there is a common ground of physiology, psychology, and the higher spiritual science; and many things which appear to be beyond natural power or law may be explained and accounted for without supposing preternatural causes. But, ill-defined and uncertain as the boundary line may be, there is one, and one cannot pass it very far without being aware of the fact. We do not complain of scientists for being critical and difficult in respect to facts and evidence. We do not, in reference to the present case, inculpate their refusal to believe on motives of pure faith. The charge against them is that they are recreant to their own avowed method of investigation by experiment, observation, and induction.
No one can prove this so conclusively, or rout them so completely on their own ground, as one of themselves, who is conversant with physics, and at the same time has some logic, philosophy, and sound theology in his head; in a word, is, what they are not, a completely educated man. The volume before us is a specimen of what we are speaking of. We need not enlarge on the case of Louise Lateau, of which we have spoken before, and which is generally known. Sufficient to say that the book before us is a treatise on her remarkable ecstasies and stigmata by a physician, and written after the method of medical science, which establishes beyond a doubt their miraculous cause and origin.
The Holy Mass: The Sacrifice for the Living and the Dead. By Michael Müller, Priest of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. New York and Cincinnati: F. Pustet. 1874.
This is a work written in the true spirit of S. Alphonsus. It is not a reprint of the work entitled The Holy Eucharist our Greatest Treasure, by the same author, but an entirely new treatise. Its theology is sound and solid, its spirit most devout, and its style simple and popular. It is surprising that so hard-working a priest as F. Müller has been able to write so many excellent and edifying books, in a language, too, which is to him a foreign tongue. Every pious Catholic who reads this book will be charmed with it, and will find it most instructive and profitable. We are happy to be able to give it our unqualified commendation, and to recommend it in the most earnest manner to all the faithful, as well as to Protestants who are seeking for the truth.
The Life of the Ven. Anna Maria Taigi. Edited by Edward Healy Thompson, M.A. London: Burns & Oates; New York: F. Pustet. 1874.
Mr. Thompson's biographies are of the first class in every respect. This one has a special interest on account of the relation which the life and prophecies of the venerable Roman matron sustain to recent and pending events of the greatest moment in human history. It is unfortunate that a most meagre and imperfect life of Anna Maria Taigi, which contains serious misstatements, afterwards discovered and regretted by the author, Mgr. Leuquet, has been already translated and circulated in this country. That life states that its subject fell into a grievous sin against her marriage vows, and remained without confession for a considerable time afterwards. This is proved to be false, and the fact is fully established that Anna Maria was pious and irreproachable throughout her whole life, and especially so during her whole career as a wife and the mother of a large family.
Apart from her supernatural gifts, the sanctity and virtue displayed by this wonderful and admirable matron, in a laborious and humble sphere, present a most beautiful picture and a most engaging example to woman in the married state.