THE DOCTRINE OF HELL, VENTILATED IN A DISCUSSION BETWEEN THE REV. C. A. WALWORTH AND WILLIAM HENRY BURR, ESQ. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.

This is a very small 18mo volume of one hundred and fifty-one pages, containing more solid matter than some large octavos, as any person who knows F. Walworth's style of writing would naturally expect. It contains a correspondence between himself and the gentleman whose name is given above, who was a classmate of F. Walworth and one of his fellow-members in the Presbyterian church of Union College. This correspondence appeared in the Investigator, a notorious infidel newspaper of Boston, and was called forth by an indignant denial sent to that paper by F. Walworth of a false and utterly groundless report that he had refused submission to the decrees of the Council of the Vatican. Mr. Burr, who has renounced the errors of Calvinism, and embraced those of infidelity and spiritism, took occasion from this denial and the explicit avowal of perfect submission to all the doctrines of Catholic faith involved in it, to question his former classmate in regard to the doctrine of eternal punishment, and to inquire of him how far his present belief in that doctrine agrees with his former belief while a Presbyterian. This brought on a controversy, in which Mr. Burr attempts to argue against the Catholic doctrine by ridiculing and denouncing cer tain descriptions of the torments of hell given by various writers, both Protestant and Catholic, bringing in at the same time a number of discursive and random remarks about many other topics, which are generally both very silly and altogether irrelevant. F. Walworth, on his side, steadily refuses to be drawn from the proper subject of controversy, or to permit his adversary to make him responsible for the private opinions of any person, Protestant or Catholic, and adduces strong, solid, irrefutable arguments from reason in support of the strictly Catholic doctrine taught authoritatively by the Church and obligatory on all her members. The only point which F. Walworth professes to aim at,

says (pref., p. 9), “ I have planted myself simply and purely upon the defined doctrine of the Catholic Church, and what that doctrine necessarily involves." This is evidently to be understood of doctrine as defined, in the more general sense of definitely and precisely taught by the infallible magistracy of the church, by whatever method the church may exercise this magistracy, and not to be re stricted to definitions de fide contained in explicit decrees of popes and councils. The logical deductions following necessarily from that which is precisely the article of Catholic faith are included in the obligatory doctrine. And where these deductions have not been expressly drawn out and defined in ecclesiastical decrees, the authority of the concurrent teaching of theologians is acknowledged in explicit terms by F. Walworth: "Where any questions remain undefined, I bow respectfully to the concurrent opinions of [the church's] leading theologians. Beyond this I will not be bound" (p. 47). He says further: "All the language of Holy Scripture on the subject must be accepted and maintained" (Pref., p. 8), which is in accordance with a monition of the last Council of Baltimore to Catholic writers on this subject. The same council also admonishes Catholic writers not to diminish the punishment of sin in such a way as to destroy its proportion to the sin. And if any one will examine what F. Walworth has written, he will see that in this respect also he has fulfilled the precept of the Fathers of Baltimore to the letter. The statement of the defined doctrine of the church respecting hell made by F. Walworth is precisely that of Petavius: "There is a hell, and it is eternal." Into the question of the specific physical na

ture and instrumental causes of the punishments of hell he does not enter very deeply. The only opinion of a Catholic writer which he expressly opposes is that of F. Furniss, that the torments of hell increase in geometrical proportion throughout eternity-an opinion which, so far as we know, is not supported by any grave authority. Opinions which are matters of lawful difference and discussion are left on their own proper ground within the domain of theology. The point to be proved is that reason cannot show any valid objection to the doctrine of the everlasting punishment of the man who finishes his term of moral probation on the earth in the state of mortal sin. Mr. Burr produces no such objection. His admissions even confirm the truth of F. Walworth's positions. He admits that a state of intellectual and moral degradation is in itself a state of misery. The sinner is in this disordered state when he dies. If he lives for ever in the same state, this everlasting state of existence is hell. But who can bring conclusive evidence that there is any necessary cause which must bring him out of this state in the future life? Such evidence not being forthcoming, reason has not a word to say against the teaching of revelation, that those who fail in their earthly probation have no other, and must abide for ever the consequences of their own acts.

Some persons may object to the publi cation of a controversy in which infidel arguments are placed within the reach of Catholic readers. In the present instance, we think the cause of infidelity has alone any reason to fear anything from Mr. Burr's letters. His reasonings are so weak and rambling, and the replies of F. Walworth so plain and conclusive, that it must do good to any reader who has a Christian belief to see what a wretched, disgusting substitute for divine religion is offered to the dupes of infidel sophistry. Infidelity destroys the mind and the manhood of the human being. In the form of materialism, it makes him a beast; in the form of spiritism, a lunatic. We do not say that books of this kind should be expressly placed in the hands of all readers, especially children and those who never read anything or hear anything except what is good; but we say to those who do hear and read the infidel sophistry and blasphemy of the day, and therefore need a refutation of it: Take

the two sides represented in this book"Look on this picture, and then look on that."

We must add that there are some mos beautiful passages in F. Walworth's let ters; that, as a literary work, they are gem; and that the appendix on the uni versal belief of mankind in hell, though brief, is remarkably comprehensive and valuable.

THE THRESHOLD OF THE CATHOLI CHURCH: A Course of Plain Instruc tions for those entering her Communion By Rev. John B. Bagshawe, Missionar Rector of S. Elizabeth's, Richmon With a Preface by the Right Rev. Mor signor Capel. New York: The Catholi Publication Society. 1873.

The first part of this manual contain instruction in the truths of faith; the s cond part, on sacraments, rites, devotion and similar matters. It is good for ca didates for admission into the Cathol Church, for recent converts, and for cle gymen, religious ladies, teachers, an others who have converts to instruct.

A WINGED WORD, AND OTHER STORIE

By M. A. T., author of The House o Yorke. New York: The Catholic Pu lication Society.

This collection of stories, already pu lished separately in THE CATHOL WORLD, ought to be welcome to all rea ers of taste and discernment. It is ju the book for summer reading, the on companion one could bear in the reti ment of the woods, and one whose spi would never jar upon any of natur moods. Fancy reading Miss Bradd or Wilkie Collins under the forest car py or by the river bank! But here is book which, at every page, will help y to put your own vague thoughts in words, and will almost make you thi that you understand the song of the b bolink and the chatter of the squirr And yet it is a book full of human in rest, made up of human stories, a treating of sorrow and want as well as joy and peace. If we did not know th the authoress was a New Englander, should say she was a German, so sub and so spiritual are her principal char ters, so tender and so chaste her infini ly varied language. There is no passi no stir, no sensation in her plots, and words do not pour forth like a lava t rent, suggesting dangerous possibiliti

and caressing the animal instincts of our lower nature, like too many of the successful and popular authors of our day. Reading her books, one experiences a sense of coolness, and feels as if transported to a white palace, where a crystal fountain plays unceasingly, and the silent silver bells of lilies hang in clusters over the stream. It would fill all the space we have at command to quote any of her beautiful descriptions of scenes in the woods or by the golden sea-shore; she seems to have gone down into the heart of every flower and learnt its secret, to have lured the confidence of every brooklet, and made every trec sing her some woodland poem.

The stories themselves (except the last) are the merest sketches, made to hang beautiful thoughts upon, just as we plant a slender pole for a scarlet vine to creep over. Yet they are each of them very original, such as only "M. A. T." would or could write.

One passage in "Daybreak" has been criticised in the Philadelphia Standard as containing the Nestorian heresy. It is found on p. 183: "If you are willing, I would like to teach her to bless herself before praying, and to say a little prayer to the Mother of Christ for your safety. I won't make her say Mother of God."" A little attention to the context will make it perfectly evident that this criticism is groundless, and that any Catholic might use this language in a similar instance with perfect propriety. Mr. Granger and his little daughter were Protestants. Margaret had no right to teach the child anything which was against the conscience of her father. He was willing that she should address the Blessed Virgin as the Mother of Christ, but not that she should use the term Mother of God. Mother of Christ is a perfectly proper and orthodox title, and is used by the Church in the Litany of Loretto. Therefore, it was right to teach the child to use it, with her father's permission, and to abstain from teaching her to use the expression Mother of God, which is really its precise equivalent. S. Basil did not even require certain persons who were estranged from the Catholic fold through the Arian heresy, but who wished to be admitted to the communion of the Church, to profess in express terms that the Holy Ghost is God, but was satisfied with a profession of his divinity in equivalent

times be admitted in the case of Catholics, much more may it be employed in teaching those who are not Catholics. It is one thing to use terms which are heretical, another to use those which are less explicit, but more easily understood by those who do not know the true meaning of the more explicit Catholic terms.

One of the stories in this collection, "What Dr. Marks Died Of," might have been omitted without any loss to the volume. It may easily be taken as a shot at the medical profession, and if that was the author's aim, it is one which we cannot approve. If it was not, the story is an arrow in the air.

THE IRISH REFORMATION; or, The Alleged Conversion of the Irish Bishops at the Accession of Queen Elizabeth, etc. By W. Maziere Brady, D.D. Fifth Edition. London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1867. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.) STATE PAPERS CONCERNING THE IRISH CHURCH IN THE TIME OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. Edited by W. Maziere Brady, D.D. London: Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer. 1868. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

We have had frequent occasion of late to notice with pleasure and to congratulate our readers and the Catholic community generally on the revival in England of Catholic literature, and particularly of that class of works which has a tendency to illustrate the dark era of persecution and proscription which, commencing under the reign of Henry VIII., may be said to have reached almost down to our own day. In the last generation, Dr. Lingard, by his impartial History, cleared away a good deal of the rubbish with which the deformities of the so-called English Reformation were hidden from view; subsequently, Lady Fullerton and other distinguished writers of fiction attempted, and with success, to gain the attention of the public to their admirable portraiture of the sufferings and fortitude of the Catholics of England in the times of Elizabeth and James I.; while the erudite editor of the Narrative of F. Gerard has, by his industry and conscientious labors, placed all future historians under a great debt of gratitude.

The works before us, though treating of a different subject, and written by a Protestant clergyman, have a tendency

very similar to that produced by the writings we have mentioned. The first is devoted to a discussion of the question whether the Protestant hierarchy in Ireland can legally and historically claim descent from the ancient church in Ireland; or, in plainer terms, have the Anglican bishops in that country ever been consecrated at all, at any time, or by any competent authority? In tracing up the succession of the defunct "Establishment," the author gives very succinct and accurate sketches of every incumbent, Catholic and Protestant, of every diocese in Ireland from the middle of the XVIth century, and proves by dates, facts, and public documents that the "reformed" prelates have no more right to claim apostolic succession than they have to claim to be the apostles themselves. When we mention that Dr. Brady is a beneficed clergyman, and was formerly chaplain to the lord lieutenant, our readers will have little hesitation in accepting conclusions so damaging to his own church, and which, as he tells us himself, only the cause of truth could have compelled him to publish.

The other book, though not so interesting, is to us on this side of the Atlantic of much greater value, as few of us have an opportunity of consulting the originals. It is a collection of state papers, letters, documents, and petitions "touching the mode in which it was sought to introduce the Reformed religion into Ireland," and are all authenticated copies taken from the records of the State Paper Office in London. However much Dr. Brady may have done by these publications to damage the cause of Protestantism in Ireland, and to humble the pride of a faction that never has and never can possess the respect or affection of the people upon whom it has so long preyed, he has deserved by his fairness and courage the esteem and thanks of all impartial lovers of historical truth.

-Since the above was in type, we find occasion for congratulating the author upon having arrived at the conclusion to which his investigations naturally led, i.e., his reception into the Catholic Church.

A VISIT TO LOUISE LATEAU. By Ge rald Molloy, D.D. Boston: P. Donahoe. 1873.

Lateau family as a frontispiece, will charm and edify all those who take an interest in reading about the wonders of divine grace with which our age is specially fa vored.

DIRECTORIUM SACERDOTALE: A Guide for Priests in their Public and Private Life. By F. Benedict Valuy, SJ. With an Appendix for the use of Sem inarists. London: John Philp. 1873. This manual for ecclesiastics is highly commended by the Abbé Dubois, an eminent director of a seminary in France, and an author of works specially intended for priests, who calls it "the priest's Fellowing of Christ," and by the Bishop of Shrewsbury, to whom it is dedicated by the translator. A valuable appendix has been added, containing a catalogue of books for a priest's library and for a mission, ie., parochial and lending library. It is enough to see Mr. Philp's name as publisher to know that it has been carefully, neatly, and conveniently printed.

A HUNDRED MEDITATIONS ON THE LOVE OF GOD. By Robert Southwell, Priest of the Society of Jesus. Edited, with a Preface, by John Morris, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1873.

There is a delicious quaintness about these meditations. They are colloquies with God and with self, and come from the soul of a poet who aspired to and attained martyrdom." A sketch of the saintly author has recently appeared in THE CATHOLIC WORLD (" Poet and Martyr," April, 1873), so that it is needless to give one here. But the frontispiece of the volume before us is a portrait of F. Southwell, which is valuable.

ONLY A PIN. Translated from the French of J. T. De Saint-Germaine. By P. S. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.

Only a Pin, but an exceedingly valua ble one, pointing a moral keenly and sharply; having a head secure and sound, not likely to be turned by any accidental twist; altogether a well-manufactured pin, straight and strong, not weakly bending this way and that to serve illegitimate uses, but made in the best factory and of good metal; a pin belonging to the first and oldest family in Pindom, and sure to make its mark in the literary world.

numerous.

The heroine of this story is S. Perpetua, the companion of S. Felicitas. The story is well conceived and powerfully written. We have not seen the original, but the translation shows an experienced and competent hand, and has the great merit of reading as if the book had been composed in English. There are, however, a number of inaccuracies in respect to names, some careless sentences, and other blemishes of style, some of which may be due to incorrect proof-reading, as the errors evidently typographical are For instance, the Pontifex Maximus is called the Pontiff Maximus, and in one place two Christian converts are called 'convicts." Such an admirable story as this is, with its thrilling delineations of Christian heroism and pagan cruelty, ought to pass through more than one edition. If it does, we hope the publisher will have its clerical errors corrected by a competent hand, and the press-work more carefully performed, so as to make the book in all respects comme il faut. If this is intended as the first of a series, the project is one worthy of commendation.

Since the foregoing was put in type, we have ascertained that the story as it appeared in French was "imitated from the English," which, we are informed, means that it was a free translation of an English book. This accounts for certain omissions which appear rather singular in a Catholic tale of this sort. No mention is made of the altar, the sacrifice of the Mass, or holy communion. The explanations of Christian doctrine and the answers to Vivia's objections are not complete and satisfactory. M. de Mericourt has taken care, however, that nothing contrary to Catholic doctrine should be

admitted, and as the events of the story do not require any minute description of Christian doctrine or worship, the omissions noted do not essentially detract from its character as a portraiture of Christian virtue in the midst of the dangers and trials of pagan life.

CARDINAL WISEMAN'S ESSAYS. Vol. III. New York: P. O'Shea. 1873.

This new volume contains the splendid refutation of High-Church and Tractarian theories which appeared at the height of the Oxford movement in the Dublin Review. Few persons have ever convinced so many and such able antagonists by an argument as the great cardinal did in this

case.

If it were possible to obtain the little volume on the last illness and death of the cardinal, printed in England for private circulation, to be published with this collection of his works, the Catholic community would feel itself very much favored. The cardinal was a holy man, as well as a great prelate. We have had the pleasure of reading the beautiful account of his last illness and saintly death in the little volume alluded to, and we cannot help thinking that its publication would be an act of great propriety and utility, unless there is some reason for reserving it for a place in a large and full biography.

-Before going to press, we have noticed among the English announcements that the work above referred to has been published.

THE FISHERMAN'S DAUGHTER; THE AMULET. Tales by Hendrick Conscience. Baltimore: Murphy. 1873.

It is superfluous to praise Conscience's tales, which are even better than Canon Schmid's. These two are uncommonly interesting, and published in a very nice and attractive form, which makes them as pretty little volumes for prizes as boy or girl could wish.

MODERN MAGIC. By Schele De Vere. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1873.

This is a crude hodge-podge of facts which the author has picked up here and there, in which he utterly fails to distinguish between the natural, the diabolical, and the divine. He has read some Catholic works, and is to some extent familiar with the lives of the saints; but the little that he knows only serves to place