Bøger af Brother Hermenegild Tosf

MARRIAGE, as an institution of the law of Nature and of the Christian law, is a subject of the greatest importance, and one that calls for careful and wise explanation in every age. Questions regarding it are beset by many difficulties, as they involve the happiness and well-being of the married couple, of their children, and of the community at large. False teaching and theories concerning it strike at the root of the Christian family, and therefore are calculated to undermine the foundations of society and to destroy private happiness, public peace, and public morality, which depend so much for their maintenance upon marital fidelity and domestic purity. It is for these reasons that the Church of Christ has constantly exercised the authority divinely conferred upon her in providing, by her laws, for the due sanctity and protection of marriage. She has taught the world the inherent sacred character of marriage from its first institution: that Christ raised the contract of marriage to the dignity of a Sacrament; she has always maintained its unity and the indissolubility of the marriage tie, and has always reprobated and condemned the law of divorce, that fruitful parent of so many evils which lay, vaste families, deprave the morals of the people, and open out a way to demoralization in public as well as in private life. Outside the Catholic Church questions concerning this sacred institution are raised and discussed and settled, in their own fashion, by the statesman, the social student, and the Christian moralist; and, as regards all these, the only conclusion at which they ultimately arrive is that the contract of marriage is from first to last the creation of the civil law, and that divorce is a mere matter of expediency regulated by statute. According to Christian law, defined by the Church, marriage is not only a natural contract, but one of the seven Sacraments, and therefore subject to a higher authority than that of the State; and divorce is divinely prohibited, and therefore outside all human power. There is the question of property and temporal interests in connexion with marriage, which fall under the power of the State; and as these are often based on the rules of succession and the principles which determine legitimacy, the relations of Church and State in respect to marriage have to be considered and determined. Concord between both these parties is to be greatly desired in the sense laid down by Pope Leo XIII. in his Encyclical on Christian Marriage. He writes: 'No one doubts that Jesus Christ, the Founder of the Church, willed her sacred power to be distinct from the civil power, and each power to be free and unshackled in its own sphere: with this condition, however-a condition good for both, and of advantage to all men-that union and concord should be maintained between them; and that on those questions which are, though in different ways, of common right and authority, the power to which secular matters have been entrusted should, happily and becomingly, depend on the other power which has in its charge the interests of heaven. From these considerations it may be seen that a treatise on the Law of Christian Marriage, such as I have endeavoured to arrange and to put together in the present small volume, may be opportune at the present moment, when, perhaps more than at any former period of the Church's history, Christian citizens in general need instructions concerning the laws of marriage, and directions as to their practical issues. The Christian law of marriage must be founded on the principles taught us by Jesus Christ, as contained in the New Testament, and as explained and applied by the Church which He founded and commissioned to teach all nations.

On Death On the Terrors of Death On the Assaults of Satan at the Hour of Death On the Apparition of the Spirits of Darkness On the Fear of Hell On the Judgment The Last Judgment On the Signs That Shall Precede the Last Judgment On the Resurrection of the Dead On the Manner in Which the Good and Wicked Will Be Conducted to the Place of Judgment How All Men Will Await Christ's Coming in the Valley of Josaphat On the Appearance of Christ's Cross in the Heavens On the Advent of the Judge On the Manner in Which Christ Will Take His Place on the Judgment Seat On the Reason Why Christ's Appearance on the Day of Final Judgment Will Be Terrible, and on the Heinousness of Mortal Sin On the Manner in Which the Final Judgment Will Be Commenced On the Length of Time that the Final Judgment Will Last On the Publication of the Sentence Passed Upon the Good and the Bad How the Damned Will Ask In Vain For Mercy, And Will Be Cast Down Into Hell How the Blessed Will Go Up Into Heaven after the Judgment On Hell On the Fire Hell On the Hunger and Thirst Suffered in Hell On the Vile Odors of Hell Some Other Torments of Hell On the Company of Hell The Loss of the Beatific Vision of God The Worm That Dieth Not On Eternity On Heaven On the Nature of Heaven On the Joys of Heaven The Joys of Heaven On the Number of the Saved Conclusion

This little volume may be regarded as a Supplement to the Prayers of St. Gertrude (and St. Mechtilde). The list of the devoted admirers of these writings would be long and imposing. We might place at its head the name of the seraphic St. Teresa, who, we are told by Father Bibera, her confessor, had taken St. Gertrude as her mistress and guide. Louis of Blois Bpeaks of her, in his Monile Spitiuale, in terms of rapturous enthusiasm. Ianspergius, as we have already seen, translated the documents which contain the revelations and teachings of the Saint into Latin. 8t. Francis of Sales never speaks of her but with devout admiration. Cornelius a Lapide, in his commentaries on the holy Scriptures, calls her a consummate mistress of the meaning of the Holy Spirit. It would be easy to carry on this list through several pages; we will close it with the judgment of the holy and wise M. Olier, as we find it in his unpublished works: "St. Gertrude," says that man of God, "by reason of her simplicity and profound humility, induced our Lord to treat -her in a manner altogether singular, and to enrich .her with his best gifts. Her writings tend always to unite the soul to Jesus Christ, and differ in this respect from many works of contemplation, which rather withdraw the soul from its application to the holy Humanity of our Lord." The pious and learned Father Faber has brought out, with bis characteristic sagacity, the advantages of that form of spirituality which gives the soul breadth and liberty, and so produces in many persons effects which some modem methods fail of producing: "No one," says he, "can be at all acquainted with the old-fashioned Benedictine school of spiritual writers, without perceiving and admiring the beautiful liberty of spirit which pervades and possesses their whole mind. It is just what we should expect from an order of such matured traditions. St. Gertrude is a fair specimen of them. She is thoroughly Benedictine. A spirit of breadth, a spirit of liberty that is the Catbolie spirit; and it was eminently the badge of the old Benedictine ascetics. Modem writers for the most part have tightened things, and have lost by it instead of gaining. By frightening people, they have lessened devotion in extent; and by overstraining it, they have lowered it in degree." (All for Jesus)

THE following little book is intended as a sequel to the published by its compiler many years ago in a cutechetical form, entitled 'The Order and Ceremonial of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass explained in a Dialogue between a Priest and a Catechumen.' It will be found to contain a good deal of information already supplied by its predecessor; but the compiler has thought it better to risk the charge of superfluous repetition than to make constant references to a book which his readers might not have before them. It is hardly necessary to add that the present work, like that of which it forms the sequel, is intended, not for the direction of Priests or the information of experienced Catholics, but for the assistance of recent converts and non-Catholic inquirers. Though it presents what its compiler believes to be the most approved construction of the rubrics, his object has been that rather of exhibiting the general practice of the Church (except where otherwise noted) than of adjusting such practice with the proper standards. The care now bestowed in this country on the orderly conduct of Divine Worship goes far to supersede the necessity of any such adjustment. Two or three quotations have been made in the following pages from a volume of sacred poetry, lately published under the title of Lyra Liturgica. The object of that work 'was in many ways illustrative of the one now presented to the public; while not a little will be found in this manual which is illustrative of its poetical companion. By a comparison between these two works of one common author, the reader will at all events understand the light in which that author humbly conceives that the ceremonial provisions of the Church should be regarded; and thongh he docs not pretend that this light is the only true one, yet, in justice tn himself, and in the way of apology for so very mater of fact a treatise as the pre3ent. he thinks it but fair to ask that the technical and the meditative aspects of Ceremonial which he has thus tried to set forth should be used to explain one another.

The name of John Southworth will always hold a special place in the long list of the Blessed Martyrs who gave their lives for the preservation of the Faith of the Catholic Church in England. Of all those English Secular Priests who were martyred with such barbarous cruelty at Tyburn, of him alone do we possess the mortal remains. I t was to the interest of the persecutor that their mangled and dismembered bodies should be scattered to the winds, treated with every kind of ignominy, and forgotten as soon as possible. In the case of John Southworth, Providence intervened and has treasured for us the body which his soul made the instrument of heroic deeds of constancy, and of a glorious elide It is, at the same time, a lasting witness to the savage hatred shown by Protestant bigotry in those days to the champions of Catholic truth; a witness of special importance in these days when there is a tendency to gloss over the essential difference between Catholic and Protestant. When John Southworth lived and toiled and died, the difference was clearly known and fully acknowledged. In the case of every one of our Martyrs it is evident that, had they been willing to call them selves Protestants and give up the name of Catholic, to abjure the Mass and accept the Protestant 'Communion Service, ' none would have been brought to trial for treason, or put to death as a traitor. The issue was a purely religious one, and the charge of treason a miserable subterfuge, devoid of proof of any kind, whereby Englishmen, than whom none were ever more loyal to their country, were doomed to death because they were determined to give to God the things that are God's whilst they gave all allegiance to Caesar in the things that are truly Caesar's. Father Purdie is the fully accredited witness of the finding in Douay, and of the bringing to England, of the body of the holy Martyr. With great care he has compiled the record of his life. In so doing he merits the thanks of all those, both Catholics and Protestants, who are desirous of knowing the real history of the religious changes in England

It is generally recognised when a man first turns from one form of religious belief to another, or from a state of unbelief to belief of some sort, that an important element in the change of his mind is a sense of the beauty or of the consolations afforded by the new creed, or of the need in him which it answers, and his consequent wish to believe in it if possible. If we go back half a century to the Tractarian movement, we see in the history of all the leading minds which came over to the Catholic Church, that their love of the Church, their interest in its history, their sense of the union Rome so plausibly claimed with the Church of the past, or their admiration for the completeness of the Roman system, -all sources of a strong wish to believe in Rome if possible, -preceded by a considerable period their actual belief. Twelve years before Newman became a Catholic he wrote the following lines, well known to his admirers: - " Oh that thy creed were sound, For thou dost soothe the heart, thou Church of Rome, By thy unwearied watch and varied round Of service in thy Saviour's holy home." And the same feeling, or substantially the same, is apparent throughout the pages of the old " British Critic," which represented the opinions of the most active-minded of those who took part in the movement. And to go to what is unhappily a commoner case in our own day, the case of one who is destitute of firm belief altogether, who has been so much puzzled by the plausible objections of Mr. Huxley or Mr. Spencer against the possibility of knowing anything at all about God or a future life, that his mind is blank of any conviction whatever in the matter; it is commonly the case that, where religious belief is gained by such a one, his first step towards it is a sense of the need of it, of the assistance it would be to him if he could attain to it, of the importance of knowing that there is a God and a future life, and of guiding his life by that knowledge if perchance it is true, or other similar considerations. If there is no wish to believe, considering the difficulties with which every form of belief is beset, it seems plain that there will be no motive force sufficient to arouse the mind to active inquiry from the negative state which neither affirms nor denies, but remains passive, confessing that the whole thing is a riddle and a puzzle. But when believers admit that the natural and in most cases the necessary condition of coming to believe is a strong previous "wish to believe," their opponents come forward at once with a charge which seems very plausible. Your religion, they say, implies belief in a certain set of facts proved by evidence; this evidence is before all who take the trouble to look into it; the one necessary condition in order that it may be judged of rightly is that it should be viewed with absolute impartiality; that he who judges of its value should have a mind free from all prepossession in favour either of its sufficiency or of its insufficiency. But to suppose that it is necessary in order to believe that one should approach the matter with a strong wish to believe, is to acknowledge that belief is irrational. If an impartial judge finds the evidence insufficient, and one who has a wish to believe finds it suffice for him, it is plain that his belief is not reasonable, but is biassed by his wish; that his wish has been father to his thought

About twenty years ago a certain Benedictine Abbot suddenly ordered one of his monks, still young and inexperienced, to deliver before an important community the conferences usual in the course of the annual Retreat. As this Retreat coincided with the week of Pentecost, the monk thought that he could not do better than dmTIonstrate, from the manner of life of the primitive Christians immediately after the descent of the Spirit, the origin and model of the life that should be led by monks. So he took for his text the verses from the Acts of the Apostles ii. 37-46, not commenting upon the whole passage in order, but confining himself to the principal features which referred to his subject. The notes which he made for these conferences were for a long time forgotten, unless occasionally one of his brethren used them for giving spiritual exercises in his turn. Certainly, if the author had followed his own feeling, they would never have been used at all. But lately he has been obliged to consent that the substance of them should be published in a little review, called the Messenger of Saint Benedict, and this first publication, although fragmentary and lllixed up here and there with sketches on different subjects, has aroused in a certain number of people a strong desire to see the whole collected and brought out in its original form. After having resisted as long as he possibly could, the author at last gave way, thinking that it was his duty to put aside his personal disinclination for the sake of the spiritual advantage of his neighbour, which, he was told, rightly or wrongly, was concerned in this publication. Naturally, certain details have been eliminated which belonged to the particular conditions of the audience for whom these pages were prepared. But, on the other hand, the references of most of the texts and quotations have been added in notes. Of most of them only; for there are some which come from purely oral instruction-from Dom Gueranger, for example; from Maurus Wolter, and other great monks of our time. The author has no longer within his reach the works from which he borrowed two or three other quotations without always noting accurately the place whence they were taken. The reader must be so good as to trust him on this point, and believe that everything that he attributes to an author is really by that author. Having made the search for and worship of the truth the principal business of his life, he would never allow himself to deceive in this matter, even with a view to edification. Neither must it be forgotten that these pages were written long ago, and many points would have required completion. Perhaps, on the other hand, certain pages would not appear, if they had been written more recently. After all, there will not be nluch cause to complain of that. Origen says, in his eighteenth Homily on Exodus, that the preacher of the Gospel should have that enthusiasm and youthfulness of soul attributed to Judah in the "Blessings of the Patriarchs"- Oculi ejus rubri a vino. No coldness, no feebleness, no colourlessness in his language; but a kind of holy inebriation, something that rejoices the friends of God and heals the wounds of the soul. Happy are they who have received this gift of spiritual youth, and the power of communicating it! Happy, above all, are they, and much more rare, who have known how to preserve and cherish it, even to old age.

This is a three volume set and complete collection of Saint Teresa of Avila's letters. The letters of great people are the best revelation of their personality. This is particularly true of the letters of the Saints of God, who in their correspondence reveal the working of the Spirit of God in their hearts, in a way which their more formal works and treatises do not do so fully. Letters are obviously more personal and display the true spirit of the writer in action. In regard to the letters of St. Teresa it is true that they have long been known in various translations and editions, but anyone who will take the trouble to compare the former translations with this present edition cannot fail to be struck with a great change for the better in the manner in which St. Teresa displays her wonderful personality. She appears to us, if one may use the expression, much more human and sympathetic. The great master, Cardinal Newman, in his 'Historical Sketches': thus speaks of the importance of having a correct version of the correspondence of God's saints. 'The passage is so interesting that it is worth quoting at length. 'I confess to a delight in reading the lives, and dwel1ing on the characters and actions, of the Saints of the first ages, such as I receive from none besides them; and for this reason, because we know so much more about them than about most of the Saints who come after them... This is why I feel a devout affection for St. Chrysostom. He and the rest of theIn have written autobiography on a large scale; they have given us their own histories, their thoughts, words, and actions, in a number of goodly folios, productions which are in themselves some of their meritorious works. I do not know where else to find the daily life, the secret heart, of such favoured servants of God, unveiled to their devout disciples in such completeness and fidelity. Modern times afford some instances of the kind: St. Teresa is one of them .... I repeat, what I want to trace and study is the real, hidden but human, life, or the interior, as it is called, of such glorious creations of God; and this I gain with difficulty from mere biographies. Those biographies are most valuable both as being true and as being edifying; they are true to the letter, as far as they record facts and acts; I know it: but actions are not enough for sanctity; we must have saintly motives; and as to these motives, the actions themselves seldom carry the motives along with them.

Now every one will admit, that the "Art of dying Well" is the most important of all sciences; at least every one who seriously reflects, how after death we shall have to give an account to God of everything we did, spoke, or thought of, during our whole life, even of every idle word; and that the devil being our accuser, our conscience a witness, and God the Judge, a sentence of happiness or misery everlasting awaits us. We daily see, how when judgment is expected to be given, even on affairs of the slightest consequence, the interested party enjoy no rest, but consult at one time the lawyers, at another the solicitors, now the judges, and then their friends or relations. But in death when a "Cause" is pending before the Supreme Judge, connected with life or death eternal, often is the sinner compelled, when unprepared, oppressed by disease, and scarcely possessed of reason, to give an account of those things on which when in health, he had perhaps never once reflected. This is the reason why miserable mortals rush in crowds to hell; and as St. Peter saith, "If the just man shall scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" (1st of St. Peter, iv. 1) I have therefore considered it would be useful to exhort myself, in the first place, and then my Brethren, highly to esteem the "Art of dying Well." And if there be any who, as yet, have not acquired this Art from other learned teachers, I trust they will not despise, at least those Precepts which I have endeavoured to collect, from Holy Writ and the Ancient Fathers.

THE following play was written on the invitation of the late Dr. Wilkinson, Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle, for the occasion of the Centenary of St. Cuthbert's College, Ushaw; the music was composed by Mr. Sewell, now suborganist of Westminster Cathedral; and the whole was performed in the presence of the Archbishop of Westminster and many of the Bishops of England, in July 1908, by the students of Ushaw, under the management of the Rev. Father Bonney. The play itself, in all its essentials and most of its details, is in accordance with the facts of the Venerable John Bost's life and death; and in the Third Act, much of the dialogue is taken from a verbatim report of the trial. For the rest of the dialogue, care has been taken to follow, as far as possible, the spirit and temper of the time, as well as to represent as truly as possible the historical characters who appear upon the stage. The actual words of the death sentence have been modified. In the First Act, all the persons represented are, with the exception of the Porter, historical figures. In the Second Act all the characters are historical, as also in the Third Act, with the exception of the Clerk and the necessary supernumeranes. In the hunt for, and capture of, the martyr in the Second Act, care has been taken to follow accurately all the details, which have been minutely preserved. Apologies are due for the comparative incoherence of the plot, and the long periods that elapse between the Acts; but these defects are, unfortunately, a necessity of the case. As regards the costumes and scenic arrangements, these were made as much in accordance with historical accuracy as possible. Grateful acknowledgments are due to Father Goldie's admirable articles on the martyr, published in the Ushaw Magazine, without which the play could not have been written.

With reverence and sweet and gentle love, I pray that Christ Jesus will guard from the sin of unbelief anyone who comes to know of this little work which I made with the divine help and not attribute to the vice of presumption nor take amiss any error in this present little book. I am the least puppy barking under the table of the honorable and refined servants and sisters of the immaculate lamb Christ Jesus, sister of the monastery of the Body of Christ in Ferrara. I, the above mentioned puppy, wrote this by my own hand only for fear of divine condemnation if I were silent about what could delight others. (2) I also intend that, as I tell the sweet memory of the saints of the past in their books, each creature ought to make itself praiseworthy in its creator through the manifestation of the divine Providence conferred upon it by the divine Creator. (3) In this, one will know globally the infinite charity of our Lord God when, through his mercy, he deigns to help and conserve his creation each day, keeping it safe amid accidents and frequent dangers. (4) And, by this, we have an increase of our faith in him, our God the true maker, knowing him to be the conservator of this, his own creation. Thanks be to God. Amen. (5) In the name of the eternal Father and of his only begotten Son Christ Jesus, of the splendor of the Father's glory, for love of whom, with jubilation of heart, I cry, saying to his most refined servants and spouses: Let every lover who loves the Lord Come to the dance singing of love, Let her come dancing all afire Desiring only him who created her And separated her from the dangerous worldly state ...

THE age is out of joint. Men run to and fro to find the truth. The future lies hid in obscurity and thick darkness. The wide world seems afloat. The question, Has man a destiny, and what is it? agitates the souls of all men. It would seem that God had never made known to man his destiny, or that man had missed the way that leads to it. Who will bring the light of truth once more to dawn upon the soul? Truth that will give to man life, energy, and, purpose worthy of his- noble and Godlike capacities? One thing we can truly say of the following sheets; they are not idle speculations. Our heart is in them, and our life's results. That they may be a means to answer life's problem to earnest souls, is our only ambition. With this, knowing that truth is never spoken in vain, we send them forth.

The Rite of the Consecration of a Bishop in the Catholic Church according to the Traditional Rite of the Pontificale Romanum in Latin and English.

While the booming cannons-and pealing bells were announcing during the past year that a quarter of a century had fled since the defeat of the temporal power of the Papal Government by force of arms at the Porta Pia, is it not an appropriate time to give a few thoughts also to the victory which the Papacy won in that same year, in the spiritual field? The war concerning the prerogatives of the Pope which was ended by this victory in favor of infallibility was a long one, extending over centuries, prosecuted on one side against enormous odds with all the sagacity and vigor which has become identified with the name of the Society of Jesus, and on the other hand with all the learning and piety associated with the name of Gallicanism. Twenty-five years may seem perhaps too short a time to estimate the full effect of a victory, so important that men have been willing to toil through centuries for its achievement; but the task is lightened by the fact that the Roman Catholic Church. during the greater part of this time, had for its head a pontiff of the extraordinary enterprise, vigor and learning of Leo XIII., who has not hesitated to use to its fullest extent what was probably the greatest opportunity for the exercise of power ever given to mortal man, by outlining the future of Roman Catholic thought, in all the chief departments of human life. As Leo XIII. possesses also the unrestricted power of selecting the men who will nominate his successor, and has had the similar right.of nominating directly or indirectly the bishops, clergy and teachers for the whole Church during the long period of his pontificate, it seems most improbable that any attempt to alter the plan laid out by him for the Church's development would be made, even if the very idea of the infallibility of its author did not negative the possibility of a retreat or of even a criticism. Moreover irresolution is certainly not a vice of the school which has struggled so long and successfully for papal predominance, and when we see the first use made of this power to be in furtherance of the primary doctrines of De Maistre, Cortes and Gousset, we can safely assume that this course will not be changed until the attempt has been made to realize in practice their ultimate conclusions.

This is a Latin and English version of Pascendi with a commentary afterwards. It is an excellent presentation of this most important Encyclical. A deplorable and dishonorable tendency common enough in every age of the history of Christianity, but especially conspicuous at the present hour, leads certain minds to avow loudly their allegiance to the Catholic Church and to parade their professions of loyalty to her institutions in order that they may the more effectively rend her unity by heresy and schism. They may not all be equally conscious of the drift of their agitation or of the depth and dangers of their treason. Carried away by their enthusiasm for mistaken methods of reform, held in bondage by their subserviency to false systems of philosophy, viewing history and institutions in the warm glow of sentiment and emotion instead of in the cold, white light of intelligence, they are tossed about by every wind of doctrine, after having cast to the waves the guidance. of reason, authority and tradition. Their books and pamphlets are generally written in a captivating style, because most of their statements derive substance, form and color from incandescent imaginations and are confessedly exempted from conforming to the laws either of inductive or deductive logic. It has been well said that while God in the beginning created men in His image, men now create Him in their image. The Modernists' conception of Him, His attributes and our relations to Him are a factitious product, a sort of Stromata, to borrow the title of one of Clement of Alexandria's works, formed out of the most heterogeneous philosophical theories. The idea of Contingency associated with the name of M. Boutrox, Herbert Spencer's Relativity, Newman's principle of Development, Loisy's Kenotic hypothesis, the Pragmatism of Professor James and Blondel's Philosophy of Action are blended together in a manner that recalls the ingredients of the caldron by which the witches foretold the fortunes of Macbeth in the cave on the blasted heath. But the unifying, controlling and organizing principle of their system is to be sought in Kant's teaching concerning the limitations of Our Reason and the authority of Conscience. The following passage, written more than four years ago by the Rev. William Turner, S. T. D., in his "History of Philosophy," exactly describes the dependence of Modernism on the Critical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant:

Another novel by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson

This is a basic presentation of the Catholic Faith from the aspect of the Apostle's Creed, especially the Ninth Article: I believe in the Catholic Church. Let us consider some of the chapter headings: How many Churches did Christ establish?- By what Marks is the Church of Christ easily known? - Which Church is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic? Show how the Catholic Church is One Show how the Catholic Church is Holy What does the Word Catholic mean? Show how the Roman Church is Catholic, or Universal Show how the Catholic Church is Apostolic. Why is the Catholic Church called Roman? Did this Power of the Pope also include the Power to depose Temporal Rulers? Can Protestant Sects claim to be One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic? If, then, only the Roman Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, what follows? Is the Faith of the Roman Ca.tholic Divine or Human? Do Protestant Sects teach Divine Faith on Divine Authority? Will such Human Faith save them? Must, then, all who wish to be saved, die united to the Catholic Church? Who are not members of the Roman Catholic Church? Why are those Persons lost who have been justly excommunicated, and who are unwilling to do what is required of them before they are absolved? Would it be right to say that one who was not received into the Church before his Death is damned? 285 Will all Catholics be saved? What do we beliove when we say, "I believe the Holy Catholic Church"?

IT will be scarcely necessary to recommend a work by Mgr. Leroy to those who have known what his record is as a prelate of action, a man of learning, an effective wielder of the pen. In presenting to them and others an English version of his book Credo we can offer the assurance that it is marked by a threefold character conformable to that which we have just ascribed to the author. It is a brief, pointed, business-like, but by no means heartless, setting forth of the entire field of Catholic Christian belief; a treatment of theological problems and practical duties in a form well calculated to meet the wants and appeal to the judgment of the busy man or woman of the world as we know it. Its merits of matter and form have been fully recreated in the version now offered to the public. So large is the field covered by the revered author and so precise are his details that some slight modifications have been deemed advisable in order to fit the work perfectly to its new circle of readers. A few particularities have been omitted; a few brief phrases have been expanded in one or two passages (as that explaining the Sixth Precept of the Church), and care has been taken to conform the language to the latest official declarations. It is hoped that in its new garb the work of the eminent French missioner and prelate will continue among Catholics and non-Catholics of the English-speaking world the career of usefulness for which it has been happily distinguished.

It will not be difficult to see the common purpose of these Studies. Read only the critics, whether Rationalist or Christian, and it would seem that the Gospels must always be surrounded by at least some element of doubt. Read the Gospels themselves, and they are their own convincing witness. External difficulties can always be raised against them, some of which can never be solved; not because they are insoluble, but because the corresponding external evidence is lost. But such difficulties, at their best or worst, are never more than negative or circumstantial; they do not touch, nor do they usually attempt to touch, the positive truth which the Gospels contain on every page, for one who is willing to see. It has been the writer's aim to illustrate this, by drawing out a few of the threaas of the Gospel Witness to itself. The witnesses considered are Saint John the Evangelist, Zachary, The Blessed Virgin Mary, the people in Nazareth, the people in Galilee, the Apostles, the lawyers, Pontius Pilate and ultimate Almighty God.

Kurth begins with the Mission of the Church. He then considers the relation of the Church with the Jews. The next turning point is the Church and the Barbarians. This is followed by the Church and Feudalism. Neo-Caesarism follows as a turning point. Soon the Church must deal with the Renaissance. This is followed by the Church and the Revolution. The Mission of the Church opens: "In the history of mankind considered as a whole, there are two grand divisions. On the one hand, there is the ancient world seated in the darkness of death; on the other hand, the modern world which advances in the light of the Gospel. This is, beyond compare, the greatest fact of history." The Church then deals with the Jews, stepping out beyond Judaism to become a universal religion. "This goes to show that the Christians had adopted without misgiving the common belief in the eternity of the Roman civilization. Whatever the pretensions of their persecutors, the Christians were not less patriotic than the pagans, though in another way, and their religious belief contained nothing contrary to their convictions as citizens. Nay more, they found in their sacred volumes passages which seemed to confirm this conviction in a marvelous manner. For what was that fourth and last empire foretold by Daniel, and compared to iron to symbolize its indestructible duration, but the Roman Empire. This belief in the eternity of the Roman Empire was, in away, part and parcel of their faith; in fact, it was adduced by the first apologists as an unanswerable proof of their patriotism. "How", said one of them, "could we desire the end of the Empire, since thereby we would desire the end of the world'"" And thus we consider the barbarians who had to be civilized. Feudalism then became the danger, when the secular authority wished to interfere with the authority of the Church and to control the Church for its own ends. And this was the problem of feudalism. On Neo-Caesarism we read: "Who then was the mysterious and terrible enemy that was about to upset Christian and change the course of civilization. It was the Lay State, a new and conquering power which preceding centuries had not known. It rose suddenly, like a giant, to face the Papacy and provoke it to mortal combat. Armed from the beginning with a theory from which it deduced its omnipotence, this Lay State claimed the adherence of its followers with the authority of an unquestionable dogma, though in reality it had no other principle than force; it began against the Church of Christ the long drawn out combat which has not yet neared its end, and whose fluctuating fortunes remained for our descendants the most solemn problem of history." Kurth comments on the evil of Neo-Caesarism: "It was, first of all, the destruction of what has been called the Christian Republic of the Middle Ages. Up to then Europe was strongly united not only by the identity of religious beliefs but also by the identity of political maxims. It connected public right with Christian morality, and recognized as the interpreter of the latter the Vicar of Jesus Christ. From the time of Philip the Fair it was so no more. There was no longer a Christian Republic, as was evidenced by the disappearance of what was its wonderful manifestation-the Crusades." The Renaissance soon follows with its own problems, including the Protestant Revolt. Let us consider the Revolution, which remains with us to this day: "If conditions were such, how explain this atrocious Revolution, this hideous debauch, whither sacrilegious folly and sanguinary impiety led dismayed humanity for years. ... Are they the tragical phases of that gigantic struggle between two powers which is going on forever for the possession of society-the struggle between good and evil, between truth and error, between God and Satan."

THIS little book is intended to supply not so much matter for controversy as a certain amount of information about the Orthodox Church. People in the West have too long forgotten that enormous mass of their fellow Christians who live on the other side of the Adriatic Sea and the river Vistula, and now that Anglicans especially have begun to take an interest in what they look upon as another branch of the Church, it seems regrettable that English Catholics as a rule have only the vaguest and the most inaccurate ideas about the people whom they confuse under the absurd name of "Greeks." During the late war one saw how widespread were such ideas as that the Russian clergy were under the Patriarch of Constantinople and said Mass in Greek. It is chiefly with the hope of rectifying such mistakes that the book has been written. There is nothing in it that has not been said often and better before, and the only excuse for its publication is that there does not seem to be yet anything of the kind from the Catholic point of view in English. As it is written for Catholics I have generally supposed that point of view and have not filled up the pages by repeating once more arguments for the Primacy, Infallibility of the Pope and so on, such as can be easily found already in the publications of the Catholic Truth Society. ... The other point is the use of the word Orthodox. Since the schism I have called the people in union with the Ecumenical Patriarch so. Of course the name then has a special and technical meaning. Orthodox in its real sense is just what we believe them not to be, But, in the first place, it seems impossible to find any other name. Eastern is too wide, the Copts and Armenians form Eastern Churches, Schismatic involves the same difficulty, besides being needlessly offensive. We do not in ordinary conversation speak of Protestants as heretics. The name commonly used, Greek, is the worst of all. The only body that ever calls itself, or can with any sort of reason be called the Greek Church, is the Established Church of the kingdom of Greece j and that is only one, and a very small one, of the sixteen bodies that make up this great Communion. To call the millions of Russians, who say their prayers in Old Slavonic and obey the Holy Synod at Petersburg, Greeks is as absurd as calling us all Italians. There is no parallel with our name Roman. We use the Roman liturgy in the Roman language and obey the Roman Patriarch. They use the Byzantine liturgy in all sorts of languages, and the enormous majority obey no Patriarch at all. Byzantine Orthodox would more or less correspond to Roman Catholic, but the Byzantine Patriarch has no jurisdiction outside his reduced Patriarchate and occupies a very different position from that of the Roman Pope. And then courteous and reasonable people generally call any religious body by the name it calls itself. We have no difficulty in speaking of Evangelicals in Germany, the Church of England at home, and the Salvation Army everywhere. Of course one conceives these names as written in inverted commas, like those of the Holy Roman and the Celestial Empires. In the same way most people call us Catholics. Naturally all Christians believe that they are members of the Universal Church of Christ, and most of them profess their faith in it when they say the Creed. The way in which High Church Anglicans have suddenly realized this and have discovered that they would give away their own case by calling us Catholics is astonishingly naive. Of course they think that they are really Catholics too so do all Christians. And we never imagined that we are called so except as a technical name which happens to have become ours, and which even Turks give only to us. The body about which this book treats always calls itself the Orthodox Eastern Church, and in the East we call them Orthodox and they call us Catholics, and no one thinks for a moment that either uses these names except as technical terms.

This book has been written mainly for Religious persons, in view of placing briefly before them what may be termed the science of their profession, as contained in the inspired Word proposed by Ollr Divine Master, and handed down from the early ages of Christianity through the Fathers of the Desert, and the Church, the Doctors of the Middle Ages, and the Saints and Spiritual writers of later date, to our own times. For, although it be certain that not the hearers of the Law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified, "we are none the less admonished that he that hath looked into the perfect law, and continued therein, not becoming a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. The principal scope of the Treatise is to show that the whole work of our perfection is reduced to the development of the one central virtue of LOVE, namely, the habit of Divine Charity, as being the spring of our actions, and the soul of the virtues in the supernatural order; on which all the laws of God rest, wherein they are all contained, and to the perfection of which they all tend. And, further, to bring forward the important and practical teaching of S. Thomas, and S. Bonaventure, that the Spirit of God working in us through the medium of His own virtue of love; thus governing us according to our nature, which moves by means of love, freely, readily, and sweetly. Doubtless, the tendency of our day is rather to extroversion than introversion. But seeing that the operations of man follow his nature, according to the well-received adage of the schools, if the outer works of life are to be done according to God," must not the inward springs of action in mind and heart be first formed according to Him, by means of His Divine wisdom and love? Let it not, therefore, be said that attendance to the interior is incompatible with the requirements of outer life. Rather let it be acknowledged that human life is lamentably disordered-out of order to its end-and that souls must be made to return again (as the Prophet of old cried) to the inmost heart, the spring of spiritual life and action- Return, transgressors, to the heart." If the exterior is to be reformed, the interior must be reformed: nor IS there any better way of securing right order, justice, fidelity to duty, and Charity to God and to men, than by going to the root of action, which is love. As the spring of the watch regulates the movement of the hands, so the love of God regulates the works of life: and orders the soul securely to its eternal life: since Charity, affective and effective, is God's own life, and the everlasting life of the Blessed in heaven; and IS begun in time, to be consummated in eternity.

My Mother St. Teresa was a remarkable poetess because she was a great Saint. All the Saints are poets, although not all have left us written in rhythmic cadences the ardent sentiments of their deified souls. The foundation of poetry is truth, its distinctive trait is sentiment; its attractive gala apparel is lent to it by the imagination. An inspiration suddenly surprising one's spirit, envelops it in a nimbus of light and moves it deeply. Behold the soul of poetry! At its light all the faculties of the soul awaken, and the warmth that they irradiate communicates itself to the fancy, the heart, perhaps to the very senses; and thus, all the vital forces concentrating on the object that awakened them, the spirit sings or weeps, that is, feels itself a poet. Truth is to souls what the sun is to creation. Its light is always the same, but its effects are very different and even opposite, according to the point upon which this light is projected. If the luminous rays fall upon a quagmire, they cause germs to develop and with them poison the air we breathe. When inspiration alights upon an ignoble soul, it also becomes very dangerous, for the powers aroused within are placed at the disposal of an evil purpose; and there is nothing more dangerous than perverted genius. With the germs their light has caused to spring from the dregs of the heart or the mire of the senses, they poison the moral atmosphere and may envenom numberless souls. Saint Teresa of Jesus was thus familiar with the manner of intercourse with God; she, who figures in the first rank of the happy choir of the souls most loved by God; she, the Angel of purity, the Seraph of love and Cherub of celestial wisdom; the thrice adorned spouse, the chosen disciple and beloved daughter of Jesus, must needs be a poetess, for it is not possible to be nearly always in conscious union with infinite Truth and not become rapt in the splendors of His divine light; to feel the constant presence of that infinite Beauty and not become sweetly captivated by it; to have a foretaste of the sweetness of that life above, and not experience a weariness and sadness, and feel a dislikefor the things below-to feel one's self so tenderly caressed as a daughter of God and not to be filled with unshakable hope in His divine promises. Saint Teresa of Avila writes: "Let nothing trouble thee, Let nothing affright thee. All things are passing; God only is changeless. Patience gains all things, Who hath God, wanteth nothing, God alone sufficeth. Let us consider this thought from the author: "Here is the dividing line that separates naturalism or rationalism from Catholicism. The former wants to establish harmony in our being, by quenching all idea, all sentiment of the infinite; erasing all traces of God imprinted in our souls. It pretends to counterbalance this most distressful world of the human spirit, not by raising what is less noble to what is most perfect and lofty; but on the contrary by lowering what is highest to what is less perfect, the spirit to matter. It takes away the infinite element, so that having, unlike the brute, more than material and coarse elements, tendencies and aspirations, we shall have in our soul a clear distinction between virtue and vice, between the temporal and eternal, between the aspirations and our effort to satisfy them."

ACTS is the name that has been applied from the earliest times of Christianity to the records of all that concerned the last days upon earth, the judicial examinations, the sufferings and death, the sayings and doings, of the Martyrs. Everything that belonged to those who gave their lives for God and were the champions of the Church, was most highly prized; and certainly the example of their constancy and fidelity was not less held in esteem than the material relics of their bodies, their property, or the instruments of their martyrdom. The Church took pains to secure faithful narratives of what befell her most glorious children, and the first duty of the Notaries was to see to the compiling of such records. These were read in the assemblies of the Faithful, and we have still traces of them in the historical Lessons of the Breviary. The various persecutions, however, rendered the preservation of these official Acts very difficult, for they were eagerly sought after, and, whenever the tyrant could obtain possession of them, . Destroyed, together with the Sacred Books. Not official records only were called "Acts," but the use of the word was extended to" include similar narratives of martyrdoms and of the events preceding them, though drawn up without authority by private individuals. This ha s in fact come to be the admitted meaning of the tenn. The splendid collection due to the unwearied industry of the Bollandists goes by the name of the Acta Sanctorum. In this sense the word is used in the title of this. volume. There is nothing official in these records. They are documents collect.ed together. for biographical purposes, and they are here printed in their integrity that the reader may not only know something more than has hitherto been known of the Martyrs themselves, but also of our sources of information respecting them. Hitherto the English reader has practically been. limited to Bishop Challoner's Memoirs of Missionary Priests for his knowledge of the holy men, not priests only, but laymen, too, in full proportion, who, under Elizabeth and her successors, gave their lives for their religion. That book, which was compiled with the most conscientious care by the good Vicar Apostolic of London in the last century, has kept alive the memory of the Martyrs. Until comparatively recent times it was a popular book amongst English Catholics, but of late years literary taste has so changed that it has fallen into neglect. The time has come when a new book is required to take its place. The Lives of the English Martyrs must be rewritten, and the present volume is a contribution towards that work, and will make its execution comparatively easy. The documents in this volume are hitherto unpublished. In one or two instances a document quoted by Challoner finds place among them, in order that the reader might have the full story before his eyes, and now and again a paper has been printed here, though it has previously appeared in Brother Foley's Records; but these cases are so rare, that they do not prevent the series of papers from rightly bearing the title of "Unpublished Acts." Two different collections of these documents were possible, and each in its own way was desirable. For the Cause of the Canonization of the Martyrs it would have been most useful that a volume should have appeared in all respects resembling the two grand volumes, called Records of the English Catholics, for which we are indebted to the zeal and diligence of the Fathers of the London Oratory. Nothing could have been. better for the purpose of the Postulators of the Cause of the English Martyrs than that the documents now published should have appeared, each in its own original language, edited with the care and skill that the Oratorian Fathers have brought to bear on their volumes. But such a book would not have been popular, and another form seemed necessary if it was to help to spread a knowledge of the sufferings of our Martyrs amongst Catholics in gener

Three enemies are considered, Heathenism, Heresy and Freemasonry. Then Father Muller goes on to detail the unfortunate death of an enemy of the Church: IT may seem to some a useless task to speak here of the miserable end which generally overtakes the persecutors of the Church. Those who are guilty of persecuting Christ in his members, or by trying to destroy his religion, are, as a rule, deaf to all warnings. "Children of darkness, " as St. Peter would say, "they are the blind and the leaders of the blind. " "We should abandon them to themselves," says our Holy Father, Pius IX. "Preach not to those who will not hear you." It is, indeed, not easy to teach the world, it has so little discernment, and its memory is so feeble. Like the foolish Egyptians of old, it neither understands its present calamities, nor remembers those which are past. "Whilst they were yet morning," we are told, "and lamenting at the graves of the dead, they took up another foolish device, and pursued them as fugitives whom they had pressed to be gone." (Wisd. Xix, 3.) It was impossible to do anything for such people, except to make an end of them. They were simply not to be taught. Nothing remained for them but the Red Sea. They lost the remembrance of those things which had happened, that their punishment might fill up what was wanting to their torments. " It was not a cheerful destiny, but, as Egypt was incorrigible, it could expect no other. The world has had many lessons since then, but has always made, and continues to make, little use of them! Egypt is a type of the world, as Israel was of the Church. It was not till darkness covered the whole earth, and the veil of the temple was rent in twain, that even the spectators on Mount Calvary began to suspect that something unusual had happend. Lifeless nature groaned, but not they. They chattered and wagged their heads at the foot of the cross, just as if they had been infidels of the nineteenth century; and though they were frightened for a moment, they. soon forgot their alarm, and most of them lived in the future exactly as they had lived in the past. Even the most extraordinary miracles had not much instruction for them.

Two editions of this little book, one in New York, in the summer of 1824, and the other in. London, in the spring of 1825, are gone by; though it had to run against the laws and institutions of both the new and old worlds; against the strongest adversaries, ambition and avarice, the root of all evils: though it went to eradicate deep rooted and long-standing abuses, it has passed on without any reply or open opposition from any quarter. Nay, I have often heard from learned priests and lawyers, Catholics and Protestants, that "a reply was impossible." Hollow murmur, it must be confessed, always came from the persons whose errors and abuses it went to expose; but they thought proper to confine their discontent within the narrow limits of private conversation; never, never, giving it vent in print or in publication. What cause to me for gratulation! This book written almost two centuries ago is even more pertinent today in a world economy that runs on OPM (other people's money), which is lent at interest. Let us consider some excerpts from this work Aristotle says, "It is optional to every person to acquire gain by fruit or animals, but the mode of reaping money by money is justly to be reprehended, as being inconsistent with nature. Money is invented as a circulating medium, but usury goes to increase and multiply it." ST. AUGUSTINE, on Psalm xxxvi. 26, "If you lend your money to a man from whom you expect more than you gave, not money alone, but any thing else, whether it be wheat, wine, oil, or any other article, if you expect to receive any more then you gave, you are an usurer, and in that respect reprehensible, not praiseworthy." ST. JEROME says, "Some persons imagine that usury obtains only in money; but the scriptures, foreseeing this, have exploded every increase, so that you cannot receive more than you gave. Others, likewise, have the habit of receiving gifts of various descriptions for the usurious loans, not understanding that the scriptures calls usury also increase whatever that be, if they receive any thing more than they had given." The Council of Lateran says, "As the crime of usury is detested in both Testaments" we do not see that any dispensation could obtain on the measure; because the Scriptures forbid telling a lie, even to save a man's life, much more is man forbidden to involve himself in the crime of usury, even to redeem the life of a captive." Hence, the school divines have branded the practice of taking interest, as being contrary to the Divine Law, both natural and revealed; and the Canon Law has Proscribed the taking any, even the least increase for the loan of money, as mortal sin.

SIR TOBIE MATTHEW, priest, Jesuit, and Knight, was born at Salisbury, 3 October, 1577, and was the eldest son of Dr. Tobie Matthew, then Dean of Christchurch, Oxford, who subsequently became Anglican Bishop of Durham, and finally Archbishop of York. His mother was Frances Parker, widow of the Rev. Matthew Parker, who was a son of the Archbishop of Canterbury of that name. Her father was William Barlow, Bishop of Chichester, the reputed consecrator of Matthew Parker, the founder of the new Anglican hierarchy. Dr. Tobie Matthew, the father of Sir Tobie, was the son of John Matthew, a Bristol merchant, a member of the ancient family of the Mathews of Glamorgan, who traced their descent from Cunedda, the over-king of all Wales, ancestor of Gwaethvoed Vawr, Prince of Cardigan, the progenitor of Sir David Mathew of Llandaff, and of the Earls of Landaff of Thomastown, Co. Tipperary. This family, for many generations powerful in South Wales, remained for the most part true to the ancient Faith all through the troublous times of the Reformation, and the evil days that succeeded it. John Matthew of Bristol and his wife, however, conformed to the new religion, under pressure of the Penal Laws of Elizabeth. Yet they were strongly opposed to the ultra-Protestant opinions embraced by their son, and did their utmost to prevent his entry into the Anglican ministry. He, however, followed the advice of clerical friends and became a clergyman, later on to be noted for his vigorous repression of Catholicism in the North of England, his severity towards "Popish recusants," and his activity in preaching, chiefly polemical discourses, in every portion of his extensive dioceses. Tobie was ordained by Saint Robert Cardinal Bellarmine in Rome after his conversion to the Catholic Faith. This is the story of this conversion from Protestantism to Catholicism.

"The will grows into love, love becomes charity, and charity develops into wisdom." This is one of many gems in this book. "The love which we owe God is fourfold and entire. In that He says He will be loved 'with all thy heart', He demands our will. 'Will all thy strength' implies the virtue of charity, and 'with all thy mind' means the enjoyment of wisdom. It is the will itself which first moves the soul towards God, and love carries it onward. Charity contemplates Him and wisdom enjoys Him."

THE practice of the Month of the Souls in Purgatory is spreading more and more. It bids fair to become as popular as that of the month of Mary. Its origin is very ancient, and, under a different form, we find it among the Jewish people, long before the Christian era. The proof of this we find in religious journals of our period, and especially in the Opinion du Midi, a French paper. Some years ago, the Abbe Serre, director of an Archconfraternity for the relief of the souls in Purgatory, established at Ninles, thus expressed himself in the above-mentioned journal: "Under the ancient Law the month of the Dead was one of the most general and one of the most usual forms of prayer for the deceased; indeed, devotion towards the dead appears to be one of the most remarkable rites among the Jews. It was decreed after the death of the patriarch Jacob that his sons should mourn him for thirty days. It was the same on the death of the high-priest Aaron, and of his brother Moses; mourning for thirty days was renewed, and the people of Israel believed that they could not better testify their gratitude to these two great men than by offering to God supplications for their souls during a whole month. "This pious practice of praying for the departed during an entire, uninterrupted month became so deeply rooted among the chosen people that Scripture assures us mourning is only complete when the deceased has been sorrowed over during thirty days. 'This period, ' says the historian Josephus, 'has been recognized by all the Doctors as just and proper to weep over the loss of those dear to us.' So the Catholic Ch urch, which, from Apostolic times, has shown so much solicitude for her deceased children, never ceasing to pray for them, has also specially encouraged mourning for one month as the strongest expression and the most vivid tribute of the compassion the survivors have for those who are no more. From this comes the holy rite called the Month of the Dead, to which liturgical authors give mystical interpretations. Saint Gregory rendered it more important by adding to it the celebration of thirty Masses on thirty consecutive days, and Innocent XI. enriched it with indulgences. Classed by the monks of Cluny among their pious exercises, it was adopted by the faithful during many centuries and recommended by Benedict XIII.

Just de Bretenieres, martyr in Korea. He said in part: "He who is consumed by the love of souls, crosses the seas without thinking of the danger he runs; he bounds with delight if God le ads him where everything menaces his life; he cannot restrain his songs of joy if he sees himself exposed to persecutions, threatened by the sword, ever on the point of dying of hunger, fatigue, misery, anguish." Blessed Jean Theophane Venard, martyr in Tonquin, who said: "What is the priesthood? Is it not the entire detachment from all worldly goods-a complete abandonment of all temporal interests? To be a priest, one should be a saint. To guide others one must first learn to guide oneself. Then should not the life of a good priest be one of continual sacrifice, self-immolation, and mortification of all kinds?" Henry Dorie, martyr in Korea, who said: "Suffering is the dart or sting which goads us when our miserable indolence and cowardice would induce us to stop by the way; and which forces us, like un, villing beasts of burden, to push on, breathless and exhausted though we may be, to the end of our journey, which is Heaven. Sufferings are not only useful; they are necessary to an apost1e."