book that ought to be full of it. Still, Father Ollivier has done well in calling our attention to this beautiful side of the Redeemer's life, and we would be far from denying the merits in his treatment of it. The book will be useful in counteracting that pernicious teaching not altogether uncommon in spiritual books, that it is not consistent with perfection to have friends, and that every aspiration of one's human heart is mischievous. and to be repressed. The all-Holy One sustained His heart with friendship, and to pattern our affections upon His is not to incur a peril, but to enjoy a grace.

8. It would almost seem as if a prevailing tendency, which has voiced itself in the cry, Back to Sources! had filtered down into the religious sentiments of the masses and inclined them to revert to older, simpler, less artificial modes of spiritual nourishment. Together with a deepening distaste for the overworked product of refinement run to an extreme, there comes to view the tendency to make generous use of such material as is afforded by the New Testament, the ancient saints and solitaries, the official liturgy of the church.

Thus far too little has been done to meet this demand; and yet enough is being accomplished to fill the future with promise. Among these evidences of betterment we must place Father Clifford's new book.*

Is it not quite evident that nearly every one of us can reap great advantage from meditative consideration of the Sunday Introits throughout the year? Is it not equally patent that our profit will be enormously increased if we have enjoyed the privilege of hearing or of reading the thoughts which these same verses have suggested to a mind profoundly thoughtful, deeply religious, and capable of beautiful self-expression? Since this privilege has been made accessible to all in the book before us, we venture to bespeak for it such a welcome that will encourage its author to pursue a line of work for which his first venture proves him to be so admirably adapted.

9-About a year ago, M. l'Abbé Saudreau-known to our readers, we trust, as the author of several spiritual works-contributed to the pages of the Ami du Clergé a discussion on the nature of "the mystical state." The book now before us† is

*Introibo: A Series of Detached Readings on the Entrance Versicles of the Ecclesiastical Year. By the Rev. Cornelius Clifford. New York: The Cathedral Library Association. *L'État Mystique: La Nature, Les Phases. Par l'Abbé A. Saudreau. Paris Librairie

Vic et Amat.

the ampler development of the ideas at that time set forth, and goes into explanations and proofs at more length than the pages of a periodical could allow.

The main point of the abbé's contention is that mystical states of prayer involve always a double element-a lofty knowledge and an intense love of God-beyond the grasp of human nature's unaided efforts. This is in opposition to all who have tried to maintain that the will alone, and not the intelligence, is active in the state described. Our author is concerned, moreover, to show that certain characteristics, joy, consolation, experimental sense of God's presence-much insisted on by certain writers-are not necessary elements of mystical prayer. A further point emphasized is that contemplation should not be classified with visions and oppositions among the extraordinary spiritual phenomena, but that it is a grace which may legitimately be desired and prayed for by earnest souls.

The author supports his position by numerous references to the approved teachers of mystical theology, with whom he shows himself to be extremely familiar. The general result of his labor is to expose and justify this sublime ideal which has been the inspiration of the Christian mystics from time immemorial; and likewise to encourage souls to aspire after this perfection as something which is quite within the limits of God's ordinary providence. Books like the one before us are, therefore, admirably adapted to raise the general level of devotion, and to secure proper appreciation for spiritual teachings too little known and too little extolled during the last few centuries of our history.

10. In Father Schneider's treatise on the spiritual life there is much that is stimulating and suggestive. There is an earnest tone about the book that will rouse a serious reader out of lethargy and laziness. There is an There is an easy method running through it also which aids the memory to retain the important things. And, finally, there is an absolute adhesion to Ignatian ideas, which of course makes for temperateness, safeness, and steadiness. But with one or two features we must declare our lack of sympathy. Examination of conscience is an indispensable exercise in a devout life, as everybody acknowledges, and to insist upon a careful performance of such an exercise is quite

*Helps to a Spiritual Life. For Religious and for all Persons in the World who desire to Serve God Fervently. From the German of Rev. Joseph Schneider, S.J. With additions by

within the province of a treatise like the one before us. But when the thing goes to the extent of providing one's self with a diagram so constructed as to leave less space for the sum total of Friday's examen than for Monday's, inasmuch as we ought to have less faults to record as the week wears on, this in our judgment is a manifestation of that common spiritual disease of paying more attention to conscience-microscopy than to affective and effective love of God, and is a method of procedure most cunningly apt for the production and perpetuation of scruples. Indeed, in this entire book there is too much of the temper of a taskmaster in speaking of God, and too much. of the temper of a timid slave in speaking of the soul. "Have

I not done this wrong thing?" and "Why did I not do better this other good thing?" are expressions that outnumber twenty to one aspirations after righteousness and union with God.

Furthermore, the treatment of prayer is seriously defective. Obviously this is the most important of all the subjects considered in a spiritual book, and failure here is vital failure. Why does the book in discoursing upon mental prayer take no account of that prayer which is beyond and greater than meditation, which is the old monastic prayer, practised by generations of saints and formulated in scores of books before any set and rigid exercises were ever known? ever known? We esteem it nothing short of a disaster that the grand old Benedictine and Carmelite conception of prayer has been almost entirely superseded by an essentially lower type, and that to-day it is held by many, who do not shrink from spiritual direction, to be fanatical or presumptuous to read St. Teresa, Dom Hilton, Father Baker, or even St. Francis de Sales' treatise on the love of God. A spiritual book which takes no account whatever of the prayer of contemplation in any of its various forms, which does not lead a soul higher than the condition of dependence upon a set formulæ, is an essentially deficient production upon which the old monastic masters of the soul would look with disapproval. Back to these masters, is our exhortation to the devout. Back to the Carthusian, Cistercian, Carmelite, and Benedictine schools! There the freedom of the Holy Spirit is a leading principle of direction, and a life of contemplative union with the Most High is the simple purpose of every precept.

the ampler development of the ideas at that time set forth, and goes into explanations and proofs at more length than the pages of a periodical could allow.

The main point of the abbé's contention is that mystical states of prayer involve always a double element-a lofty knowledge and an intense love of God-beyond the grasp of human nature's unaided efforts. This is in opposition to all who have tried to maintain that the will alone, and not the intelligence, is active in the state described. Our author is concerned, moreover, to show that certain characteristics, joy, consolation, experimental sense of God's presence-much insisted on by certain writers-are not necessary elements of mystical prayer. A further point emphasized is that contemplation should not be classified with visions and oppositions among the extraordinary spiritual phenomena, but that it is a grace which may legiti mately be desired and prayed for by earnest souls.

The author supports his position by numerous references to the approved teachers of mystical theology, with whom he shows himself to be extremely familiar. The general result of his labor is to expose and justify this sublime ideal which has been the inspiration of the Christian mystics from time immemorial; and likewise to encourage souls to aspire after this perfection as something which is quite within the limits of God's ordinary providence. Books like the one before us are, therefore, admirably adapted to raise the general level of devotion, and to secure proper appreciation for spiritual teachings too little known and too little extolled during the last few centuries of our history.

10. In Father Schneider's treatise on the spiritual life* there is much that is stimulating and suggestive. There is an earnest tone about the book that will rouse a serious reader out of lethargy and laziness. There is an easy method running through it also which aids the memory to retain the important things. And, finally, there is an absolute adhesion to Ignatian ideas, which of course makes for temperateness, safeness, and steadiness. But with one or two features we must declare our lack of sympathy. Examination of conscience is an indispensable exercise in a devout life, as everybody acknowledges, and to insist upon a careful performance of such an exercise is quite

* Helps to a Spiritual Life. For Religious and for all Persons in the World who desire to Serve God Fervently. From the German of Rev. Joseph Schneider, S.J. With additions by

within the province of a treatise like the one before us. But when the thing goes to the extent of providing one's self with a diagram so constructed as to leave less space for the sum total of Friday's examen than for Monday's, inasmuch as we ought to have less faults to record as the week wears on, this in our judgment is a manifestation of that common spiritual disease of paying more attention to conscience-microscopy than to affective and effective love of God, and is a method of procedure most cunningly apt for the production and perpetuation of scruples. Indeed, in this entire book there is too much of the temper of a taskmaster in speaking of God, and too much of the temper of a timid slave in speaking of the soul. "Have

I not done this wrong thing?" and "Why did I not do better this other good thing?" are expressions that outnumber twenty to one aspirations after righteousness and union with God.

Furthermore, the treatment of prayer is seriously defective. Obviously this is the most important of all the subjects considered in a spiritual book, and failure here is vital failure. Why does the book in discoursing upon mental prayer take no account of that prayer which is beyond and greater than meditation, which is the old monastic prayer, practised by generations of saints and formulated in scores of books before any set and rigid exercises were ever known? We esteem it nothing short of a disaster that the grand old Benedictine and Carmelite conception of prayer has been almost entirely superseded by an essentially lower type, and that to-day it is held by many, who do not shrink from spiritual direction, to be fanatical or presumptuous to read St. Teresa, Dom Hilton, Father Baker, or even St. Francis de Sales' treatise on the love of God. A spiritual book which takes no account whatever of the prayer of contemplation in any of its various forms, which does not lead a soul higher than the condition of dependence upon a set formulæ, is an essentially deficient production upon which the old monastic masters of the soul would look with disapproval. Back to these masters, is our exhortation to the devout. Back to the Carthusian, Cistercian, Carmelite, and Benedictine schools! There the freedom of the Holy Spirit is a leading principle of direction, and a life of contemplative union with the Most High is the simple purpose of every precept.