and it does not seem fair to evolve them out of his inner consciousness. The Jesuits do not at all resemble Mrs. Bryn's idea of them; and perhaps Mr. Austin Rock may be nearly as far astray in his estimate of the motives and sentiments of Deacon Bryn and Miss Keziah Pritchard. 10. The Ordinary of the Mass Historically, Liturgically, and Exegetically Explained. By the Rev. Arthur Devine, Passionist. London R. & T. Washbourne. (Price 5s.) This is the latest of a long series of explanations of the Liturgy of the Mass, a series going back to Glover, and no doubt much further. Father Devine summarizes, and sometimes quotes exactly, several acknowledged authorities on the subject, commenting on all the words and actions used during the celebration of Mass, and also of High Mass and Benediction. Though the type is pleasantly large, 316 pages afford space to the author for a full and leisurely exposition of the meaning of the vestments, and all the rites and liturgy. A good index will enable us to find out at once the place where any word or rubric that happens to interest us is explained for us. II. Short Spiritual Readings for Mary's Children. By Madame Cecilia. London: R. & T. Washbourne. (Price 2s. 6d. net.) Half-a-crown is a very moderate price for this large, well printed volume of some seventy meditations and essays on various subjects, more or less spiritual. They are generally very practical, and treated in a manner likely to catch the attention of those for whom they are written. We may name here a much smaller book published by the same firm, The Child's First Prayerbook. Though it is prettily bound, and has many coloured pictures, and all the prayers that are wanted by children, the price is only fourpence. Another small book -which, however, contains some 120 pages, with the help of the admirable thin paper-is The Holy Season of Lent, by the Rev. Ferrol Girardey, C.SS.R. This pious miniature treatise is a contrast to Father Herbert Thurston's learned work on Lent and Holy Week. It costs a shilling. 12. A few lines may be devoted to the duty of expressing our admiration of two brochures published far away. We have often praised the Fordham Monthly, but the February number is above its high average, especially as regards the number and excellence of the portraits. Among annual reports of societies we have never seen anything so elegant and so literary as Sursum Corda, Annual Record of the Archconfraternity of St. Gabriel,. for the year 1906, published at Philadelphia. The names of the vast number of bishops who have given their approbation to this pious Association form an interesting page themselves. A picture of Sara Trainer Smith (still so much regretted), and "Nora's Letter," by Miss Waggaman, are only two out of a great many interesting items. 13. Lady Euan-Smith has rendered a signal service to the congregational singing of our churches, by setting to music Hymns by Faber and other well known Authors (price 1s. 6d.); Mass Hymns by Father Thomas Seed, S.J. (price 6d.); and Benediction Service as sung in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, London (price 4d.) Novello & Co. are the publishers of these compositions. They are all done in a pleasing and thoroughly musicianlike manner. The harmonies are full, varied, effective, and well chosen; nothing strained or beyond the reach of ordinary choirs. To us, in Ireland, the most useful of the three batches of music will be the Benediction Service. With regard to the hymns we are not sure that the method of placing all the words at the bottom of the page, away from the music to which they are to be sung, is the wisest and handiest. The old style of inserting the words right under the music seems better. We have noticed here and there rather strange and inconvenient forms of the accidentals. We should have preferred, for instance, Cb instead of B in the bass of the first bar of the soprano solo in the Litany at page 5. The same might be said of the last bar of the alto part of the Tantum Ergo at page 6. PIGEONHOLE PARAGRAPHS THIS edifying incident I take from a letter of a young officer, who was last summer with a certain regiment that numbers only forty non-Catholics in its ranks. At a certain camp some from other regiments joined them for church parade. "So in all we had about 1 500 men. I happened to be orderly officer for the day, and it was my duty to take the men to church. Mass was celebrated in the open air, as there was no church near, large enough to hold us. Shortly before parade, a fearful thunder-storm came on, and such rain as I have seldom seen before. Our Colonel, himself a Catholic, ordered me to make the parade voluntary, on account of the weather. On my announcing this to the men, only three of them fell out. Remember, these men had no change save their canvass suits which are but cool comfort against the Atlantic breeze. Long before the Elevation there was not a dry shred on a single trooper there; yet they did not go away. A First Friday came round, and a number of them left camp, quietly, at 4 a.m., to receive Communion, and be back in camp in time for the reveillé. These things may be easy in a monastery, but they are not easy in a camp, and their chief charm is that they are done secretly and silently." God bless these First Connaught Rangers. For I will not keep back the name of these good soldiers. I think their camp was not far from the Fairy Bridges of Bundoran. The Westminster Gazette, January 27th, 1906, placed together three remarks about old age made respectively in the first, seventeenth, and twentieth centuries. Seneca asks, in his thirteenth Epistle: "Quid est turpius quam senex vivere incipiens? What is there more disgraceful than that an old man should only then be beginning to live?" Whether I grow old or no, By the effects I do not know; This I know, without being told, 'Tis time to live if I grow old. M. C. (who probably chose these quotations in the hope of winning a prize from the Saturday Westminster), adds this quatrain : Time tells me I grow old; I do not know, Nor do I greatly care if this be so; With action strenuous, and with aim sublime, A man, though old, may give scant creed to Time. Another twentieth-century rhymer, who will not give even his initials, is more explicit on this delicate subject: Yes, I'm old, as years are reckoned, I do not know how long ago, or by whom, this pious hexameter was made Tot tibi sint laudes, Iesu, quot grammata scribo. May every word, dear Jesus, that I write, Be to Thy praise and pleasing in Thy sight. In Claudian's poem, De Consulatu Stilichonis, there is a fine passage, beginning with the 150th line : Haec est in gremium victos quae sola recepit. It may well be taken as prophetic, in a sense beyond the poet's meaning. The following is Professor Jebb's translation. Is it not fulfilled in the Catholic Church, whose centre is Rome? "She, she alone, has taken the conquered to her bosom, and has made men to be of one household, with one name-herself their Mother, not their Empress and has called her vassals 'citizens,' and has linked far places in a bond of love. Hers is that large royalty to which we owe it that the stranger walks in a foreign land as if it were his own; that men can change their homes; that it is a pastime to visit Thule and to explore mysteries at which once we shuddered; that we drink at will the waters of the Rhone and the Orontes : that the whole earth is one people! " GOOD THINGS WELL SAID 1. The man who protests eloquently against the exactions of the British tax-gatherer and then retires to a public-house where he pays lavishly and recklessly to the British Exchequer on the beer or whiskey which he buys, must either be a fool or a hypocrite. Beer and whiskey are the most grasping tax-gatherers.-Rev. T. A. Finlay, S.J. 2. Be dumb when you have given, speak when you have received.-Spanish Proverb. 3. Faithfulness in small resolutions makes one strong in the crisis of a great temptation.-Michael Earls, S.J. 4. The Catholic has no such excuse. Here is, for him, the very presence of His Creator: the Almighty before whom he must stand to be judged at that last awful day. If ever there was an hour to be serious, the hour of Mass is that one.-John F. Runciman in Saturday Review. 5. A little seriousness may wrinkle the brow, but it gives a savour to life, and deprives life's awful ending of all its terrors. -The Same. 6. Circumstances have not so much to do with happiness as character has.-Lady Gilbert. 7. Blessed are shopkeepers, merchants, heads of business establishments, all who are able to give remunerative employment. Fairly paid work is the best form of charity.-M. R. 8. To-day let us rise and go to our work. To-morrow we shall rise and go to our reward.-Anon. 9. If you want a thing, go. If not, send.—Benjamin Franklin. 10. Some people condemn praise, but to Catholics I think that a priest's thoughtful words of praise are like a mother's. They give one pride without conceit; they stiffen up the relaxed fibres of self-respect; they send a warm glow over the whole body. Grace Keon. II. If you turn aside to every cur that barks, you will never get to the end of your journey.—Joseph Chamberlain. 12. How many happy moments in life are lost by thinking of the thing that may be next to come !-Rosa Mulholland. |