defeated and only saved his life by a precipitate flight, yet a second engagement terminated in the total rout of the Turkish army, with very small loss on the side of the Christians, and in the fall of the important city of Gran, which for nearly a century had been in the hands of the Moslem.

The history of this Eastern expedition would be defective in a most characteristic point, were we to omit the doom of the ill-fated Vizier, to whose command it had been entrusted; nor can we conclude more fitly, than with the graphic account which the author gives of this

event.

"At length the vacillation of the Sultan was overcome, and a chamberlain of the court rode out from Adrianople with the simple order to return as soon as might be with the head of Kara Mustapha. The officer, on approaching Belgrade, communicated his mission to the Aga of the Janissaries, who gave his prompt acquiescence and ready assistance to the objects of the mission. The transaction was conducted, on the part of the servants of the crown, with that decent privacy and convenient expedition which usually attend the execution of Turkish justice, and submitted to by the patient with the quiet dignity with which the predestinarian doctrine of Islam arms its votaries against all accidents. The insignia of authority were politely demanded and quietly resigned. The carpet was spread, the short prayer uttered, the bowstring adjusted. In a few moments the late dispenser of life and death, the uncontrolled commander of 200,000 men, was a corpse, and his head on the road to Adrianople."—pp. 165, 166.

From the failure of this memorable expedition, we may date the marked decline of the Ottoman power, and the comparative security which the South Eastern frontier of Europe has since enjoyed; and the head of the unfortunate Kara Mustapha is still shown in the Arsenal of Vienna, a grisly monument of what may be regarded as the latest struggle of the Crescent and the Cross, and the last of that long series of holy wars, for so many centuries the constant theatre of Christian chivalry.

ART. II. Die Psalmen erläutert.-The Psalms explained. By JOSEPH HANDSCHUH, Director of the Archiepiscopal College, Vienna. Five Vols. small 8vo. Franz Wimmer, Vienna: 1839-44.

WE

E are told in the second book of Kings, that when David was intending to build God a temple with the spoils he had taken from his enemies, God refused to allow him to do so, because he was a man of war and had shed blood. David's submission to God's will in this case has been amply rewarded: though he was not permitted to build the material temple with the spoils he had taken from carnal enemies, he has been allowed to build the spiritual temple, to edify the Catholic Church, with the spoils he had taken from spiritual foes. For there is scarcely any devotion, public or private, scarcely any office of the Church, joyous or plaintive, there is no feasting nor fasting day, when the spoils the excellent Psalmist of Israel took from these foes, are not, one way or the other, called into requisition. Neither Jesus nor Mary are praised without the stores which their forefather David had laid up. His foes and their foes differed in the persons engaged, not in the cause in which they were engaged; both David and Christ were employed in setting up God's kingdom upon earth, and that is one reason why the weapons employed against the earlier foes of that kingdom, are so perfectly adapted for warfare against its later enemies.

Such then being the case, all contributions towards the easier understanding of the Psalms, from whatever country they come, seem entitled to lay some claim upon the attention of Catholics. If, in spite of our being of kindred blood with the German, their books of devotion are in this country less frequently met with than those of French or Italian writers, the present contribution to the object just mentioned, will have an additional interest. It will have the advantage of coming from a country in whose devotions our countrymen are, so to say, less travelled; from a country too where Protestant Commentaries on the Psalms, of every shade of heterodoxy swarm, so that a Catholic antidote of any kind would be desirable. The present book indeed in its outward form and make, is not of the learned pretensions of which many of the Protestant Commentaries are; it does not profess

anything but a practical object, and that object is the better understanding of the Breviary. It was at the request of the Archbishop of Vienna, that our author began his work, by publishing a Commentary upon Psalm cxviii., as one in daily use in the Breviary; and the Commentary upon the rest of the Psalter was brought out subsequently, to quote from his own preface:

"The author offers these lectures only as that which they are, as an introduction presented to the younger clergy, in order to their understanding the Psalms according to the sense of the Church, and with special reference to their signification in her offices, according to the exposition of the holy fathers and others who explain them in the spirit of the Church, in order also that they may learn to value and to use the Breviary, this rich fountain of Churchlife and of comfort and of inward converse with God; and he hopes by this little work of his in some measure, by God's help, to promote the same object in a wider circle. The Vulgate translation is, in consequence, made the basis of this explanation throughout, since this also forms the text of the Breviary; and we shall pass always from the literal sense or the historical argument of the Psalm to its higher ecclesiastical meaning, because this higher understanding of the Psalms is what the Church has at heart, which in choosing them as the expression of her daily prayers and sighs and her most inly converse with God, does not wish to celebrate the typical events of the Old Testament, but would go on solemnizing the fulfilment of all that was foretold by the mouth of all his prophets, of the union of God with his people through the one Redeemer and Mediator, Jesus Christ.'

Here, then, we see an attempt in Germany of a similar kind to one noticed in a former number in France, to make the Breviary not what Protestants fancy it is, a vain repetition of so many idle words, but a means of devotion, a vehicle for singing with the spirit and singing with the understanding, 1 Cor. xiv. 16. Or, as our author says upon the words 'Psallite sapienter,' Ps. xlvi. 8, vol. ii. p. 220, in the words of St. Bernard, "That we may sing the Psalms not only frequently but also with attention, because it is fitting that we should discharge with all diligence that office which we discharge to the most high God." Of course the reciting of breviary, rosary, and what not, imply a sacrifice of time in obedience to the mind of the Church, so that if they were said through with the lips only, the mere sacrifice of time would in itself be a restraint upon self-will, such as those who talk most

against such devotions would probably like as little as any one. Next to this lowest species of obedience would seem to come what would require a farther restraint upon selfwill, namely, the recital of the hours as nearly as may be at the canonical hours. Krazer, in his work on the Western Liturgies, p. 660, quotes "Francolinus de tempore horarum Canonicarum," as calling the present mode of anticipating the proper times, "a certain calamity of our days, not to call it an abuse." Most persons would think this going a little too far; and there can be no doubt that, occupied as the time of priests often is, it would occasion endless difficulties and scruples if they had not the largest possible latitude allowed them as to the time when they would say their office. Still it is quite clear that (supposing such legitimate hindrances away) the office is shaped with a view to its being said at certain times of the day and not at others. It must be a very unpoetical mind which cancannot discover a want of propriety in praying against the noctium phantasmata at a hour when there are no symptoms of night-fall, or be quite satisfied with 'jam lucis orto sidere,' as prelude the first to airing his night-cap. Such a mind will, of course, find no beauty in the adaptation of the hours of the Church to those of the day, and doubtless would feel as comfortable in a climate where Christmas came at summer-time, as where the very season reminded him of the circumstances under which our Lord was born. Where it is a duty to deprive oneself of such associations, nobody would complain of a person who took the licence which the Church allows him: where it is no duty to do so, and the mind of the Church, i. e., (what she wishes, not what she commands,) is plain from the very language of the different hours-we will not complain of any one for differing from us, all we will say is, that he puts himself into a less favourable position for entering into many of the applications of the Psalms to different times of the day or the year. There is a difference between hearing music and listening to it: if we take this difference as an illustration, we shall say that he who says his office at any time, hears the Church; he who says it as near as he can to the right times, listens to the Church.

Lest, however, any one should think, that thus insisting upon the duty of attempting to recite the Office with

See also the Horolog. Ascet. of Card. Bona, iii. 5.

devotion savours of a Jansenistic punctiliousness, it will be well to remember, that the "Tertius orandi modus" is recommended by the Jesuits in the Directorium* as conducive to this end. Of course we do not mean to assert, that a person is bound under sin to aim at such devotion; -all we say is, he is a loser if he does not aim at it; and that it is well to get such perfection as lies in our way, and is no hindrance to our vocation.

It will be a step in obedience beyond this, when we endeavour to make ourselves able to understand the Psalter as we go on with it. "Psallite Regi nostro, psallite," is not enough, when we consider in whose presence we are, whose praises we are singing, and by whom inspired, when in fact we consider "quoniam rex omnis terræ Deus," then we ought to aim at the "psallite sapienter," above spoken of. And to this object we think Professor Handschuh's little work will be found to contribute: we have read through a large portion of it, and consulted it in other parts. It is, we think, true to the principles it states in the preface, and constantly brings before us in a touching way, the sorrows and joys of our blessed Saviour; it abounds with trating observations upon the duty of preserving innocence, and of continuing penance when it has been lost; has a great variety of reflections which savour not only of a pious mind, but of one acquainted with the higher branches of theology, and points out successfully the way in which the Psalms as it were invite the priest to apply them to himself in the course of his ministrations. The work is also written in pure German, free from that inundation of Latin words so common in most modern German writers, and so unnecessary in a language which is perfectly adequate to the expression of almost every conceivable idea in

pene

*The words of the Directory are worth adding (xxxvii. § 12.) : "Tertius modus orandi ita intelligendus est ut in considerandis singulis vocibus alicujus orationis tantum tempus insumamus, quantum communiter una respiratio durare solet. Quod si quis pro suâ devotione amplius morari vellet, poterit quidem, sed tunc potius ad secundum orandi modum pertinebit quam ad hunc tertium. Juvat autem hic modus, ut assuescamus facere orationem vocalem cum attentione et devotione debitâ, ut servemus illud Apostoli, Orabo spiritu, orabo et mente. Quarè hæc exercitium est valde utile eis qui obligati sunt ad horas Canonicas, vel ad alias orationes vocales."