NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Dr. Newman's Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent. By John Henry Newman, D.D., of the Oratory. 1 vol. 12mo. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren street. 1870.

SECOND NOTICE.

We have not yet given to this book, destined to become so celebrated and the theme of so much controversy, the careful examination it deserves, and we will not, therefore, pay the poor compliment to the illustrious author of pronouncing a superficial judgment upon it. We have given an analysis of its contents in our last number, which may aid the reader to understand and master its scope and course of argument for himself. At present, we will merely take note of one or two salient points bearing on some questions of lively controversial interest at the present moment. The great subject of controversy in regard to the philosophy of the work has already proved to be what we anticipated at the first glance upon its pages—whether it is, or is not, in contradiction to the scholastic doctrine of the reality of universals. We give merely our impression, and not our judgment upon this point, when we say that it appears to us that Dr. Newman rather leaves aside the pure metaphysics of the question, than either contradicts or affirms any scholastic doctrine of this higher sphere of science. He appears to take the common English axioms of reasoning as they are assumed in every-day life and made the basis of those inductions and illations which make up the opinions of intelligent persons on all sorts of subjects, and the conclusions of practical, scientific men in regard to the inductive sciences. He appeals to the common sense of those who are not sophisticated by any false, sceptical maxims in relation to common things, but who are simply puzzled by an apparent want of the same certitude in religion which they hold as unquestioned in lower branches of knowledge. He undertakes to show that the principles of assent which all men act on in the affairs of this life lead logically to the same certitude of the infallibility of the Catholic Church, and the truth of every thing she proposes to belief, that a man has that Great Britain is an island. If any one thinks there is a break or a weak spot in his chain of reasoning, let him pull it apart and throw the fragments aside, and he will have accomplished a considerable feat in logic. We think that, on account of this manner of approaching the subject, this book is likely to prove extremely useful in convincing sincere, well-intentioned doubters, whose minds have been educated under the same circumstances and in the same intellectual atmosphere with those of the author. As for the analysis of certitude itself, and the metaphysics of the ultimate question how we know, and what is that which we know first, the author may be criticised; but we think, as we have said, that he did not have it in view to propose a theory. We do perceive and know; we do exist, and we know that other things exist, and we are certain of these things, and no pretended sceptic really doubts. We may start from this, therefore, as a fixed base of operation, without waiting for a metaphysical theory. If the theory which we hold is incorrect, we can change it without hurting our argument, just as a person who lives in a regular and sensible manner, and is in good health, can change a physiological doctrine which he finds to be erroneous without changing his practical rules of living. Whether Dr. Newman's statement respecting real and notional assents be correct or not, every candid and honest man will acknowledge that he does assent with certitude to the truth of those things which the author calls notions. We suspect, moreover, that the illustrious author in his affirmation that nothing really exists except individuals, means that there are no other spiritual or material substances; or, in other words, that every substance is a simple monad existing in itself and separate from every other. We do not apprehend that, in denying that time, space, relation, etc., are real, he intends to affirm that they are mere subjective affections of our minds without any foundation in objective reality, but only that they are not either spirits or bodies, and would be nothing if there were no spirit or body in existence. We suspect that the nominalism attributed to Dr. Newman is merely in the phrase, and that his difference from the realism of St. Thomas is only in the terminology.

The other point we desire to notice is theological. Our Episcopalian neighbors, and some others also, are accustomed to refer to Dr. Newman as an instance in proof of their frequent assertion that men of genius and learning in our communion chafe under the yoke of Rome, and, if they are converts, feel themselves disappointed in the expectations with which they entered the church. The recent letter of Dr. Newman to Dr. Ullathorne is, of course, a lucky windfall for them, and is interpreted as a proof that they were not mistaken. The volume we are noticing will, for every candid and sensible reader, completely scatter to the winds any false and calumnious attempts to class Dr. Newman with Mr. Ffoulkes, Mr. Renouf, the translator of Janus, and the rest of that clique in England, or to impeach the integrity of his faith and loyalty as a Catholic priest and theologian. The letter itself shows that Dr. Newman holds what his writings show he has always held, as the more probable doctrine, that the judgments of the pope in matters of faith are infallible. The utmost extent of his expressions of repugnance to a definition of this doctrine is, that he considers the weakness of faith, the lack of knowledge, and the deficiency of the reasoning faculty in a number of Catholics to be so great, and the bewilderment of mind so extreme in persons outside the church who are seeking the truth, that they cannot bear to have the light too suddenly and brightly flashed into their eyes. The great and holy Oratorian father pities these souls, and wishes to have them cautiously and gently led into the truth; and he is afraid that the pope, sitting in the effulgence of the divine Shekinah in the temple of God, does not appreciate the state of those who are living in the fainter light or the clouded climates of a remoter region. The chapter of the volume under notice entitled, "Belief in Dogmatic Theology," will show beyond a question what we have asserted of Dr. Newman's theological soundness, and we quote one passage as a specimen.

The church "makes it imperative on every one, priest and layman, to profess as revealed truth all the canons of councils, and innumerable decisions of popes, propositions so various, so notional, that but few can know them, and fewer can understand them." (P. 142, Eng. ed.)

In the chapter on the "Indefectibility of Certitude" occurs this passage: "A man is converted to the Catholic Church from his admiration of its religious system, and his disgust with Protestantism. That admiration remains; but, after a time, he leaves his new faith; perhaps returns to his old. The reason, if we may conjecture, may sometimes be this: he has never believed in the church's infallibility; in her doctrinal truth he has believed, but in her infallibility, no. He was asked, before he was received, whether he held all that the church taught; he replied he did; but he understood the question to mean, whether he held those particular doctrines 'which at that time the church in matter of fact formally taught,' whereas it really meant 'whatever the church then or at any future time should teach.' Thus, he never had the indispensable and elementary faith of a Catholic, and was simply no subject for reception into the fold of the church. This being the case, when the immaculate conception is defined, he feels that it is something more than he bargained for when he became a Catholic, and accordingly he gives up his religious profession. The world will say that he has lost his certitude of the divinity of the Catholic faith; but he never had it." (P. 240.)

We do not desire to have a party tolerated in the church whose principles are precisely those here condemned by Dr. Newman, or to have the way open for converts to be received who lack the "indispensable and elementary faith of a Catholic." We look with dismay upon the audacious and heretical attitude of that fallen angel F. Hyacinthe, the scandalous position assumed by Huber, Döllinger, and Gratry, and we anticipate greater impediment to the progress of the faith from a miserable counterfeit and pseudo-catholicity, which is nothing else than the base metal coined by Photius, than from the difficulties hanging about the history of the popes, which are no greater than those that beset councils, tradition, or the holy Scripture itself. Whatever definitions are promulgated by the Council of the Vatican, no one pretending to be a Catholic can hesitate to receive them because they are "more than he bargained for." Those who have chafed under the doctrinal authority of the popes have been crying out for a council for two centuries. Those who are bona fide in any doubt or uncertainty respecting questions not yet defined have the way open for their doubts to be settled. If there are persons in the communion of the church who have not the principle of faith in them by which they are prepared without hesitation to believe whatever the Council of the Vatican proposes, we desire that they should leave their external connection with the Catholic Church, which they have already inwardly abandoned. And we think it most necessary that the duty of unreserved submission to the infallible authority of the church, and to the Roman pontiff, as her supreme teacher and judge as well as ruler, should be most distinctly placed before those who seek admission into her fold. We are grateful to Dr. Newman for the clear and unmistakable tones in which he has spoken on the obligation of believing whatever the church commands us to believe through the mouth of the sovereign pontiff; and as for the question what definitions are necessary and opportune for the present time, we confide absolutely in the divinely assisted judgment of Pius IX. and the Catholic episcopate.

Since writing the above, we are glad to see that Dr. Newman has written another letter, in which the following passage occurs: "I have not had a moment's wavering of trust in the Catholic Church ever since I was received into her fold. I hold, and ever have held, that her sovereign pontiff is the centre of unity and the vicar of Christ. And I ever have had, and have still, an unclouded faith in her creed in all its articles; a supreme satisfaction in her worship, discipline, and teaching; and an eager longing, and a hope against hope, that the many dear friends whom I have left in Protestantism may be partakers in my happiness." (Tablet, April 16th.) We are glad, we say, to see this, not on our own account, for we have the honor of a personal acquaintance with the illustrious Oratorian, and know him too well to have the need of any such assurance of his firm and ardent Catholic faith and piety; but in order that the mouths of cavillers may be stopped, and those weak brethren who tremble like aspen-leaves in every light breeze be reassured.

The Origin, Persecutions, and Doctrines of the Waldenses; from Documents, many now for the first time collected and edited. By Pius Melia, D.D. London: James Toovey, 177 Piccadilly. 1870. For sale by the Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren street, New York.

In the year 1868, a London daily newspaper produced editorially one of those statements so frequently made concerning the Waldenses, and which, by dint of repetition, end by passing for recognized facts. It was as follows:

"For sixteen hundred years, at least, the Waldenses have guarded the pure and primitive Christianity of the apostles.... No one knows when or how the faith was first delivered to these mountaineers. Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, in the second century found them a church.

"These gallant hill-men have kept the tradition of the Gospel committed to them as pure and inviolate as the snow upon their own Alps. They have maintained an evangelical form of Christianity from the very first, rejecting image-worship, invocation of saints, auricular confession, celibacy, papal supremacy or infallibility, and the dogma of purgatory; taking the Scripture as the rule of life, and admitting no sacraments but baptism and the Lord's Supper.... No bloodier cruelty disgraces the records of the papacy than the persecutions endured by the ancestors of the twenty thousand Waldenses now surviving.... Never did men suffer more for their belief."

As the author mildly presents it, these statements not being in accordance with his knowledge of the subject, he was moved to undertake a thorough investigation of the history of the Waldenses. To this end, in addition to the perusal of a long and formidable list of works given in the preface, and which is valuable as presenting the bibliography of the subject, he made thorough investigation in the great libraries of England, Rome, and Turin, which last collection was found very rich in MSS. referring to the Waldensian period. Fresh stimulus and efficient aid were given to his efforts by the appearance of a very important work by Professor James Henthorn Todd, Senior Fellow of Trinity Church, Dublin, entitled, The Book of the Vaudois; The Waldensian Manuscripts, which gives a notice of the long-lost Morland manuscripts lately discovered by Mr. Henry Bradshaw, M.A., Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and librarian of that university. These MSS. are undoubtedly "the oldest extant relics of the Vaudois literature," and the most important documents relating to their history.

The author forcibly presents in extenso, and in separate chapters, the testimony of Richard, Monk of Cluny, Moneta, De Bellavilla, Abbot Bernard, Reinerius Sacco, Archbishop Seyssell, Eneas Sylvius Piccolomini, Casini, and many others, and in the fifteenth section addresses himself to prove that the dates which Leger and Morland have assigned to the Waldensian MSS. are counterfeit. Leger assigns A.D. 1100 as the date of the Nobla Leyçon and the Catechism of the MSS. Our author shows that these writings are of the fifteenth, not the twelfth century, and that the date assigned by Leger involves the contradiction of proving that the Waldenses existed as a sect before the period of its founder, Peter Waldo.

One long chapter is devoted to the supposed cruel Waldensian massacre of the year 1655, as related in the often-quoted Histoire Véritable des Vaudois, and to the particular murders described by Leger. These are confronted with the legal testimony touching the same facts.

The work closes with an exposition of the Waldensian theological tenets, each one being presented separately with a statement of the Catholic doctrine on that tenet upon the same page.

The book is a beautiful specimen of typography, and is illustrated with several photographs of pages of the Morland manuscripts.

The Charlestown Convent; Its Destruction by a Mob, etc. Compiled from authentic sources. Boston: P. Donahoe. 1870.

We remember distinctly the Ursuline Convent at Charlestown, as it appeared forty years ago, crowning a gentle summit with its grave and dignified buildings, and attractive grounds laid out and cultivated with taste; a retreat of piety and a school of religious and solid education. We have often enough since that time looked upon its ruins, a perpetual monument of disgrace to Boston and Massachusetts, a token of shame in close proximity to that other monument, a monument of imperishable glory, which crowns the site of the battle of Bunker Hill. This pamphlet describing the atrocious and barbarian outrage perpetrated on the night of August 11th, 1834, with the train of preceding and succeeding events connected with it, presents a page in our history which many persons would do well to ponder attentively. The outrage was occasioned by the publication of Six Months in a Convent, one of a class of vile publications which, for a time, were widely circulated and swallowed with credulity, but afterward universally scouted with that scorn and loathing which the American people always feels when it discovers that it has been duped by the wicked and designing. There would be no need of reviving the memory of these things, if the same style of attack upon Catholics had not been renewed at intervals, and were not adopted at the present moment by restless fanatics, who, knowing that they are incapable of coping with us in fair argument, are fain to resort to these criminal methods of appealing to prejudice, bigotry, ignorance, and passion, hoping to stir up the populace to a crusade against the Catholic religion. The abettors of Rebecca Reed and Maria Monk in the pulpit and the press have had successors to the present time. The Massachusetts Legislature has had its "smelling committee;" Missouri has passed its outrageous laws; other legislatures have attempted to lay their hands upon the property of the Catholic Church; the most infamous laws are even now in consideration before the Legislature of Pennsylvania; we have had the archangel Gabriel, and Judson, and Gavazzi, and Leahy, and we have now Bishop Coxe, Bellows, Hepworth, and Muller. The same firm of publishers which formerly was so active and conspicuous in putting forth the most vulgar and violent attacks upon the Catholic religion, although in one instance it found it expedient to hide itself under an alias, continues its work under the guise of a more pretentious literature, embellished by offensive caricatures of the most venerable and sacred objects of the religious veneration of Catholics. The spirit of falsification, the intention to stir up popular passion, the intolerance disguised under the name of liberalism, the determination to treat the Catholic clergy as the heads of a faction with ulterior treasonable and revolutionary designs, and the Catholic religion as a nuisance which ought to be extirpated by violence, are the same in the modern agitators that they were in their predecessors, and are in their English compeers, the Newdegates and Whalleys of the British Parliament. They tend to similar results with those which similar agitators have heretofore produced. The same train is laid, the same spark applied, and the chance of a similar explosion depends on the fact of the existence or non-existence of a similar magazine of slumbering popular prejudice and inflammable passion. We say, therefore, that it is well for considerate persons who desire the peace of the community to read and reflect upon this pamphlet. It is necessary that some very important questions should arise, where Catholics and non-Catholics form important elements in the same political community, with equal rights. It is impossible that peace and good order should be preserved, unless these matters can be discussed and arranged calmly and amicably. Therefore we say that the agitators who appeal to a violent solution, in case Catholics are not content with a simple toleration under a Protestant domination, are enemies of the public peace, and ought to be regarded as such by all good citizens. The Catholic clergy will never be agitators. If the effort is made by demagogues to pervert the Catholic or Irish sentiment into an impetus of illegal, revolutionary movements, like the riot of 1863 and the Fenian plot against Canada, the whole authority of the church and all the influence of the clergy will be put forth against it. It is for the present and future advantage and interest of this country that the influence of the Catholic clergy over their people should be as great as possible, and that of clerical agitators and demagogues reduced to nothing.

Life of St. Charles Borromeo. Edited by Edward Healy Thompson, A.M. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham. 1870.

St. Charles Borromeo was one of the greatest of the true reformers of the sixteenth century. During the lifetime of his Uncle, Pius IV., he held many of the highest offices in the Roman court, possessed the pope's entire confidence, and exerted a powerful influence in favor of whatever was for the good of the church. To his exertions were due, in no small degree, the reassembling of the Council of Trent, and the successful completion of its labors eighteen years after its opening.

At the death of Pius IV., St. Charles returned to his diocese, and straightway entered upon the work of its reformation, in accordance with the decrees of Trent. He succeeded in effecting a complete reform, and the example which he thus gave had a most salutary effect.

The Life before us is well written; it gives not only the facts, but likewise in some degree the philosophy of history; and it is free from that religious mannerism, so to speak, which is not unfrequently met with in books of this class. The typography and binding are in keeping with the contents. There are, however, a great many very serious errors of the press defacing this otherwise well printed volume.

First Book of Botany. By Eliza A. Youmans. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1870.

This elementary treatise upon botany is arranged in an entirely new manner. The book is intended to cultivate the child's natural powers of observation. In ordinary text-books, the beginner is expected to master a great number of definitions and distinctions before he ventures to go into the fields and study for himself. We have always considered this method irksome, and we know it to be fruitless of result. We therefore very heartily welcome Miss Youmans's little work. We hope that she has inaugurated a reform in the teaching of the natural sciences. We confidently recommend the book to all Catholic schools where botany, or any of the natural sciences, form a portion of the course of studies.

The Wise Men: who they were, etc. By Francis W. Upham, LL.D. New York: Sheldon & Co. 1869.

A book written with sound and solid learning, and originality of thought; pervaded also by a spirit in harmony with Catholic teaching, so far as the topics are concerned upon which it treats.

The Monks before Christ; Their Spirit and their History. By John Edgar Johnson. Boston: A. Williams & Co. 1870.

This is one of the most shallow and stupid productions we have met with in a long time. The author met with some rather poor specimens of the monastic order in Europe, and breaks out into the exclamation, "Great heavens! and these are the men who had the exclusive manipulation of our Scriptures for several hundred years!" (Page 18.) One who is so extremely weak in the reasoning faculty as this passage indicates has no business to write a book on serious topics, and is unworthy of refutation. The author informs us that monasticism is based on the Manichæan doctrine of an evil principle in matter. This shows an inconceivable ignorance which we cannot think is invincible or excusable, since the author resided several months at the University of Munich, and was well acquainted with the learned Benedictines of that capital, over whom the celebrated Haneberg is abbot.

The Flemmings; or, Truth Triumphant. By Mrs. Anna H. Dorsay. New York: P. O'Shea. 1870.

The author of this volume has given us a pleasant story, interesting both to Catholics and Protestants, as tales of conversions to the true faith cannot fail to be when founded, as this appears to be, on fact. The pictures of natural scenery are fresh and life-like, and the moral and religious teaching unexceptionable. It is carelessly written, which will prevent the book from taking rank as a first-class story, though it will interest and profit certain minds, who would not prize it more highly if it were thoroughly cultivated and refined.

A moment's thought would have prevented mistakes in local customs, such as introducing a hay-tedder into farming operations forty years ago, and making our Puritan forefathers go up to their communion, whereas they had not reverence enough for the symbols to rise or kneel at their reception, but remained seated in their pews, even as their descendants do to this day.

The blunders in spelling which mar many pages of the book would disgrace a third-rate proof-reader, and we are certain the author never saw the proofs. Both paper and type are of inferior quality. These faults are the more inexcusable, as the beautiful covering, with the choice gilded medallion and precious motto, led us to look for something very nice in the way of print and paper.

Wonders of Italian Art. By Louis Viardot. Illustrated. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1870.

An interesting book spoiled by careless expressions and incorrect assertions. Such expressions as "the worship of images," (page 28,) instead of "veneration," etc.; the assertion that the "policy of the popes always was to foster disunion in Italy, in order to profit by it," (page 35,) and styling Savonarola "the Italian Luther," (page 111,) make it unfit for introduction among Catholics. It is to be regretted that a book like this, containing as it does so much that is great and good in the history of Catholic art in Italy, should be marred by statements which are not historically true, and have nothing whatever to do with such a work.

Home Influence. By Grace Aguilar. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

It is quite refreshing, after the floods of impassioned sensational novels that have poured from the press on all sides for the last ten or fifteen years, to know that there is a call for the purity and high-toned sentiment that flow from the pen of Miss Aguilar.

Twenty years ago, her works afforded interest and instruction, the present volume to mothers especially, and though her children and grown people are sometimes stiff and priggish, and are wont to talk like books, they are always well-bred and refined, never descending to irreverence or slang, as they too often do in stories of to-day.

It was formerly a criticism on her works, that they favored Judaism (the creed of their author) at the expense of Christianity; but no such charge can be brought against Home Influence with any truth.

This volume presents an attractive exterior, and if the works of this author take again with the novel-reading public, it will be a symptom of returning health in the community.

Missale Romanum, ex decreto sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini restitutum, S. Pii VI. jussu editum, Clementis VIII. et Urbani VIII. Papæ auctoritate recognitum, et novis missis ex indulto apostolico hucusque concessis auctum. Mechliniæ: H. Dessain.

This Missal, from the house of the Messrs. Benziger Brothers, is printed in good, clear type, pleasant to the eye; contains the last new masses enjoined by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and is illustrated with excellent full-page engravings. It is besides, as a book, both serviceable and cheap.

The Catholic Publication Society has in press, and will publish, May twenty-fifth, a work by James Kent Stone, D.D., late President of Kenyon and Hobart Colleges, entitled, The Invitation Heeded: Reasons for a Return to Catholic Unity. As the title implies, Mr. Stone will, in this volume, give his reasons for becoming a Catholic.

Messrs. John Murphy & Co. announce as in press, The Paradise of the Earth; or, the True Means of Finding Happiness in the Religious State, according to the Rules of the Masters of Spiritual Life. Translated from the French of L'Abbé Sanson, by the Rev. F. Ignatius Sisk, of the Cistercian Community, Mount St. Bernard's Abbey. Also, Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. From the Italian of Secundo Franco, S.J.