NEW PUBLICATIONS.

An Exposition of the Church in View of Recent Difficulties and Controversies, and the Present Needs of the Age. London: Basil Montagu Pickering, 196 Piccadilly. 1875. New York: The Catholic World, April, 1875.

(From Le Contemporain.)

I. Renewed Working of the Holy Spirit in the World.—We are, in a religious, social, and political point of view, in times of transition which we are not able to understand, for the same reason that no one can follow the movements of the battle-field who is in the midst of the engagement.

To judge from appearances, especially those which are nearest at hand, we are on the brink of an abyss. The Catholic religion, openly persecuted in Germany, prostrated now for several years in Italy and Spain by the suppression of the religious congregations, attacked in all countries, abandoned by all sovereigns, appears, humanly speaking, to be on the brink of destruction. There are not wanting prophets who predict the collapse of Christianity and the end of the world. There are, however, manly souls who do not allow themselves to be discouraged, and who see grounds for hope in the very events which fill ordinary hearts with terror and consternation.

Of this number is an American religious, Father Hecker, who has just issued a pamphlet in English, wherein, without concealing the difficulties of the present, he avows his expectation of the approaching triumph of religion.

His motives are drawn from the deep faith he professes in the action of the Holy Spirit in the church, outside of which he does not see any real Christianity. It is the Holy Spirit whom we must first invoke; it is the Holy Spirit of whom we have need, and who will cure all our ills by sending us his gifts.

“The age,” he says, “is superficial; it needs the gift of wisdom, which enables the soul to contemplate truth in its ultimate causes. The age is materialistic; it needs the gift of intelligence, by the light of which the intellect penetrates into the essence of things. The age is captured by a false and one-sided science; it needs the gift of science, by the light of which is seen each order of truth in its true relations to other orders and in a divine unity. The age is in disorder, and is ignorant of the ways to true progress; it needs the gift of counsel, which teaches how to choose the proper means to attain an object. The age is impious; it needs the gift of piety, which leads the soul to look up to God as the heavenly Father, and to adore him with feelings of filial affection and love. The age is sensual and effeminate; it needs the gift of force, which imparts to the will the strength to endure the greatest burdens, and to prosecute the greatest enterprises with ease and heroism. The age has lost and almost forgotten God; it needs the gift of fear to bring the soul again to God, and make it feel conscious of its great responsibility and of its destiny.”

The men to whom these gifts have been accorded are those of whose services our age has need. A single man with these gifts could do more than ten thousand who possessed them not. It is to such men, if they correspond with the graces which have been heaped upon them, that our age will owe its universal restoration and its universal progress. This being admitted, since, on the other hand, it is of faith that the Holy Spirit does not allow the church to err, ought we not now to expect that he will direct her on to a new path?

Since the XVIth century, the errors of Protestantism, and the attacks upon the Catholic religion of which it gave the signal, have compelled the church to change, to a certain extent, the normal orbit of her movement. Now that she has completed in this direction her line of defence,[171] it is to be expected that she will resume her primitive career, and enter on a new phase, by devoting herself to more vigorous action. It is impossible to dispute the fresh strength which the definition lately promulgated by the Council of the Vatican has bestowed upon the church. It is the axis on which now revolves the church’s career—the renewal of religion in souls, and the entire restoration of society.