And as a guide to such meditation no works are more important than those which, like the volume before us, are written in the spirit of the ages when the habit of mind, now so hard to form and develop, was in one form or another common to all men. The author tells us that his object has been "To combine instruction with the subject of meditation, or at least to provide such a groundwork for consideration as to help the Christian to soar to the contemplation of the characteristics of the Saviour, as understood through the language of the prophet, and the chief point was to keep a middle course between the abstruse reasoning of theology and the enraptured vision of the truly contemplative soul; leaving the latter full scope to extend her view, and penetrate, as far as may be permitted, into the regions of inspiration" (p. vii.). With this view the author takes in turn each of the attributes of our Divine Redeemer set forth in the glorious prophecy contained in the sixth verse of the ninth chapter of the Prophet Isaias. The very fact of seeing our Incarnate Saviour, not merely in the Gospels, but in the Old Testament, is one instance of that spirit of which we have already been speaking. The author accordingly shows first how He is "the Wonderful" in His Incarnation, in our Redemption, in His hidden life, in the Holy Eucharist; how He is the Councellor; how He is God Omniscient Omnipresent, Eternal, Wisdom, Beatitude, Mercy, Justice, Might. Under this last head he passes to the might of the sufferings of the Eternal Son, which are treated in twelve chapters. Then follow three on the title, "Father of the World to come," and finally four on that of "Prince of Peace." The work is evidently the result of silent meditation on each of these points; it is full of thought, and we are sure cannot be carefully read by any man without suggesting to him many thoughts beyond those which it explicitly developes. In one respect it seems to us to differ from all works of meditation with which we are acquainted; we mean in the abundance with which the thoughts of ancient writers are wrought into the substance of every meditation. It is impossible not to be struck with this in opening almost any single page of the volume. In the page, for instance, in which the author treats of the treachery of Judas, we find quotations from S. Austin on S. Matthew; S. John Chrysostom and S. Austin on S. John ; S. Cyprian on the Coena Domini; S. Leo's sermon on the Passion; and Venerable S. Bede on the Acts. The same spirit runs through the volume. From the extract which we have given above every attentive reader will have seen that the volume is not a translation from an Italian work, but written in English by a foreigner. Regarded as such it is a wonderful proof of his mastery over our language. Still there is hardly a page in which a person accustomed to compare styles will not be reminded that he is not reading the work of an Englishman. We are far from sure, however, that to educated readers this will be even a drawback upon the value of the volume. Uneducated ones might probably find it difficult. But what degree of difficulty there is is not more than enough to produce that slight sense of something strange and unaccustomed which makes it a pleasure to read a work in a foreign language. It is not so much that particular words are used in a manner which the English grammar does not admit (this we have met in comparatively few instances), as that the mould of sentences and the order of thoughts are more or less unusual. On the whole, we have to thank F. Gasparini for a very valuable addition to our devotional books. A Few Thoughts on the Infallibility of the Pope. By WALTER M' R. SWEETMAN writes against the Pope's Infallibility in a tone of perfect temperance and moderation; but he has adduced no arguments on his side which have the slightest pretension to novelty. We should not therefore have thought it worth while to notice his pamphlet except for his very singular misapprehension of what has been said in this REVIEW. He considers (p. 10) that the DUBLIN REVIEW "is probably the ablest organ of the extreme views it advocates," and that its Editor (p. 9) is “a very able and learned man." It is the more important, therefore, to rectify his singular mistakes as to what we have said. We never alleged (p. 9.) that Catholics" are obliged to obey, under pain of mortal sin, a variety of" Pontifical "utterances " which are not ex cathedrâ. Still less did we ever dream of thinking that "if Catholics were to get the upper hand in the United Kingdom, it would be their duty to gag the Protestant press and to annihilate the Anglican Bishops" (p. 11). Still more heartily dɔ we repudiate all sympathy with the notion, that "if such men as Mr. Ffoulkes or Mr. Husband are not necessarily to be burned in Smithfield, it is because life is so much pleasanter now than in the fourteenth century that hanging would be bad enough for them" (ib.). As Mr. Sweetman reads our pages so diligently, we wish he would read them more accurately. Defence of the Roman Church against Father Gratry. By the Right Rev. DOM PROSPER GUERANGER, O.S.B. With an Introduction by Very Rev. R. B. Vaughan, O.S.B. London: Washbourne. ATHER WOODS has done excellent service in translating Dom ger's admirable and conclusive treatise. it in our last number; here therefore we will comment on it no further than by drawing attention to the very emphatic manner in which (p. 29) he characterizes the Bull" Unigenitus" as indubitably ex cathedrà. That Bull censures no one proposition as actually heterical, and cannot therefore in the strictest sense be called a definition of Faith. We have here, therefore, another proof how little Dom Gueranger's accidental language, to which we refer in our article on "the Council," can be taken as expressing his real mind. Prior Vaughan's introduction is masterly. We would only draw attention to his mode of expression from p. 11 to p. 13. He may be understood in those pages as maintaining that there is a parity between Arians of the fourth century, before their condemnation, and those at the present moment, who deny Pontifical Infallibility. But surely Arians were formal heretics from the very first. The Life of S. Stanislas Kotska, of the Company of Jesus. London : Burns, Oates, & Co. 1870. THE HE life of S. Stanislas Kotska, of the Company of Jesus, which has just appeared in the Library of Religious Biography, edited by Mr. Healy Thompson, is an admirable companion volume to the "Life of S. Aloysius Gonzaga," with which the series commenced, and which, we are happy to see, has already reached a second edition. These two saints resemble each other in their early sanctity, their vocation to the Company of Jesus, the seemingly insuperable obstacles which they had to overcome in carrying it into effect, and the shortness of their life in religion; but they differ in the types of sanctity which they respectively express. "They are sweet varieties in the Paradise of God, where, as in the garden of nature, no two flowers, although one in species, are altogether alike in their individuality. Both saints have been given as patterns to the young; but, while Aloysius carries us on to the verge when adolescence begins to melt into manhood, Stanislas, who passed to heaven at eighteen, bore to the last the type of childhood, with all its freshness and peculiar graces, which, like to the morning air, possess an inexplicable sweetness, destined to die away with the advancing hours. Aloysius scarcely seemed to pass through childhood's season; he comes before us as a youth while yet a boy, and he is still a youth when he dies, although a man in years; but Stanislas, although he outstepped the age of boyhood, bears, in our eyes, to the last the soft down of childhood on his cheek, and its innocent joyous smile upon his lips. This childlike character was also stamped on his devotion, sublime as it was. Hence the ineffable familiarities and mutual caresses of the infant Jesus and the boy saint; and again the loving confidence between the Virgin Mother and this her favoured child. Stanislas's devotion to Mary is indeed the perfect counterpart, only in a superior order, of that pure and engrossing passion of the young boy's heart, whose earthly mother sums up to him all of love andloveliness which this world can offer" (pp. 3, 4). A saint whose characteristic grace was childlike simplicity, and whose special devotion had for its object the Infant Jesus and His Virgin Mother, needs only to be known in order to attract to him many hearts, not only among religious, but among those whose calling is in the world. Mr. Thompson's work will, we are sure, help to increase the number of S. Stanislas's clients in this country. It is written in a very attractive style, and by the picturesqueness of its descriptions brings vividly before the reader the few but striking incidents of the Saint's life. At the same time it aims at interpreting to us what it relates, by explaining how grace and nature combined to produce, in the short space of eighteen years, such a masterpiece of sanctity. "Piccol giovane, ma gran santo,"-such was the antithesis which Urban VIII. adopted with reference to Stanislas when speaking of him to the Bishop of Wilna; a little youth, but a great saint.' Like some cherub fresh from the hands of his Creator, who earned his beatitude in one blessed moment, by one perfect holocaust of self, by one inexpressible act of charity, the worth of which cannot be measured by time, Stanislas appeared ripe for glory from the moment that the light which lighteth every man who cometh into the world dawned on his young reason; and if he tarried on earth for a few short years, one might almost deem him left rather that we might have the boon of beholding him than in order to complete a spiritual stature which seemed, as it were, finished as soon as begun" (p. 5). With this extract we take our leave of a book for which we augur great popularity, and which we trust will speedily be followed by the other lives which are now in preparation for the series. The Landing of S. Augustine. A Narrative in Verse intended for Recitation. By the Very Reverend Canon OAKELEY, M.A. London: Burns. Price 3d. TH HESE few pages will recall to many persons now in the bosom of the Church recollections of more than thirty years ago, when the Oxford movement was in its beginning, and when those who heard the name of Mr. Oakeley, among those likely to be carried away with it, used to shake their heads, incredulous of the fact that any one on whom the taste and the talent for elegant literature was so much developed would really give himself up to theology. Grace is stronger than nature, and has prevailed in this as in many other cases. The tract before us contains a spirited and beautiful version of the immortal history of S. Augustine and S. Gregory, in some two hundred lines, of the metre of "Marmion," and peculiarly well adapted for recitation both by metre and shortness. They were written at the request of Mr. S. M. Bellew, and had the advantage of being recited in public by that gentleman. They are now printed, chiefly for the use of colleges and schools. The historical incidents on which they are founded are too well known to require explanation, but it may be added that the subject was suggested to the writer by the graphic description of S. Augustine's landing, in the first of Dean Stanley's Historical Papers in the Memorials of Canterbury.'" 66 The Religious Reading Book for the use of Catholic Schools. By a Diocesan Inspector. No. 1, suitable for children in Standards II. and III. London Burns, Oates, & Co. HIS excellent and useful little book has the great advantage of being children want. It gives the substance of Scripture history from the Creation to the giving of the Law, and from the Annunciation of our Blessed Lady to the Ascension. The language is studiously plain and easy; and (what we consider a great advantage) the compiler has not made the mistake of confining it to words of one syllable. Every one who tries the experiment must at once see that many words of one syllable are both more difficult and also, as a general rule, less useful to a child when learned. No doubt, such words as cat, dog, &c., are easy; but this is not merely because each has only one syllable, but also because that syllable is a simple one. But a word of two such simple syllables is far easier to a child than one consisting of a single, more complex syllable. Try, for instance, any child beginning to read, upon two such words as "strength" and "power," and you will find that he reads the two syllables much the easiest. Besides, when a writer is bound to confine himself to words of one syllable, he is forced to use many out-of-theway words, which are comparatively rare in other books or in conversation. Now, these words, even when learned, are less useful to a learner. What he wants is to learn first the words he is sure to meet with most frequently. For, observe, none of us really read by syllables. Our eye becomes accustomed to the look of a word as a whole; and when we see it again, we do not look at its syllables separately, but at the whole. The proof of this is, that any man, however much in the habit of reading aloud, when he falls upon any long combination of syllables which he never saw before (whether it is some unknown word, or some proper name), is sure to hesitate for a moment; and it is quite a chance whether he reads it the first time right or wrong. It is just the same with children learning to read. When they have read a word two or three times, they know it by sight and recognize it as a whole, without thinking of the separate letters or syllables. A new word they are obliged to spell. And hence, many of the best teachers now teach, not syllables but words; having a little box with many simple words printed each upon a separate card. It is therefore important to the child to become early familiar with the words which it is likely to meet oftenest; and this it fails to do if confined to words of one syllable. This little book contains weighty and blessed truths in language perfectly plain and simple. Indeed, our only doubt is whether the writer has not in one respect carried this all-important principle too far. It may be that his more extended experience has suggested what we question; but we cannot help thinking that it would be better to leave unchanged words with which a Catholic child is sure to be familiar, even before it learns to read. For instance, the answer of our Blessed Lady to the angel would surely be as in |