Not alone to students in colleges do we recommend the study of this work, but to every intelligent educated Catholic, who should investigate the reasons on which his religion is founded, and be able to answer for the faith that is in him. Let our Catholic lawyers and doctors and business men take it up, and they will find in it sufficient to convince them of the reasonableness of their creed. It will furnish them, moreover, with conclusive arguments against the absurd theories and false views of religion which are being advanced every day in their hearing.
The greatest enemy that the Catholic Church has to contend with, both without and within, at the present day, is ignorance of her true position and teaching, and we eagerly invite and encourage every study and investigation that may in any way help to dispel it.
It is to be regretted that so valuable a work has not been brought out in a worthy manner. It is neither well printed nor well put together.
The New Vesper Hymn-Book: A companion to The New Vesper Psalter; containing a collection of all the hymns sung at Vespers throughout the year (classified according to metre), set to music, either for unison or four voices, with accompaniment, and including the best of the plain chant melodies, together with the words in full, and the versicles and responses proper to each hymn. The whole compiled and edited by Charles Lewis, Director of the Cathedral Choir, Boston, Mass. Boston: Thos. B. Noonan & Co.
At the present stage of the revival of Gregorian Chant, the true song of the church, we can commend this little work as one which will doubtless be found useful in many churches whose organists are unable to harmonize the chant or the singers to read its proper notation. We wish, however, that the editor had given all the hymns as found in the Vesperale, as the musical airs which are substituted are not worthy to supplant the original melodies. The style of notation is that usually adopted in translations from the old form of four lines and square notes. Could not the editor have done better, so as to give to those unaccustomed to plain chant some idea of its movement and expression? There is no mark given to designate accented from unaccented notes, and, lacking this, we defy any one who is not familiar with the traditional movement of a phrase to give its true expression.
We think the spacing of notes and phrases as given in the old style should be preserved—that is, the notes upon each syllable should be printed close together, and a wider and distinct space left between syllables and words. An intelligent system of writing plain chant upon the modern musical staff is yet to be invented. We have been told that in some places the Tonic Sol-Fa system is being attempted, with what success we have not learned.
Lotos Flowers, gathered in Sun and Shadow. By Mrs. Chambers-Ketchum. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1877.
Mrs. Chambers-Ketchum is already known to the readers of The Catholic World through her poems, “Advent” and “A Birthday Wish” (appearing under the name of “Twenty-one” in the present collection), published in its pages during the present year. Her verse is pure in thought and written out of a woman’s heart full of love and enthusiasm. With true Southern fervor she revels in the luxuriant flora of her home, and in the landscape of all her pictures she takes a dear delight. Even so unsightly an object as a Mississippi steamboat-landing grows picturesque under her hand, and do we not feel soft Italian air as we read?—