the mystic creatures, nothing essential has to be altered, and we may repeat to day, with Catholic tradition, that this vision shows what is the glory of God and His sovereign dominion over all creatures. IN GERMAN PERIODICALS. By Dr. BELLESHEIM, COLOGNE. I. Katholik. IN the May and June issues Professor Probst, of Breslau University, writes on "The Liturgy of the African Church in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries." Like many other countries, Africa witnessed during this period a reformation in the liturgy, although it was far less extensive than the reforms elsewhere. But, unlike other countries which were called upon to struggle against Arianism (which heresy gave rise to a change in the Preface in the Mass), Africa had to oppose only the schism of the Donatists, and hence preserved the old form of the preface, which was a prayer of thanks to Almighty God for his creation and providence. Our author next reconstructs the African liturgy from the writings of S. Augustine, an extremely difficult task, owing to the destruction by the Vandals of whatever liturgical books of the Catholic Church they happened to meet with. Again, the writings of S. Fulgentius, the disciple of S. Augustine, point to the "epiklesis," or invocation of the Holy Ghost, after the consecration of Our Lord's body and blood in the Mass. According to S. Fulgentius, the Holy Ghost descends on the altar not personally, but through his graces, to sanctify, not Our Lord's body and blood, but the mystical body-viz., the congregation. Professor Probst, in concluding his able article, says: "This is the form of the African liturgy during the fourth and fifth centuries. A copy of its liturgical books no longer exists a fact to be deplored all the more, as this liturgy, far more than any other, would have given to us the oldest Mass-rites in the Western Church." Nürn The July issue contains a study, from the pen of the Rev. berger, of S. Boniface's work, "De Unitate Fidei." That the apostle of Germany wrote a work bearing this title is generally known, from his biography edited by St. Willibald. The work was a detailed profession of faith, which he gave to Pope Gregory II. before his consecration. Some fragments of it are contained in the "Collection of Canons," by Cardinal Deusdedit, which Mgr. Martineau, from a Vatican manuscript, published at Venice in 1869. But Herr Nürnberger was happy enough to discover in a Vatican Codex (4,160, foi. 49), another fragment, hitherto unknown, of St. Boniface's work. All the writings of St. Boniface breathe his intense love for the centre of unity and his zeal for the purity of clerical life. 66 The Rev. Beissel contributes an able article on the history of the 'Episcopal Crosier." He commences with the staff as a sign of authority in the heathen world and Old Testament history, and advances hence to the crosier of Christian times. For centuries, the crosier was a staff, bearing on its top a globe, or a globe with a cross, or a transom. The ultimate form was a crook or crosier. A staff, with a globe on the top, is still preserved in the treasury of Cologne Cathedral; and, according to the legend, it came from St. Peter, who sent it to St. Maternus, the first bishop of Cologne. The same July number of the Katholik contains an essay on "Dante's Ideas of Pope and Emperor." The author very strongly vindicates the great Catholic poet from the charge of being an enemy of the Holy See-(whatever may be his opinions about the persons of several Pontiffs)-and still more from the charge of supporting the spirit of revolution, or of the so-called Reformation. I contribute to the same number a long critique of Fr. Bridgett's "History of the Holy Eucharist in England," and Dr. Lee's "Church under Queen Elizabeth." 2. Historich-politische Blätter. The most important contribution is a series of three articles by Dr. Falk, a parish priest of the Mainz diocese, on the foundations and offices of "Cathedral preachers" in Germany during the Middle Ages. Wherever the Catholic Church was not prevented by public calamities or iniquitous laws, we find her fulfilling her divinely intrusted mission of preaching God's word. As far back as we can go in German history, we find that sermons were preached in the vulgar tongue. Dr. Falk shows, from the testimony of innumerable documents, that foundations were made in German cathedrals for providing eminent preachers of Catholic doctrine; and he traces the life of those pious and learned men who unwearingly fulfilled their sublime office. It was only a slander of the Reformers to attack the Catholic Church for having, during the Middle Ages, neglected the sermon. Mainz, Worms, Spire, Strasburg, Basel, Constanz, Augsburg, Würzburg, Regensburg, Bamberg, Trèves, and Merseburg had special foundations for the support of preachers. The office of cathedral preacher in Trèves belonged to the auxiliary bishops of the diocese till 1560, when the Jesuits undertook it. It is also a fact worthy of mention that the last bishop of Merseburg, a city near the place where Luther opposed the Catholic Church, on all great feasts entered the pulpit, "and the people came in great crowds and most diligently heard the Word of God." Bishop Adolfus, of Merseburg, died in 1526. The July issue contains a critique on the learned work, "Junilius Afrikanus," by Prof. Kihn, of Würzburg University. Hitherto Junilius Africanus has been generally regarded as a bishop of an African diocese. It is to Prof. Kihn's accurate and laborious research that we now owe an exhaustive biography of this author. He was not a bishop, but a layman who occupied a high office in the Roman empire, and, what very often occurred at that period, pursued theological and biblical studies. Professor Kihn opens his article with a long account of Bishop Theodore, of Mopsuestia, and the influence and importance of the exegetical school of Antioch, over which he presided. In the second part Junilius is considered as an interpreter, and his opinions on prophecy and inspiration are examined. The third part draws very instructive pictures of the large spread of Nestorianism in P'ersia, and of the schools of Nisibis and Edessa, the very strongholds of this heresy. Junilius, for seven years (545-552), was a "quaestor sacri palatii" in Constantinople, and it was in this capital that he met with Paul of Persia, professor, and afterwards metropolitan, of Nisibis. This man provided Junilius with "The Methodical Introduction to the Divine Law." At the request of his countryman, Pirmasius, Bishop of Adrumetum, he translated this work into Latin, with the title, "Instituta Regularia." Professor Kihn shows that this title is the original one, and substitutes it for the title hitherto employed: "De Partibus Divinæ Legis." To the same number I contribute an examination of Br. Foley's fifth volume of the "Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus." 3. Stimmen aus Maria Laach.-Fr. Baumgartner describes Italy during the last three years. Fr. Wiedenman contributes a very well written article on the "Attacks of modern German philosophy on the doctrine of Redemption." The man who impiously recommends to Germany the systems of Monism and Pantheism is Prof. Von Hartmann, of Berlin University. He is kind enough to teach the German public the following doctrines:-" Real beings are the incarnation of the divine essence; the world's development is the history of the incarnation of the incarnate God, and likewise the way for redeeming God crucified in the flesh; morality is co-operation for shortening this way of suffering and redeeming." One cannot help feeling disgust and annoyance at having forced on us by this author blasphemies unusual with even the most powerful and virulent enemies of the Church in the first period of Christianity. Prof. Hartmann clothes his ideas in a very fascinating form; hence the popularity he enjoys, hence the deplorable fact that his anti-Christian opinions are taken up by thousands of readers. Netices of Books. The Metaphysics of the School. By THOMAS HARper, S.J. THIS HIS second volume of a work, which impresses the reader and the scholar more and more in proportion to its growth, is concerned with the principles of Being, and with the four Causes. A less scientific description of its contents may be given by saying that it treats of the principle of contradiction, and of the constitution of bodily substance. The aim of Father Harper, the reader may be reminded, is to write Scholastic and Thomistic philosophy in English; in good English words and phrases, and with reference to English contemporary thought. If his terms are at times somewhat strange, and his phrasing a little uncouth, no one need be astonished or repelled. Science must have its technicalities, and scientific progress is im possible without scientific terms. The medical writers, or the artistic writers, who contribute to the pages of widely read contemporary periodicals, make no scruple of using language, which is professional and even pedantic. Father Harper is never pedantic-that is, he never uses technicalities or impressive phrases merely for the purpose of display. But he rightly does not hesitate to use his English tongue as a master would use it; widening its significance, happily innovating on its usages, and by a skilful turn, bringing out new lights in the massive structure of its idiom. Take the following paragraph from bis long and interesting discussion of the "atomic theory" of matter; and observe how neatly and cleverly a demonstration, familiar to us in our text-books, is turned into English speech, which does not contain more than a word or two that an ordinarily educated man can misunderstand. He is speaking of the atomic theory in general Looking at it metaphysically it is a failure; first, because it does not reach the ultimate constituents of bodies. First of all, it does not even reach their ultimate integrating parts; though it may approximate to those ultimates enough for the practical purposes of physics, on the hypothesis that their projection subserves these purposes, which is a subject of grave doubt. The plain reason why it cannot reach the ultimate integrating parts is that the feat is simply impossible. For quantity and quantified material substances are indefinitely divisible. So long as there is extension-part outside part-further division is possible; and any integrant part, however minute, of any body, must have extension. You cannot, however persevering may be your efforts, mince extended bodies into mathematical points. It is true, S. Thomas admits that physically it is possible to reach an ultimate beyond which division is impossible. But if such ultimate could practically be attained, what would be its condition? It is obvious that so long as the substance is informed by quantity, it is physically capable of further division; because it has part outside part in space. Wherefore, the said ultimate would have been denuded of its quantification, and consequently would cease to be a body, though remaining in some way or other an integral material substance (p. 231). In treating of "principles " of Being, Father Harper establishes that the principle of contradiction-"it is impossible that a thing should both be and not be at one and the same time"-is the first in the order of metaphysical reduction. His refutation of Sir William Hamilton's objections to this thesis is very good; but it is not so easy to see that he is successful in disposing of the counter principle of Gioberti, Romano, Brownson, and Rosmini. We ourselves hold very distinctly that the principle, "God creates existences," is so far from being the ultimate principle in the logical order, that it is not even a principle at all, but an inference. But to say, as Father Harper says, that it is a contingent principle, and that, therefore, if all human knowledge rested on it, human knowledge would be contingent, is not to say anything that a Giobertian would care to dispute. And Father Harper's appeal to "common sense" in this matter, might, perhaps, be without much difficulty turned against himself. But probably the learned author will have another opportunity of treating the cardinal point of the ontologistic school, and of demonstrating the futility of attempting to identify the ontological order with the logical, or of setting up an "intuition " which is not very easily distinguishable from veiled pantheism. The great question of the constitution of corporeal substance is discussed at length, from page 183 to the very end of the volume. There is, probably, no subject in all the Scholastic metaphysics so difficult to grasp in language as the doctrine of Matter and Form. The conception itself, of the grand and fertile generalization which is indicated by these two words, is one which requires the finest efforts of the imagination to hold firmly in the mind's vision. The many theories and views which thinkers of every age have thought out and expressed, on a question which always has seemed imperatively to demand a solution, are so many disturbing influences which prevent the philosophic inquirer from giving his undivided thought to the profound analysis of Aristotle and St. Thomas. From Anaxagoras to Sir William Thompson there have been countless systems of atoms and molecules, elements and forces, to account for what we see in the visible world—the perpetual change, and the unbroken identity which underlies all change. The oldest philosophers, like the most recent, have held that "fieri est alterari "-that no substance is made afresh, but only altered; that the elements, atoms, or forces, change their arrangement and their mutual relations, like the dancers in a complex dance, or the units of a flock of wild geese as they journey in a body from one horizon to the other; but that no deeper, no substantial" change takes place. With these philosophers, bread and a stone, water and the strongest spirit, flesh of an animal and grass of the field, are not really different, but only different "arrangements." The scholastic analysis is the view of common sense; that, over and above any arrangement of parts, integrant or mechanical or chemical, there is also a "form," an "actuality," a binding and unifying influence, which is the reason of the special qualities of a special thing; that, take the smallest possible particle or atom of any material substance, such form exists therein whole and perfect, giving a kind of life, even in lifeless things, to that base or substratum of all matter which is the same in all the corporeal universe. Father Harper translates "materia prima" by primordial matter. The word may perhaps be objected to, as seeming to imply a kind of existence for this." matter which it cannot have; for "primordial " seems to connote existence. But the truth is, the root of the difficulty lies in the word "matter." It would be better to have got rid of it in this connection. Matter, in English, is not at all the term for "incompleteness " which λn was to Aristotle. Even "materia," in Latin had not, in St. Thomas's day, become a synomym for all that is most real and most impressive to the sense. "Materia prima" means the "primary passive element" in things corporeal; and though this is a clumsy phrase, it is a question whether the getting rid of the obtrusive phantasms conjured up by the word "matter" would not be cheaply purchased by the attempt to naturalize it. Primordial matter, however, will pass. All that the learned author says in treating of the nature, the causality, and the effect of this mysterious element, seems good and sufficient. His discussion of mode tomic and |