is it brightened by the example of Christian heroism in Father Damien, of the Society of Picpus, who was the writer's genial host, and who, after more than eleven years of voluntary exile among his leper flock, has become, as we learn from the concluding pages, a victim of the disease-beginning to suffer a living martyrdom. Very touching, too, is the description of the Walshes, the Irish family, who for some lime were keepers at the settlement, and who drew comfort in their affliction, hardship and isolation, from a worn volume of "All for Jesus." The condition of the lepers is made as endurable-we had almost said as happy-as possible, mainly through the tender care and the energy of their heroic pastor; and the villages of suffering show a bright aspect, white cottages with gardens ablaze with flowers. The little book ought to be read to enlarge our horizon and show what the charity of Christ can do through the hearts of His servants. By A Summer Christmas, and a Sonnet upon the s.s. Ballaarat. D. B. W. SLADEN, B.A., Oxford and Melbourne, Author of "Frithjof and Ingeborg," &c. London: Griffith & Farran. TH HE scene of "A Summer Christmas" is laid in Australia, where, as every one knows, Christmas falls in the middle of summer. A number of people gathered together at the house of a squatter to spend Christmas agree to tell tales by way of whiling away the evenings. Each tale is a separate poem, and the Christmas fireside is used to weave them into an harmonious whole. The story of "A Summer Christmas," "told in Hudibrastic verse, gives succinct pictures of life on an Australian sheep station," and we have descriptions of rabbit and kangaroo driving, bush races, &c., intermingled with the usual love story. Some of the verses are vigorous and telling, and we have been much pleased with the poem entitled "Ethel; " but must sternly set our faces against the Chaucerian" character of certain passages in some of the other poems. These passages spoil a book otherwise readable and well got up, and in consequence we hesitate to recommend it as suitable for young persons. America, and other Poems. By HENRY HAMILTON. New York and London: G. Putnam's Sons. 1885. HE poems contained in this little volume are chiefly of the introspective order, and clothe in verse, often graceful and melodious, the thoughts that pass through many minds when in their best and most serious moods. The following extract will give anidea of the writer's tone of thought: Inaudible move day and night, And noiseless grows the flower;! The highest thoughts no utterance find, In silence grows the immortal mind, With sweetest music silence blends, In silence life begins and ends, The second part of the volume, entitled "God and the Soul," is a religious monologue, written in a thoughtful and devotional strain, the form being that of a series of sonnets. They may well fulfil the mission claimed in the following aspiration: Yet in these songs there may be found a note Which to some dolorous heart will solace bring, And therefore to their fate I them devote, Like seeds sown in the shifting winds of spring. Books of Devotion and Spiritual Reading. 1. The Little Gift for First Communicants. By Canon G. ALLEGRE. London: Burns & Oates. 2. Server's Missal. A Practical Guide for Boys serving at Mass. London Burns & Oates. 3. A Course of Lenten Sermons. By the Rev. P. SABELA. London: Burns & Oates. 1886. 4. The Graces of Mary. 5. The Sodality Manual. London: Burns & Oates. 1886. Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son. 1886. 6. Prayers for the Visits to a Church required for the Jubilee. Arranged by the Rev. W. J. B. RICHARDS, D.D. London: Burns & Oates. 1886. 7. The Virgin Mother of God. By St. BERNARD. Arranged and Translated by a Secular Priest. London: Richardson & Son. 1886. 8. Life of the Ven. Joseph Marchand, Martyr. By the Abbé J. B. S. JACQUINET. Translated by Lady HERbert. Dublin: M. H. GILL & Son. 1886. 9. Life of Margaret Clitherow. By L. S. OLIVER. London: Burns & Oates. 1886. 10. Preparation for Death. By St. ALPHONSUS DE LIGUORI. Edited by the Rev. EUGENE GRIMM, C.SS.R. New York: Benziger Brothers. London: Washbourne. Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son. 1886. 11. The Following of Christ. By JOHN TAULER. Done into English by J. R. MORELL. London: Burns & Oates. 1886. 12. The Lay of St. Barbara. London: Burns & Oates. Sheffield: Pawson & Brailsford. 13. What is the Holy Cincture? By the Compiler of the Augustinian Manual. Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son. 1886. 14. The Birthday Book of Our Dead. Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son. 1886. 1. SOME OME one has here translated a number of stories and legends about the Blessed Sacrament, gathered from the "Petite Corbeille Eucharistique" by Canon Allegre, of Calais. They are not all absolutely authentic; and the translation is not quite faultless. For example, we are told that the "King of Ithaca," in order to escape the snares of the Sirens, "attached a mast to his vessel." The French text is not before us, but surely it cannot have furnished this novel reading of the ancient story. The little brochure, however, will be useful. 2. "A Sacristan " has compiled a small and handy manual for the use of a server at Mass. He has added one or two things to the rubrics; but, this apart, we can recommend the little book. 3. It is only necessary to say that the Rev. P. Sabela's Lenten Sermons on the Passion are seven in number, average about ten pages in length, and bear the imprimatur of the Bishop of Nottingham. 4. A prettily got-up book for the Month of May, containing instructions, prayers and examples. The instructions are mostly based on M. Menghi d'Arville's Annuaire de Marie, and the examples seem to be gathered from various sources, chiefly modern, and re-written. 5. The Rev. Father Callen, S.J., has here edited a very complete "Manual" for the use of those students who are members of the Sodality of Our Lady, and of the children of Mary in convents. 6. A very useful and handy manual for the present Jubilee. 7. These are the celebrated Homilies of St. Bernard on Missus est and de Aquæductu, with others on Our Lady's prerogatives and mysteries, well translated and carefully edited. The book comes from Mount St. Bernard, Charnwood Forest, and a short note reminds us that (in 1885) the Cistercian Fathers are keeping the jubilee of their settlement there. The translator is the "Secular Priest who translated the "Visions of B. Angela of Folegno." 8. Perhaps there is a little too much mere political history in the Abbé Jacquinet's life of the Ven. Joseph Marchand; but as a record of the life and career of a devout seminarist, an enthusiast for the foreign missions, and a martyr to the faith in Tonkin, it is interesting and acceptable. 9. We are inclined to think that the form in which the writer has cast this history of Margaret Clitherow will prevent some readers from appreciating it as much as it deserves. We have here a regular "story," with conversations, descriptions, and a certain amount of plot. Yet the actual and authentic records of this heroic life are so numerous and so vivid that nothing more was required, except a little local colour and explanation, to make the book absolutely fascinating. In reading Miss Oliver's pious "romance," those who are unacquainted with their Challoner will hardly guess that so much of the narrative is not fiction at all, but history. But the book is charming, stirring the pulses of every reader who thinks ever so little of that faith which this glorious martyr confessed beneath the shadow of York Minster. 10. The American Redemptorist Fathers send us the first volume of a centenary translation of the ascetical and practical works of their great founder. The editor is the Rev. Father Eugene Grimm, C.SS.R. The present volume contains the "Preparation for Death." It seems to be well and carefully done. We do not quite understand why in a few instances the Scripture and other references are not given. Once or twice the editor has been evidently at a loss, as for example as to the identity of the "devout Pelbart." It seems a pity the work has been translated from the French instead of the original Italian. English readers, although they have good translations of many of St. Alphonsus' works, have very little idea of the masculine and pointed style of the original. "La puzza si fa sentire" is rather feebly rendered by, "The body has already begun to exhale an offensive smell." When the dying man has to leave all things, the introduction of the lawyer to make the will is lyrical in its simplicity, "Già è venuto il notaio, e scrive questa licenziata, Lascio, lascio!" But the English, filtered through the French, is commonplace-"The lawyer is already come and writes this last farewell: I bequeath such-a-thing and such-a-thing, &c." (p. 79). St. Alphonsus exclaims, when the blessed candle is brought in, "0 candela, O candela, quante verità che allora scoprirai!" The sonorous Italian carries this off perfectly; but there was no necessity for making things more difficult by rendering it, "O candle, how many truths will you then unfold!" (p. 85). But the translation of a masterpiece is not easy work, and we may be well content with what we have. The succeeding volumes will be awaited with interest. 11. The "Following of Christ," by the great Dominican, John Tauler, is a very different book from that of Thomas à Kempis, with which it seems to have been almost contemporary. If Tauler really wrote the book---which Deniflé, its most learned modern editor, is inclined to doubt-it is hardly worthy of his great reputation. It is a treatise on unity with God, and it follows the justly suspected lines of the teachings of Eckart. At the same time, the almost unanimous voice of Catholic historians refuses to pronounce Tauler unorthodox. Many of his expressions go dangerously near the denial of any difference between the soul of the just and the substance of God, and there is no doubt he seems to make too little of external works. But, on the other hand, his theoretical or mystical views are not his main purpose, as they were with Eckart; he writes for moral and ascetical ends, and in order to lead the heart to God. Besides, he expressly repudiates, in many passages of his works, both pantheism and what we may call quietism; and we must remember that the condemnation of Eckart's teachings, though pronounced during Tauler's life-time, cannot have been widely or distinctly known in those troubled times of schism and interdict. The book before us will not do much harm by the strain of perverted mysticism which runs through it. On the other hand, its true interest will hardly be appreciated, for its language is very hard to follow. Mr. Morell has probably done as well as any one could do; but to give an English dress to an old German text, which itself is full of technical scholastic philosophy, is a very difficult task. When Dr. Schlosser published in 1833 his edition of the "Following," he added a Lexicon Taulerianum. If the reader could carry as he reads this book a mental lexicon of words and phrases-if he could readily construe Taulerian as he goes on-he would appreciate the warm piety, the profound earnestness, the eloquent beauty, and the strange raciness and smack of medieval life by the banks of the Rhine, and in the valleys of the German Switzerland, which the work presents.. 12. The writer of this hymn on St. Barbara has succeeded in being pleasing and devout, and the introductory essay is interesting, and serves usefully to remind us of this virgin patroness of the death-bed. 13. A pamphlet explaining the origin and excellences of the arch-confraternity of the Sacred Cincture of SS. Augustine and Monica, established in churches of the order of St. Augustine. 14. The compiler of the "Birthday Book of our Dead" has had the idea of putting together a number of " mortuary" extracts from all sources-old and new, sacred and profane, poetry and proseand distributing them among the days of the year, leaving blank spaces for the names of departed friends. LIST OF BOOKS RECEIVED. "The Life of Frederick Lucas, M.P." By his brother, Edward Lucas. 2 vols. London & New York: Burns & Oates. "La Coalition Courcey. 2 vols. de 1701 contre La France." Par le Marquis de R |