NEW BOOKS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7, 18 February 1909, Page 247

NEW BOOKS

With the November number of the American Ecclesiastical Be view there began AA'hat promises~:±"o" be one of the best stories of Irish clerical life yet written by ' Canon Sheohan, of Doneraile. It is entitled The Blindness of the Very llev. Dr. Gray, or The Final Law. All the verve and chaim of Canon Sheehan's style, and all the richness of his matter, is to be found in .the instalments of this fine story that have appeared. The December issue is well up to the customary standard, of- that high-class ecclesiastical magazine. '"A ReAdeAV of Modernism- in- the Past Year ' is continued, and there is (among other things) an illuminating and practical article on the neAV Apostolic Constitution of the Roman Curia. (W. P. Linehan, Australasian agent, 309-11 Little Collins street, Melbourne.) •

We have received from the Catholic Young Men's Society, Dungarvan (Ireland), a neat brochure containing the lecture on New Zealand delivered there during last October by the Very Rev. Father Power, of Hawera. The lecture (the leading features of which appeared some timo ago in our columns) is entitled ' New Zealand': The Islands of the Blest.' It centains a description of the scenic beauties of NeAV Zealand, couched in language of much eloquence and poetic charm, a brief account of the nativo race and its Avays, of our progressive legislation, and of the honorable part which Catholics and Irishmen have played in bxuldiiig up, this Dominion. On reading through this Avell-prmted brochure we can Avell appreciate the remark of the chairman (Very Rev. Canon Power, P.P., V.G.) that the" eloquent descriptions of the pastor of Hawera would tend to make all the young, people present emigrate to NeAv Zealand. The second part of the brochure contains the addresses presented to Father Power by the Catholic Young Men's Society iv Dungarvan. '

Whitcombe and Tombs dosorve well of this Dominion for the excellent scries of works with which they are enriching our country's literature and illuminating its earlier and later history. The latest of -.their contributions to local history is a second . edition of. the- Rev. H. T. Purchas's Bishop Harper andzth'e Canterbury Settlement. This edition is revised and considerably enlarged, new chapters written and many old ones recast and enriched with new material. Our Catholic as Avell as our Anglican, readers will, be interested in -this well-written record of a" life "that played so important a, part in the history of the Canterbury Settlement, of his relations with the founders, of the difficulties of pioneer missionary travelling — of which the Catholic counterpart has of late been appearing in our pages — of the stirring times of the gold-fever in Otago, and of many other iticidonts by flood and field that go to form an interesting history. Bishop Harper seems to have been a man of real piety, and some of the revelations of his inner soul taken from his diary (pp. 12-13) show him to have been strongly influenced by the Tractarian Movement. l Wednesday self-mortification 1 ' and ' Friday selfmortification ' and meditation seem to have formed part of tho Bishoxi's life. The book is ably written, and, so far as our perusal of it has gone, written in a good spirit. The book-work is excellent. (Pp. X.-254.) - __