The Catholic World Volume I Part 105

THE AMERICAN ANNUAL CYCLOPEDIA AND REGISTER OF IMPORTANT EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1864.

8vo., pp. 838. New York: D. Appleton & Company.

The Annual Cyclopedia grows more and more valuable and interesting every year. The present volume is a great improvement upon all that have gone before it. The course of events has been unusually varied and startling, and the topics suggested by it appear to have been for the most part selected with good judgment and treated by competent writers. We have under the head of "Army Operations" an admirable history of Sherman's great march and of Grant's campaign in the wilderness, both ill.u.s.trated with maps. The article on the "Army of the United States" abounds in information respecting the number of troops, organization, supplies, department and corps commanders, etc., such as everybody wants to have, but n.o.body knows where to look for.

Under the t.i.tles of "Confederate" and "United States Congress" we have a complete political history of our country during the last year, while the condition and progress of the several foreign states are treated in their proper places. A great deal of interesting matter is given in the articles on the "Anglican" and "Greek" Churches, "Commerce" and "Commercial Intercourse," "Diplomatic Correspondence and Foreign Relations," "Finances of the United States," "Freedmen,"

"Freedom of the Press," "Geographical Explorations and Discoveries,"

"Literature and Literary Progress," "Military Surgery and Medicine"

(profusely ill.u.s.trated), "Navy," "Ordnance," "Petroleum," etc., etc.

{719} Under the head of "Public Doc.u.ments" is the most correct translation of the Pope's Encyclical and syllabus of errors condemned that has yet appeared in this country. Biographical sketches are also given of the most distinguished men who died during the course of the year.

SONGS FOR ALL SEASONS. By Alfred Tennyson. With ill.u.s.trations by D.

Maclise, T. Creswick, S. Eytinge, C. A. Barry, H. Fenn, and G.

Perkins. 16mo., pp. 84. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

HOUSEHOLD POEMS. By Henry W. Longfellow. With ill.u.s.trations by John Gilbert, Birket Foster, and John Absolon. 16mo., pp. 96. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

The series of "Companion Poets for the People," of which these two volumes are the first issues, deserves special commendation as an example of the way in which cheapness and elegance may be combined.

For half a dollar Messrs. Ticknor & Fields offer us a neat little book, printed in the best style of typography, on rich tinted paper, with a clean broad margin, and some twelve or fifteen wood-cuts by reputable artists. The selections appear to have been made with good judgment, and include some late pieces of both Tennyson and Longfellow which are not to be found in previous editions of their works.

THE HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN GERMANY AND SWITZERLAND, AND IN ENGLAND, IRELAND, SCOTLAND, THE NETHERLANDS, FRANCE, AND NORTHERN EUROPE.

IN A SERIES OF ESSAYS, REVIEWING D'AUBIGNe, MENZEL, HALLAM, BISHOP SHORT, PRESCOTT, RANKE, FRYXELL, AND OTHERS.

By M.J. Spalding, D.D., Archbishop Baltimore. Fourth revised edition, Two volumes in one. 8vo., pp. 494 and 509. Baltimore: John Murphy & Company.

We welcome this new and improved edition of the best antidote that has yet been prepared for English readers to the common misrepresentations of Protestant historians of the reformation. Archbishop Spalding's book has been so long before the public, and has been received with such general favor, that it would be superfluous at this late day to enter upon a general examination of its merits. It will prove a valuable guide to the student of English and continental history; he will find here the chief points made against the Church, by the long list of writers named in the t.i.tle-page, taken up and answered by a prelate of high reputation for sound and thorough scholarship. Dr.

Spalding of course does not deny that there were abuses in the 16th century which ought to have been abolished; but he contends that the gravity and extent of these disorders have been greatly exaggerated; that they generally originated in the world and its princes, not in the Church; most of them being due to the fact that bad men were thrust into high ecclesiastical places by worldly-minded and avaricious sovereigns; that there was a lawful and efficacious remedy for all such evils, which consisted in giving to the popes their due power and influence in the nomination of bishops and in the deliberations of general councils; in a word, that "reformation within the Church, and not revolution outside of it, was the only proper, lawful, and efficacious remedy for existing evils;" and finally, "that the fact of Christians having at length felt prepared to resort to the desperate and totally wrong remedy of revolution was owing to a train of circ.u.mstances which had caused faith to wane and grow cold, and which now appealed more to the pa.s.sions than to reason, more to human considerations than to the principles of divine faith and the interests of eternity."

THE YEAR OF MARY; OR, THE TRUE SERVANT OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

Translated from the French of Rev. M. d'Arville, Apostolic Prothonotary. Edited, and in part translated, by Mrs. J. Sadlier.

12mo. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham.

This is a work intended for the use either of private persons or of confraternities, sodalities, and similar a.s.sociations formed in honor of the Blessed Virgin. The matter is distributed into exercises, the number of which is fixed at seventy-two, because our Lady is supposed to have lived seventy-two years on earth. One exercise is appropriated to each of the Sundays and princ.i.p.al festivals of the year.

{720}

The reverend author writes with simplicity and unction, and has given us a really devout book. The translation seems to be very well done.

CEREMONIAL, FOR THE USE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCHES IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Published by order of the First Council of Baltimore, with the approbation of the Holy See. Third edition, carefully revised and considerably enlarged. With ill.u.s.trations. 12mo., pp. 534. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet.

This book is almost indispensable to clergymen, and very convenient for laymen who wish to understand the beautiful ceremonies which the Church has appointed for the various festivals and services of the ecclesiastical year. It was originally compiled by Bishop Rosati, of St. Louis, and formally adopted by the council of Baltimore in 1852.

The extensive additions which are now published with it were made by direction of the late Archbishop Kenrick, of Baltimore. They consist of the ceremonies of low ma.s.s, low ma.s.s for the dead, and the manner of giving holy communion within the ma.s.s or at other times; instructions for the priest who is obliged to say two ma.s.ses, from the decrees of the sacred congregation of rites, approved under the present pope; the manner of singing ma.s.s without deacon and sub-deacon, and the vespers without cope-bearers, in accordance with approved usages of the best-regulated churches in Italy; the mode of giving benediction with the blessed sacrament, in which the ceremonial of bishops and the various decrees of the sacred congregation of rites are strictly followed; Gregorian notes to guide the celebrant and sacred ministers in singing the prayers, gospel, epistle, confiteor, etc.

The ill.u.s.trations, intended to show the proper form of various church utensils, church furniture, etc., const.i.tute a valuable feature of the book.

MEDITATIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS FOR A RETREAT OF ONE DAY IN EACH MONTH.

Compiled from the writings of Fathers of the Society of Jesus, by a Religious. Published with the approbation of the Most Rev. Archbishop of Baltimore. 18mo., pp. viii., 154. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet.

This little book is designed for the use not only of religious communities, but of persons in the world who may feel disposed to devote a day now and then exclusively to the affairs of their souls.

The exercises consist of three meditations and a "consideration," for each month in the year, arranged after the manner of the exercises of St. Ignatius.

STREET BALLADS, POPULAR POETRY, AND HOUSEHOLD SONGS OF IRELAND.

16mo., pp. 312. Boston: Patrick Donahoe.

The poems contained in this little volume are by a great number of authors, and of course of very different degrees of merit. Most of them are of a patriotic nature; a good many are amatory; and two or three seem to have no business in the collection at all. For example, Lieut-Colonel Halpine's "April 20, 1864," is a poem of the American rebellion. Mr. John Savage's "At Niagara" is certainly neither a street ballad nor a household song, nor is it part of the popular poetry of Ireland any more than of our own country. We dare say, however, that n.o.body will feel disposed to quarrel with the editor for including these spirited pieces, as well as others we might mention, which do not properly belong under the categories mentioned in the t.i.tle-page.

Among the best known writers whose names appear in the table of contents are William Allinghain, Aubrey De Vere, Samuel Fergusson, Lady Wilde, Gerald Griffin, and Clarence Mangan.

THE MONTH OF MARY, FOR THE USE OF ECCLESIASTICS.

Translated from the French. 32mo., pp. 207. Baltimore: John Murphy & Company.

This little manual is intended exclusively for ecclesiastics, especially students in theological seminaries. It sets forth, for each day of the month, some trait of the life of the Blessed Virgin, first as an object of veneration and love, secondly, as a model of some virtue of the clerical state, and finally, as a motive of confidence.

It is brief, suggestive, and practical.

_The Man without a Country_ (Boston: Ticknor & Fields) is a reprint in pamphlet form of a remarkable narrative which appeared originally in _The Atlantic Monthly_.

---------- {721}

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. I., NO. 6. SEPTEMBER, 1865.

From The Dublin Review.

THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS OF ALEXANDRIA.--ORIGEN.

_Origenis Opera Omnia_. Ed. De la Rue, accurante J. P. MIGNE. Paris.

_Origenes_, Eine Darstellung seines Lebens und seiner Lehre, von Dr.

REDEPENNING. (Origen: A History of his Life and Doctrine. By Dr.

REDEPENNING). 1841. Bonn.

In a former article we have given some account of the labors and teaching of Pantaenus and Clement in the twenty years after the death of Marcus Aurelius (180-202), during which the Church enjoyed comparative peace. Commodus was not a persecutor, like his philosophic father. Personally, he was a signal instance of the total break-down of philosophy as a training for a prince imperial; for whatever advantages the most enlightened methods and the most complete establishment of philosophic tutors could afford were his, probably to his great disgust. But the Church has often found that an imperial philosopher is something even worse than an imperial debauchee.

Pertinax and Didius Julia.n.u.s, who succeeded Commodus, had little time either for philosophy or pleasure, for they followed their predecessor, after the violent fashion so popular with conspirators and Praetorians, in less than a twelvemonth. Septimius Severus, the first, and, with one exception, the only Roman emperor who was a native African, during the earlier years of his reign protected the Christians rather than otherwise. How and why he saw occasion to change we shall have to consider further on.

During these twenty years of tranquillity the great Church of Alexandria had been making no little progress. Her children had not been entirely undisturbed. The populace, and sometimes the magistrates, often did not wait for an imperial edict to set upon the Christians, and the commotions that followed the death of Commodus were the occasion of more than one martyr's crown. We learn from Clement of Alexandria, speaking of this very time of comparative quiet, that burnings, beheadings, and crucifixions took place "daily;"

whereby he seems to point to some particular local persecutions. But the Alexandrian Church, on the whole, was left in peace, and was rapidly extending herself among the student population of the city, among the Greeks, but, above all, among the poorer cla.s.ses of the native Egyptians. Christianity seems to have spread in Egypt with a {722} rapidity almost unexampled elsewhere, and historians have taken much pains to point out that this was the effect of the considerable agreement there is between the asceticism of the early Church and that of the native worship. Without discussing the point, we may note that rapidity of extension was the rule, not the exception, when an apostle was the missionary; and that the Alexandrian Church was founded by direct commission from St. Peter, and, therefore, shared with Rome and Antioch the distinction of being the mother-city of Christianity.

Moreover, the Nile valley, which above the Delta is nowhere more than eleven miles in width, contained a teeming population, the whole of which was thoroughly accessible by means of the river itself. For nearly five hundred miles every city and town, every least village and hamlet, stood right on the banks of the great water-way; and it is probable that half the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and the Thebaid were often floating on its bosom at one and the same time. The high road that was so serviceable for traffic and pleasure could be made of equal service to religion. How unweariedly the successors of St. Mark must have traversed it from end to end may be read in the history of those lauras and hermitages that at one time were to be found wherever its rocky barriers were indented by a sandy valley, and wherever the old builders of Thebes and Memphis had left a quarried opening in the limestone. There was not a stronger contrast between these monastic dwellings and the bosom of the gay river than there was between Egyptians Christian and Egyptians pagan. If the Church's converts rushed into the deserts and the caves, it was not especially because they liked them, but because there was absolutely no other means of getting out of a society not to be matched for immorality except, perhaps, by pagan Rome at its very worst. Of the number of Christians in Alexandria itself at the commencement of the third century we can only form an approximate judgment. On the one hand, Eusebius tells us that the Church had spread over the whole Thebaid. As the Thebaid was the southern division of Egypt proper, and, therefore, the most distant from Alexandria, we may safely say as much, at least, for the Delta and Middle Egypt. On the other hand, we are told by Origen that the Christians in the city were not so numerous as the pagans, or even the Jews. This will not appear surprising if we recollect that the Alexandrian Jews were more numerous, as well as richer and more powerful, than any other Jewish community in the world. We know enough to be quite sure that the Alexandrian Church was working quietly but vigorously. From the heads of the Catechetical school down to the humblest little child that was marked out by baptism in the great city of sin, there was a great work going on. The impulse that Pantaenus and Clement were giving was felt downward and around, and when Origen begins to rise on the scene, we can mark what an advance there has been even in the short twenty years since the death of Marcus Aurelius.