Excerpta ex Rituali Romano. Nova Et Auctior Editio. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet, et Soc. 1874.
This is a lovely little ritual, a very pretty present for any one to make to a priest, especially to one just sent out from the seminary to a poor and arduous country mission.
Letters of Mr. Gladstone and Others.New York: Tribune Office. 1874.
The London Tablet epigrammatically remarks that Mr. Gladstone kindled a fire on a Saturday which was put out on the following Monday. Mgr. Capel has very satisfactorily answered him. Every person not an ignoramus in theology and jurisprudence, knows that the Catholic Church teaches the derivation of the state from a divine institution immediately, and not mediately through the church; moreover, that she teaches what follows by logical sequence, the duty of allegiance to the state. No Christian, no moral philosopher, and no person holding the principles on which the American fabric of law is based, can hold that this allegiance is unlimited.
The New York Herald, remarkable both for extraordinary blunders and for extraordinarily just and sensible statements, has well said that there is a “higher law” recognized by every one who believes in the supremacy of conscience and duty to God. It is a very base and inconsistent thing for an American to profess a doctrine of blind, slavish obedience [pg 717] to civil magistrates and laws, however wicked these may be. The Catholic Church has always claimed to be the infallible judge in morals as well as in faith. The Pope has always exercised the supreme power of pronouncing the infallible judgments of the church, and the Vatican decrees have added nothing to that power. They have embodied the perpetual doctrine of the church in a solemn judgment with annexed penalties, as an article of Catholic faith; and, in consequence, whoever refuses obedience and assent to that judgment is ipso facto a heretic and excommunicated. It is therefore idle for Lord Acton and Lord Camoys, who have stained their nobility and their Catholic lineage by an act of treason and apostasy, to pretend to be Catholics. They are no more Catholics than is Mr. Gladstone, and the English Catholics have repudiated them and their doctrine with indignation. It is futile to pretend that the Pope claims any jure divino temporal power directly over states or citizens in their political capacity, or pretends to retain any jure humano sovereignty beyond his own kingdom. The reader will find the general subject of this notice discussed at greater length elsewhere in this number.
Outlines of Astronomy. By Arthur Searle, A.M., Assistant at Harvard College Observatory. 16mo, 415 pp. Boston: Ginn Brothers. 1874.
A new interest has within the past few years been given to the science of astronomy by the recent discoveries which have been made in it, principally by the use of the spectroscope and by the new field which has been opened and which is still opening before astronomers, of physical research into the construction of the celestial bodies. A short time ago the science seemed nearly as complete as it was ever likely to become; now, while retaining its old ground intact, it is rapidly developing new resources, and, besides being itself perfected, it is contributing no small share to the solution of the great problem of the day in purely physical science—the constitution of matter.
Many new and excellent works have, accordingly, as might be expected, lately appeared on the subject, called forth by the reawakened interest in it, both in the world at large and among scientific men. The book forming the subject of this notice is certainly one of the best of these.
It is not a mere condensed summary of what is known and has been discovered. Such summaries, of course, are of great utility, both for reference and as text-books, and serve excellently in the latter way, if the object of the learner be to memorize for a time a large number of facts, or, in other words, to cram for an examination. They may serve, for students of good memories, even a permanent purpose; but they require close application, and labor under the difficulty—too often a fatal one—of not being interesting, unless helped out by startling representations of nebulæ, comets, clusters of stars, and other beautiful objects at which many people seem to suppose astronomers to spend their lives in idly gazing.
Fine writing, on the other hand, about the grandeur and magnificence of the celestial orbs, etc., is indeed often interesting; but, though edifying and useful in its way, it fails to instruct. One really knows little more after it than before.