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press of Barcelona excited the high indignation of those warlike spirits, and taking the law into their own hands they proceeded to wreak their vengeance upon the unarmed editors. This seems to have excited the feelings of the citizens to such an extent that riots took place; and the Ministry, not having been able to deal with the matter effectually, resigned. A new Ministry has been formed belonging to the same party, and, it is understood, adhering to the same foreign policy with reference to France and England as its predecessor.

Norway.

Norway has elected its king, and so sets out on its existence as a separate nation fully equipped for

the future. The first person to congratulate Prince Charles of Denmark (as he was then styled) was the one who would himself in the expected course of events have been the King—the Crown Prince of Sweden. He came to Copenhagen for this purpose. The new King has chosen the name of Haakon VII., in order to associate himself with the Norway of old; for, before the Union of Calmar, at the end of the fourteenth century, Norway was a distinct nation and Haakon had been the name of several of its most distinguished kings. The name is, therefore, chosen in order to link the Norway of olden times with the new Norway of to-day. Everything began auspiciously. The King, the Queen, and their little son-newly named Prince Olaf-made the best of impressions on their subjects when they arrived at Christiania. The quiet dignity of the King and his manly simplicity especially commended him to them. Before acquiring any regal power he was called upon to take an oath to observe the Constitution. This he did in the following terms: "I promise and swear that I will govern the Kingdom of Norway in accordance with its Constitution and laws, so help me God and his Holy Word!" He recognizes that he is subject to the law; and the peaceful way in which the separation from Sweden has been accomplished, without a drop of blood having been shed, shows the effect of the reign of law upon the character of a people. The The contrast afforded by Russia, where it is not law but a person that rules, shows as clearly the effect of personal rule.

No man in England, it goes with

ENGLISH MONASTIC LIFE. out saying, is so well equipped to By Abbot Gasquet.

describe monastic life as Abbot Gasquet. Both as monk and scholar, he possesses extraordinary qualifications for such a volume as he has just written, and it has increased the debt we owe him. The subject of this work is a homely one, being nothing else than the daily life of English monks and nuns in pre-Reformation days. But our right reverend and scholarly author touches this theme with so many side-lights of rare. information, that his essay becomes not merely a monastic horarium, or catalogue of monastery officials, but an historical and even a psychological study of a great and predominant feature of ancient English Catholicism.

Running through the severer material, is a pleasing thread of humor, as in the description of the quarterly blood-letting, to which the medieval monks had to submit; and in the account of the common rasura, when the monks, facing each other in two lines as if in choir, sat down to have their tonsures shaved, chanting psalms the while; and finally in the incident of the bishop's visitation of a certain convent, wherein the severest complaint he had to listen to was one nun's objection to the beer. It is a very real and life-like picture that Abbot Gasquet paints for us, and it shows that those old-time religious were a robust and penitential race, who spent their time in praising God and in benefiting mankind.

IN THE LAND OF THE
STRENUOUS LIFE.
By Abbe Klein.

The Abbé Klein's book † is certainly very readable. Of course it cannot be, and does not profess to be, anything but a mere sketch. of what most impressed him during his brief visit to this country; and he principally occupies himself with what he had special opportunities for seeing, and thus keeps fairly clear of the commonplace, so usual in books of travel. Moreover, his book is very pleasant for Americans

*English Monastic Life. By Abbot Gasquet. New York: Benziger Brothers.

In the Land of the Strenuous Life. By Abbé Felix Klein. With Portraits and Views. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co.

to read, since the Abbé did not come to find fault, but rather to note the good qualities of our people, which he thought specially worthy of imitation in his own country.

He came here not so much to see America, as to get acquainted with Americans, and the personal side of everything is prominent throughout; so much so that the book seems, when one has read it, almost like a series of interviews; though there is, indeed, a great deal beside this. Of course the author was specially interested in the condition and working of the Church in this country, and collected a great deal of information about it.

His observations on this and other matters were, considering the circumstances, remarkably accurate. He makes one rather egregious error, in stating calmly that the transatlantic liners pass under the Brooklyn Bridge; but really this is an exception.

The English of the translation is also very good. Here again, however, we have just one big complaint; namely, the continual reference to members of the religious orders as "religionists." How in the world he got the notion that they were so called in English is a mystery.

The book is very appropriately dedicated to President Roosevelt, and the typography and illustrations are very fine.

Anything that throws light on

THE PASTORAL MINISTRY France at the present day is in

OF FATHER OLIER.

By G. Letourneau.

Too

teresting and timely, even if it
only recalls well-known facts.
many, however, seek to understand

the actual situation, and forthwith to don the mantle of the prophet of evil things, who yet have learned but slightly the lessons of the past. We welcome, therefore, a book that brings us back to the beginning of the Catholic reaction in France in the seventeenth century, and by its record of the glorious work done then by a devoted band of priests, gives us "some reasons of hope" for the France of the twentieth century.

The troubles of the French Church did not begin with the advent of Combes or Waldeck-Rousseau, nor even with the

* Le Ministère Pastoral de Jean-Jacques Olier. Par G. Letourneau, Curé de Saint-Sulpice. Paris: Librairie Victor Lecoffre.

Revolutionists or philosophes. Religion was in a sad way long before their time; but it had one bright, though brief period, made illustrious by the names of St. Vincent de Paul, Cardinal de Bérulle, de Condren, Olier, Eudes, and, somewhat later, Bourdaloue, Bossuet, Fénelon, and many others. These great men not only shed glory on the Church of France, but helped to diffuse a Christian spirit and to add souls to the kingdom of God. How Father Olier contributed to rejuvenate religion. in the French capital we learn, in part, from this book of his successor in the parish of Saint-Sulpice.

We doubt if there were as many practical Christians in France in Father Olier's time as there are at the present moment; and it certainly would not be easy to point to an immense parish to-day, where religion is at so low an ebb as he found it on entering upon his duties as pastor of Saint-Sulpice. The Faubourg St. Germain was the resort of all that was low and vile in Paris; religion was not only notoriously neglected there, but openly insulted. So low was its moral and religious tone, that we can safely say the worst parish in any American city, in comparison to it, would have a claim to respectable standing.

And yet, under the influence of Father Olier, this abandoned parish became the most religious quarter of Paris. And it has ever thus remained through two hundred and fifty years. In this little volume, M. Letourneau shows us how this great work was inaugurated and carried out. The effective methods of evangelization do not vary much from age to age, and the most zealous and up-to-date American priest will find his best, most modern ways and means anticipated by this Parisian curé of long ago. The secret of success is ever the same-an intelligent comprehension of the needs of the parish, and entire devotedness flowing from a deeply religious sense. We see this young pastor (he was only thirty-four years old on taking charge) dividing and subdividing his immense parish and assigning a priest to each district, establishing a catechetical school in every section of the parish, so that no child would have far to go, organizing the work of these schools, and placing seminarists in charge of the classes, gathering together for instruction, at one time the domestic servants, at another the laboring men, at another the higher classes of the parish, who needed the knowledge of the truth no less,

and, in fact, endeavoring to supply the special needs of every soul under his care.

Thus was this worst of parishes regenerated; and the work there accomplished forbids despair of any situation. When France raises up apostles of the stamp of Father Olier and St. Vincent de Paul, who went out among the people, the hour of her regeneration is at hand; and it can come in no other way. We must recognize, however, that the present situation is more difficult, for Catholic traditions in France are much fainter now than in Father Olier's day.

The present volume serves effectively to recall these lessons and inspire their hope. It is, however, the work of a busy pastor, has slight claim to literary merit, and adds little to our knowledge of its subject. Its story is better told in Healy Thompson's admirable Life of Jean-Jacques Olier.

THE NUNS' RULE.

In the new edition of the Ancren Riwle, we have a most convenient and readable form of that famous work which, beside being the noblest prose monument of thirteenth century English literature, is an excellent sample of the spiritual books by means of which the religious life of Mediæval England was nourished and spread. Written for three recluses, probably by Richard Poore, Lord Bishop of Salisbury, it gives a detailed description of the duties and defects of the class to which its first readers belonged, speaking with such directness and British bluntness as to make the good and bad possibilities of the anchorite vocation stand out very plainly indeed. For the average modern reader its primary interest will, no doubt, be of a literary or historical order; though it contains fine and lofty spiritual teaching for such as are patient and experienced enough to pierce through an exterior which we must acknowledge to be, for the most part, unsympathetic and-according to nice (or squeamish) modern standards-frequently coarse.

The present edition reprints from a Camden Society tract the translation of the Riwle made some fifty years ago by the Rev. James Morton. Some slight changes have been made -of what nature the editor does not say. An Introduction of nearly twenty pages, by the scholarly Abbot Gasquet, pro

* The Nuns' Rule: Being the Ancren Riwle Modernized. By James Morton. With Introduction by Abbot Gasquet. St. Louis, Mo.: B. Herder.

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