Mr. Gladstone and Maryland Toleration. By Richard H. Clarke, LL.D. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.
This able pamphlet will wear a familiar look to our readers, its principal contents having appeared as an article in our December number. The writer has added biographical sketches of the first and second Lords Baltimore, the Lawgivers of 1649, and of Father Andrew White, the historiographer of the expedition which founded Maryland, and who was intimately associated with the early fortunes of the colony.
It was really too bad in Dr. Clarke to deny asylum to the ex-premier on our (reputed) hospitable shores, after the relentless logic to which he was subjected at home, when proving so clearly to his own satisfaction the disloyalty of Catholics—to spoil, in fact, his nice little story that it was the Protestants, and not those hateful Catholics, who made Maryland a refuge for fugitives from English persecution for conscience’ sake. And what makes the matter all the more aggravating is that our author is in league with ever so many Protestants in this design. For shame, gentlemen!
Historical Scenes from the Old Jesuit Missions. By the Right Rev. William Ingraham Kip, D.D., LL.D., member of the New York Historical Society [and Protestant Episcopal Bishop of California]. New York: A. D. F. Randolph & Co. 1875.
The author of this work had the good fortune while in England some years since to secure a copy of Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses écrites des Missions Etrangéres, in forty-seven volumes, “containing the letters of the Jesuit missionaries from about 1650 to 1750.… He selected those letters which relate to the labors of the Jesuits within the bounds of our own land, and published a translation, with notes, under the title of The Early Jesuit Missions in North America.” In the present work he takes a wider range, and makes selections, from the same source, of letters from parts of the world widely remote from each other—from China and California; from Cape Horn and the far north; from the shores of South America and the Mediterranean; from the monasteries of Mount Lebanon and the Thebaid Desert.
Bishop Kip and his publishers have laid both Protestants and Catholics under great obligations by the publication of this valuable and beautiful volume. We can scarcely commend too highly the evident fairness of the translation and of the accompanying remarks and notes. It could not well be otherwise than that a Protestant should have some qualifications to offer respecting statements of fact and doctrine such as would naturally occur in these letters; but the Catholic reader will be gratified to find much that is laudatory, and scarcely anything to which he would object; the notes being for the most part historical and philological in character. The naïve simplicity of these relations constitutes one of their chief charms and the best answer to any suggestion of guile on the part of the writers.
The principles and operations of the Jesuits have been, and to a great extent are still, believed by our Protestant fellow-citizens to constitute a vulnerable point in Catholicity, so that we rejoice at the facilities offered by such writers as Parkman, Shea, and Kip for a better understanding of the matter. Nothing can give Catholics greater pleasure than that their Protestant friends should have full opportunities for studying our doctrines and history.
Life of S. Benedict, surnamed “The Moor,” the Son of a Slave. Canonized by Pope Pius VII., May 24, 1807. From the French of M. Allibert, Canon of the Primatial Church of Lyons. Philadelphia: P. F. Cunningham & Son. 1875.
This volume is a concise and well-written account of a holy life, showing what abundant graces are often bestowed upon the meek and lowly, and how those who humble themselves are exalted by Almighty God.
S. Benedict, the child of an enslaved negro parent, was born at Sanfratello in Sicily, A.D. 1524. Early instructed in religion by his parents, he offered himself to God, and became eminent for sanctity as a religious. Seeking always the lowest and most humiliating employments, he served for twenty-seven years as a cook in a convent. Already, during his lifetime, regarded as a saint, he was venerated by all classes. “At the door of his humble kitchen,” says his biographer, “were to be seen the nobles of Palermo, who sought to honor the saint and recommend themselves to his prayers, the learned who came for advice, the afflicted who desired consolation, the sick who hoped for the recovery of their health, and the indigent who desired assistance.”