The Letters of Rev. James Maher, D.D., late P.P. of Carlow-Graigue, on Religious Subjects. With a memoir. Edited by the Rt. Rev. Patrick Francis Moran, D.D., Bishop of Ossory. Dublin: Browne & Nolan. 1877.
Seldom do we have an opportunity to welcome the appearance of so valuable a book as this, which is the embodiment of those sentiments, views, and convictions that distinguish the modern Irish priest. Few men loved his religion and his native land with a more intense fervor than Father Maher. This double love nourished his frame, increased his strength, stimulated his thoughts, nerved his heart, and underlay every thought and action of his life. He was a man who simply delighted in every opportunity of saying a word or doing a deed in behalf of his creed or his country. As a controversialist his enthusiasm made him almost bitter, but with that bitterness which is born of zeal for the truth. A man of stalwart frame and magnificent proportions, he exercised a magnetic influence over his listeners by his presence alone. Throughout the entire range of controversial literature it would be hard to find anything equal to his scathing arraignment of Archbishop Whately apropos of the Nunnery Inspection bill: “I have myself,” he writes, “two sisters and eighteen nieces who, following the call of Heaven, have selected the religious life. Some of them are in convents in England, some in Ireland, some in America; all engaged in the noble service of forming the tender minds of the children of the poor to virtue, for whose sake and the sake of their Father in heaven they most willingly surrendered in the morning of life all earthly prospects. I well remember what they were under the paternal roof. I know what they are in the cloister. I have never lost sight of them; and as to their happiness, to which I could not be indifferent, I have only to affirm, which I do most solemnly, that I have never known people more happy, more joyous, more light-hearted, or with such buoyant hopes as good religieuses. Their character, my lord, is unknown and will remain a mystery to that world for which Christ refused to pray.” These are the brave words of one of the most conspicuous champions of religious freedom, and one of the most determined antagonists of the smelling committee who strove to insult the purest and noblest of women. His spirit is not dead among his confrères in the Irish vineyard, for Cardinal Cullen, the nephew of Father Maher, and the distinguished prelate who has given these inestimable letters to the world—a near relative of the great priest—lives to represent every feeling and pulse of his heart.
Specialists and Specialties in Medicine. Address delivered before the Alumni Association of the Medical Department of the University of Vermont. Burlington. 1876.
This address of Dr. Henry, though unpretending in form, is exceedingly well timed and full of suggestiveness. The doctor evidently belongs to the conservative class of his profession, who long for the day when eminent respectability, which is the escutcheon of the medical man in European countries, will be fairly won and worn by every one who subscribes M.D. to his name. As a consequence, he is the bitter enemy of every form of quackery and undue pretentiousness. He certainly handles soi-disant specialists without gloves, and gives the best of reasons why the community should rebel against their assumption of skill. Too many so-called specialists are men who have devoted their time and attention to a special branch of the profession while entirely neglecting the others. This is illogical and cannot be done. Medicine is a science whose parts are bound together as indissolubly as the stages of a reasoning process, and whoever imagines that he can master one department without a knowledge of the others simply follows the advice of Dogberry. We have oculists and aurists and gynœcologists without number who have no knowledge of general pathology. This is altogether wrong. The true raison d’être of a specialist is that, having profoundly studied the science of medicine, he finds that his natural aptitude or taste draws him to one branch of the profession rather than to others. In this manner only have the prominent and highly-reputed specialists in Europe and among ourselves won their fame and fortune. Dr. Henry, in a clear and trenchant style, demonstrates the absurdity of specialties, as such.
Mongrelism. By Watson F. Quinby M.D. Wilmington, Del.: James & Webb.
This curious monogram is worth perusing, if for no other reason than the fanciful and novel views which it presents. The author attributes many of our present social evils to mongrelism, or the admixture of distinct types of men. He finds in the Book of Revelation the foreshadowing of the natural distribution of men into white, red, and black, deeming the three similarly colored horses to be typical of those three branches of the human family, while the fourth horse, on which sat Death, he considers to be the emblem of mongrelia. He opposes J. J. Rousseau’s idea that man’s primitive condition was one of barbarism, and contends that historical and archæological discoveries prove rather a retrogression than an improvement. The Chinaman is Dr. Quinby’s ideal of a mongrel. In the land of flowers every art once flourished, learning was cultivated, the harpist filled the air with sweetest strains, and the poet sang delicious lays in the beautiful vale of Cashmere, till the bane of mongrelism fell on it and all progress ceased. Mexico and South America are other evidences of the pernicious influence of hybridism. The conclusions of the author are in many instances sound, but his reasoning is too fanciful to satisfy a sober-minded reader. His statement that the rapid influx of Chinese into our midst is fraught with mighty perils is well worth pondering over, and no true statesman will shun the serious consideration of this knotty problem.
Jack. From the French of Alphonse Daudet. By Mary Neal Sherwood, translator of Sidonie. Boston: Estes & Lauriat. 1877.