by the manifold activities of the Sisters of Charity in all lands at the present. Her simple career is told in language free from exaggeration, and her life is revealed from her birth until her death when she had the satisfaction of seeing the great work which she had undertaken grow and multiply in many places outside the scenes of her first activities. Louise de Marillac was declared Venerable by Pope Leo XIII on June 10th, 1895, and though the prudent tardiness of Rome has delayed her canonization, the author expresses the hope that before long she may be invoked together with her spiritual father and guide St. Vincent. Her work remains. The congregation which at her death numbered 250 members living in sixty houses, today reaches the total of more than 24,000 members carrying on the work of the founders in more than 3,000 instituutions in all quarters of the globe. PATRICK J. HEALY. Saint Patrick. Par M. l'Abbé Riguet, curé de Saint-Denis de l'Hotel (Loiret). 1 vol. in 12mo de la collection "Les Saints." Victor Lecoffre, J. Gabalda et Cie, Paris, 1911. Pp. ix + 203. The life of the patron saint of Ireland is a subject which year by year attracts attention from an ever-widening circle of scholars and historians. In the preparation of this work the author took advantage of the excellent monograph on St. Patrick by Professor Bury, and was not compelled to devote himself to criticisms of the theories, many of which Professor Bury had so effectually disposed of. Several chapters are devoted by M. Riguet to the religious conditions in pre-Christian Ireland and to the early life and fortunes of St. Patrick; but, as might be expected, because of the narrow limits imposed on him by the general plan and scope of this series of lives, it was not possible to do more than to state what may be regarded as well-established conclusions. The life of St. Patrick is narrated without any attempt at detail, and with little reference to the controversies which attach to each step of his career. His birth-place, his captivity, his education, his mission, and his apostolic journeys are all gone over with a complete absence of the polemical spirit. Considering the difficulties of the task and the larger mass of work that still remains to be done regarding the sources for the life of St. Patrick and the early history of Christianity in Celtic lands, it is better perhaps that the purely technical side of the work was not accentuated in a volume mainly intended for popular reading. A good example of the author's method can be found in chapter VIII on the organisation of the Church in Ireland where every step bristles with difficulties. There are some appendices containing a short account of the sources and literature for the life of St. Patrick and some notes on some features of Zimmer's theory of the introduction of Christianity to Ireland and its apostle. PATRICK J. HEALY. Le Cardinal Vaughan. Par Paul Thureau-Dangin, de l'Académie française. Bloud et Cie. Paris, 1911. Pp. 127. This little work is merely a summary of the extended biography of Cardinal Vaughan by Snead-Coxe. Though it contains nothing that cannot be found in the earlier work it is valuable if for no other reason than that it contains the views of the author of La renaissance catholique en Angleterre au XIXe siècle. Those who are interested in the great Catholic awakening in England during the last century have seen the principal figures of that movement gradually take the places to which time and the wider insight into action and its results have been consigning them. As the years go on the figure of Cardinal Vaughan will be brought more and more into contrast with Newman, Wiseman and Manning, their labors for the cause which they upheld so bravely will be judged more impartially, and their stature as leaders and teachers will come into clearer view. This process is already evident in the work before us, and though inchoate it indicates how the unrelenting hand of the historian falls on those who become the subjects of his pen. PATRICK J. HEALY. The Story of the Bridgettines. By Francesca M. Steele (Darley Dale). Benziger Bros. New York, 1910. Pp. 292. This work contains a very satisfactory though brief life of St. Bridget the Swedish saint whose mystic life found concrete expression in the foundation of the order of Bridgettines. Many sources have been laid under contribution in bringing together much well-digested information regarding St. Bridget and her daughter St. Catherine. In addition there is a brief description of the peculiar rule of the Bridgettines, providing as it did, a method for regulating in the most minute particulars the daily life of the members of the community. Though the number of nuns in each convent was limited to sixty, the peculiar organisation of the separate communities and the rigor of the rule did not prevent the order from being widely extended. The author gives an account of the various foundations in England, Russia, Denmark, Poland, Holland, Belgium and Bavaria and shows what sad havoc the Reformation played with the convents in most of these countries. The interest of the narrative is still further enhanced by the fact to which the author adverts as one of her reasons for writing the history of the Bridgettines, that they "enjoy the unique privilege of being the only pre-Reformation order of women in England of which the English branch has survived the storm that cut off all the unhappy countries over which it swept from the Catholic Church; after nearly three hundred years of exile the Bridgettine community originally so famous at Lyon House, Islesworth, is now established at Chudleigh in Devonshire. PATRICK J. HEALY. Les Récits de la Chambrée, par l'abbé Georges Ambler. Paris, G. Beauchesne et Cie., 1911. 80., pp. xxviii+ 300. This book pays a high tribute to the army chaplain who, brave and faithful in war and in peace, has always been the friend and confident of the soldier. Since the official suppression of this post in the French Army in 1880, the chaplain Volontaire has left nothing undone to protect the soldier's faith against the dangers. of barrack life. We have no doubt that in these days of antimilitarism and sanspatrie, in France, the stories of l'abbé Ambler will be a great incentive to the young generation to imitate the religious faith and military virtues of their predecessors, and should the occasion arise they will prove that even war can be a cause of civilization, and that the "Vae Victis" of antiquity has made room for "Pro Deo" and "Pro Patria," words of eternal religion and civic duty. MISCELLANEOUS. The Protestant Magazine published at Washington, D. C., reproduces in its second quarter issue of 1911, pp. 104-109, a few pages from a work of Dr. Chr. Wordsworth. The citation includes in part the original and English translation of a pretended Catholic confession of faith, said to have been imposed on Hungarian converts from Protestantism. It is generally known as the "Hungarian Flucht formular" or formula of malediction. Among other articles the newly-made converts were, before being admitted into the Catholic Church, asked to confess "that the most holy Pope ought to be honored by all with divine honor, with the greater genuflection, due to Christ himself; that the reading of Holy Scripture is the origin of heresy, and schism, and the source of blasphemy; that to receive the Eucharist under one kind is good and salutary; and to receive it under both is heretical and damnable; that Mary, the Blessed Virgin, is worthy of greater honor from men and angels, than Christ himself, the Son of God." The same converts, moreover, were made to accurse the parents who had educated them" in that heretical (Protestant) faith." This surely is" a remarkable document" as the Protestant Magazine entitles its article. It is evidently only with the very best of reasons that we ought to attribute such horrible teachings as the above citation contains to any denomination whether Catholic or non-Catholic. But the Protestant Magazine does not heed such an elementary consideration. It relies on the "Letters to M. Goudon " by Chr. Wordsworth, D. D., although the mere title of the book if it were completely quoted would reveal the character of the work: "Letters to M. Goudon on the Destructive Character of the Church of Rome both in Religion and Polity." It does not tell its readers that when Chr. Wordsworth published his Letters containing the alleged confession the latter document was repudiated by the Dublin Review as a forgery. It is a pardonable offense of course, for the Protestant Magazine not to be acquainted with the Dublin Review. A careful perusal, however, of the later editions of Chr. Wordsworth's Letters would necessarily have forced the standpoint of the Dublin Review (Vol. xxii (1847), pp. 455-56; Vol. xxiv, 290-92) on its attention. With its authority, Chr. Wordsworth, the Protestant Magazine seems to believe that the confession must be genuine because it was edited by Streitwolf" who appears to have been a Roman Catholic " (Prot. Mag., p. 104, note). Now, Streitwolf was not a Catholic, but a Protestant minister of Bodenfeld in Hanover. Moreover, he did not edit the confession. He died in 1836 and the second volume of his publication, the one in which this confession is found was published only in 1838. It was published by Kleuer, who was, like Streitwolf, a Protestant. The Confession is no Roman Catholic document, but a wretched hoax first published in 1676 by the Calvinistic preacher George Lani. It was probably forged by Lani himself who brought it out, after sentence of death had been pronounced against him for treasonable machinations and after he had been fortunate enough to effect his escape. Standard works written by Protestants on creeds and confessions, such as Schaff's Creeds of Christendom maintain an ominous silence concerning its existence. A lengthy and thorough article on "Confessions" by W. A. Curtis in Hastings' Encpclopedia of Religion and Ethics (Vol. 1, pp. 831-901) knows nothing of its existence. It has been conclusively proved to be a forgery by Gordanski (1822), Giefers (Paderborn, 1866) and more recently by Duhr in his Jesuitenfabeln (fifth edition). This stupid forgery bears on its face its own condemnation, yet it continues to be circulated by Protestant writers, perhaps on the principle that nothing is too vile or abominable to be uttered concerning the religion of Catholics, thus making the end justify the means. |