This is a very earnest and eloquent address, which was delivered to a mixed audience of Catholics and Protestants. Studiously popular in its style, it is for that reason especially adapted to go home to the hearts of the people. Father Moriarty has happily hit on the peculiar danger and fascination of the vice of intemperance in the following passage: “It is a vice that lies in wait for the most prominent members of society, the highest in station, the most influential over their fellow-men. It is not the vice of the naturally mean, the selfish, or the miserly. It is more apt, of its nature, to attack those of the finest mind, the most brilliant talent, the brave, the frank, the generous-hearted, those open to the influence of the highest, the purest, the noblest sentiments.”
Erleston Glen: A Lancashire Story of the Sixteenth Century. By Alice O’Hanlon. London: Burns & Oates. 1878. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)
The scene of this tale, as the title indicates, is laid in England, and the time is that of Queen Elizabeth, before the Catholic gentry of the country became almost extinct, and the persecuting spirit of the “Reformers” had died out for want of material upon which to exercise its fanaticism. The plot of the book is simple, and the story is, taken all together, sad. Two happy, unobtrusive families, allied by long acquaintance and sincere friendship, but still more by the bond of a common faith, are suddenly and cruelly interrupted in their retired happiness by the agents of that government which it is the boast of some modern historians to characterize as one of the most glorious England has ever had. Then follow espionage, arrests, mental suffering and physical torture, that, though less than historical facts and by no means distorted from the truth, sicken the heart and move us to thank God we live in the nineteenth and not in the sixteenth century. As a work of art Erleston Glen is by no means perfect. Its stiffness of style argues an unpractised hand, and the incomprehensible Lancashire dialect is too often introduced to suit the general reader; but as a picture of English life as it was during the sudden paroxysm of Protestant reformatory zeal which characterized the reign of Elizabeth, it is both truthful and vivid. Many who do not care to read the more serious works lately printed in England on the same topic—the sufferings of Catholics in that country—will be both edified and instructed by a perusal of Miss O’Hanlon’s clever book.
The Catholic Publication Society Company has in press, and will shortly issue, one of the most important of its excellent series of educational works. This is the History of the United States (for the use of schools), advance sheets of which lie before us. It is written by one of the most experienced and cultured of our writers, Mr. J. R. G. Hassard, author of the Life of Archbishop Hughes, Life of Pius IX., etc. Its letter-press, illustrations, and maps are beyond criticism. Its method is singularly well adapted to assist both scholar and teacher. At the foot of every page are questions on what has gone above. The History begins with the discovery of America and brings us down to our own times. It has this special distinction to recommend it: it gives Catholics their due prominence in a history of which they occupy so large a place, but a place that has hitherto been resolutely denied them. It is well, it is necessary, that Catholic children should feel and know that they have as grand a share in the history, the development, the life, the struggles, the triumphs of their country as has any other class. Placing this History in their hands at school is the very best means of instilling into their minds facts which it has been the custom to ignore in the histories thus far published.
The work is intended for the more advanced students in our schools and colleges. For younger scholars an Introductory History, arranged on the catechetical plan, has been prepared as an abridgment of the larger work, and will be issued simultaneously with the latter.
We would again call the attention of our readers to the new and excellent works published by the Catholic Publication Society Co., and especially intended for light summer reading. Such are Six Sunny Months, Sir Thomas More, Letters of a Young Irishwoman, Alba’s Dream, and the various volumes of stories collected from The Catholic World. We only call attention to these because they are the most recent of their kind. The field of Catholic fiction is now happily a large and rich one, and Catholics who are given to this kind of reading might well turn aside from the foolish romances that are made to suit a vicious popular taste to works which are fully as interesting as the others without their nauseous flavor and immoral tone and tendency.