happy. They will be better hereafter. We have read the volume with much pleasure; and if we had not read it at all, from the known taste and ability of its accomplished editor, we should not hesitate a moment to recommend it to our readers. We are glad to see the efforts our Catholic publishers are making to furnish our Catholic public with a good stock of Catholic literature, and especially to witness the improved style in which they are sending out their publications. There was a time when Catholic publications in this country were sent out in quite a shabby dress. This time is passing away. Messrs. Dunigan and Sadlier, New York, Fithian and Cunningham, Philadelphia, Murphy, and the conductors of the Metropolitan Press, Baltimore, and Donahoe, of this city, deserve honorable mention for the general typographical neatness and beauty of their publications. We must not let heresy have the advantage in typography. The edition of the Holy Bible recently issued by Messrs. Sadlier, and especially that issued by Mr. Dunigan, of New York, are both very beautiful, and deserving, as they no doubt receive, the liberal patronage of the Catholic public.

7.- The Christian's Guide to Heaven, or a Manual of Spiritual Exercises, with the Evening Office of the Church in Latin and English, and a Selection of Pious Hymns. Boston: Donahoe. 1845. 16mo. Pp. 288.

THIS is a very good little manual of piety, and, though not superior to many others in common use, will yet be very acceptable to the devout Christian. The addition of the Ordinary of the Mass we think would be an improvement. The Hymns are selected with judgment and taste. The size is very convenient, and the book presents a very beautiful specimen of typography.

8. The Jesuits. Translated from the French of MM. MICHELET and QUINET, Professors in the College of France. Edited by C. EDWARDS LESTER. New York: Gates & Stedman. Boston Haliburton & Co. 1845. 12mo. pp. 225.

THIS work was received too late to be noticed at length in our present number. All we can say of it now is, that it is not unworthy of its two infidel authors, nor of its American editor.

THIS number commences the third volume of our Review, the second of the Catholic series. The work properly begins with the second volume, of which we can, to a limited extent, furnish new subscribers with the numbers. The general character of this Journal is now well known, and we can appeal with confidence to the American Catholic public for its support. Such a work, it is believed, is needed, and it is evident that it must rely almost exclusively on the Catholic public for patronage.

We cannot expect a large number of Protestants to continue to take and pay for a work devoted to a cause against which they protest. The Review is decidedly and exclusively Catholic, and must be supported by Catholics henceforth or not at all. We have no reason to complain of the liberality of the Catholic public for the past year, and none to distrust its continuance. The bishops and clergy have, we believe, very generally approved our labors, and to their liberal encouragement and support we are deeply indebted. On them we must depend for the success of the work, and against their wish we should be sorry to have it succeed, if it could. It is only through them we can receive or are willing to receive the support of the Catholic public for any publication.

We have aimed to deserve the liberal support we have received; but we are deeply sensible of the imperfection of our labors, and are pained to think how far short our Review falls of what a Catholic review should be. But, novice as we are in the Catholic faith, we have done the best we could. We have aimed to be true to the Church, and to be at least sound in the faith. We have not wished to put forth any crotchets of our own, or to attempt to improve the doctrines taught us. The Catholic Church, faith, and worship, as they are, always have been, and always will be till the end of time, is what we have embraced, what we love, what we seek to defend, not relying on our own private judgment, but receiving the truth in humility from those Almighty God has commissioned to teach us, and whom he has commanded us to obey.

We cannot promise to do better or otherwise for the future than we have done for the past. Having, however, set forth and defended the great questions between Catholics and Protestants, we may be able hereafter to give to our pages more variety, and introduce articles of a more popular character; thus adapting the work, if not to a better, at least to a wider, circle of readers. But the public must take it as it comes. Committing it to the care of Him without whose blessing nothing can prosper, we start on this new volume, grateful for the past, and with cheerful confidence in the future. It was confidently predicted a year ago that we should turn back to Protestantism before the year was out. The year is out, and we are still a Catholic, and much firmer in the faith than we were at its commencement. It is idle for our old friends to look for our return to the errors and speculations we have abandoned. We are satisfied with the Church. We have thus far found it all and more than we expected. The more we become acquainted with it, the more true and altogether lovely does it appear. We have experienced during the year a peace, a serenity of mind, a joy and consolation in the midst of many afflictions, that we never knew before, or believed it possible for any one to experience in this life. We have found what we sought, and we ask for this life no greater boon than to be permitted to labor to refute the errors we formerly taught, and to promote the cause of Catholicity among our countrymen. With these remarks we send out this first number of a new volume, with the wish of" A HAPPY NEW YEAR" to all our friends and readers, Protestant as well as Catholic.

ERRATUM. - Page 109, line 36, for chappelles read chapelles.

BROWNSON'S

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

APRIL, 1846.

ART. I.1. Prælectiones Theologica Majores in Seminario Sancti-Sulpitii habita. De Matrimonio. Opera et Studio Jos. CARRIERE. Parisiis. 1837. Vol. III.

2. De Justitia et Jure. Parisiis. Vol. II.

3. Compendium Theologia Moralis Sancti A. M. DE LIGORIO. Auctore DEOD. NEYRAGUET. Ruthenis. 1839-44. 4. Theologia Moralis concinnata a FRANCISCO PATRICIO KENRICK, Episcopo Philadelphiensi. Philadelphiæ. Vol. I. 1841. Vol. II. 1842. Vol. III. 1843.

THE author of the two works which we have placed first on our list is a professor in the celebrated seminary of Saint Sulpice, and one of the vicars-general of the Archbishop of Paris. The lectures which he delivered to the numerous students of that institution form the groundwork of the learned. and voluminous treatises in which he labors to adapt theological principles to the altered state of affairs in France and the actual laws, and to solve many practical cases which perplex the clergy in the exercise of their holy ministry. It is not for us to say whether, in all cases, he has been successful in untying the knot; but we can cheerfully bear testimony to his great learning and high integrity. The compendium next on the list is from the pen of a priest of the diocese of Rhodez, in Gascony, and was first published in 1839; but has already passed through three editions, the last of which was in 1844. It is what it professes to be, an abstract of the moral doctrine of St. Alphonsus de Liguori, whose words are, for the most part, retained. In a volume of above eight hundred pages, the substance is given of what fills three large volumes of the great

VOL. III. NO. II.

18

work of the Saint, besides his practical manual, called Homo Apostolicus. Of the excellence of this work its success affords most satisfactory evidence. The last on our list is a work in three volumes, which, in three successive years, issued from the Philadelphia press, from the pen of the present Bishop of Philadelphia. It also is, to a great extent, a compendium of the work of St. Alphonsus, especially in what regards matters of a delicate character, which the author generally expresses in the very words of the Saint, to shield himself against censure under such high protection; it being, however, his object to adapt the moral system to our laws and usages, he has necessarily introduced much that is not to be found in St. Alphonsus or other European writers, who, for the most part, were guided by the civil law in what regards legal questions, whilst the common law and our State legislation are frequently referred to by Bishop Kenrick. We do not feel competent to pronounce on the merits of this work; but not to appear to send our readers across the Atlantic for information, we take leave to refer to this domestic specimen of Catholic morality scientifically treated, and invite attention to a science full of practical interest, and which presents social attractions at this moment, when the echo of the ravings of Exeter Hall against Peter Dens has scarcely ceased, and may have awakened suspicion in some minds as to the purity of our moral system. We shall introduce our readers not only to the lecture-hall, but to the college penetralia, the lonely room of the student, and submit to their inspection what might not be uttered without wounding delicacy.

Ethics, as a Christian science, are the principles of morals as divinely revealed and sanctioned. Independently of revelation, certain rules of action are known to us from reason; and a power of discriminating between right and wrong, virtue and vice, is inherent in our nature; so that the nations to whom the divine revelation has not been made known are to themselves a law; which when they obey, they do, as it were by natural instinct, much of what is prescribed by God in his revealed law, and when they transgress it, they are self-rebuked, and condemned by conscience.* These principles, written on the hearts of all, are recognized and inculcated by the Christian science, which takes them as its basis, whereon it erects a divine superstructure. They are

* Rom. ii. 14, 15.

simply and authoritatively propounded; and to enforce them effectually, motives of a high order are proposed, and the most solemn and awful sanctions are added. Instead of leaving each one to discover by reflection this secret law, and to unfold to himself its precepts, our science lays them down broadly and clearly, with their consequences, at least, such as directly flow from them; and promulgates them, in the name of God, to the young, in the simple language of the catechism, and to all, from the pulpit or altar. A Christian child, after short instruction, knows, with the assurance of faith, what Plato, or Aristotle, or other philosophers, perceived but dimly, and with great admixture of gross error, after many years of profound investigation.

There is an affecting tenderness and sublimity in every moral principle taught by Christianity, inasmuch as it is commended, sealed, and hallowed by the great mystery of Redemption. The Christian teacher does not insist merely on the conformity of the law to the dictates of reason, and on the propriety of sustaining the dignity of man by acting accordingly. Neither does he confine himself to the solemn sanction given to the natural law by its promulgation amidst the thunders of Sinai. He tells of a Redeemer's love; he points to the cross, and shows the crimson tide that flowed to wash away man's transgressions. Each precept is proposed, not merely in the name of a sovereign who must be obeyed, but as the will of a Saviour, with boundless claims on our gratitude and love. Sin is not only intrinsically base, because contrary to reason and nature; it is not merely treason against Supreme Majesty; it is black ingratitude to a Divine Benefactor; it is the revolt of a ransomed slave against the Lord that bought him; it is the "crucifying again to one's self the Son of God, and making him a mockery "; it is the "treading under foot the Son of God, and the esteeming unclean the blood of the testament by which he was sanctified.'

The sanctions of the moral law, which Christianity presents, are the highest imaginable. The philosopher can only urge that virtue gives peace to the heart, sustains the dignity of human character, gains the esteem of men; and if he speaks of futurity, it is only with a faltering tongue, uttering the language of conjecture. The torments of a guilty conscience stung with remorse, the shame and censure which follow the exposure of guilt, the wretchedness which it produces, the punishments which society inflicts on certain crimes, and the