Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

have not been accustomed to find in Catholic writers. We for ourselves can hardly consent to call the Revolt of Islam one of "the literary works which have illuminated the nineteenth century," the light of which is the darkness of infidelity. But enough of fault-finding. We, notwithstanding the exceptions we have taken, prize Mr. McGee's book very highly. It has interested and instructed us. We assure the author that we shall always hail his literary success with pleasure, and that, if true to his country, his Church, and his faith, his continued success is certain, and an honorable fame awaits him.

3. The Written Word and the Living Witness: or Bible Question fairly tested. New-York: Casserly & Sons. 1844. 16mo. pp. 203.

THIS little volume consists of three tracts. The first, on the use of the Bible, by Fenelon, with illustrations by Rev. John Fletcher, D. D. The second is the celebrated pastoral charge of the Archbishop of Tours on the authority of the Church to interpret the Scriptures: the third is an article from the Dublin Review, on Protestant evidences of Catholicity, by Dr. Julius V. Höninghaus. The three together make a very interesting and valuable volume, which we commend to the serious attention of those who feel interested in the "Bible question," and have so much to say about keeping "the word of God from the people." As Fenelon is a great favorite with many Protestants, they may perhaps pay some attention to his statements. The article from the Dublin Review will afford them a lucid commentary on their doctrine of the sufficiency of private reason as the interpreter of the word of God.

We intended to discuss the Bible question at length in this number of our Review, but we have filled up our space with discussions which we considered more immediately interesting. Those who regret this are referred to the little volume before us.

4.- Saint Ignatius and his First Companions. By the REV. CHARLES CONSTANTINE PISE, D. D. New-York: Edward Dunnigan. 1845. 12mo. pp. 361.

A WORK finely printed and neatly done up, written in a style of great elegance and classical purity, on a subject that must make the coldest heart beat quick, and the dullest tongue grow eloquent.

Dr. Pise has done the cause of truth great service in publishing this work on Saint Ignatius and his first companions. It is well to let the public know somewhat of the character of the founder of the so much decried order of the Jesuits, and especially at this time, when the enemies of the Church at home and abroad are, if possible, fiercer than ever against them. All we ask of those who speak against the Jesuits is to read this book, and if they do not discover the clear and unmistakable marks of Divine interposition in establishing the Society of Jesus, they have a much duller vision than we have hitherto given them credit for. The obligations of the world to this truly Christian society are not easily told; but their deeds, their sufferings, their sacrifices, in the name of Jesus and for the greater glory of God, are registered where only they have cared to have them known; and they will be known one day to all the world, to the confusion of their revilers.

By

5. A complete System of Latin Prosody, for the Use of Schools, Colleges, and private Learners, on a Plan entirely new. PATRICK S. CASSERLY. New-York: Casserly & Sons. pp. 144.

1845.

WE can cheerfully recommend this work to all who wish to become acquainted with Latin Prosody. It is a work of great merit, and cannot fail to be of great utility to all Latin students.

6.

The Life of Godfrey William Von Leibnitz, on the Basis of the German Work of Dr. G. E. Guhrauer. By JOHN M. MACKIE. Boston: Gould, Kendall, & Lincoln. 1845. 16mo. pp. 288.

We intend returning to this work and its subject hereafter, and therefore only add now that the work is readable, and, in the main, may be relied on.

7.- The Beechen Tree. A Tale told in Rhyme. THOMAS, Author of "Clinton Bradshaw," etc. Harper & Brothers. 1844. 12mo. pp. 95.

By F. W.

New-York:

We rarely read poetry in these days, still more rarely our Amer

ican poets. We have a horror of all writing where every line begins with a capital letter. But we have read this poem, and with a good deal of interest and pleasure. The author has true poetic feeling and expression, and, did we not make it a rule never to commend a poem that sings of love, we would commend it to our readers. The tale, however, has a moral, and one that is worth learning.

8.- The Holy Bible translated from the Vulgate, diligently compared with the Hebrew, Greek, and other Editions, in divers Languages; the Old Testament first published by the English College at Douay, 1609, and the New Testament at Rheims, 1582. New-York: Edward Dunnigan. 1844. 8vo.

THIS is one of the best editions of the Bible ever published in this country. It is printed on excellent paper, on a type remarkable for its clearness and beauty, and is of a convenient size for a family Bible. The illustrations are appropriate, and of great artistic merit. Upon the whole, considering its low price, its convenient size, its typographical beauty, and the worth of its illustrations, it is the most desirable edition of the Holy Bible in English that can be obtained. We are happy also to learn that the publisher has found it quite successful, notwithstanding it is said Catholics are not allowed to keep or read the word of God.

9. The Sinner's Guide. By REV. F. LEWIS, of Grenada. Translated from the Spanish. Philadelphia: Henry McGrath. 1845. 8vo. pp. 400.

THIS work, judging from what little we have read of it, and from the high reputation it bears, is a work of great value, and worthy to be owned and read daily by every one who aspires to Christian perfection. We regret that our own personal acquaintance with the ascetic books of the Church is so limited. Till within a year, we had never read half a dozen Catholic books in our life, of any kind, dogmatic, polemical, or ascetic. It seems to us now, that all our life and study prior to our conversion to the Catholic faith was thrown away. Every day we find new treasures in Catholic literature of which we had no suspicion, and he who has once begun to taste the riches of this literature can no longer relish the Protestant; and in nothing can this be said with more truth than in refer

ence to the Catholic ascetic literature. The ascetic books of Protestants are cold and formal, dull and repulsive. They have nothing of the unction of the spirit. They are unspiritual and spiritless. They make virtue repulsive, hateful. Our Catholic ascetic writers, on the contrary, though stricter than Protestants, yet make virtue amiable, and while they hold up the cross to us, make us embrace it with affection. We commend this book, not only to all who are desirous of leading a holy life, but to all those Protestants who fancy the Catholic religion is a religion of mere forms.

10.—The Arguments of the Romanists, from the Infallibility of the Church and the Testimony of the Fathers, in Behalf of the Apocrypha, discussed and refuted. By JAMES H. THORNWELL, Professor of Sacred Literature and the Evidences of Christianity in South Carolina College. New-York: Leavitt, Trow, & Co. 1845. 16mo. pp. 417.

THIS work was sent to us by an esteemed friend in South Carolina, with the request that we would give it a thorough review. Although a reply to it may be expected from the Rev. Dr. Lynch of Charleston, S. C., against whom it is especially directed, we hope to be able to comply with the request of our friend in our next number. We are told the work is considered by the Presbyterians in South Carolina to be a great affair. We have read the book. It is Presbyterian from beginning to end, breathes the true John Knox spirit. The author, if he have not the spirit of Christian love, has at least its opposite, and is a most hearty hater. He has annexed two pages of errata; if he had annexed some two or three hundred pages, he would still have left in no small number of "typographical errors" to be corrected by the reader.

MR. CLERKENWELL not having forwarded his manuscript of the continuation of Edward Morton in season for the present number, the story will not be continued in the Review; but will be put to press as a separate work, in two volumes, 12mo., as soon as it is possible for the author to get it ready. We do not much regret this, because our readers may then have it all at once, and because other matters are so multiplying on our hands that we have hardly room for it in our Review.

BROWNSON'S

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

JULY, 1845.

ART. I. A Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion. By THEODORE PARKER. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown. 1842. 8vo. pp. 504.

We have nothing to add to the brief sketch we gave of the general character of the author of this volume in our last Review; and very little to say of the volume itself, as a simple literary production, detached from the system in exposition and defence of which it appears to have been written. It is loosely, and even heavily written, in a flippant and affected style, and sins hardly less against grammar and rhetoric than against piety and truth. It bears the marks of haste, and seems to have been hurriedly thrown together, from the author's commonplacebook and the fag ends of his sermons and discourses, and sent forth to the public without his having taken the time or the pains to melt his heterogeneous materials down into a common mass, or to think out, so to speak, the principles he had rashly adopted, in their systematic relations, and logical connexions and consequences. It is crude, confused; without method, order, systematic unity, or scientific development. As the production of a vain, conceited pedant and scoffer, it may pass; but as the production of a scholar, a theologian, a man ambitious of contributing to the literature of his country, and establishing a high literary and scientific character of his own, -the less we say

of it, the more shall we consult the credit of the author. But we are not concerned with the author, nor with his book, save so far as one or the other is connected with the system he attempts to set forth, and is to be taken as its exponent. This system we propose to examine, not simply the

[blocks in formation]

« AnkstesnisTęsti »