We are

largely from the literature of other nations, we very much doubt, as we have said on a former occasion.

We trust to the good sense and good nature of our readers not to misunderstand or to misapply our strictures. not insensible to the merits of the excellent men and women who are laboring assiduously in the cause of Catholic literature, and our real motive is not to discourage but to encourage, not to depreciate but to aid them. We have not devoted the last twenty years to literary pursuits without learning how easy it is to 6nd fault, and how difficult it is to attain to real excellence ; and though we fill the critic's chair, we are not exactly without a human heart. We know something of what it is to struggle, and have not forgotten how hard it is to have one's honest and earnest efforts treated lightly, or to be told, after one has done his best, how much better he might have done, if he had had the ability. It is easy to suggest an ideal ; it is not always easy to realize it. But, if we have the matter in us, even the severe handling we receive from the critic, good-natured or ill-natured, will do us no harm. No man, says Dr. Johnson, was ever written down, but by himself. We think, however, our authors, even those we are most disposed to censure, have the power in them to give us something better than we get, and that, if they would change somewhat the character of their productions, they could easily render them more excellent. We do not ask them to drop the religious novel, for it is perhaps, notwithstanding our strictures, the most convenient literary form which can now be adopted. But we do wish them to forbear seeking to reconcile opposites in the same work. The religious will not neutralize the sentimental, and the sentimental is the worst possible preparation for the religious. They who would profit by the grave portions of the religious novel do not need the sentimental ; and they who cannot be drawn to read religious controversy without the aid of the sentimental will not be drawn by it ; for the sentimental of itself indisposes them to whatever requires steady thought and sober judgment. We would, therefore, recommend the discontinuance of such religious novels as seek to entice, through interests which centre in love, to the meditation of what is serious, pious, and holy. Let the love-story be omitted, and the appeal be made, not to interests which it excites, but to interests and affections which Catholic piety and charity do not require us to subdue. The love-story is the chief thing for which young people read a novel, and, if retained in the religious novel, it will be the chief thing for which the religious novel itself will be read. The religious novel, then, becomes only a mere vehicle of sentimentalism.

Love and marriage are important matters, no doubt; but they are not the whole business of life, nor are they so essential to usefulness or happiness as novels in general lead the inexperienced to imagine. Undoubtedly there must and will be marrying and giving in marriage, and this is well enough ; but there are men and women, - very respectable people, too, with warm and loving hearts, who continue to live, without love and marriage, very useful, and apparently very happy, lives. They remember their Creator, their Redeemer, their neighbour ; and the poor bless them, the orphan clasps his tiny hands in prayer for them, and God loves them ; and they have joy in hoping, though hoping in fear, that they may at last be received into mansions prepared for them eternal in the heavens. There is not less to attract, to charm, to fix attention, in the love and espousal of the soul to her heavenly than to her earthly lover. Leave out, then, the earthly, and confine yourselves to the heavenly.

We have read in our day a few novels, perhaps more than a few; but we have found a higher and a more intense pleasure in the lives and legends of the Saints than we ever did in the novels even of the Magician of the North ; and it was a pleasure which we enjoyed without finding ourselves wearied and jaded in our feelings, ill at ease, and looking upon ourselves as in a false position, without place or duty in this low work-day world, and with no opportunity to bring out the power within us; but which refreshed and invigorated us, made nothing seem mean or low, every place the right place, every duty the proper duty, every hovel a palace, every dunghill a throne ; for in it we felt God was everywhere present, could be loved everywhere, in one place or from one position as well as from another, and that every place could be made sacred, every duty be ennobled, every soul be heroic, royal. There was no occasion for shifting one's position, or changing one's state in life. Communion with the Saints very soon teaches one that he may be above or time or place, and while in this mutable and transitory world, in some sort, live in the Eternal and Immutable. Can our writers find nothing here to enliven their works, to attract, charm, and elevate their readers ?

But this it may be said is too high, too grave, and it is

necessary to descend to the earth, and appeal to a lower order of interests. We grant it. But cannot this be done without becoming sentimental ? Amusement, relaxation, has its place, and may be innocent and salutary. But the sentimental is no relaxation, is no amusement. It kills amusement, and substitutes the heart's grief for the heart's joy. Why not give us the heart's laughter instead of its tears? Better, far better, to laugh than to sigh and mope. Old Chaucer, who belonged to England unreformed, to " Merry England,” is too broad, and by no means free from grave faults, but his faults flow from his exuberance of life and health, and his influence is a thousand times less immoral than that of your Bulwers, D’Israelis, L. E. L.s, Tennysons, and Nortons. There is always hope of the heart that can laugh out and overflow with mirth. It is the heart oppressed with sadness, overclouded with gloom, that starts back with horror from a little fun and frolic, that is to be dreaded, both for its own sake, and that of others.

The Catholic is serious, for he sees a world lying in error and wickedness, — serious, for he has his own sins to lament, his own soul to save, and he sorrows; but never does he sorrow as one without hope, and his sorrow is less of the sensibility than of the will, less in what he feels than in what he wills. He is always free, calm, rational, possessing his soul, and overflowing with health and gladness. His free and joyous spirit he impresses on his literature. Catholic literature is robust and healthy, of a ruddy complexion, and full of life. It knows no sadness but sadness for sin, and it rejoices evermore. It eschews melancholy as the Devil's best friend on earth, abhors the morbid sentimentality which feeds upon itself and grows by what it feeds upon. It may be grave, but it never mopes ; tender, affectionate, but never weak or sickly. It washes its face, anoints its head, puts on its festive robes, goes forth into the fresh air, the bright sunshine, and, when occasion requires, rings out the merry laugh that does one's heart good to hear. England is sad enough to-day, and her people seen to sit in the region and shadow of death ; but in good old Catholic times she was known the world over as · Merry England.” It is on principle the Catholic approves such gladsome and smiling literature. It is only in the free and joyous spirit that religion can do her perfect work; for it is only such a spirit that has the self-possession, the strength, the energy requisite for the every-day duties of life. Mrs. Dorsey has admirably illustrated this in her Sister of Char

ity, in the contrast she draws between the sisters, Cora and Blanche Lesley. Cora is all light and life, never sad, always joyous, and always prepared for whatever is to be done, and able to do it ; while poor Blanche is so full of sentiment, feels so much, that she is never able to do any thing that is painful or disagreeable.

The contrast between Catholic literature and Protestant is striking. There is deep melancholy that settles upon the world as it withdraws from Catholicity. All Protestant nations are sad. Their literature is dry and cold, or the wail of the stricken heart, whose ever recurring burden is, “ Man was made to mourn." Their epic is one long monotonous plaint of woe, or unearthly howl of despair. Read Milton, read Byron, read whom you will, it is always a lamentation. There is no laughter, but the frightful Ha ! ha! of the maniac. There is no bounding of the heart, no sparkle of the eye, - unless over the wine-cup; no fulness of life, no exuberance of health, no glorious heaven above, no flowery earth beneath, no sweet music from the grove. All is cheerless and dark. Man's life is short and full of care and trouble. Whence comes it? Why is it ? Whither tends it ? — How could it be otherwise ? How should they chant in hope who hope have not ? How should they exult in joy who joy have none ? Even the Protestant ascetic literature is cold and forbidding, makes one feel that God is hard and austere, cruel and tyrannical, taking pleasure only in the sufferings of the creatures he has made and hates. It presents us no Father's love, awakens no filial affection, never invites us to run with open hearts and joyous faces to our Father's arms, to hang on his neck, and in our childish prattle tell him all we think, all we feel, all we fear, all we wish. The very thought of doing so would scandalize it. Just as if the more tender, the more affectionate, the more familiar and self-forgetting our confidence, the less respectful it is, — and as if naturalness, simplicity, confidence, familiarity, are not what our good Father most loves in us !

Now against this pagan gloom, doubt, despair, and this morbid sentimentality, not pagan, but of modern growth, the curse of the literature of the age, it is necessary to be on our guard, both as authors and readers. If we must have a literature for those who are not serious, for the weak and vain, let us have it, but let it be free, healthy, and joyous. Let it laugh out from the heart, the free, unconstrained laughter of innocence and gladness. Let it throw the sunlight over all the re

lations of life. If it will unveil the heart, let it be the heart's mirth, not its grief; and if it will parade the merely human sentiments, let it deck them in gala robes and crown them with fresh-gathered flowers. Let it beat the tambour, sound the trumpets, ring out the merry peal, and go forth with fun and frolic, in the exuberance of joyous spirits, if it will ; but let it, in the name of all that is sacred, never sigh, and mope, and talk sentiment.

We have reserved but brief space in which to speak of the little works before us. The first four numbers have been noticed in the former series of this Journal, and need not to be noticed again. The best which has yet appeared is Zenosius, the first of the series, by the Rev. Dr. Pise, of New York, and is not obnoxious to the strictures we have made. It is what it professes to be, and the interest it excites is of the same order as its formal teaching, and the heart and understanding of the reader are moved along together to the same end. There is no linsey-woolsey in it. Its author is one of our best writers. His works are always sure to be chastely and gracefully written, sound in doctrine, pure in sentiment, and healthful in their influence. We regret that they are so few, and yet, with the author's known devotion and fidelity to the calls of his sacred profession, sufficient for any ordinary man, we are puzzled to understand how they can be so many.

The Sister of Charity, Numbers V. and VI., is by Mrs. Anna H. Dorsey, of Baltimore, a talented lady, and a convert to the faith, who appears to devote all her time and thought to the cause of religion. The work has some faults ; the only ones worth specifying are that it contains a love-story, and, what is worse, the lovers are cousins, and apparently first cousins, and are married without even a hint that their marriage must be null. The work, however, is in the main free from sentimentalism, for the main interest of the story is not concentrated on the lovers. It is written with a good deal of power, and is highly creditable to the excellent authoress, and to the Home Library in which it appears. The character of Cora Lesley is admirably conceived and well sustained throughout. She is a character worthy to be a wife, , or, what is more yet, a Sister of CHARITY. Excepting the matter of the cousins, we recommend it very cordially to our readers, whether old or young ; they will find its perusal pleasing and not unprofitable.