Urbem fecisti quod prius orbis erat.’”
The Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac for 1878. New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co.
This annual, neat, compact, and perfect in all its mechanical arrangements—the labor of many busy and well-stored minds condensed into a portable form—has just been issued. To say that it equals its predecessors, which have found so much favor with the public, would be doing it great injustice. In every respect it is far superior, and shows palpable evidence that its conductors, appreciating the growth in public taste as well as the increasing desire for reliable information on important Catholic subjects, have left no effort untried to satisfy the wishes of their readers. This is particularly noticeable in the illustrations, which we consider to be not only good pictures but genuine works of art. The portraits of Archbishop Bayley, Bishops Von Ketteler and De St. Palais, and the venerable Jesuit Father McElroy are not only excellent likenesses of those deceased prelates, but the best specimens of wood-cut portraiture we have yet seen on this side of the Atlantic. The other engravings, of which there are about a dozen, are alike creditable to the artist and suitable for the pages of such a publication. The reading matter, however, will probably most attract the attention of the majority of purchasers, many of whom will doubtless wonder where a great portion of it could possibly have been discovered. Thus, in addition to the lives of the ecclesiastics above mentioned, and biographical sketches of the venerable Sister Mary Margaret Bourgeois, Frederic Ozanam, Columbus, and others, we have an elaborate History of Printing, a description (with fac-similes) of “The Earliest Irish Madonna,” accounts of the Libraries of the Bollandists and of the Eremites of York; an archæological sketch of the oldest churches of the world, an explanation of the antique Cross of St. Zachary, a résumé of the labors of the Franciscans in California, and a well-digested mass of astronomical, chronological, and statistical information which cannot help proving of incalculable value as matters of reference.
Evidences of Religion. By Louis Jouin, S.J. New York: P. O’Shea. 1877.
There is nothing more gratifying to Catholics who watch the progress of their religion in this country than to find that the church in the United States is beginning to supply her own literature, and more especially her polemical literature, which she needs most of all. Within the last few years several controversial works and books of instruction have been written in this country which are far better adapted to our people than the standard works of foreign authors; and the time, we trust, is not far distant when we shall be fully supplied with a well-adapted course of polemics of our own, and be no longer dependent on the writings of men in lands which are often more or less out of harmony with the American mind. The Evidences of Religion is one of the books of which we stood most in need, and the wonder is that it was not written long before. Perhaps, however, it is as well that no one attempted it before Father Jouin; for we doubt if any other attempt could have been so entirely successful.
The book is a marvel of condensed matter and thought and argument. In its 380 octavo pages are summed up the philosophical treatise De Certitudine and theological tract De Locis Theologicis; and it contains in addition a refutation, short, sharp, and decisive, of the latest errors in philosophy, politics, and religion.
Christianity rests on facts, not on mere theories. The science of the day pretends to deal with facts, and in every case to accept them, so that in our controversies with the pseudo-science of the times there is nothing more important than to bring out clearly and strongly the facts on which the certainty of the Christian faith rests. This Father Jouin has done, and in his book we have the whole groundwork on which Christianity is based spread out before us in perspective; the outline is complete, though of course, in the limited space which he allowed himself, he has not been able to bring out each detail in full. Yet he assures us in his preface that nothing essential has been left out, and we have verified his assertion. Altogether this is just the sort of book, in our opinion, that is needed to combat the errors of the age, and to serve as an antidote to the poison of rank infidelity and materialism with which the very atmosphere around us is charged.
The author tells us that he designs the work more especially as a text-book for students in the higher classes of our Catholic colleges, and we sincerely hope that it may be adopted in every Catholic college throughout the country. Our Catholic instructors fully realize the importance of giving their students a thorough grounding in the evidences of their religion, and Father Jouin’s book in the hands of a good professor can be made the basis of a thorough course of such instruction.