PUBLICATIONS

New Zealand Tablet, 19 January 1911, Page 121

PUBLICATIONS

The latest publications issued by the Australian Catholic Truth Society are The Kingdoms of the World, an interesting little story by Louisa Emily Dobree, and Lacordaire and Lamennais, by the Rev. Reuben Parsons, D.D.

The current issue of the Almanac of the Diocese of Maitland well maintains the high standard set in former numbers of this very useful and handy publication. It contains in a very convenient form a collection of very instructive facts regarding the diocese a list of the clergy, parochial districts, the hours at which Masses are celebrated, the religious institutions, confraternities in each parochial district, etc. The Catholic population of the diocese is given as 30,040, being an increase of about 5000 in twenty-one years, whilst the pupils in the 56 Catholic schools number 4364. In addition the Almanac, which is published by the authority of the Right Rev. Dr. Dwyer, Bishop of Maitland, contains a very useful calendar. These are a few of the principal features of the publication, a copy of which should be in the home of every Catholic in the diocese.

Prom Messrs. Macdonald, Evans, and Co., London, we have received A Fourth Form Buy, by the Rev. P. Garrold, S.J. This is indeed a pleasant change from the bulk of light literature we come across nowadays. There is a naturalness and breeziness about this story of schoolboy life which appeal to the reader, and carry him back to the time when he was in the fourth form, and indulged in those little escapades which brought him into conflict with the school authorities. The author is not only a sympathetic student of boys’ characters, but is also a clever writer with a vivid imagination, and a rare gift of treating his subject in a manner that makes the narrative interesting from start to finish. The book has a charm, style, and humor all its own, and cannot fail to give pleasure to young and old. London: Macdonald, Evans, and Co., pp. 408, cloth, price ss.

The Graces of Interior Prayer, a translation from the sixth edition of Pere Poulain’s Les Glares d' Oral son, by Leonara L. Yorke Smith. The Rev. I). Considine, S.J.', of Wimbledon College, in his preface to the English translation, points out that this work is an example of modern scientific methods applied to mysticism, which critics outside the Church commonly regard as brain-weakness peculiar to pious persons. Pere Poulain’s book is much more than an examination of spiritual marvels: it is a survey of the kingdom of prayer in all its length and breadth, in its lowest as well as in its most perfect form. . . There are comparatively few problems of the ascetical life which do not fall in some degree within the scope of this treatise the helps and hindrances of prayer, interior trials, scruples, discouragement, presumption. On all these topics the teaching of the author, deduced, be it observed, from the words or actions of the saints which he cites, seems to us eminently helpful and sane. . . No one can rise from a deliberate perusal of this work, or of any considerable portion of it, without having gained a larger idea of the Divine goodness and pow and also of the capacity of Gods creature, man. "London: Kegan Paul, Trench, triibner, and Co.; pp. 637 cloth. Price 10s 6d. From Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner, and Co., London, we have received volumes VI. and VII. of The Lives of the Popes in the Middle Ages, by the Rev. Horace Mann. In looking over these volumes one is deeply impressed with the erudition, industry, and talent for laying hold of the salient points of history displayed by the author, who has succeeded to a very high degree in throwing a flood of light on a period of Church history regarding which there have been many misconceptions. As the author obseryed in a preface to a previous volume, ‘ the records or history furnish the writer with merely a few dry bones which he has to try and arrange so as to represent the human form divine as best he may.’ The reader cannot help admitting that Father Mann has taken these dry bones and clothed them, figuratively speaking, with flesh again, so that in passing before our gaze in review' they appear as it they were of our own day. The period of Papal history illustrated in the present volume was the age dominated by the great Hildebrand. It was an age in which the highminded and pure-souled monk strove, either by his own exertions or by those which he inspired, to 'promote that reform in the Church which had been inaugurated by St. Deo lA. It was an era not only of ardent work for reform' but of great and glorious deeds, the soul of which was faith’ both in the social and political as well as in the ecclesiastical order It was the age in which the Crescent began its steady decline before the Cross; it saw the birth of the crusades. It was a time wherein owing to the spread of the work of the Truce of God, and then to the departure of much of its war-like spirit to the East, there was, in spite of feudalism, greater peace in Europe, and as a result learning at once revived. The history begins with the life of Leo IX., the first of a glorious succession of Pontiffs whose deeds wall never be forgotten, and will ever render the second half of the eleventh century one of the most memorable epochs in the history of civilisation, and ends

with that of Urban 11., who was, we are informed, a man of commanding presence, of polished manners, of distinguished piety and ability, and possessed of remarkable powers of eloquence. The author deals with the subject in a perfectly judicial and impartial manner, and a perusal of his works cannot fail to show that the occupants of the See of Peter were actuated in their long and fierce struggles against abuses which crept into the Church in various countries, owing to the interference of reigning monarchs in purely spiritual matters, by the highest moCves—the safeguarding of religion, and upholding of virtue and justice. Father Mann has placed all students of Church history under a deep debt of gratitude for his learned works, and his present success should encourage him to continue his valuable studies. London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner, and Co.; Vol. VI., pp. 382; Vol. VII., pp. 355, with maps and illustrations; cloth, price 12s net each.

When the above was in type there came to hand the eighth volume of the series which deals with the period 1099 to 1130 inclusive. The learned author has brought to bear on the period under review the same painstaking research and industry that were displayed in previous volumes. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner, and Co.; volume VIII., pp. 314; cloth; price, 12s net.