It is the object of the society of Freemasons to effect the universal deification, the rejection, that is, of the belief in any existence higher than the human being, and in any superiority of one man over another. For this they find it convenient to support the foolish Protestant objection to a splendid ritual and costly churches, on the ground that “God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” Dr. Bégin quotes the following telling passage from a contemporary writer in answer to this frivolous objection:
“I know the old tirades about the temple of nature. No doubt the starry vault of heaven is a sublime dome; but no worship exists which is celebrated in the open air. A special place of meeting is required for collective adoration, because our religious sociability urges us to gather together for prayer, as it were to make a common stock of our joys and griefs. Besides, should the time come when we shall have nothing but the cupola of heaven to shelter our religious assemblies, it would require a considerable amount of courage to betake ourselves thither, especially in winter. And the philosophers who find our cathedrals so damp would not be the most intrepid against the inclemency of the sanctuary of nature. Thus do great errors touch on the ridiculous. Reasoning begins their refutation; a smile ends it.”
The second chapter is an admirable exposition of the special worship (hyperdulia) paid to the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the course of which he shows triumphantly that the definition of her Immaculate Conception was no new doctrine, but a mere definite and dogmatic statement of a doctrine which had been all along held implicitly in the church. The following simile, illustrative of this argument, appears to us to be worth quoting: “Modern science, which is daily making such extraordinary progress, discovers, ever and anon, fresh stars, which seem to float in the most distant depths of space, which become more bright as they are more attentively observed, and which end by becoming stars of continually-increasing splendor. These stars are not of recent date; they are not new; they are only perceived. Something analogous takes place in the heavens of the church on the subject of certain truths of our faith. Their light reveals itself and develops by degrees. Sometimes the shock of controversy illuminates them. Then comes a definition to invest them with fresh splendor. But in receiving this supplement of light, destined to make them better understood by the faithful, they lose nothing of their proper nature; their essence is not in the slightest degree changed; only our minds appropriate them with more facility.”
Flowers from the Garden of the Visitation; or, Lives of Several Religious of that Order. Translated from the French. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1875.
To those who have attempted to form an adequate conception of the charitable and ascetic spirit, the simple record of these saintly lives must have a wonderful fascination. To those, even, who are wholly absorbed in a life of pleasure it will at least possess the merit of a new sensation, if they can forget the silent reproof which such examples convey.
It affords matter of encouragement in these days of combined luxury and destitution to look over the history of those—many of whom were delicately reared—who left all for God, content to do whatsoever he appointed them to do, and to submit to extraordinary mortifications for his sake. The work embraces six brief biographies of Visitation Nuns eminent for their self-sacrificing labors for the moral and intellectual education of their charges, and in other good and charitable offices. Their names, even, may be quite new to English-speaking readers, but that fact is all the more in keeping with their hidden lives. We have said enough to indicate the general character of the volume.
John Dorrien: A novel. By Julia Kavanagh. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1875.
The writer succeeds, in the very opening chapter, in so portraying the character of a child as to make it a living breathing reality to the reader. The story of his humble life in childhood and his struggles and trials in later years is told without any attempt at fine writing—indeed, all the characters are simply and well drawn, and retain their individuality to the end. The heroine, neglected in childhood, and without any guide in matters of faith, is easily persuaded by a suitor that religion is contrary to reason; and thus, left to her own unaided judgment, and notwithstanding her innate love of truth, soon finds herself entangled in a web of deceit and hypocrisy. She only escapes the unhappiness which such a course entails by forsaking it.
The moral of the tale (if that is not an obsolete term) is what the reader would naturally infer—the necessity of early religious instruction, and the advantage, even in this life, of a belief in revealed truth. We are glad to note the absence of the faults which disfigure much of the imaginative literature of the day, not excepting, we are sorry to say, that which emanates from the writer’s own sex. We see no attempt to give false views of life, or to undermine the moral and religious principles of the reader; on the contrary, there is reason to infer much that is positively good, though not so definitely stated as we should have liked.
The Bible and the Rule of Faith. By the Abbé Louis-Nazaire Bégin, Doctor of Theology, Theological Professor in the University of Laval. Translated from the French by G. M. Ward [Mrs. Pennée].