FATHER LE MENANT'S NEW BOOK.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 14, 6 April 1899, Page 20

FATHER LE MENANT'S NEW BOOK.

The Very Rev. T. Le Menant des Chesnais, S.M., V.G., Christohuroh, has placed the Catholic body of New Zealand under many an obligation by the various and admirable publications which he has issued from time to time in defence or exposition of the doctrines and practices of our holy religion. The Very Rev. Father has just added one more claim to the gratitude of his fellow-Catholics throughout the colony by the latest book which has issued from his fertile pen. It is entitled The Sects and the Church. Its sub-titles — 'The Methodists.' 'The Baptists,' 'The Society of Friends,' 'The Unitarians' — give an idea of the scope of this latest addition to the literary labours of the zealous Vicar-General of Christchurch. Father Le Menant. in each instance, g'ves a brief, but singularly pithy history of the various sects with which he deals, together with an altogeth-r admirable summary of their doctrinal characteristics. He then proceeds to deal with the differences in religious belief between the se;ts and the Church, and concludes each of the four articles of which the book is composed with a clear refutation of error and a triumphant vindication of Catholic truth.

Father Le Menant's latest book is a worthy successor of those that preceded it. It contains, in a nutshell, like evidences of wide realing and research, the same clearness of division, well-ordered marshalling of fact and argument, easiness of comprehension, and total absence of feeling or odium thtologicum which make hia books so suitable for distribution among fair-minded Protestants of an inquiring turn. The Sects and the Church is emphatically a " book for this Colony where religious denominations are as numerous as blackberries, where Catholics are thrown in with them in the field, at the desk, in the workshop, at amusements, and in so many other relations of domestic, social, and public life, and where the old familiar objections against our holy religion are daily and almost hourly flung at our people. Unhappily our people are all too frequently unable to meet these specious objections. As a resul they have often to merely stand by and listen like dumb dogs, or to let fallacies percolate into their minds and tarnish the brightness of their faith. For all, Father Le Menant's new book will be a little armoury of well-put facts and arguments. It should be in the hands of every Catholic, and of every Protestant as well. We wish it every success (64 pages, price 1?; obtainable at the NZ. Tablet office or from the very rev. author).