4. – A Protestant converted to Catholicity by her Bible and

Prayer-book. By Mrs. Fanny Maria PITTAR. Philadelphia : Henry M'Grath. 1847. 24mo. pp. 154.

This book bears a false title, if we are to credit the narrative itself; for according to that Mrs. Pittar was converted, not by her Bible and prayer-book, as the title says, but by a Catholic friend and a Catholic bishop, aided by the grace of God; and all the Bible and prayer-book had to do with her conversion was simply, that, after her eyes were opened to Catholic truth by other means, she was able to perceive it in the Bible, and some vestiges of it in the Book of Common Prayer. We could relate instances in which persons living far remote from all Catholics, never having had any intercourse with them, have been led, by reading the Protestant version of the Holy Scriptures, and with no other external means of knowing the faith of Catholics, to a knowledge and belief of Catholicity. Such persons we may say were converted by the Bible ; but to assume that a lady brought up in the Catholic city of Dublin, full of zeal against Catholics, and first led to the perception of Catholic truth by the conversation of a Catholic friend and the sermons of an eminent Catholic divine, was converted by her Bible and prayer-book, is quite too loose a way of speaking, and cannot fail to convey a false impression. Moreover, when works written in Ireland, where the word Protestant is almost exclusively applied to the members of the Anglican sect, are republished in this country, the editor should note the fact that the term is so applied ; for, according to American usage, the term Protestant is applied indiscriminately to all the sects, from the High Church Episcopalian down to the followers of Mr. Parker or William Henry Channing. Aside from these objections, the little work before us may be read with interest and with profit. It contains nothing very wonderful, nothing which it was absolutely incumbent upon the excellent authoress to publish to the world ; yet now it is published, we have no doubt it will do good. If Mrs. Pittar had waited a month or two longer, she would have come to the conclusion that God had wrought a blessed work in her soul, for which she could never sufficiently thank him ; but she would most likely have also concluded that she had nothing more remarkable or edifying to relate than have the great majority of those who have been brought from the sects to the Church. She writes with warmth, with genuine feeling, in a good spirit, and shows that she was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but prepared to obey it at any sacrifice. Still she writes in the excitement and flush of her first impressions; and we prefer for ourselves the calm and subdued tone of the practical Catholic, long familiar with the faith, and long accustomed to be nourished with the Bread of Life.

5. — The Library of American Biography. Conducted by JARED

SPARKS. Second Series. Vols. XII. and XIII. Boston : Little & Brown. 1847.

This series of works is continued in its usual spirit, and without any falling off in interest or ability. We wish the biographies of distinguished Americans could have been written from the Catholic point of view, in the spirit of Catholic faith and piety, for then they would have been not only interesting but edifying ; but since that could not be, or cannot be at present, we know not that they could be written under better influences than those of Mr. Sparks, who, if no Catholic Christian, is no Protestant bigot.

The two volumes before us contain the lives of Edward Preble and William Penn, Daniel Boone and Benjamin Lincoln. The life of Commodore Preble is written by Lorenzo Sabine, an author who is wholly unknown to us. He appears to write with candor, and to aim to be just and true. We wish, however, the life of the Commodore, one of the founders of our navy, and earliest contributors to our naval glory, had been committed to abler hands, and to a man brought up in a more Christian school of morals. To praise a boy for disobedience to his father is not the best comment on the text, “ Children, obey your parents," nor the best way to correct what is a crying evil among us,

- the want of reverence in chil. dren for their superiors. The strictures on the naval policy of Mr. Jefferson's administration are unjust, if we accept his peace policy. Mr. Jefferson and his party wished to prevent this country from ever engaging in a career of foreign war and conquest, and to tie up its hands so that it could never fight except when actually invaded. Hence their opposition to a naval establishment. We for ourselves are a Jeffersonian, so far as to be firmly and unalterably opposed to every war of conquest ; but we can conceive many cases in which a foreign war is necessary, and true policy would forbid suffering the war to be brought to our own doors. Experience has proved that Mr. Jefferson and his friends, though admirable speculatists, were not always remarkably sound or wise as practical statesmen ; and we suppose there is no point on which

1 ; it will be more generally admitted that they egregiously blundered, than on the navy. But Mr. Jefferson and his early partisans have gone to their final reckoning, and we can see no good, now that the country is generally agreed as to the wisdom of sustaining a naval establishment, in raking up old controversies, and reviving old passions. We had enough of this in the life of Decatur, by Captain Mackenzie, the executioner of Spencer, Cromwell, and Small.

The life of William Penn, by Mr. George E. Ellis, Unitarian minister of Charlestown, in this State, is written with ability, in a liberal tone, and with much patience of research, and is as unexceptionable as we could expect. The author has a high estimate of William Penn, but he does not deify him ; he does no more than justice to him as a man of the world, and the founder of the colony of Pennsylvania; but though he does not give in to all his Quaker fanaticism, he shows quite too much enthusiasm for his religious character. The Quakers are nothing but a sect of Theosophists, or mystical Deists, whom the devil suffers to pursue the even tenor of their way, and whom God rewards with a good share of this world's goods, due to their worldly wisdom, virtue, and shrewdness. But being unbaptized, and despising the sacra. ment of faith, they cannot be included, even nominally, in the pale of Christendom; and, though they have been eminent for many of the natural virtues, their influence on society, under a religious point of view, has been destructive to a degree which could hardly have been expected from the paucity of their numbers. There is no disguising the fact, that Quakerism, few as the avowed Quakers really are, is the reigning doctrine of this country, and is the greatest hindrance to the spread of Gospel truth that can be named. We wish Mr. Ellis, who has had opportunities enough of learning at least the essential doctrines of Christianity, had been less lavish in his praise of the principal founder of a sect that has done and is doing so much to obliterate every distinctive feature of our holy religion.

The life of Daniel Boone is quite interesting ; but it strips the character of that bold and hardy pioneer of the greater part of the romance with which popular tradition has invested it. The life of Benjamin Lincoln, a brave officer in the Revolution, who distinguished himself at the battle of Saratoga, we have not read; but as it is written by the editor of the North American Review, Mr. Francis Bowen, it needs no recommendation from us.

6. – Tales Explanatory of the Sacraments. By the Authoress

of “Geraldine, a Tale of Conscience," and "The Young Communicant.” Philadelphia : William J. Cunningham. 1847.

pp. 151.

These tales are published with the approbation of the Rt. Rev. the Bishop of Philadelphia, and are therefore to be presumed to contain nothing contrary to faith or good morals. They are, in fact, considering they are written by a lady, remarkable for correctness of doctrine and exactness of language. As stories they are quite interesting, perhaps too intensely so for the sacred purpose for which they were written. Personally, we are far from liking the plan of mixing up truth of doctrine with the fictions of the imagination, but it is the fashion of the day.

7. - The Catholic Choralist. To be issued regularly every Two

Months ; to contain a Choice Collection of Catholic Music, viz. Litanies, Hymns, Masses, &c., designed for Choirs. The arrangement will be under the direction of an able Professor of Music, who will use every means to make it deserving of patronronage. Price, Twenty-five cents per Number. Philadelphia : W. J. Ashe. 1847.

This musical publication is very neatly executed, and does great credit to the printer. Of the contents of the number before us we cannot speak in terms so flattering as we could wish. There is a general want of fulness of harmony. The Stabat Mater, said, on what authority we know not, to be sung in the Pope's chapel, is very well; but we suspect, if Mozart were here, he would be not a little surprised to find the passage taken from his Magic Flute originally composed, if we recollect aright, to be sung by a halfidiot with a bell accompaniment - arranged as a sacred piece to be sung by our choirs. Are the singers in our choirs expected to accompany themselves with bells, or to personate half-idiots, when singing the praises of God, or a hymn to the Blessed Virgin? The less we say of the Tantum Ergo, the better. We wish well to an undertaking of the sort Mr. Ashe promises, for a really choice collection of Catholic music, placed within the reach and means of our choirs, is needed and would be a public benefit; but we hope the editor of this proposed work will hereafter change somewhat the plan indicated in this number, and give us religious choral music from Catholic masters, either of the German or Italian school, and if he does so, he will deserve patronage and not fail to receive it.

8. – The Following of Christ, in Four Books. By THOMAS À

KEMPIs. Translated from the Original Latin by the Rt. Rev. and Ven. RICHARD CHALLONER, Ď. D., V. A. To which are added Practical Reflections and a Prayer at the End of each Chapter. Translated from the French. By the Rev. JAMES JONES. Second American Edition. Baltimore : J. Murphy. 1845. 48mo. pp. 547.

To speak of the merits of The Following of Christ would be almost like speaking of the merits of the New Testament, with which it may, without irreverence, be bound up. It is only necessary to notice the edition before us, which is an exceedingly beautiful one, and is sold at a price, the publisher informs us, which makes it, for the amount of matter it contains, the cheapest book ever printed in this country. We find only one fault. The work is ascribed to Thomas à Kempis as author, without the least intimation of any doubt of the fact. We think the evidence is clear, that À Kempis was only its transcriber ; that the book was in existence before his time; and that it was in all probability written, not as the French critics say, by Gerson, the Chancellor of the University, but by the Abbot Gersen, as contend the Italians, with Pope Pius the Seventh at their head. But, however this may be, Murphy's edition of the work is the best in this country which we have seen.

9. — The Devout Communicant ; or, Pious Meditations and Aspi.

rations for Three Days before and Three Days after receiving the Holy Eucharist. By the Rev. P. BAKER, O. S. F. Revised, with Additions. Baltimore : F. Lucas, Jr. 1847. 24mo. pp. 232.

An excellent work, to which the publisher has added morning and evening exercises, devotions for mass, &c. The hymns of the Church, which are annexed, " done into English,” really require to be done over again, unless we would have them a standing disgrace to us. What is the reason that we cannot have translations of our hymns for which we need not blush, or that we must have such as remind those of us who have been Protestants of Sternhold and Hopkins, or the early New England metrical version of the Psalms, - the first book ever printed in New England ?

The author of Pauline Seward has represented himself to us as aggrieved by our remark, in our last Review, that the romance of his work was “ hashed up from Bulwer, James, Dickens, and others"; for he says he had never read the authors named prior to writing his own work. He has taken our remark too literally. We did not mean to say, that he had actually, as a matter of fact, taken the romance of his work from those authors, but that it was precisely similar in its spirit, character, tendency, &c., to what is to be found in them, and may be read there in substance, as well as in Pauline Seward. We hope this explanation will be satisfactory to the author.