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for the pure blooded negro colored man who has risen

here is a case where Longfellow's reflection on the might-havebeen is not appropriate. Mr. Reed makes a strong plea to Northerners to study the race question of to-day from the Southern point of view. His own solution for the present problem is to transplant the negroes into some territory where they may form a State of their own. Hampton, Tuskagee, and all other such enterprises must fail; is not yet fit for education. The is not a pure negro; and with the growing antagonism between the races, the admixture of white with negro blood must diminish till it eventually disappears. The efforts of Booker Washington, of whom Mr. Reed speaks handsomely, cannot, he tells us, reach more than an insignificant fraction of the race, while the great mass is left to pursue the way of hopeless degeneracy. Again, those persons towards whom we have extended sympathy, because they have been slighted as negroes amid a white population, nowise represent the great black population. Some very sensible words concerning the propriety of appointing negroes to federal offices in the South bring this instructive book to a close.

SIR EDMUND BURY
GODFREY.
By Alfred Marks.

Again the question, which was once the signal for a "Reign of Terror" against English Catholics, is started and answered.* Mr. Marks, like Echo, replies: "Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey-he committed suicide." Mr. Marks discusses, with the acuteness of a criminal lawyer, all the evidence-that of the coroner's inquest, that furnished for the trial and conviction of Green, Bury, and Hill, in 1679, and that from the trial, four years later, of Thompson, Paine, and Farwell. It says much for the lucidity of his treatment of the mass of contradictions, obscurities, confessions, retractions, and conflicting testimonies, that his reader may follow him without any great strain of attention. He brings out forcibly the character of the incredible frenzy which possessed English Protestants, high and low, during the excitement of the "Popish Plot," and, in passing, he scorches two other writers who have treated the subject— Mr. Pollock, for his want of impartiality, and Mr. Gairdner, for the peculiar views he enunciates as to the employment of

*Who Killed Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey? By Alfred Marks. With an Introduction by Father J. H. Pollen, S.J. New York: Benziger Brothers.

hypotheses in historical investigation. There is, we believe, an error in the statement that Titus Oates once joined the Jesuit community. He was an inmate of a Jesuit house of studies, but never a member of the society.

THE OLD MISSIONS OF
CALIFORNIA.

These two books * are not only the latest, but each in its own way is the ablest and most complete, among the contributions to the history of California and its Missions. A considerable literature has grown up, and deservedly, about the beginnings of civilization on the Pacific coast, and what gives it a singular interest are the sight and possessions of its noble monu

ments.

To those who are sympathetic and imaginative, California is and ever will be a land of romance and wonders. As a child of Spain this is its birthright, and it shares in the glory and heroism which characterize the palmy centuries of that nation's conquests and dominion.

The history of California is a series of romantic realities, of which the first and most beautiful is the peaceful conquest by the power of the cross. A conquest, however, that implied dangers of land and sea, dangers of the wilderness and solitude, a conquest bought at the price of labor, hunger, thirst, and even blood, of which we moderns can form scarcely any conception.

There is romance too in the life lived at the old Missions; its happy contentment, its sanctified toil, its abundant hospitality, its wonderful yet simple teachers, the Franciscan padres. But too soon, alas, the sunshine departed, and the ever-darkening clouds of political changes, of hindrances and interference, burst into a tornado of spoliation that swept away the peace and plenty secured by wise guidance and patient toil, and left behind it broken hearts, wasted endeavors, a helpless, scattered, and despoiled multitude of Indians, a scene the more tragic because of the promise and the realization it had at first presented. California has other romances as well, that of the discovery of gold, that of its present growth, that too of its natural wonders and beauties.

California and its Missions, their History to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. By Bryan J. Clinch. In 2 vols. San Francisco: The Whitaker & Ray Company, Publishers. In and Out of the Old Missions. By George Wharton James. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.

But it is time to mark the scope and the execution of these two books we have undertaken to notice.

In his two volumes, Mr. Clinch presents the complete and accurate history, civil and religious, of both Californias Lower and Upper. The first deals with the Jesuit missions in Lower California, a period of nearly a hundred years, though in truth this was but the continuation and complement of a previous century of heroic work in New Mexico and Arizona. This enterprise was brought to an untimely end by the harsh and unjust decree which banished the Jesuit Order from Spain and all its dependencies in 1767 A. D. His second volume. takes up the transfer of the missions to the Franciscans and the colonization and founding of missions in Upper California, until the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in 1848, gave the country. to the United States, a period of nearly eighty years. By his long residence in California, his knowledge of Spanish, his Catholic judgment, and sound scholarship, Mr. Clinch is eminently well fitted for his task. He has succeeded in admirably, yet sanely, putting before us the events and personages, the legislation and methods, which make up the varying and dis-* tressing phases of California's history. He has disposed forever of the charges, they were mainly two, viz., that the discipline of mission life was over severe; and that the padres were slow or unwilling to fit their neophytes for civil life and self-government. There is this additional value in this new history, that it gives us one connected narrative of the entire Californian mission work, which is apt to be found only in detached parts in the writings of other authors of merit, as for example in the works of the late Gilmary Shea.

In and Out of the Old Missions is a thoroughly satisfying book. The author's historical account of the various discoveries, expeditions, and foundations is painstaking and accurate, his defense of the padres and their methods is generous, his love of the Indians whole-souled, and his indignation at the past and present treatment by our government passionate but just. It is not usual to find among non- Catholics such unstinted appreciation, yet the fine old Spanish padres have raised up a host of admirers, for "their works do follow them, and their praise is from generation to generation." The arrangement of the book is excellent, and its interest never flags.

There is a blending of the main facts with a minute study

of details. Each mission church is examined, and its history, its points of architecture, its interior adornments, and its relics are treated and illustrated by numerous photographs. The author wants us to see, to share, and love these mission buildings as he sees and loves them.

Finally, in a Catholic magazine we should come short of our duty, if we omitted to call attention to the excellent work which is being done in the way of restoring and preserving the old missions, and the greater work of obtaining justice for the dispossessed Indians. The Landmarks League, of Los Angeles, has done much for the buildings, and the Sequoia League, of the same city, is helping to create public opinion and to bring pressure on the national government in behalf of the Indians. Charles F. Lummis, clarum et venerabile nomen, a non-Catholic, the editor of Out West, is the leader in both of these great movements.

This little book of Father Hill's*

DEVOTION TO THE PASSION. seems to us unquestionably the best for a practical cultivation of devotion to the Passion among any

By Fr. Hill.

that we know. It brings this devotion into daily life in such a way that it cannot be put out except by a distinct determination so to do. It is practical in the highest possible degree; there is nothing high-flown or merely sentimental about it. And it comes right from the heart and the life of the author; it is thoroughly natural, if we may use such a term of what is so entirely supernatural. It contains nothing strained or affected; it is written just as the author would talk to a friend; and it has most eminently the charm of a kindly simplicity. In short, the book is really a little treasure; and in size so small that it will actually fit a vest-pocket, though. most beautifully and clearly printed.

FAIR MARGARET.
By Crawford.

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Donne, an aspirant to the career of a prima donna; Madame Bon

nani, who has enjoyed a long success in that same career, and who has gained the right of being spoken of in drawing-rooms

A Few Simple aud Business-like Ways of Devotion to the Passion. By Rev. Edmund Hill, C.P. New York: Benziger Brothers.

66

as that dreadful woman." She, however, upsets the traditional view that all women, and all singers, are jealous of rising rivals, by proving herself a valuable friend to Margaret.* Lushington, who loves Margaret, and is beloved in return, but will not ask her hand because he isn't Lushington at all, but somebody else, on whose antecedents rests a cloud, which, by the way, also encircles Madame Bonnani. Logotheti, a Greek, fabulously rich, and successful in the world of finance, who is the very incarnation of the ancient Greek æsthetic spirit, hardened by a slight dash of the modern brigand. He is madly in love with Margaret, who certainly flirts with him. There are several minor characters, including the sensible, shrewd, and decorous American, Mrs. Rushmore, Margaret's guardian. The denouement is the attempted abduction of Margaret as she proceeds from the stage to her dressing-room, after an operatic triumph. These ingredients, flavored with a good dash of psychological analysis, chiefly of the female temperament, and much acute observation of manners, condensed into aphoristic strength, are mixed with Mr. Crawford's characteristic skill and carefulness. The story ends in a way that seems to suggest that it will have a sequel. For when the sack that was supposed to contain the fair Margaret is emptied in the presence of the person who instigated and expected a profit by the abduction, his "eyeglass dropped from its place, the jaw fell, with a wag of the fair beard, and a look of stony astonishment came into all the great features, while Madame Bonnani broke into a peal of laughter." And with the big-hearted woman's laugh ends the first part of this history. The present addition to the Crawford library does not promise to dispute the position of the Saracinesca series, though, like all of Mr. Crawford's work, it belongs to the first class of current fiction.

THE DOCTRINE OF GOD.
By Dr. Hall.

This little book † is a syllabus of lectures covering those portions of theology which, among Episcopalians, are, we believe, called

Dogmatics-the nature and scope of theology; the authority of the Church; Holy Scripture; Theism; the Holy Trinity.

It

* Fair Margaret: A Portrait. By F. Marion Crawford. New York: The Macmillan Company.

The Doctrine of God. By Francis I. Hall, D.D., Instructor of Theology in the Western Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois. Milwaukee: The Young Churchman Company.

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