REVIEW.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 51, 19 April 1895, Page 6

REVIEW.

The Australasian Catholic Record. The second number of the Australasian Catholic Record comes to hand fulfilling and repeating the promige of the first number, and again giving us a very acceptable publicati on-with substance enough to be valuable, and lightness enough to be generally readable. An article entitled " Church Music in Australia," by the Right Bey Dr O'Beily, Archbishop-elect ot Addaida -opens the periodical. In a bright, and, withal, satirical, strain, the writer deala not only with Church music in the colonies, but with the question at large. The music th»t has pleased him most, he tells us, \b music that he heard Boma twenty-three or twenty-four years ago, at New Nortia in the Benedictine monastery of Bishop Salvado and his monks. This, the writer Bays, he found " pre-eminently touching in its beauty, and 'preeminently telling in its strength." Another instance in which the right rev writer heard Church music that pleased him waa as it was performed, at a distance, in the Lutheran chapel of a South Australian township « The eounds wafted on that summer evening's air," he saye, «• seemed the utterance of a living soul under the influence of strong spiritual emotion. ... For the second time my dreams had been realised, and it seemed I had found music of au undeniably religious sort." But, as a rule, the melodies and barmonies of Church music have been fonnd by the writer such as move only to "cariosity or irritation "—the last two feelings, he tells us, he dtsires to have excited when he comes to church to cay his prayers. He gives an amusing sketch of the vagarieß shown at one time, in the introduction into the Church of the commonest lilts of the period. But even the composers looked upon as the greatest aro, in their religious works, displeasing to him. Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, and even Gonnod, he would hnvo none of them. May not, however, an argument, by which the right rev writer supports his views on this point, be, in some degree ot least, tur. Ed against himself? He speaks, for example, of the anomaly presented by Haydn, in sitting down, onder influences of operatic acs jciations, and fresh from such performances, to compost

tin masio of a Mass. And are there not worshipper*, and many worshippers, who must come to worship under the influence of similar associations 7 The music that, to graver minis, seems unsuitable for rel gnus expn scion, may, pcrhnpp, be tbe very mnoic to awaken their p'um sentiments. Did not Cardinal Newman admit that certain ways in among Catholic peop'ea, sincere piety was expressed were to him distasteful? It is harsh to seek to model all minda on one particular cast. Our own feeling, nevertheless, is very largely that of the right rev writer. Our personal sympathy would be with the reform he advocates. He seems to üb, however, a little too sweeping— and perhaps somewhat too keen— in his condemnation. The article will be found well worthy of perusal, and. once begun, will hardly be laid aside until it is read through.— Dr J )hn Donovan, QO., K.0.8.Q., etc., contributes a graphic Rnd highly piotureeqtw sketch of the cathedral at Cordova. « The Church in Newfoundland," by a writer whose name is not given, contains an interes'ing and suggestive history of the growth of Catholicism in a colony wh«re it had been encountered by a resistance amounting at times to positive rersscution— and that within a comparatively recent period. «St Peter at Rome," is the first portion of a learned and able artiole in support of the primacy of the Holy See. contributed by the Bight Rev Dr Higgina, Bishop Auxiliary to Cardinal Moran. This article is very pertinent to the present time, in which the appeal of the Pope for a return of ibe schismatic bodies to unity has drawn general at_ntion to the subject. The right rev writer shows himself Tery capable of dealing with it. The Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney conclndes his article—" Tbe Sisters of Mercy and the Catholic Chaplains during the Crimean war." The transition of the narrative from the nuns to the priests has in no way diminished its interest. Nothing, for instance, can be more touching than the quotations giv«n by his Eminence from the letters of Father Molony— styled by his friends at home Parish Priest of Sebastopol. Take the following :— "Among the bravest of the brave were stretched our own dear countrymen. Poor Paddr, in your pains I saw you smile, and I heard your wit. As I pasied by his gory bed bis rough cheerful voice was heard, ' Look here, yonr Revemnce, look here one holy

look,' stretching out, as he speaks, a thigh without ajleg, or an arm without a hand. ' Oq, your Reverence, if you were with us you would have seen the sport ; it waa we that made the Russians hop ; but tell me, is Sebastopol down yet V " A note of the fearless devotion to truth that distinguishes the writer is his quotation of the complaints made of bitter intolerance on the part of Miss Nightingale —a revelation that, we confess, comes upon us as an unpleasant eurpriße. His Eminence is also candid in quoting the chaplain's conviction that for Irish soldiers Irish priests were finest, and that English pries'e were not the missionaries for them. The article is of thrilling interest throogbont. The Bight Bey Moneignor O'Brien concludes his article " The Church and Hypnotism." His final conclusion is that treatment by hypnotism is lawful when there is relatively a grave cause and when due precautions to prevent abuse are taken, but that its use for mere experiment or recreation cannot be too highly censured. The Bey 0. O'Oonnell, S J., also brings to a conclusion his very clear and convincing article " The Ascent of Man ' "A Visit to Coolgardie," by the Very Rev Dr Bourke, V.G., Perth, makes us acquainted with a great daal that is curious and interesting! Here, for instance, is a lake worthy of a place on any atlas bat whose place we might suppose best suiied to maps of non-terrestrial spheres The writer ia speaking of a township called Southern Cross— withal* Rays he, " a dismal and unwholes -me place for human beings to live m." " Lake Polaris is near by, bat its waters are nowhere to be seen You must dig to reach them and when brought to the surface they art found to be eight times salter than the ocean." Coolgardie, we may add, is 120 miles further away than Southern Cross-io the lowest depth a lower depth, The right rev writer deals as lightly with it as possible. "However interesting," he writes, " may be a flying vißlt t0 Coolgardie, residence in the town would be quite a different affair. It must be said that it is neither a pleasant nor an economical pl..ce m which to live." An artcle on missions under the suggestive icitia'B C.58.8- deals with an important Bubject-hardly one, however, for tbe ordinary reviewer to criticize. Borne eccleuiastical docnmenta and one or two other papers complete, as we have eaid a number in every respect worthy of that which had preceded it. '