She had scarcely arrived at her hut when the avenging storm came.
The château of the ignominious son was struck by lightning, his treasures were consumed by the flames, from which he himself did not escape, and his companions perished with him.
Those fields, that once yielded so abundantly, are now covered with a mass of snow that never melts. On the spot where his mother vainly implored his compassion, the rent earth has opened a frightful abyss; and where her tears then flowed now, drop by drop, fall the tears of the eternal glaciers.
NEW PUBLICATIONS
The Young Catholic’s Illustrated Fifth Reader. Pp. 430, 12mo. The Young Catholic’s Illustrated Sixth Reader and Speaker. By Rev. J. L. Spalding, S.T.L. Pp. 477, 12mo. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren Street. 1875.
These books have been prepared with great care and rare tact. We have examined, from time to time, the various Readers which are used in this country, and the Young Catholic’s Series is certainly the best which we have seen. But the Fifth and Sixth Readers of this series are especially good, and we are confident that they are destined to become the standard Readers of the Catholic schools of the United States. They are indeed more than reading-books: they are collections of choice specimens of English literature, in prose and poetry, so arranged as to present every variety of style, that opportunity may be given to the pupil to cultivate all the different forms of vocal expression.
In the Fifth Reader the attention of the young Catholic is called to the history of the church in the United States by the attractive biographical notices of some of the most distinguished bishops and archbishops of this country; and, as an introduction to the Sixth, we have a brief but exhaustive treatise on elocution. We have not the space to enter into a minute criticism of these books; but we have expressed our honest conviction of their excellence, and we are quite sure that their own merits will open for them a way into Catholic schools throughout the land.
Pax. The Syllabus for the People: A Review of the Propositions condemned by His Holiness Pope Pius IX., with Text of the Condemned List. By a Monk of S. Augustine’s, Ramsgate, author of The Vatican Decrees and Catholic Allegiance. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.
This is an almost necessary complement to the publications forming the Gladstone controversy, the original being so frequently referred to by Mr. Gladstone and his reviewers.