It is not generally known, nor does Miss Boyle make mention of the fact, which has been already announced in this magazine, that at the time when John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was supplicating George III. to send more troops to America for the purpose of suppressing the unholy rebellion against his majesty’s benign sway, Father John Carroll, the Jesuit priest, was on a mission to Canada, seeking the non-intervention of that colony in the efforts of the States to free themselves from the yoke of British tyranny. And yet it is almost a Methodist article of faith that the Jesuits have ever been the enemies of the republic, and the sons of John Wesley its warmest friends.
William Pinkney, one of Maryland’s most gifted sons, whose eloquence ranks him with Pitt, Fox, and Burke, receives a most fitting tribute from the pen of Miss Boyle. The history of this wonderful man should be known and closely studied by the young men of our time; for few lives exhibit a more perfect pattern of true manliness. His struggles against early poverty and the numerous difficulties attending the efforts to acquire knowledge in those times gave earnest of his future success in life. The late venerable Chief-Justice Taney spoke of him in these words: “I have heard almost all the great advocates of the United States, both of the past and present generation, but I have seen none equal to Pinkney.” Rufus King, having once listened to him exclaimed in a burst of enthusiasm “that the speech of Pinkney had enlarged his admiration of the capacity of the human mind.” Of such men is Maryland justly proud, and Miss Boyle has performed a timely and praiseworthy task in having brought us face to face with the heroes of a past generation, whose memory their native State should ever delight to honor.
Sidonie. (Fromont Jeune et Risler Aîné.) From the French of Alphonse Daudet. Boston: Estes & Lauriat. 1877.
We understand that this story has had an enormous circulation in France. This circulation we are inclined to attribute rather to the author’s name than to any special excellence in the book itself. Alphonse Daudet is one of the pet French novelists of the day, and it takes much to destroy a well-earned reputation. Sidonie is a repulsive story, told with great skill, and embellished throughout by those thousand and one delicate artistic touches, lights and shades, of which French writers alone seem to possess the secret. M. Daudet is actuated by the very laudable design of punishing vice, and showing in a very strong and real light the awful, the tragic misery it brings upon the vicious and the good alike. All very well. Novelists, however, who take up this kind of theme—and many are very fond of it—have an unpleasant and untrue habit of making their good people fools or simpletons. It seems to us that, as a rule, good people, particularly good women, are remarkably keen in detecting falsehood and scenting rascality. In Sidonie it is all the other way. One detestable little wretch of a woman, who has not half an ounce of good in her whole system, sets all the good people by the ears, destroys the peace of happy families, ruins a great business-house, causes the suicide of several excellent and very charming characters, and ends by retiring to that kingdom from which she should never have been called—Bohemia.
It seems to us a pity that an author of such real power and skill in delineation of character and plot as M. Daudet should waste himself on the unutterably mean. We are not of the opinion that this world is given over to the dominion of the devil and his servants. It is not heaven to any of us; yet as between the good and the bad, all things considered, we believe that the good have the best of the battle even in this life. Of course novel-readers must have their villain, male or female; and the female villain must, of course, be very, very bad. Their viciousness, however, could be shown sufficiently, and the lesson it entails inculcated, without making them the pivots on which the world turns. It is the noble, not the ignoble, who really move the world; and until the race of the noble is exhausted, novelists may as well draw their heroes and heroines from that class. At least we object to their being for ever depicted as fools.
The translation of Sidonie is admirable. It is from the graceful and cultivated pen of Mrs. Mary Neale Sherwood.
Legends of the Blessed Sacrament. Gathered from the History of the Church and the Lives of the Saints. By Emily Mary Shapcote. London: Burns & Oates. 1877. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society.)
This is in every sense a most beautiful and attractive volume. The author has collected a large number of legends connected with the Blessed Sacrament. These are abundantly and very handsomely illustrated, and the letter-press itself is admirable. There is much more, however, than legends in the volume. The devotion of the church to the Blessed Sacrament is traced down to the very days of the apostles, verified by ample quotations, and illustrated by pictures taken from the Catacombs and the earlier monuments of Christian art. This is indeed an excellent and most valuable feature of the work. The whole is in keeping. The devotion is brought up to our own days, and its wonderful growth and development brought out in a clear and most interesting manner. The author has done her work skilfully, gracefully, and reverently. The admirable preface shows how much she is inspired by real love for and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. The last picture in the volume is a large and admirably-executed portrait of our Holy Father Pope Pius IX.
The Discipline of Drink: An Historical Inquiry into the principles and practice of the Catholic Church regarding the use, abuse, and disuse of alcoholic liquors, especially in England, Ireland, and Scotland, from the sixth to the sixteenth century. By the Rev. T. E. Bridgett, of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. With an introductory letter to the author by His Eminence Cardinal Manning, Archbishop of Westminster. London: Burns & Oates. 1877.
The best notice we can give of this valuable work will be to make a few extracts from Cardinal Manning’s letter. His Eminence says it is “the first attempt to collect the counsels and judgments of Catholic pastors and writers on the use of wine and on the sin of drunkenness.” He believes the book will be “of signal use in clearing away a multitude of prejudices, and perhaps some more reasonable censures, which have impeded the efforts we are making to check the spread of intoxication.” These “more reasonable censures” have been called forth by the words and acts of associations not in the unity of the Catholic Church, and particularly by Catholics having joined such societies and adopted their “wild talk, worthy of the Manichees.” Father Bridgett’s book, then, “will show how broadly the Catholic Church has always taught the lawfulness of using all things that God has made, in all their manifold combinations, so long as we use them in conformity to the law of God. Drunkenness is not the sin of drink, but of the drunkard.” On the other hand, “in every utterance of the church, and in every page of Holy Scripture, wine is surrounded with warnings,” says his Eminence, and adds that our author has “done well to point out that a new and more formidable agent of intoxication even than wine has in the last three centuries confirmed its grasp, chiefly upon the Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon races.” So that “no exact precedents can be found in the past action of the church as to the way of dealing with an evil new in its kind, and so far more formidable both in its spread and in its intensity”; while at the same time “the principles of the church are always the same, and, in bringing forth things new and old, forms may vary, but the mind and action are immutable.” The cardinal then proceeds to give his own views of what should be done. He is in favor of “a widely-extended organization,” and advocates total abstinence as the only hope for multitudes, and a specially meritorious act of self-denial in those who do not need it themselves, but embrace it for the sake of others. But—and to this we would call particular attention—the “widely-extended organization” should comprise, in his opinion, those who are not total abstainers. He expresses satisfaction at Father Bridgett having quoted in the appendix some words of his own. We quote them, too, because we most heartily agree with them: “Now, my dear friends, listen! I will go to my grave without tasting intoxicating liquors; but I repeat distinctly that any man who should say that the use of wine or any other like thing is sinful when it does not lead to drunkenness, that man is a heretic condemned by the Catholic Church. With that man I will never work. Now, I desire to promote total abstinence in every way that I can. I will encourage all societies of total abstainers. But the moment I see men not charitable attempting to trample down those who do not belong to the total abstainers, from that moment I will not work with those men. I would have two kinds of pledge: one for the mortified who never taste drink, and the other for the temperate who never abuse it. If I can make these two classes work together, I will work in the midst of them. If I cannot get them to work together, I will work with both of them separately.”