Father Gagarin, S.J., himself a Russian convert, though scarcely recovered from an illness, and in spite of his age and physical sufferings—which did not permit him to walk without difficulty, and leaning on a stick—would not fail to follow the funeral on foot. The body was deposited in the Cemetery of Mont Parnasse—in that same cemetery where for fifteen years past have reposed the remains of that other Russian convert and Barnabite father, Schouvaloff, who, speaking of those among his countrymen who had become Catholics, said: “Fear not, little flock; we are the first-fruits of that union which every Christian should desire, and which we know will take place. Fear not; our sufferings and our prayers will find grace before God. Russia will be Catholic.”
New Publications.
The Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac for the United States, for the Year of our Lord 1875. Calculated for Different Parallels of Latitude, and Adapted for Use throughout the Country. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.
This annual is already known in almost every Catholic home in the land. Its cheapness places it within the reach of all, whilst its literary and artistic excellence renders it acceptable even to the most fastidious. The issue for 1875 even surpasses its predecessors in the variety of subjects treated and in the beauty of its illustrations.
Publications of this kind undoubtedly do very much to awaken a truly Catholic interest in the contemporary history of the church, and therefore tend to enlarge the views and widen the sympathies of our people. The life-current of the universal church is borne through the whole earth, and whatever anywhere concerns her welfare is of importance to Catholics everywhere.
The opening sketch in the Almanac for the year which even now “waiteth at the door” carries us to Rome, in a biographical notice of Cardinal Barnabo, whose name will long be held in grateful remembrance in the United States.
There are also sketches of the lives of the late Archbishop Kenrick, Archbishop Blanc of New Orleans, Bishop Whelan. Bishop McFarland—brief, but sufficiently comprehensive to give one an insight into the character and labors of these apostolic men. Col. Meline and Dr. Huntington, who strove so faithfully and so successfully, as men of letters, to defend and adorn Catholic truth, receive due tribute, and are held up as examples for those of our Catholic young men to whom God has given talent and opportunity of education.
Cardinal Mezzofanti, the greatest of linguists; Cardinal Allen, who was the first president, and we may say founder, of the Douay College, which, during the darkest period of the history of the Catholic Church in England, gave so many noble confessors of the faith to Great Britain; Archbishop Ledochowski, who is to-day suffering for Christ in the dungeons of Ostrowo, all pass before us in the pages of the Catholic Almanac for 1875.
Then we have sketches of John O'Donovan, the famous Irish antiquarian; of Father Gahan, the great Irish preacher; of [pg 430] Father Clavigero, the historian of Mexico and California, and of Joan of Arc, whose name may yet be inscribed by the church among those of her saints. The miscellaneous matter with which the present issue of the Catholic Almanac is filled has been chosen with admirable tact and with a special view to the wants of our own people.