SOME NEW BOOKS

1. Questions of Moral Theology. By Rev. Thomas Slater, S.J. London: R. and T. Washbourne, Ltd. (Price 8s. net.)

Not merely priests who are professionally interested in the application of Moral Theology but those numerous lay Catholics who think or write on social and political questions should find this book very instructive and interesting. It is a collection of articles in which Father Slater, S.J., Professor of Moral Theology in St. Beuno's College, applies the principles of Catholic ethics to some of the problems which the peculiar developments in modern times of politics and commerce propose for solution. Here are the titles of some of the articles: The Just Price, Unearned Increment, The Sum Required for a Grave Sin of Theft, The Theology of Stolen Goods, Secret Commissions in Trade, Deals in Options and Futures, The Moral Aspect of Stock-watering, Bankruptcy and Conscience, Eugenics and Moral Theology, Civil Law and Conscience, Scruples, English Socialism and Religion. It seems a pity that the masterly article on Boycotting which the author wrote in the Irish Theological Quarterly was not included with the above. Father Slater writes with an admirable clearness of style and inspires great confidence by his evidently wide knowledge of his subjects and by his clear and firm grasp of principles.

2. The Will and the Way. By Irish Priests. Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son, Ltd. (Price 1s.)

The title of this book will hardly help anyone to guess that it contains a number of very interesting and stimulating short essays on Irish subjects, written by well known Irish priests. Some of the eighteen essays are Irish chiefly in the looser sense that their subjects are of practical importance to Irishmen, those for example on the Press and Catholic Literature by Fathers Guinan and Forde, and that on Parochial Libraries

by Father Phelan, S.J. But most of them are formally Irish. Irish History is treated in various aspects by Canon D'Alton, Mgr. Fahey, and Fathers Kavanagh, O.F.M., P. Murphy and P. O'Carroll; the Irish Language-its value and the problem of saving it-by Fathers O'Kelly, Fullerton and MacNamee. This book with its manly Irish spirit, its sound, healthy ideas, and its store of useful knowledge deserves a very wide circulation; it cannot fail to make its readers better Irishmen. It is well printed and neatly bound in cloth and wonderfully good value for the small sum of a shilling.

3. A Posie from a Royal Garden. 3rd edition. With a Foreword by the Bishop of Kensington. London: Longmans, Green and Co. (Price 2s. net.)

A certain well-known Dominican used often to express his dislike of visiting a Protestant church: "the Real Absence is so painfully obvious," he would say. Somewhat akin is the impression on a Catholic mind left by Protestant books of devotion, however close they may steer to Catholic doctrine. In this little book, however, written it would seem by a Protestant lady, we have discovered what is almost an xception. It is true that there are slight traces, here and there, of such a real absence." But, on the whole, the book is surprisingly Catholic in tone, though it treats of that most Catholic of subjects, Our Blessed Lady. It is mainly a book of practical meditations. The authoress traces chapter by chapter, the life of Mary, as gleaned from Gospel and from legend: and at every turn she is driving home some lesson or other of practical bearing-lessons intended primarily for those of her own sex, yet surely susceptible of a far wider application. A symbolism of flowers gives point, not only to the book-title, but to each successive chapter. This present edition is enriched by two suggestive, additional chapters on " Calvary"; and the poets, Crashaw and Keble and many another, have been pressed into her service; the effect is admirable. Certainly we wish all success to this charming little book.

4. The Life of St. Monica. By F. A. Forbes.

Lon

don R. and G. Washbourne, Ltd. (Price 1s. net.)

:

This life is a further addition to the "Standard Bearers of the

SOME NEW BOOKS

805

Faith," a new series of lives of the saints for young and old. It is a charming story, charmingly told, of the great St. Monica-patient wife and mother--who endured a "living martyrdom as painful and as bitter as death," but who continued to hope and pray, in spite of many sorrows and disappointments, for the conversion of her brilliant and wayward son. The weary, who have lost heart because they have prayed without any apparent results, will derive much encouragement and consolation from reading how Augustine, having been so long the subject of his Mother's sorrow and prayer, was destined to be at last her glory and her joy. The author is to be congratulated on having produced a biography of such simplicity in the manner of telling as to be full of interest to young readers, and one that can be read with pleasure and profit by adults. There are three original illustrations by Frank Ross Maguire. We look forward with pleasure to seeing the future volumes of the series, already announced, and heartily wish them an abundant success.

5. The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas. Part II. (First Part). Literally translated by Fathers of English Dominican Province. (Price 6s. net.)

The questions included in the most recent volume of this excellent venture contain the treatises on Law and on Grace. Law in general is first discussed, its essence, kinds and effects; then Law in particular under various headings: Natural Law, Human Law, the Old Law and the New Law. Some of the questions affect issues far removed from theology; there is, for example, a pithy statement of the reason why human laws should not be lightly or quickly changed. When you have read it, it seems just plain common sense; but it is common sense that is not always borne in mind. The treatise on Grace looks curiously brief in these later times; many pens have been worn out in writing about Grace since the days of St. Thomas.

6. Memories of a Week in Rome. By John O'Flynn. Dublin: James Duffy and Co., Ltd. (Price 2d.)

The writer of this booklet was one of a large pilgrimageparty who visited Rome in 1912 under the auspices of the Catholic Young Men's Society. His lordship the Bishop of Waterford and Lismore in a prefatory letter commends the

work highly as an excellent summary of the principal attractions of the Eternal City and as inspired by a thoroughly Catholic spirit.

An address on the Administration of Baptism delivered before the Guild of Sts. Luke, Cosmas and Damian by the Rev. A. J. Schulte suggests interesting vistas of possible lines of Catholic organisation. The audience was composed of the Catholic physicians of Philadelphia, and the lecturer dwelt particularly on the aspects and instances of Baptism that are of special interest to physicians. It is issued by the Overbrook Publishing Co., Philadelphia.

In a Foreword to How I Became a Catholic by Olga Maria Davin, the Translator tells us that Frau Davin, who is an artist, poet, writer, musical composer, has herself been instrumental in as many as seventy known conversions. The brochure is published by The Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, Indiana.

7. The Burden of Honor. By Christine Faber. New York: P. J. Kenedy and Sons. (Price 75 cents.)

When Jennie Benham sacrificed her own happiness for the sake of her sisters, and undertook the care of a houseful of lively children, she had more trouble ahead of her than she had reckoned on, more than her naturally sweet nature would ever have brought her through without the support of her strong Faith and thorough Catholic training. Troubles multiply and the story works up with increasing interest to a dramatic situation and thence to a solution which the reader will find satisfactory and fair to the heroine and most parties concerned. We should have enjoyed this pleasant story better if the incidents and the characters had been developed more deliberately and in fuller detail; there is a touch of hurry about the telling of the tale which the American public seem to like, for it is rather common in American stories. The book can be unhesitatingly recommended for Catholic

libraries.

8. Maxims and Sayings of Father Paul Ginhac, S.J. London: R. and T. Washbourne, Ltd. (Price 1s. net.)

This latest addition to the Angelus Series contains an excellent collection of ascetical thoughts and of spiritual counsels which are of a rather unusually uncompromising

character.

Father Ginhac, who died some twenty years ago, was a man of remarkable intensity of nature, one who strove with all the force of a powerful will to co-operate fully with the generous graces given him; and a like intensity marks his utterances. Self renunciation is their dominating idea. They have at times, besides depth and wisdom, an ingenuity of expression which one hardly expects from a man cast in so austerely ascetic a mould. But then, he was a Frenchman. Here are some of his sayings: "Humility is very easy you must put yourself at once in nothingness and a little lower." "The world can never sufficiently despise a creature who has despised God."

9. Some recent penny pamphlets that have reached us from the Australian Catholic Truth Society are:

Catholicism and Peace. By Rev. Joseph Keating, S.J. Children's Early and Frequent Communion. Husslein, S.J.

By Rev. J.

Personal Prohibition Needed-not National. By Rev. W. Lockington, S.J.

Points in Catholic Polity.

The last named in particular we draw attention to; it contains brief, pithy statements of the principles, rights and needs of Catholics, chiefly in regard to Education, and of the means they should adopt. A somewhat similar pamphlet, dealing on broader lines with the matters needing reform in Ireland, might be very useful.

The Irish Messenger office (5 Great Denmark Street, Dublin) has issued the following new penny books or impressions :

The Women of France and the War. By the Comtesse de Courson.

A Boy's Choice. A Dialogue on Vocations. By Rev. H. Davis, S.J.

St. Columbanus.

Ronan, C.C.

Centenary Life. By Rev. Myles

Help for the Holy Souls. (50th Thousand). By Rev. T. MacDonald, C.C.

Our Lady of Lourdes. (100th Thousand). By E. Leahy. The Devotion of the First Fridays. (160th Thousand). By Rev. J. McDonnell, S.J.