CATHOLIC WORLD. (continued 5)

We are often tempted to complain that we have fallen upon evil times. The past seems to us to have been more full of heroism, the future we believe will be richer in knowledge. We have slid into a period of prosaic piety mingled with many doubts. Without pausing to argue how much of this is false, we would remark that the doubt that falls across our path and every cloud that veils the sunshine, and by this very act we shall hasten the dawn and bring on the joyous fruition of our prayer. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”—for surely this prayer is intended to be granted in a far greater degree than anything the world has ever seen from the creation to the present hour. Remember who taught us that prayer; and remember the centuries that it has been breathed by all the church of God from infancy to age. It is not a poetic phrase. It is not a hyperbole. It is God’s word, expressive of God’s will and God’s intention; and, therefore, has he made it the universal petition of all his children. It is the epitome of all he demands in every separate soul, until the many units have become a large multitude of the faithful, greater than any man can number.

It is the strenuousness of our faith which will give a greater distinctness, a more delineated and chiselled clearness, to our convictions, and even to our opinions. At present they hang loose on too many of us, and flap about in the high wind of the world’s contempt and impudent indifference, blinding our sight and hindering our steps. A firmer, steadier faith will gather tight across our bosom all our outstanding notions and ideas, bringing them into subjection to the faith which teaches us to see all things as God sees them—that is, according to our degree, but in the same light that he sees them, which is the light of eternity and of his own being. He has bidden us open our mouth wide that he may fill it. Can, we, then hope too largely or too earnestly? Can we assign any limits to the grace of sanctification in its continuous within us. Even mortal sin can be committed without his assistance; and we are but too apt to paint him blacker by thrusting upon him a responsibility which is too often all our own. We believe in no absolutely sinless existence this side the gates of death, except that of the God-man and his immaculate Mother. But this we do believe, that “wisdom is justified by her children,”[157] and we venture to anticipate that all that is holy, beautiful, and fitting in nature will shine with a renewed glory upon earth as the dawn grows to the perfect day, before the temporal gives place to the eternal, and the Son of Man shall have delivered up the kingdom to the Father. “And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then the Son also himself shall be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.”[158] We have borne the image of the earthly, we must also bear the image of the heavenly—when God shall be all in all, when we shall have ascended by the ladder of the sacred humanity to the mystery of the Holy Trinity, when we shall look on the Triune God and be satisfied. Before the immensity of that thought there falls a veil of light more impenetrable than the thickest darkness. We cease to think. Our whole being becomes as it were detached from our human consciousness, and for one moment, one awful, never-to-be-forgotten moment, we hang over the abyss which is the eternity and the

THE END.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

The Glories of the Sacred Heart. By Henry Edward, Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1876. [Republished by special permission of his Eminence.]

There are many excellent works on the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The new one whose title is given above is not a mere repetition in a new form of the substance of any of these preceding treatises. It is different from all of them, and quite peculiar in its scope, as well as in its style, as might be expected from its eminent author. Its basis is strictly theological. With his usual and characteristic accuracy of doctrine and lucidity of style, the cardinal makes an exposition of the mystery of the Incarnation and its consequences, especially in respect to the deification and adoration of the sacred humanity of Jesus Christ. The special cultus of the Sacred Heart is explained in its relation to the deified humanity, to the Blessed Sacrament, to the sanctification of men, and to the eternal glory of the elect. This is a book to enlighten the mind of a sincere and devout reader, and, through the illumination of the understanding, to awaken a solid, rational, and ardent devotion.

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We have received the following books, but in consequence of the unusually crowded state of our columns must defer notice of them until later.

Terra Incognita; or, the Convents of the United Kingdom. By John Nicholas Murphy. Popular Edition. London: Burns & Oates. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

Souvenirs of Notre Dame: A Collection of Poems and Dramas. By Mrs. Mary T. Monroe. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

Julian the Apostate, and the Duke of Mercia: Historical Dramas. By the late Sir Aubrey de Vere. London: Pickering.

Margaret Roper; or, the Chancellor and his Daughter. By Agnes M. Stewart. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co.

Real Life. By Mathilde Froment. Translated from the French by Miss Newlin. Kelly, Piet & Co.

The Wise Nun of Eastonmere, and other Tales. By Miss Taylor. Kelly, Piet & Co. Saint Elizabeth, the Lily of Portugal; Saint Elizabeth, the Matron of Israel; Saint Elizabeth, the Queen of Hungary. By the author of “Life in the Cloister.” Kelly, Piet & Co.

Meditations and Considerations for a Retreat of one Day in each Month. Kelly, Piet & Co.

Bertha: A Historical Romance. By Conrad von Bolanden. Translated by S. B. A. Harper. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

The New Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. From the original French. B. S. P. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham’s Son.

Science and Religion. A Lecture delivered at Leeds, England. By Cardinal Wiseman. St. Louis: Patrick Fox.

Little Catechism of the Infallibility of the Sovereign Pontiff. New York: Benziger Bros.

Spiritualism and Nervous Derangement. By William A. Hammond, M. D. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

The Physical Basis of Immortality. By Antoinette Brown Blackwell. G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land. By Herman Melville. Two vols. G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

The Greeks and the Persians. By the Rev. G. W. Cox, M.A. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co.

The Fall of the Stuarts and Western Europe. By the Rev. E. Hale, M.A. Scribner, Armstrong & Co.

The Age of Elizabeth. By Mandell Creighton, M.A. Scribner, Armstrong & Co.

The Life, Letters, and Table-Talk of Benjamin Robert Haydon. Edited by Richard Henry Stoddard. Scribner, Armstrong & Co.

Poems. By Christina G. Rossetti. Boston: Roberts Bros.

Revolutionary Times. By Edward Abbott. Roberts Bros.

Achsah: A New England Study. By Rev. Peter Pennot. Boston: Lee & Shepard.

A Question of Honor. By Christian Reid. New York: Appleton & Co.

Spirit Invocations. Compiled by Allen Putnam, M.A. Boston: Colby & Rich.

In the next number of The Catholic World will be begun a new serial entitled “Six Sunny Months,” by the author of The House of Yorke, Grapes and Thorns, etc.

THE