with, and is much more prosperous than it is under most of the Governments of European countries.

These ideas, too, he has not only expressed in this country, but also in Europe; and notably in Rome, only a few months ago, in his address to the Sovereign Pontiff of the Church at the formal presentation of a copy of the Constitution of the United States by President Cleveland, in honor of the fiftieth ordination to the priesthood of Leo XIII. Owing to the warm, eloquent, outspoken eulogium pronounced upon our country and its institutions in that address, and its emphatic placing of peoples before and above princes, the address attracted attention everywhere in Europe as well as in this country.

In confirmation of this, we make the following brief quotations from that address:

“In Your Holiness's admirable Encyclical Immortale Dei,' you truly state that the Church is wedded to no particular form of civil government. Your favorite theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas, has written true and beautiful things concerning republi canism. In our American republic the Catholic Church is left perfectly free to act out her sacred and beneficent mission to the human race. . . . .

"We beg Your Holiness, therefore, to bless this great country, which has achieved so much in a single century; to bless the land discovered by your holy compatriot, Christopher Columbus; to bless the prudent and energetic President of the United States of America; and finally we ask, kneeling at your feet, that you bless ourselves and the people committed to our care."

In answer to Archbishop Ryan His Holiness Leo XIII. spoke as follows:

"As the Archbishop of Philadelphia has said, they (the Americans) enjoy full liberty in the true sense of the term, guaranteed by the Constitution-a copy of which is presented to me. Religion is there free to extend continually, more and more, the empire of Christianity, and the Church to develop her beneficent activities. As the Head of the Church, I owe my love and solicitude to all parts of the world, but I bear for America a very special affection..

"Your country is great, with a future full of hope. Your nation is free. Your Government is strong, and the character of your President commands my highest admiration. It is for these reasons that the gift causes me the liveliest pleasure. It truly touches my heart and forces me, by a most agreeable impulse, to manifest to you my most profound sentiment of gratitude and esteem."

We add that Archbishop Ryan has never been supposed to be wanting in prudence or sagacity. On the contrary, the general public have given him credit for possessing these qualities in high degree. By their exercise, along with moderation and unaffected genial courtesy, he has won for himself hosts of friends among non-Catholics as well as Catholics. Yet had he made the utterance this unscrupulous falsifier and forger pretends he did, he would have furnished unmistakable proof of being idiotically stupid and utterly lacking discernment. For, such an utterance, like the sound of a shotted gun, would have echoed and reechoed far and wide, and would have brought down upon him swift and indignant denunciation from every quarter.

And now we still more effectively "nail to the counter" this base forgery, by giving its history. The pretended "recent utterance" of Archbishop Ryan is a greatly enlarged and newly coined version of an old and often exploded slander, originally gotten up against another person. Its history is this:

Nearly forty years ago-and long before any one could have foreseen that the Vatican Council would be convened, and that the infallibility of the Sovereign Pontiff of the Church would be declared a dogma of the Catholic faith-a newspaper was published in St. Louis called the Shepherd of the Valley. Its editor was a Mr. Bakewell, a Catholic layman,

then a young man, who afterwards became a very distinguished citizen of St. Louis, and until a few years ago was Judge of the Court of Appeals. Referring to misrepresentations of the Catholic religion by its enemies, Judge Bakewell wrote in his paper as follows,—we give the exact words:

“If Catholics_ever attain, which they surely will, though at a distant day, the immense numerical majority in the United States, religious liberty, as at present understood, will be at an end-so say our enemies."

The sentence was mutilated and its meaning entirely changed by leaving out the words we have italicized. In this mutilated form it was published by anti-Catholic newspapers, as an expression of Judge Bakewell's belief. The misrepresentation was exposed, and for a time passed out of notice. Soon, however, it was revived in an anti-Catholic publication; and it was attempted to fasten it on Archbishop Kenrick, of St. Louis. Again it was exposed. Then again it was revived and exposed some ten years ago in the Catholic Standard. Then it travelled to Australia and was attributed to Archbishop Ryan. It was contradicted and exposed by him by letter. It then travelled to Ireland, and was circulated by Presbyterians and Orangemen, and was again exposed. It came back to this country, and was attempted to be foisted again on Archbishop Ryan, then recently installed as Archbishop of Philadelphia, and with the evident intention of exciting prejudice against him in his new see. It was not, however, pretended to be a "recent utterance" of his, but an editorial utterance of his in the Shepherd of the Valley, in St. Louis, though at the alleged time, so far from being editor of that newspaper, he was not even in this country, but was in Europe. It was again thoroughly exposed in the Catholic Standard in 1886, both by its editor and in a published letter of Judge Bakewell.

Thus far we have written without having seen Archbishop Ryan, and supposing that we could not see him before this would appear in type, owing to his being with his clergy on their annual spiritual retreat. But since writing the foregoing we have succeeded in seeing him for a few. minutes at the close of the first week's retreat. And now we are authorized by him to declare in his name that the pretended "utterance" is a forgery-a FORGERY in part and in whole.

We add, in conclusion, that by a comparison of the alleged "recent utterance" with the garbled words of Judge Bakewell, published nearly forty years ago, the deliberate malice of the forgery will appear. Its conscienceless author has not only changed the language of the original misrepresentation, so as to give it a sharper and more venomous point, but has coined additional sentences, both preceding it and following it, so as to enlarge it into a paragraph, for the plain purpose of giving an appearance of plausibility to its pretended connection with the decree of "Papal Infallibility.'

MORES CATHOLICI; Or, AgeS OF FAITH. By Kenelm H. Digby. Volume the First, containing Books I., II., III., and IV. New York: P. O'Shea, Publisher, 45 Warren Street. 1888.

Two editions of this work have been published; one of them in eleven duodecimo volumes, which appeared successively between 1831 and 1840; the other, in three volumes, royal octavo, in 1845-47. These two editions were quickly exhausted, and copies of them are so highly prized by their possessors that they are seldom offered for sale, and when thus offered are so quickly bought up by private collectors of books of special value that they are virtually beyond the reach even of the better educated of the general public. Mr. O'Shea, therefore, is rendering a

real and very important service to contemporaneous literature in publishing a new edition of this deservedly highly-prized work.

Its republication, too, at the present time, is very opportune. The tendency of our age is to underrate all that has been done in past times. This age, we are told, ad nau‹eam, is an advance upon all that has gone before it. The past is dead, the present only is living. Those who look to the past for wisdom have their eyes in the back of their head. They should steadily look forward, and employ their energies in gathering the untouched fresh materials which lie in exhaustless abundance all around them, and use only those materials in erecting new intellectual structures, instead of groping for stones already quarried and hewn to shape amid the dust and ashes and crumbling monuments of their ancestors.

This is all very well up to a certain point, and with proper qualifications. Yet it sorely needs such qualifications. The present age, though perfectly well satisfied with itself, has not yet obtained such an exhaustless wealth of self-acquired wisdom that it can afford to despise the accumulated treasures of former ages. Perhaps, too, its structures of learning and thought would be all the more durable if some of the massive stones that were quarried and shaped by the toil of ancient workmen, and have stood the test of time's destructive force, were incorporated into them. Modern rubble-work of pebbles and spauls, gathered at random and hastily joined together with untempered mortar, are not quite as enduring as are many of the monuments which attest the skill and might of the master-builders of times long past. It is wise, therefore, occasionally to glance behind us and study the past, as well as to look upon the immediate present. Too exclusive attention to the present will please our vanity, and inflate it. It will give us, too, more self-assurance. But of that we already have quite a sufficiency, unless we are entirely mistaken.

The work before us is a description of Christian life in the Middle Ages, taking as its clue and guiding principle the "beatitudes,” pronounced by our Divine Lord, at the commencement of His "Sermon upon the Mount," as recorded by St. Matthew. It is a work of immense erudition, both comprehensive and minute. It lays under contribution the history, poetry, and philosophy of all ages and nations, gathering together the loftiest ideas of the world's thinkers and sages, and using them to illustrate its theme. It is a work, too, of searching analysis into the springs of human action, and the causes that tend to form and elevate human character, and of profound meditation upon the ways of God with man. To the thoughtful reader it is a veritable "book of wisdom." He will never weary of it. He can return to it again and again with pleasure, finding in it new beauties, and strengthening himself in good purposes by communing with its pure, devout spirit and elevated thoughts.

It has been alleged that the title of this work, "Ages of Faith," is misleading, in that it is not a faithful representation of the Middle Ages; that it might be properly styled, " A Romance Founded on Facts of Medieval History;" that the author has clothed every object he presents in the rich and brilliant hues of his own lofty and prolific imagination; that society in the Middle Ages cannot be truly regarded as in its normal condition, nor was it, in its totality, really under the spiritual direction of the Church; that those ages were barbarous, cruel, ignorant, and corrupt.

But these charges are all based upon a total misconception of the intention and purpose of the work. The first part of its title, "Mores

Catholici," should have been a sufficient safeguard to those who have thus misconceived it. It is not intended to present a picture of mediæval ages in their non-Christian, but in their Christian, Catholic, aspects. And, as regards those aspects, it is a true picture, for the most prominent characteristic of them under those aspects was their faith. They were emphatically "Ages of Faith." In this respect they present a marked contrast with the skepticism, the infidelity, and disbelief of modern times. That there were barbarism, darkness both intellectual and moral, cruelty, and disobedience of the precepts of the Church, and that this disobedience often, among powerful secular princes and rulers, took the form of defiant resistance, every one knows who has any knowledge of those ages, and the author of the "Ages of Faith" would be the last to deny. But these facts do not in the least militate against the work, its purpose and intention. As we have already said, its purpose is to describe the Christian life of those ages, and its beneficent action upon human character in all the spheres in which human character reveals itself-domestic, social, political, industrial, intellectual, and artistic-and not the work of the devil, in his attempts to destroy that life, nor of the world, so far as it placed itself under the power of the devil. The very instances that are continually adduced-and they were many and constantly occurring-of cruelty, barbarity, and wicked disregard of the obligations of Christianity by Christian princes and rulers, and by persons below them in society, were plainly instances of disobedience to the faith which they believed, but which, yielding to temptations of ambition, lust, cupidity, or other sinful passions, they did not obey or practise.

We sum up our convictions respecting this admirable work in a few sentences borrowed from a brief sketch of its author. They are, that "no other work in our language presents so completely, so felicitously, from every point of view, the claims of the Catholic Church to the veneration, love, and obedience of every human being. It may be said to be a picture of the life of the Christian world, so accurately photographed that no feature is wanting that could be required to give due expression to the whole; in which the portraiture is so faithful that the inner life is expressed as well as the outer semblance."

The first volume of this republication of the " Ages of Faith," which is the only volume that has yet appeared, depicts the influence of the Christian life in actualizing the spirit of poverty, meekness, and mourning, as inculcated in the first three beatitudes. The typographical execution well accords with the intrinsic value of the contents.

It is to be hoped that Mr. O'Shea will receive such substantial encouragement through the sale of this volume as will induce him to persevere in his purpose to republish, in a uniform edition and in a style worthy of their great merit, all of Digby's works.

A LITERARY AND BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY; or, Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics, from the Breach with Rome in 1534 to the Present Time. By Joseph Gillow. Vol. III. London: Burns & Oates. New York: Catholic

Publication Society Company.

The title of this work so fully indicates its general scope and purpose that further explanation seems needless. The volume before us extends from the letters "Gra" to "Kel." It contains, as we learn from the Preface, three hundred and forty-one biographical, one hundred and twenty subsidiary memoirs, and over twelve hundred bibliographical notices. To English Catholics, and the descendants of English Catholics, it cannot fail to be deeply interesting.

It is valuable, also, to students of English bibliography, as it contains the titles and short notices of numerous books, pamphlets, and mancscripts, the existence even of many of which is unknown except to a very few persons.

Many of the biographies have been compiled from letters and manuscripts and memoranda in the possession of various persons which have never been published, and from books and pamphlets that have long been out of print, and of which very few copies can be found. They throw a great deal of light upon many imperfectly known and controverted matters connected with the interior history of the times, particu larly of those of the Tudors and the Stuarts. They bring to mind, too, in a way that no ex professo history of persecutions could do, the coldblooded, deliberate malice of the persecutions to which English Catholics were subjected and the systematic cruelty with which they were hunted, fined, imprisoned, tortured, and butchered. The perusal of many of these biographies forcibly reminds us of the ancient heathen persecu tions, but with this difference: Those persecutions were waged by idolatrous heathens who knew not the One True God, but the English Catholics were persecuted by those who sinned against light and knowledge, by persons who professed to be Christians and who carried on their persecutions in the name of Christ and His religion.

IRISH WONDERS. The Ghosts, Giants, Pookas, Demons, Leprechawns, Banshees, Fairies, Witches, Widows, Old Maids, and Other Marvels of the Emerald Isle. Popular Tales as Told by the People. By D. R. McAnally, Fr. Illustrated by H. R. Heaton. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Company. 1888. The wonderful imaginative power and fruitfulness of the Celtic mind is not more fully exhibited in its poetry, its novels, and stories of scenes in real life and the exuberant imagery of its orators, than in legends and fanciful tales which people in the humbler walks of life delight in telling. Go where you will in Ireland, the story-teller is there, ready and willing to repeat his fanciful tale, with a wealth of rustic imagery and a dramatic force that trained and practised writers might envy.

The work before us presents this phase of unwritten Celtic literature. The materials were collected during a recent lengthy visit to Ireland during which, the writer states, he traversed every county from end to end and was in constant and familiar association with the peasant tenantry.

The task which the writer undertook was evidently a congenial one and one which he possessed the requisite qualifications to well perform. The original spirit and wit, humor, pathos and imagery of the legends and stories are well preserved, as are also the distinctive dialect and pronunciation of the Irish peasantry.

The volume, with its striking and characteristic illustrations, will be a very acceptable present to children, who will pore over its pages with delight. And we may add that children, too, of older growth will find amusement and pleasant relaxation in them.

THE PERFECT RELIGIOUS, ACCORDING TO THE RULE OF ST. AUGUSTINE; Or, Instructions for all Religious; Referring Principally to the Constitutions of Religious Ursulines. By Father Francis Xavier Weninger, Priest of the Society of Jesus. Translated from the German by a Member of the Ursuline Community of St. Mary's, Waterford, Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son. 1888.

Among the many Monastic Rules which have been approved by the Church, the Rule of St. Augustine is especially distinguished by remarkable proofs of the virtue it possesses to lead souls to the highest