Chapter IX: Front Matter (9)

He goes on to give his reasons for this idea, that the economical furnishing of the world is finished, or so far advanced that henceforth we can expect no such development as we have seen in the past:

“In Holland the great works are done: the drains are
continued; Amsterdam is connected with the sea; international
communications are established.

“In Italy, in Spain, the great arteries are provided with iron
roads, and the products of their working are notoriously below
what one could reckon as remuneration upon the capital. The
seaports, the mines, are sufficiently provided for in these
countries; the towns, there as elsewhere, have their markets,
their water and gas works, their new quarters, their tramways.

“As for the Pyrenees, they are crossed; the Alps also; and after
the tunnel already made by Mont Cenis toward France, the road in
construction through Saint-Gothard toward Germany, and the very
sufficient pass through the Brenner toward Austria, industrial
activity will no longer find any occupation in this quarter.

“In Russia the principal railroad lines are completed.

“The railway system of Prussia is finished, and in that country
industry is so well furnished that she is murdered with her own
tools; the means of production and of transportation are too
vast, and in evident disproportion to the possible business of
the country.

“Austria is supplied, and there it would be rash to go further.

“Turkey has railroads. It has been difficult enough to construct
them; one does not speak of them willingly.

“The United States have borrowed enough from us to establish
their system; it is compact and well provided with lines, even
opposition lines. That country has regained its lost time; it is
necessary to watch its steps now that it is furnished
sufficiently to put itself in competition with the industry of
Western Europe.

“The Isthmus of Suez is opened.

“The transatlantic cables are laid.

“The transformation in the merchant marine is three-fourths
completed; the sailing ship has disappeared, or at least is
relegated to the second place; the steamers have the principal
trade.

“On whatever side we turn our eyes we see these accomplished
results of the work of the last forty years. These results may
not be always excellent from the financial point of view; many
errors have been brought out, and by the side of some brilliant
exceptions we must count a number of deceptions for the
capitalists engaged, and for the governments which have become
needy and insolvent. But, whatever may be the financial result,
these lands have been stirred up and dug out; the blocks and the
rails have been laid; the towns have been transformed; the
distances have been shortened; the new apparatus has been given
in profusion to the rich countries, in more reasonable limits to
countries less open; everywhere what was strictly necessary has
been done; often too much has been done.”

Here, very clearly expressed, is the result of the forty years of activity which we have had, and this result is really the end toward which tended the great industrial movement that, for so long a time, has held minds awake, has kept the dockyards, the workshops, the factories, the forges at work. This end is attained; we see it; and among the serious consequences of this fact is one which M. De Laveleye exposes with his usual lucidity:

“Thanks to the facilities of communication, to the new routes
opened, to steam and to electricity, the conditions of commerce
and industry are changed. There is no longer any place, as there
was at the beginning of this century, for the boldness of the
manufacturer or the trader, counting upon his skill as well as
on his risk to obtain a large remuneration due to his audacity,
to his special knowledge, and to his capital.

“Between the new and the old commerce and industry there exists
the same difference as between the wars of the empire and the
last campaigns of France and of Austria.

“The same causes have produced the same results. In war the
cannon and guns of perfection, the railways and the telegraphs,
the vast masses of men, have produced rapid campaigns, in which
personal valor and the chances of war, going almost for nothing,
contributed very little to the final result. In industry the
same perfection of apparatus has changed the conditions of
trade; and the masses of men are replaced by the abundance of
circulating capital and the facility of the means of credit—two
other products of this active period of forty years.

“Only, in war the final result places the vanquished at the
mercy of his foe, who can, as it appears, dictate his laws; in
industry and in commerce the final gain is not left arbitrarily
to the swiftest or to the best equipped. He must content himself
with little; he is forbidden to abuse the victory which, without
this moderation, will not be long in escaping him.”

This is what we have come to; and from a purely economic point
of view we can recognize, with the judicious writer who has
furnished us with the process of the struggle, that the most
certain consequences of all this will be the following:

.pm letter-start “There will be an excess of circulating
capital, free from employment.

“Now, as long as this has not been the case the product of
capital has been as follows:

“From three to four and a half per cent. on unquestionable
securities of the first class.

“From four and a half to six per cent. on real estate security
of the second class.

“From six to eight per cent. on loans and limited liabilities.

“From eight to ten per cent. and upwards on industrial,
financial, and speculative ventures.

“In the future and during a still indefinite period, which
cannot fail to be long, very long, this scale must be modified
by the excess of unemployed capital.

“Unquestionable securities will descend to three per cent., or
below that; those of the second class will bring four and a
half; men will be happy to make six per cent. in manufactures or
production; finally, one can obtain eight per cent. only by
running wild risks. There will be a general change in the rate
of capitalization, in the sense of lessening the interest while
increasing the amount of capital. Some exceptions—that is to
say, some happy chances, some skilful personal strokes—may occur
to confirm this rule. The general movement, however, will, we
believe, be that which we have indicated.”

But what remains, then, to be done? Little of anything, if we wish to attribute to the revival of activity, which will come in its own time, only the sense and the direction which the movement has had until now. On the other hand, forced to admit that the human spirit has not at all gone to sleep, and that the inventive genius which the Master of all things in his goodness has bestowed upon his humble creatures has not in the least diminished, it is necessary also to confess that in the future it is the unknown which opens before us; and just as, before this century, people had not even thought of all the beautiful applications of heat, electricity, steam, and light which have made the material glory of our age and of an illustrious galaxy of _savants_, even so to-day we cannot say toward what end the efforts of humanity might tend to-morrow. One Being only knows it—he who knows all and sees all, he for whom the past, the present, and the future are but one, he who does not depend at all on time—God, in fact, the creator of all that has been, that is, and that shall be, the great dispenser of all good and of all progress; he who disposes of man at his will in one way or the other, often while the latter, in his folly, refuses to abase his blind presumption sufficiently to recognize him.

Let us, then, leave to the future that which belongs to the future, and let us hold ourselves, each one for his own account, ready to obey the impulse which it may please God to give us.

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THE LAST PILGRIMAGE TO MONT SAINT-MICHEL.

When the traveller who is visiting the beautiful localities of the Channel Peninsula quits the southern faubourg of Avranches—a picturesque little town built of sparkling granite—a road, marked by a succession of rapid declivities, brings him to the shore of a large bay formed by the sinking of the coasts of Normandy and Brittany. Before him reaches, far away and out of sight, the flat extent of sands, furrowed by the rivers Sée, Sélunce, and Coësnon, whose silvery windings the eye can follow to a considerable distance. On the higher parts of these sands grows a fine kind of grass, the _poa_ of the salt-meadows, and which, mingled with marine plants and sand-weeds, furnishes a favorite pasture for sheep. The lower and barren portion of the sands disappears twice a day beneath the tide, which at times spreads gently and caressingly over them, while at others it rolls foaming in with precipitate fury, as if eager to pass its appointed boundary. At high tide nothing is visible but an immense lake, partially engirdled with hills; and in the distance, like a pyramid of granite, sometimes from the bosom of the waves, sometimes from the expanse of sand, rises a nearly circular rock, laden with constructions of various kinds intermingled with vigorous vegetation, and crowned by large and lofty buildings.

This is the famous Mont Saint-Michel: _au péril de la mer—in periculo mortis_, as our fathers were wont to say in their strong and simple language, which, like nature, speaks in images.

The first time we saw St. Michael’s Mount was in sailing from Southampton to St. Malo, towards four o’clock one bright morning in June. The early sunshine lighted up the higher part of the rock, with all its wealth of natural and architectural inequalities, in one blaze of gold, while its base lay still in shadow. The only illuminated object, rising from a purplish haze, its brightness heightened by the blue of sea and sky, above, beneath, and around, it appeared rather like an ethereal vision than anything of earth.

Mount St. Michael! What memories are awakened only by the name, which is in itself a magical evocation of bygone centuries! Here, too, present realities still rival the memories of the past. With respect to its natural situation, as well as the share which human hands have had in its formation, there is about it much that defies comparison. It is at once a nest of legends, the home of religious thought, of prayer and meditation, as well as of learning and the arts. Mount St. Michael, being a monastery, a cathedral, and a fortress, is, in its triple unity, a summary of the three great elements of the life of France during all the poetic, heroic, and religious though stormy period of the middle ages.

Beaten into ruggedness by the storms of heaven, and discrowned of the golden statue of its patron archangel, the summit of the mount no longer springs upward into space with the same loftiness and lightness that used to strike so forcibly those who beheld it for the first time. The great human work thus seems as if arrested in its heavenward climbing; but, like other and grander majesties, St. Michael’s Mount has been uncrowned without undergoing any diminution of its glory, and it still presents its singular threefold aspect to the eye. On the western side the rock, stern and bare, seems to bid defiance to the hand of man; on the north a strong wall rises to the height of two hundred feet from base to battlements, strengthened with buttresses and flanked by bastions, pierced irregularly with pointed windows, and surmounted by a series of elegant arcades. To the south we find a rich display of architectural art, the exuberance of which is almost equalled by its caprice. Above all, and larger than all the rest, rises the church, with its forest of granite pinnacles and turrets overlooking the distant horizons of Normandy and Brittany, and, to use the language of the ancient chroniclers, imposing the fear of the archangel on the vast expanse of ocean—_immensi tremor oceani_.

In ages long anterior to any of its architectural constructions, and before the Christian era, this rock, much loftier then than now, rose from the midst of a vast forest which extended from Coutances to the rocks of Cesembre beyond St. Malo. This forest of Scissey, or Chesey (Sissiacum), took its name from the goddess Sessia, who was invoked at the time of sowing, and worshipped as the protectress of the corn while in the ground. The rock itself was called Tomba, and also Belenus, the name given by the Gauls and Druids to their sun-god,[13] and which was identical with Baal of the Phœnicians, Bel of the Assyrians, and the Apollo of the Greeks.

On Mount Belenus was a college of nine Druidesses, the eldest of whom, like the pythoness of Delphi, uttered oracles.[14] The Romans, in the course of their conquests in Gaul, made Bel give place to Jove: Tomba Belenus became _Mons Jovis_ and was sacred to Jupiter.

In the year 708 Mount Belenus, which until that period had formed a part of the mainland of Armorica, was suddenly detached from it by a terrible catastrophe which spread desolation over the country. The sea, flowing in with tempestuous fury, overpassed its limits, submerged the ancient forest, as well as the inhabited parts of the coast, and, except when the tide is out, made an island of the Mount.[15] It was in this same year of 708, in the reign of Childebert II., that St. Aubert, the first Bishop of Avranches, in obedience to a vision built there a church dedicated to the Archangel St. Michael, and at the same time founded a monastery of clerks regular, who replaced the two or three hermits who had formerly lived in seclusion on the Mount.

This monastery acquired, later on, a fresh importance under the Dukes of Normandy. Duke Richard I. enlarged and made of it an abbey of the Order of St. Benedict. In 1002 or 1003, great part of the church and surrounding buildings being consumed by a fire which broke out, Duke Richard II. considerably enlarged as well as strengthened the foundation by the construction of the crypt, upon which the new edifice was raised. This crypt appears to be cut out of the solid rock, and is divided in two parts by a wall. Its low and vaulted roof is supported by massive pillars, round or square. A larger or grander subterranean vault does not perhaps exist, with its space of seventy metres in length by twelve in breadth, and its three aisles formed by about twenty pillars. The roof sustains the weight of two stories of building, the dormitory over the refectory, and the magnificent cloister over the Hall of the Knights.[16]

The original church soon becoming too small to contain the numerous pilgrims who flocked thither, the construction of a new one was begun by the Abbot Raoul, who, in 1048, raised the four pillars and the arch of the great tower. The nave, and that part of the monastery called _La Merveille_, were built by his successor, Renaud.

It was in 1091 that Henry, the youngest son of the Conqueror, was besieged in the fortress of Mont Saint-Michel by his brothers Robert and William. After the expulsion of the wretched John from Normandy, Abbot Jourdain wishing to preserve the Mount to the kings of England, Philip Augustus sent against him Guy de Thouars, who, after a lengthened siege, being unable to take it, set in on fire. It suffered severely from another conflagration in 1350, when struck by lightning during a terrible storm. The liberality of Philip de Valois restored the church and monastery to more than their former splendor.

Early in the fifteenth century Abbot Jolivet surrounded the town with fortifications. The English, at this time invading France, besieged Mont Saint-Michel, but were repulsed by the brave d’Estouteville and his companions-in-arms, one hundred and twenty-nine in all, who successfully defended the post entrusted to them when the greater part of France had submitted to the conquerors.

During the religious wars Mont St. Michel was several times attacked by the Protestants. On the Feast of St. Mary Magdalen, July 22, 1577, a number of them, habited as pilgrims and concealing their weapons, were admitted without suspicion into the church, where, after hearing several Masses with great show of devotion, they divided into small groups, and, with an air of calm indifference, occupied different parts of the buildings, until, secure of their position, they murdered such of the guards as did not escape by flight or concealment, and then fell not only upon the garrison but on the monks, even massacring the priests who had been saying Mass for them.

This noble abbey had for more than a thousand years an existence worthy of its origin. Mingling in the religious and warlike history of France, it was simultaneously or by turns occupied by knights and monks; the abode of faith and courage; an advanced sentinel in the direction of England, and thus affording protection against the foes of this world and of the next, defending alike with the cross and with the sword, and held in veneration by the whole of Christendom.

During the ages of faith pilgrims came hither by thousands, from all lands, braving the danger of these treacherous sands, to invoke in this his sanctuary the prince and leader of the armies of heaven.

The sacrilegious impiety of modern times could no more spare St. Michael’s Mount than so many other holy and beautiful relics of the past which it has seen fit to mutilate or destroy. The First Republic suppressed the monastery, drove out the monks, demolished a portion of their church, changed the name of Mont Saint-Michel to that of _le Mont Libre_, or the Free Mount, and turned it into a prison!—doubtless in order to prove the suitability of its new appellation.

The first prisoners there were the priests of Brittany and Normandy. Prayer was thus at least not yet banished from its ancient abode. In 1811 Napoleon made of it a _Maison de Réclusion_, which, in 1818, became a _Maison de Détention_, and it was at the same time also a state prison. Rarely has any place seen more sad and strange vicissitudes. The chosen dwelling-place of those called to serve God in a religious life became the sink of every crime pursued and punished by society, and the population of Mount St. Michael was now recruited not from men who had received a holy vocation, but from courts of assize.

A decree of 1863, however, relieved it from this unworthy fate, alike saddening to Christians, archæologists, and poets, and Mont Saint-Michel, which now belongs to the see of Coutances, has been confided by the ecclesiastical administration to the charge of twelve priests of the Congregation of Pontigny in the diocese of Sens, who carry on the services in its church, receive the visitors drawn thither by the sanctity or historical interest of the place, and fulfil the office of preachers and missionaries to all the parishes of the Channel Islands. An orphanage for boys is now flourishing in the old barracks, and by its side are _ateliers_ where painting on glass is carried on—a kind of painting (or staining, rather) which, more than any other, has a religious object. All this is, so far, a return to a better state of things, but the solicitude of its diocesan does not find it enough, feeling that, though much has been done, still the present is too unlike the past, and earnestly desiring to restore the abbey to its former splendor. And he will do it yet. Already the pilgrimages thither are renewed with a fervor worthy of ancient days.

Few things can be more beautiful and edifying than the holy festivities of which the most recent of these pilgrimages has just been the occasion, and which have left so deep an impression on those who took part in them, and who followed the imposing order of the successive religious ceremonies, stamped as they were with the character of dignity and grandeur which the Catholic Church has impressed upon her liturgy and worship.

From earliest dawn long bands of pilgrims, conducted by the priests of their respective parishes and preceded by their banners, began to enamel with picturesque groups the white monotony of the sands. On arriving at the Mount they formed into regular columns and slowly ascended the steep acclivity to the church. Towards nine in the morning the Mount presented a singular aspect, not unlike a gigantic ant-hill: the flights of steps disappeared under the long processions mounting them, while the ramparts were as if crenellated with the heads of the crowds watching for the arrival of the Bishop of Coutances and Avranches and the Bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux. An involuntary delay on the part of the bishops was for a time the cause of extreme anxiety. Anything may be feared from this dangerous bay, whose shifting sands change their direction after every tide, and engulf the late or unwary traveller in an abyss of mud. The first carriage had passed safely on to _terra firma_, but the wheels of the second were perceived to be sinking, and the horses, terrified at no longer finding any footing, were becoming so unmanageable that a fatal catastrophe would have been almost inevitable, had not the men of the place hastened to the rescue and succeeded by their prompt energy in dragging the carriage out of danger.

The two prelates presented themselves at the entrance gate as the clock of the great tower began to strike eleven, and were saluted by acclamations so enthusiastic that it seemed as if the whole Mount were bidding them welcome. They proceeded up the steep lane that winds upward between houses that look as if piled almost one upon another, and which date from three or four centuries back, low, square, and solid, and having for the most part only one story, plunging their foundations into the rock, and wedged, as it were, against each other, the better to resist the force of hurricanes and tempests. Here and there trees of thick foliage overshadow the narrow, winding ascent, which at intervals through some unexpected opening shows a vast horizon over the waters of the Channel, with its lovely islands, and the coast of France.

The procession reached in due time the threshold of the ancient abbey, and, after a few words of warm and respectful welcome spoken to the bishops by the reverend father prior, entered the church.

There is something unique in the beauty of this basilica which so nobly crowns the summit of Mont Saint-Michel, and of which the four extremities rest on four enormous arched vaults founded in the rock. It possesses all the essential parts of a great cathedral—nave, aisles, transepts, choir, and apse. The nave is Roman, the choir Gothic, and the aisles _Moresque_ or Byzantine. Boldly cut in granite, the architecture is as remarkable as the site.

The nave was formerly two hundred and forty feet in length, but underwent an irreparable mutilation under the First Republic, when it was shortened by the cutting away of four of its eight transverse vaultings. It nevertheless remains singularly imposing—simple even to severity, but relieved by its triforium and a gallery with deep arcades. The collateral arches, which are somewhat narrow, have the horseshoe form usual in Arabian architecture; the transepts, like the nave, are Roman, but of more recent date; the choir, which is of the best period of flamboyant Gothic, very delicately sculptured, has in the clerestory a square window of remarkable richness; and in the apse, which is of granite, delicate lines of tracery spring upwards with exquisite lightness. On the keystone of its vaulted roof is the escutcheon of the abbey. The choir is surrounded by bas-reliefs representing the four evangelists, and a ship, symbolical of the church militant, tossing on an angry sea which cannot overwhelm her, guided as she is by an unerring pilot—_Fluctuat, non mergitur_.

The noble edifice had on this day received an additional decoration from the number and beauty of the banners there displayed, the principal of which was a large standard in the nave representing the archangel St. Michael victorious over the dragon. On the balustrade in front of the altar were hung the sword and banner of General Lamoricière, with his motto, _In Deo spes mea_. Within the balustrade were erected the two episcopal thrones. The chapel of St. Michael, which occupies the left arm of the cross, and in which is the statue of the archangel, was thickly hung with the banners of the different parishes represented in the pilgrimage. Among their mottoes were such as these: _Quis ut Deus?_ _Defende nos in periculo_; _Deo soli semper Honor_; _Deo et Patriæ_, etc. Above these floated the banner of the Sovereign Pontiff. There is in the same chapel some rich tapestry, the work and offering of the ladies of Avranches—_les Avranchines_, as they are prettily called in the country.

In the chapel facing this one, and in the left arm of the cross, are the two crowns offered to the glorious archangel, the one by the Holy Father, the other by the faithful of France. The latter, resplendent with diamonds and other precious stones of great value, is to be used next year for crowning the statue of St. Michael.

High Mass having been sung by the Bishop of Bayeux, his right reverend colleague addressed the assembled multitude. Mgr. Germain, although one of the youngest members of the French episcopate, is also one of the most eloquent, and owes simply to his merit the rapidity with which he has risen to be chief pastor of one of the most religious dioceses of France. As chaplain of the _Lycée_ of Caen, he quickly gained the hearts of the youth placed under his spiritual care; as _curé_ of the Cathedral of Bayeux, he made his influence felt in the whole city; and now, as Bishop of Coutances and Avranches, the influence for good which has marked each step of his career finds a wider field of action, of which he does not fail to profit. With a few words from his discourse, which are a summary of the whole, we conclude:

“The days in which we live find the church still engaged in a warfare similar to that which St. Michael, the champion of God, sustained against the rebel angels. Still the same revolt continues, and man has learnt from Satan to declare, ‘_Non serviam!_’ As children of God and of his church, let it be our happiness, as it is our privilege, to _obey_. God and his church having an authoritative claim on our obedience, let us see that ours shall resemble that of the blessed angels, which is loving, intelligent, thorough, and prompt.”

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NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE LIFE OF MARIE LATASTE, Lay Sister of the Congregation of the Sacred
Heart. With a brief notice of her sister Quitterie. London: Burns &
Oates. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

The history of the church is marked at intervals by the appearance of favored souls whose wonderful gifts of the supernatural order fully attest the holiness which our divine Lord has willed should be the pre-eminent attribute of his blessed spouse. These manifestations of sanctity in individual souls have, besides, a special reference to the wants of those times in which they appear. When rapacity and luxurious wastefulness characterized the upper classes of French society, Almighty God raised up St. Vincent de Paul, the grand apostle of charity, to rebuke men’s hardness of heart towards their poor and suffering fellow-creatures. So likewise, in an era of spiritual torpor and cowardice, he gave to the world that prince of spiritual warriors, Ignatius of Loyola, and his devoted band of spiritual heroes to awaken men from their lethargy. Our own times are a period of intellectual pride, of contempt for spiritual things, and a corresponding exaltation of the material order; and divine Providence has seen fit to confound this dangerous spirit by working great things through weak instruments, and by proposing new devotions which demand an increased exercise of faith. As there is nothing more opposed to the peculiar spirit of the world of to-day than devotion to the Real Presence, the Sacred Heart, and the Blessed Virgin Mary, so the church directs the attention of her faithful children to these objects of pious veneration with renewed fervor, and God himself attests her wisdom by many wonderful signs having reference to these three goals of spiritual life. No doubt it was with such intent that he bestowed those extraordinary favors on the simple peasant girl of Mimbaste, Marie Lataste, which, studied in the light of worldly philosophy, confound and bewilder, but which, viewed as part of God’s supernatural economy, cannot fail to edify and encourage the devout Christian.

Marie Lataste was born in the department of the Landes in 1822, and died a lay sister of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart in the year 1847; so of her it may be said that she compressed a long career of virtue into a brief compass of time, and earned by intensity of work the crown which is most frequently won by many years of laborious effort. No sooner had she made her First Communion than our divine Lord began to attract her most powerfully to himself as he exists in the sacrament of the altar. As a little girl she had been wilful and rebellious, and with difficulty was brought to study her catechism and the merest rudiments of learning. Indeed, her schooling never went beyond the art of reading and writing, so that the wonderful theological and ascetic knowledge which her letters disclose cannot be otherwise regarded than as revealed to her by God. After her First Communion a wonderful change was made manifest in her. Thenceforth her sole delight was to commune for long hours at a time with our divine Lord in the tabernacle, to converse familiarly with him, and to hold him for ever in her thoughts. She was never easy when other occupations kept her aloof from him, and when released from these she sped to him again with all the ardor which could impel a loving heart. Nor did our Lord fail to reward in a signal manner this intensity of devotion to the sacrament of his love. One day, towards the close of the year 1839, as Marie was repairing to the village church to perform her usual acts of adoration, a mysterious but irresistible force hurried her along; earthly objects faded from her view, the Spirit of God filled her soul, and when she entered the sacred edifice she beheld our Lord himself upon the altar, surrounded by his angels. “She did not,” the recital states, “see him at first with perfect distinctness. A thin cloud, like an almost imperceptible veil, appeared partially to conceal him from her sight.... At last Jesus descended from the altar and approached, calling her benignantly by name and raising his hand to bless her. Then she beheld him with perfect clearness in the brilliant light with which he was invested.” “From that moment,” she said, “the society of mankind has never ceased to be displeasing to me; I should wish to fly from them for ever and shut myself up in the tabernacle with him.” Thus did her interior life at once ascend to the highest plane of sanctity, and she, the poor, almost illiterate peasant girl, began to experience those intimate dealings and relations with our divine Lord which are usually deemed to be the prerogative of the greatest saints—of those in whom supreme holiness goes hand in hand with profound knowledge.

But it is a well-known characteristic of the divine economy to select feeble instruments for its higher operations and manifestations, and in this manner to confound human presumption and to put our pride of intellect to the blush. “Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones.” And if ever it pleased Almighty God to show forth his power through the humblest of his creatures, he seems to delight in doing so at the present time. He permits our philosophers to split hairs over the subtleties of evolution, to wander in perplexity through the mazy intricacies in which they have enveloped themselves, whilst he reveals the undreamt wonders of his wisdom to the lowly and simple-minded. Father Faber has happily designated a too common class of Christians as “viewy”—_i.e._, holding opinions which are but the reflection and expression of their petty egotism. Such was not the case with Marie Lataste; she was simplicity itself, and our Lord favored her accordingly. She sat at his feet as meek and docile a pupil as ever listened to the words of an instructor, and he poured into her heart the treasures of his wisdom. It is truly wonderful to read the profound sentiments with which her letters abound, and to reflect that she, a girl barely able to read and write, has given expression to the most abstruse and difficult points of dogmatic theology with correctness, clearness, and force, and has left behind her precepts for our spiritual guidance which savor of the wisdom and prudence of the most consummate masters of the spiritual life. Many things in her letters may appear strained because of the minuteness with which she describes her visions of spiritual things, unless they are scanned with the eye of faith. But both internal and external evidences of the genuineness of the apparitions with which she was favored, and of the absolute reliability of her statements, are so numerous that in the face of them to doubt is to question the validity of all human testimony. There can be no doubt that God has vouchsafed to our generation this beautiful picture of a soul thoroughly united to himself in order that our pride may be abashed, our faith strengthened, and our love for him, because of his manifold mercies towards us, increased. The style of the book is attractive, and whoever reads it cannot fail to reap a large share of edifying knowledge.

A POPULAR LIFE OF POPE PIUS THE NINTH. By Rev. Richard Brennan, A.M. New
York: Benziger Brothers. 1877.

THE LIFE OF POPE PIUS IX. By John Gilmary Shea. New York: Thomas Kelly.
1877.

A LIFE OF PIUS IX., DOWN TO THE EPISCOPAL JUBILEE. By Rev. Bernard
O’Reilly. New York: P. F. Collier. 1877.

The appearance within the space of a few months of three extended and elaborate biographies of His Holiness Pius IX., some of which have already run into two or three editions, is a fact most significant of the deep interest which is taken by the reading public of America in everything connected with the venerable head of the church on earth. The length of years vouchsafed the present successor of St. Peter, his own illustrious character, and the preternatural malice of his enemies have naturally heightened the curiosity regarding him of the non-Catholic portion of the community, while his piety, benevolence, and long-suffering have endeared him to the hearts of all true children of the church. The magnificent displays of Catholic sympathy and loyalty to the Holy See which everywhere characterized the celebration of his late episcopal Jubilee have also increased the popular demand for information concerning the life of a man who, morally and officially, is acknowledged to be the foremost in Christendom. Judging by the volumes before us, it will not be the fault of our Catholic writers if this laudable desire remain long unsatisfied. Each of these valuable works, written by gentlemen of varied accomplishments and qualifications for the task, is, in style, mode of treatment, and selection of matter, different from the others; yet all present the same leading facts and reproduce the same vivid scenes which have rendered so instructive and dramatic the long and eventful life of the Holy Father.

Father Brennan’s book, justly called a popular life of the great Pope, is written in a simple, concise, yet comprehensive manner, with little attempt at ornamentation or philosophic deduction. The author evidently intended that his work should be read and understood by persons of average intelligence as well as by those of higher mental gifts. He has therefore aimed at telling the story of Pius IX.’s life plainly and consecutively, without departing to the right or left, except when absolutely compelled to do so in order to elucidate what is yet but imperfectly understood in the policy of the Catholic powers of Europe. While stating conscientiously the details of a career so full of changes and reverses of fortune, he succeeds in placing before us the true lineaments of his august subject in all their simplicity and beauty of expression. This is more particularly observable in the chapter on “The Supernatural Life of the Pope,” which will doubtless be read with great satisfaction by those who consider the Sovereign Pontiff a providential man; and by such as do not, with respect and admiration. It is to be regretted that Father Brennan had not given at length an account of proceedings in Rome and the Catholic world generally for the past few years, thus completing an otherwise very full and instructive biography.

Mr. Shea has also succeeded in producing a very readable life of the Holy Father, though we do not think he has done full justice to his own merits as an accomplished and painstaking writer. There are evident marks of haste throughout his pages which, though they do not seriously interfere with the continuity or authority of the work, are apt to produce an unsatisfactory impression on the minds of critical readers. His _Life of Pope Pius IX._ will, however, have its admirers; for, excepting these slight defects, it is a book that will interest the general reader, no matter what may be his opinions or prepossessions, written as it is by an intelligent layman whose reputation as an author has long since been established in this country and in Europe.

The Rev. Father O’Reilly’s biography is, however, not only more voluminous and more ample in its details than either of the preceding, but it is enriched by copious extracts from encyclical letters and other important documents, the proper understanding of which necessarily belongs to the elucidation of the history of Pius IX.’s pontificate. Apart from its completeness and elegance of style, its chief distinguishing feature is the insight it gives us into the policy and designs of contemporary rulers and conspirators in France, Italy, and Germany in their attempts on the integrity of the church, and their underhand alliances with the secret societies to effect their evil purposes. Only a man who has had personal knowledge of the actors who figured in the bloody drama of “United Italy,” and an intimate acquaintance with their present and prospective strategy, could unfold to the public gaze, in all its base enormity, the culpable indifference of the men who professed the greatest regard for the sovereign of the states of the church, and the insidious schemes of the modern champions of liberty, whose sole and whole object is the disruption of all forms of government under which civil and religious freedom would be possible. This it is that makes Father O’Reilly’s book not only interesting but highly instructive; for, to a certain extent at least, it furnishes us with a key to the enigma of European Continental politics which we Americans, happily removed from kingcraft and secret terrorism, so much require. The venerable and venerated Chief Pastor of the church has been fortunate in his American biographers, and we have little doubt that he will find some solace in his afflictions in the thought that three among our writers have almost simultaneously devoted their pens to recording the incidents of his life and defending his rights as a spiritual and temporal sovereign.

REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE OF THE MEDICO-LEGAL SOCIETY UPON SCHOOL
HYGIENE. New York: Terwilliger. 1876.

Few subjects are of more engrossing importance than the conditions requisite for the physical well-being of the rising generation; and as our embryo men and women spend a very large portion of their lives in school-rooms, it becomes a serious matter to determine whether these nurseries of learning are constructed in such a manner as to consist with the highest possible health standard. The investigations undertaken by Dr. R. I. O’Sullivan and his fellow-committeemen at the instance of the Medico-Legal Society reveal a condition which is truly startling. Oxygen is the life of our life-blood, and, if it is not supplied in the requisite quantity, the human system becomes predisposed to every disease and the foundation of a lifetime of misery is laid. Yet it is notorious that the arrangements of our much-vaunted school buildings go far short of ensuring a sufficient supply of this life-sustaining gas. Much of this deplorable lack of suitable arrangements is the result of ignorance. Many self-constituted sanitarians deem loftiness of ceiling to be the main and, indeed, the only condition required to ensure proper ventilation and a sufficient supply of air. They accordingly build without referenced horizontal breathing-space, in the absurd belief that all foul air ascends and is got rid of, some way or other. Now, the truth, says the report, is “that a lofty ceiling only makes that portion of space above the tops of the windows a receptacle for foul air, which accumulates and remains to vitiate the stratum below.” This is of itself a proof that a scientific supervision of our school buildings is the only guarantee we can have that the health of the children will be properly considered. The quantity of carbonic acid gas given off at each expiratory effort is far in excess of what our amateur sanitarians imagine; and when school buildings are erected without due regard for the diffusion of this deadly emanation, we must not be surprised to see our schools filled with pale and stunted children. In addition to the carbonic acid gas other deleterious exhalations of the human body poison crowded rooms, and are especially the cause of the peculiarly offensive and stuffy odor at which healthy olfactories revolt. Who that has entered one of our city public school class-rooms, between the hours of two and three in the afternoon, has failed to experience this disagreeable sensation? Yet physiology, as well as common sense, tells us that this effete organic matter which is constantly escaping from the lungs and from every pore of the skin is eminently injurious to health. Not only this, but in certain crowded portions of the city the adjoining streets and buildings lend their quota of noxious effluvia to the poisonous agents mentioned. The committee visited “one of the newest, best-arranged, and best-appointed schools in the city, and found it overcrowded and unventilated, tainted throughout the halls, and at times, by way of the fan-lights over the doors in the class rooms, odors arising from the latrines in the basement, which are emptied only once or twice a week.” In this model school-house only from thirty-three to forty-one cubic feet of air are allowed to each child, while nature vigorously clamors for at least eight hundred feet in the twenty-four hours.

In the second report read by Dr. R. I. O’Sullivan we are invited to contemplate a picture which but faintly reveals the evil effects that the early overcrowding exercises in after-days over the adult population: “Look around us in public assemblies, and see in those scarcely entering middle life the evidence of physical decline, the prematurely bald and gray, the facial muscles photographing the wearied brain and overtaxed nervous system.” Few can fail to realize, on due reflection, how much of the terrible truth of this picture is attributable to the bad condition of our school-houses. The conclusion is plain that the judgment of the trained sanitarian is of vital importance in the erection of school buildings, and that, until the necessity of his sage interposition is recognized by the Department of Public Instruction, diseases, the result of early confinement in close and crowded schools, which are quite preventible, will continue to prevail among us.

GOD THE TEACHER OF MANKIND: A plain, comprehensive explanation of
Christian Doctrine. By Michael Müller, C.SS.R. New York, Cincinnati,
and St. Louis: Benziger Bros. 1877.

CATECHISM OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE, for Academies and High Schools. With
the approbation of the Most Rev. J. Roosevelt Bayley, D.D.,
Archbishop of Baltimore. Intermediate No. III. Benziger Bros. 1877.

This is a most useful and comprehensive book, clear and definite in its plan, popular and interesting in its style. It is divided into two parts. Part I. deals with “The Enemies of the Church” from the beginning down to our own times. These enemies Father Müller sets down in the order of time as “Heathenism,” “Heresy,” and “Freemasonry.” Part II. is occupied with showing what in these days of vague beliefs and religious indifferentism it is most important to show—namely, that God himself is the teacher of mankind, and therefore that his voice must be listened to and obeyed. The church is the voice of God on earth; consequently, the everlasting object of the enemies of God is to silence and destroy the church. These avowed enemies were in the old days the heathen; later on the heretics. A deadlier foe than either, and combining the evil elements of both, the author points out to-day as Freemasons, the term covering, of course, all forms of secret oath-bound societies.

Father Müller’s sketch of Freemasonry is very extensive. For his charges against the societies comprehended under that head he relies mainly on Masonic documents and publications. Amid a vast amount of rubbish and jargon in the official rites and ceremonies of Masonry is plainly discernible a distinct purpose and plan, which can be considered none other than the destruction of all fixed belief in God and his revelation, in his church, and in the order of society and government founded on that belief. To expose this conspiracy against God and man—for such it is, and nothing less—is as much a service to any civilized state as it is to the direct cause of religion. On this account we do not think that in a book intended as much for ordinary readers as for those who are better instructed Father Müller has been at all wasteful in the large amount of space devoted to this portion of his subject. There is a tendency sometimes to pooh-pooh Masonry as a convenient scarecrow. Yet those who have noted the march of events in Europe within the century, and particularly within the latter half of it, will discover a startling resemblance between events as they have occurred, and as it was desired they should occur according to the programmes laid down beforehand by the leaders of the secret societies.

The church does not waste her excommunications, and the fact that these societies have been again and again solemnly condemned by her ought to be sufficient warning against any Catholic joining, not simply societies which are avowedly Masonic, but secret societies of any kind whatever. A good and lawful society has no need of secrecy.

The second and more important portion of the book is taken up with what is really a most lucid and careful explanation of that portion of the catechism which refers more especially to God and the church. The questions and answers in the catechism are necessarily brief, and the explanation of the answers is left to the teacher. The teacher, unfortunately, is not always as instructed as he or she might be, without at all being a paragon of learning. For such, as indeed for all, this portion of Father Müller’s book will be of the greatest assistance. Here, for instance, is a question in the catechism: “How do we know that Jesus Christ is the promised Redeemer and the Son of God?” Now, upon a right answer to this and a thorough comprehension of the answer depends a Christian’s faith. The answer in the catechism is: “We learn it, 1, from the mouths of the prophets; 2, from the declarations of the angels; 3, from the testimony of his heavenly Father; and 4, from his own testimony.” A correct reply, doubtless; but simply to give such an answer to the ordinary student of whatever age is to speak to him almost in an unknown tongue, while to saddle the average Sunday-school teacher with a clear and comprehensive explanation of the answer is quite to overweight him.

Father Müller’s explanations attached to such questions are excellent. They are full without being tedious, and condensed without being obscure. About half the second part is very wisely devoted to an exposition of the Ninth Article of the Apostles’ Creed—“The Holy Catholic Church”—which is to be commended, as, indeed, may be the whole book, just as highly to the attention of earnest and inquiring non-Catholics as of Catholics. As a whole, the book serves two great ends: it is a solemn warning against the prevalent evils of the day, unbelief and hatred of the truth; also, a judicious and able exposition of the two great facts in the Christian belief, God and the church. The work has this advantage over more learned treatises on the same subjects: that while it commands the attention of the highest, it is within the comprehension of any person of ordinary intelligence. We know of no work in English better adapted to afford Catholics whose opportunities of study have not been very great a clear and intelligent reason for the faith that is in them. The catechism, noticed at the head, in addition to the usual instruction, contains a short form of morning and evening prayers, instructions for confession, prayers at Mass and before and after communion, as well as a brief but useful summary of sacred history.

THE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL SPELLER AND DEFINER: Embracing graded lessons in
spelling, definitions, pronunciation, and synonymes; proper names and
geographical terms; a choice selection of sentences for dictation;
and a condensed study of English etymology; also ecclesiastical
terms, etc. By E. D. Farrell. New York: The Catholic Publication
Society Co. 1877.

With the exception of Swinton’s, there is scarcely a speller in general circulation through the schools of this country which is worthy of the name. Whatever is valuable in many of them has been unscrupulously pilfered, directly or indirectly, from Sullivan’s _Spelling-Book Superseded_, the text-book used in the Irish national schools; and doubtless it is all the better for the pupils that it has been so. The present work possesses at least one merit: it is a brave departure from the well-beaten path of the plagiarist. Not that it is completely original; that is impossible; but it is as nearly so as is compatible with utility. It has strong marks of individuality in every page and lesson, and is evidently the production, not of a mere book-maker, but of an experienced instructor of youth, who has felt, in common with other teachers, the necessity of more thought in the conception, and system in the arrangement, of lessons in orthography.

We find, after a careful inspection, that the work contains information, not to be found in similar works, on Anglo-Saxon roots, ecclesiastical terms, noted names of fiction and of distinguished persons; words relating to various occupations and sciences, etc., all of which are strict essentials to a useful education. Miscellaneous words and definitions, Latin roots and English derivatives, and miscellaneous sentences for dictation occupy nearly half the volume, the remainder being distributed between twenty-six other subdivisions of the subject; and well-informed and competent teachers will say that such an apportionment of the space is right.

We have noticed what we consider a few imperfections, unimportant, doubtless, but needing emendation—viz., on page 33 this definition: “Assassinate, to attack and murder a person of importance.” Assassination is not necessarily restricted to persons of importance. The author also takes the trouble to correct such pronunciations as _pī an´ o_ for pĭ ä´ no, _thrissle_ for thistle, _akrawst_ for across. Of what use is the teacher, if the book must attend to such matters? He also orders us, on page 114, not to pronounce ge-og _jog_ in the words geography and geometry. There are pupils who pronounce these words joggraphy and jommetry, we know, and such is evidently the error against which he wishes to guard. These oversights, so prevalent in other spellers, are, fortunately, of rare occurrence in this, and a little careful revision will render the book still more worthy of the title, to which it has already such strong claims, of the model speller of the present day.

MISSA DE BEATA MARIA ET MISSA IN FESTIS DUPLICIBUS, ITEM IN DOMINICIS
ADVENTUS ET QUADRAGESIMÆ: uti in Graduali Romano et Ordinario Missæ,
ab illustri Domino Frederico Pustet, S. Sedis Apost. typographo, “sub
auspiciis SS. D. N. Pii IX., curante Sacr. Rit. Cong.” Cum permissu
superiorum. Opus II. Published by the author, P. Ignatius Trueg,
O.S.B., St. Vincent’s Abbey, Beatty P.O., Pa.