now the Quakers, and now the Catholics; John Calvin, George Fox, and the Jesuits!

-

But we have no room to sketch the character of Calvin or of Calvinists. M. Audin has here given us an authentic work, a conscientious work, an eloquent work, a profound work, in the preparation of which he has spared no expense of labor, research, or thought. Whoso would appreciate Calvin, Calvinists, or Calvinism, nay, the Reform itself, will find this book the one they want, and they may read it with full confidence that they are reading history, not fiction. They will find no charge against any one of the Reformers not sustained by public documents, by the Reformer's own writings, or those of his Protestant contemporaries. So far as we have been able to discover, nothing to the prejudice of one of the glories of the Reformation has been admitted on Catholic authority. The estimate given is really the estimate the Reformers had of themselves or of one another. M. Audin has done an invaluable service to the cause of truth in preparing it, and we owe a debt of gratitude to his translator for rendering it accessible to the American public.

In a critical mood, we should find some fault with the author on a few collateral points; less, however, in this work than in his previous one on Luther. He awards higher praise to the Catholics of the sixteenth century for their enthusiasm in regard to ancient literature and art, than we are willing to yield them. We can excuse this enthusiasm, but we cannot regard it as a merit. Pure Latinity, elegant Latin verses, a lively and just appreciation of the elegances of composition, of the exquisite beauties of ancient art, and of the embellishments of life generally, are all very well; but, after all, not matters of primary importance. And we confess that we have been accustomed to regard what M. Audin brings forward, as a great merit in the Catholic scholars of the sixteenth century, as one of the causes of the extension and success of the Reformation. The REVIVAL of heathen literature and art, and their cultivation by Catholics, to the neglect, in some degree, of the Christian, we think, is one of the things a Catholic has to lament; and we confess we have never been able to join in the praise of the Medicean family for the patronage they extended to them. Give us the Fathers and the Schoolmen, instead of the heathen. As a Christian, we prefer the Latin of St. Austin or of St. Thomas to that of Cicero, and the Greek of St. John Chrysostom to that of Plato or Demosthenes. We are barbarian enough to make the avowal, and are willing to bear all the ridicule it may incur from scholars. The Church was not instituted to make scholars, elegant writers, accomplished rhetoricians, but Christians eminent for their sanctity and solid piety.

M. Audin dwells more on the artistic phase of Catholicity than suits our taste. We know Protestantism has no art, no music, no painting, no sculpture, no architecture, and we denounce as severely as any one the Vandal spirit of the Reformers, who defaced, wherever they could, almost every monument of Catholic art, as well as of Catholic piety, zeal, and charity; but this, after all, is a small matter. The Church does not need artistic embellishments, and can dispense with them. It was not instituted to foster either literature or art. It indirectly encourages them, but only for the sake of God,-only as they may contribute to the worship of God or the growth of piety. When we defend the Church on the ground of the protection it has yielded to these, we concede too much to Protestant modes of thought, and defend her, in part, as we would a human institution, and thus contribute towards making up a false issue. We have but one reason for embracing the Church, but one ground on

which to rest her defence; that is, she is God's Church, instituted by Almighty God to be his organ for teaching and governing mankind, and it is only by coming within her pale and obeying her we can do our duty to God and our fellow-men, or save our own souls. The Church is this, or she is nothing. If she is this, here is reason enough for embracing her; and other reasons, however true they may be, do not strengthen this, but really weaken by obscuring it. Show us that Puritanism is of God, and we leave willingly the glorious old cathedral, as much as we love it, for the meetinghouse. A man cannot be a true Catholic, unless he is one simply in obedience to the positive command of Almighty God. We must believe, because Almighty God reveals and commands.

In a literary point of view, M. Audin's works have very high merit. The author is a man of learning, research, eminent ability, taste, and genius. But his works are written too much in the modern French style to satisfy our individual taste. We detest the modern French historical style. It is lively, brilliant, dramatic; but it wants solidity, dignity, truth. It affords a fine opportunity for the writer to display his parts, to employ his fancy, his imagination, his various reading; but it affords, also, every facility for the suppression or perversion of truth, to give false views through its dramatic representations, and leave on the reader a wholly false impression. Read Michelet, Capefigue, Barante, and even Thierry, and you will not doubt the truth of what we say. We know that M. Audin makes this style only the vehicle of truth; we know, also, that the writer, who would be extensively read and immediately useful, must in some degree conform to the reigning taste and fashion of his age and country; but this conformity should extend to as few points as possible. It is better to sacrifice immediate popularity and usefulness than to encourage a vicious mode. He who keeps to what is universal and permanent, which changes with no change of country, time, taste, or fashion, will be truest to the Church, and, in the long run, effect the most good, nay, will secure the most solid and durable fame, though this last is a small matter.

The work before us is exceedingly well translated. The translation is free, easy, tasteful, and appears to be faithful. A few Gallicisms may be detected, and now and then a word is adopted which is hardly English. But, upon the whole, the translation is highly creditable to Mr. McGill, and proves him an accomplished scholar. He would, however, have much enhanced the value of his volume, had he added, here and there, a few short notes explanatory of matters with which a large portion of his readers cannot be presumed to be familiar. We ourselves frequently felt, while reading it, the need of them.

One or two slight verbal criticisms we must offer. The translator uniformly uses Catholicism instead of Catholicity. Catholicism is not properly an English word, and we confess we like it as little as we should Christianism. It sounds too much like Calvinism, Lutheranism, &c., and places our holy religion in the category of the isms, where it does not belong. Catholicity is the proper English word. It is a word of the same class with Christianity, and of a class from which none of the sects can select a name. Catholicism seems to us a word which smacks a little of heresy, and we hope our writers, who seem to have unconsciously adopted it from the French, will studiously avoid it. The English language has so long been controlled and so modified by heretics and schismatics, that it is not without great labor and pains it can be made to discourse sound doctrine; and we cannot afford to forego the little of Catholicity it has

been suffered to retain. Before we became a Catholic, we ourselves used almost always the term Catholicism; but since, we find it grating on our ears. Mr. McGill is not peculiar in using this term. It is quite common, if not universal, in all the late English and American Catholic works we have seen; but we do not recollect to have met with it in a single one of the older English writers of the Church.

Another verbal criticism we must also make. In a few instances in Mr. McGill's translation, in many more instances in the translation of the Life of Luther, we find the infinitive following the verb ought used without the sign to, which is never allowable in English. This is so common in the translation of the invaluable work of Rodriguez on the Practice of Christian and Religious Perfection, made at Philadelphia a few years since, as to be really annoying. In regard to this last named work, we must also complain that the translator uses the plural pronouns and pronominal adjectives in the addresses to the Deity. This is necessary in French, but is not admissible in English, nor in any other language but the French we happen to be acquainted with; and to us, who speak no language but our mother tongue, it is offensive, wants reverence and solemnity. These are, indeed, small matters, and we rarely indulge in mere verbal criticisms; for we make no pretensions to any extraordinary verbal accuracy ourselves; and, moreover, we do not regard verbal inaccuracies as mortal sins. As a general thing, our Catholic writers use the English language more correctly and philosophically than Protestant writers do, as was admitted to us the other day by an eminent and learned Protestant scholar and minister. Nevertheless, now and then an inaccuracy escapes them, which only needs to be noticed to be avoided. As Catholics, we must study to restore the language as well as the faith of the English people.

2.

Miscellaneous Writings of George W. Burnap. Baltimore: J. Murphy. 1845. 12mo. pp. 343.

We have not read this book; we have merely glanced through it. We are tolerably well acquainted with the previous publications of the author, who is a very respectable Unitarian minister in Baltimore. He is a liberalminded gentleman, of some learning and considerable ability. But every thing he writes is spoiled by his Unitarian theology and philosophy, of which we have read and written enough in the course of our life, without occupying ourselves any further with it. Of the Unitarians, personally, we would always speak in respectful terms; for we found them, during our connection with them, a mild, amiable, and liberal portion of the community, — good friends and neighbours in the ordinary relations of private and social life. As theologians, of course, we cannot respect them. Yet give us, by all means, the Unitarians before the Calvinists; for it is not so bad to make God a man as it is to make him a demon. The book before us is got up in a very respectable manner, and very well printed for Baltimore, and would be well printed for Boston, if the printer had used better ink and employed a better pressman. We saw this work rather favorably noticed in the last Catholic Magazine. Was this owing to neighbourly feeling, and to the fact that it has a Catholic publisher? If a Catholic can reconcile it to his conscience, in the way of trade, to publish and sell a book which attacks and insults his faith, we cannot

reconcile it to ours as a critic to commend it. The Discourse on Church and State can receive from a Catholic only unqualified condemnation, for its No-Churchism, Individualism, and Rationalism. The author babbles of religious freedom, just as if there could be religious freedom where faith rests on human authority, whether the authority of the state, the public, or the individual! The author has not taken his first lesson in religious liberty.

3.

The Sinner's Conversion reduced to Principles. By F. FRANCIS SALAZAR, S. J. Arranged according to the Method of The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Philadelphia: Cunningham. 1845. 16mo. pp. 226.

THIS is a most excellent book, admirably adapted both for spiritual reading and meditation, and worthy to be in the hands of every one who aspires to a devout life. It would do even our Protestant friends no harm to possess it, to read and meditate it daily; for, if they would do so, after a while they would begin to suspect that Catholics do not wholly disregard practical piety. The work is very neatly printed, and does great credit to the publishers. We have detected a few typographical errors, which we hope pains will be taken to correct in a second edition, which will, we doubt not, soon be called for, if it has not been already.

The work, it will be seen, is by a Jesuit. It is by the production and publication of such works as this, that the Jesuits reply to the charges everywhere preferred against them. We were asked, the other day, by a worthy Protestant lady, who, we pray God, may not much longer be a Protestant, why it is that the Jesuits are everywhere the objects of such decided hostility. The answer is simple. "Whoever will live piously in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." The Society of Jesus has been, since its institution in the sixteenth century, the great instrument in the hands of Almighty God in rolling back the tide of heresy and infidelity, and extending the borders of the Church. It thus necessarily encounters the opposition of those three inveterate enemies of the Christian, — the world, the flesh, and the devil. It is everywhere instrumental in making men Christians, and therefore devoted to the Church. This is sufficient to excite against it all infidel governments, and all governments which seek to make the Church the tool of the State. But the order lives, and will live, and live to bless even its enemies.

4. Familiar Instructions in the Faith and Morality of the Catholic Church, adapted to the Use both of Children and Adults. Compiled from the Works of the most approved Catholic Writers. By the REV. JoSEPH CURR. Boston: Donahoe. 1845. 16mo. pp. 152.

Ir is enough to say, in commendation of this little manual, that it is published with the approbation of the Bishop of the Diocese of Boston. It will be found to contain a large amount of instruction simply and clearly given, admirably adapted to the more advanced classes in our Sunday Schools.

5.- Saul: a Mystery. By the Author of "Christian Ballads," "Athanasion," &c. New York: Appleton & Co. 1845. 12mo. pp. 297.

THIS work, we are told, is by a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church. How the author can reconcile it to his conscience to remain a member of that Church is more than we can understand. The work has very considerable poetic merit; the verse, in general, flows freely and at times harmoniously. We marked several passages, in reading, of rare beauty. Its great fault is its diffuseness. The author has great facility, and expands through a dozen lines what he ought to say in a word, — the common fault of nearly the whole race of our present English and American poets. Nevertheless, we have found Saul very pleasant reading. In doctrine and sentiment it is generally unexceptionable. The only fault we noticed, of much consequence, was that of making David fall in love with Abigail, while Nabal, her husband, was yet living. The whole love passage might have been omitted altogether. The passion of love has been sung and romanced upon quite enough, and quite too much, even when the sentiment is pure, for the morals of our people. The sentiment of love is sufficiently active without being stimulated by the poet's inspiration.

6. The Principle of Protestantism as related to the present State of the Church. By PHILIP SCHAF, PH. D., Professor of Church History and Biblical Literature in the Theological Seminary of the German Reformed Church. Translated from the German, with an Introduction. By John W. Nevin, D. D. Chambersburg, Pa. 1845. 8vo. pp. 215.

WE may take occasion hereafter to recur to this work at some length, for it is a work of some ability. The author is a Professor at Mercersburg, Pa., and has been quite recently imported from Germany. His pamphlet has made some noise, and produced some confusion. Its general character is easily guessed, when we say the Professor adopts, in the main, the views of Neander, and will be understood by the old readers of The Boston Quarterly Review, when we tell them that its doctrine is substantially the same we brought out in opposition to Mr. Parker in the last number of that work, October, 1842. It is simply, that the Christian revelation was given to us in the form, not of doctrine, but of life. This life received and cultivated by us expresses itself in doctrines, which will become more and more adequate expressions of the truth, in proportion as the life is more and more truly lived. Thus faith is not necessary to Christian life, but Christian life is necessary to faith. It is not necessary to believe the truth in order to live it, but it is necessary to live it in order to believe it. The objection to the doctrine is, that it begins at the end, and ends at the beginning. The error of the author, to use a homely illustration, consists in putting the cart before the horse, mon error with German theorizers.

not an uncom

The Professor says some true things about the Middle Ages, which we commend to Professor Park. But we do not thank the Professor for what he says. We tell him, Hands off! You Protestants have done nothing but calumniate the Middle Ages for three hundred years. We shall not suffer you now to claim them. They are our property. We have borne the reproach, and will not be robbed of the glory. You must