the faith denounced. . The author of an article on the Holy House of Loretto, which appeared in the Remembrancer after this attack on St. Alphonsus, and which showed quite as little veneration for any thing Catholic as does the pamphlet before us, actually became a Catholic a very few months afterwards, and discovered that he had been passing his life under the influence of a heap of delusions-dogmatic, moral, and historical. The day may yet come when all the writers in the Remembrancer may join devoutly in saying, "St. Alphonsus Liguori, pray for us."

Personal Reminiscences of the "Oxford Movement," with Illustrations from Dr. Newman's "Loss and Gain." By F. Oakeley. (Burns and Lambert.) This is a lively, clever, and instructive lecture, delivered to a very useful Institution, the Islington Catholic Popular Club. It has all its author's characteristic neatness and finish of expression, with that straightforwardness of mind which is always apparent in his writings, even when he seems most anxious to avoid extremes and to give no offence to any one. One sentence in it gives us an opportunity for a word or two on a subject of some importance.* Mr. Oakeley speaks of his own successor at Margaret Chapel as "a person of the most unblemished life, the highest integrity, the most amiable disposition, and the purest intentions." We confess we think this going rather too far. Few people entertain really so good an opinion of the sincerity and religiousness of large numbers of Protestants as the writer of these sentences entertains, or have a deeper sense of the mischief done by personal imputations; but it seems to us that we actually pass the limits of Christian charity when we say positively of a man circumstanced like our good friend the Rev. William Upton Richards, and yet remaining a Protestant, that he certainly has "the purest intentions." We could not say more of the best of Catholics, and it is a great deal to say positively of any man. We hope that Mr. Richards' intentions are thus spotless; but we cannot help thinking that this exaggeration of charity is inconsistent both with truth and prudence. Nobody knows whether Mr. Richards and others are sincere; and, to our mind, it does nearly as much harm to them to assert that they are something like saints, as to treat them as something like rascals. Either Mr. Richards (with others like him) is sincere, or he is not; if he is not, this excessive praise only confirms him in his sin; if he is, he must have sufficient knowledge of the mixed nature of his motives to be suspicious of the sincerity of any such eulogy from a Catholic.

In another sentence in this agreeable lecture there surely must be some over-statement. Certain zealous Puseyites once had a hobby (as some still have) to the effect that a "union" might be brought about

* Fault was found with us some time ago by a Catholic contemporary for our calling Dr. Pusey an "arch-impostor." This term was used by a slip of the pen for "arch-deceiver." However, there is not much difference between the two, and those who object to the one will probably object to the other. Whether or not it is prudent always to call a spade "a spade," is a matter for consideration. But certainly Dr. Pusey is an arch-deceiver; and in claiming to have personal and trustworthy grounds for knowing that the Anglican Church is a part of the true Church, he is-we really must speak the truth-an impostor. He may impose upon himself, as he does upon others; we heartily trust that he does. But Dr. Pusey has done and said such extraordinary things in order to keep his followers from obeying their own consciences, as to cause strong suspicions of his sincerity. One of the most tolerant and liberal-minded of Catholic ecclesiastics is in the habit of saying that he reserves the service for the reconciliation of an heresiarch for Dr. Pusey.

between the "Churches of England and Rome." On this Mr. Oakeley says, "The matter of fact is, that this grand and attractive proposal found a certain amount of favour even with excellent Catholics." Ought not this sentence to have been qualified in some such way as this,— 66 even with a very few excellent, but evidently not very wise Catholics, and exclusively laymen"?

We cannot forbear quoting the following amusing story à propos to Protestant monasteries: "The general success and habitual regularity of such establishments were neither pledge nor safeguard against accidents which, like minute-guns at night,' served to arouse the most complacent from their slumbers, and to indicate that something disastrous or mournful was looming in the distance. There is a class of inmates essential to every religious house, which was peculiarly difficult to manage in the state of things we are describing-I mean the lay brothers. These excellent persons could not be expected to master their position with the same success as their elders and their betters; and would occasionally damage the character and imperil the stability of the most flourishing institute by a mere piece of awkwardness-the natural result of their being out of their proper place. The following story, which bears upon this point, is a literal fact. In a certain establishment which affected the religious life, it was the practice of the superiors to admit the youth who served them as a kind of lay brother' to their table; and a terrible act of mortification it was, I assure you, to both parties! In course of time, Brother Isaac,' as we will call him, very naturally sought refuge from the 'durance vile' to which, with the purest intentions, but a questionable prudence, he was thus subjected, by entering into a matrimonial negotiation with a person on the other side of the street. The object of his preference being in a somewhat superior rank of life to his own, it became necessary for him to collect and set forth to the greatest advantage all possible evidence of his being a gentleman.' And among the various recommendations of himself which he produced, one was, that in the family in which he had the pleasure to reside, he was on the most confidential terms with the gentlemen of the house, and in the regular habit of forming one of their party at dinner.'"

The True Religion, what it is; or, a Protestant's Objections to Catholicity fully and fairly answered. By the Rev. P. Maclachlan, of Falkirk. (Edinburgh, Marsh and Beattie; London, Dolman.) Here we have controversy of another kind. Mr. Maclachlan makes an apology for such defects as result from the form and haste in which his letters were written, as they first appeared in a Glasgow newspaper in answer to a Mr. Kennard, who calls himself 66 a peaceful layman," and who resides in Thames Street, London. Mr. Maclachlan's letters are clever and vigorous; full of matter, and well adapted for popular distribution. It is the essentially Protestant mind that he has in view, and not the Puseyite modification of anti-Catholicism.

The Philosophy of the Infinite, with special reference to the Theories of Sir William Hamilton and M. Cousin. By Henry Calderwood. Edinburgh, Thomas Constable.) We totally differ from all three parties in this dispute, though we can sympathise most with the theory of Mr. Calderwood. Sir W. Hamilton holds that the Infinite is inconceivable except as a negative notion; Cousin, that it is conceivable by consciousness and reflection, under relation, difference, and plurality; Calderwood, that we have an indefinite, incomplete notion of the Infinite. Hamilton reduces his philosophic God to an abstraction, Cousin to the

universe, and Calderwood gets into a mist by showing that we have a notion of the Infinite, because time and space must be infinite and real, in which case they must be attributes of God. We ourselves, on the other hand, hold that we have a symbolic notion of the Infinite; and the possible infinity of time and space, which we are forced to imagine, proves nothing but the necessity of believing in an infinite and eternal Agent acting in all time and in all places. Our notions of time and space are only so far infinite as we are necessitated to concede the possibility of infinite power and infinite life; eternity and infinite space are the necessary subjective conditions for thinking the possibility of infinite acts of power and life.

CARDINAL DE GEISSEL, Archbishop of Cologne, has written the following Sequence on the occasion of the proclamation of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. It has been introduced into many dioceses of Germany, and has already found its way into France. Our readers will thank us for laying it before them.

Virgo virginum præclara,
Præter omnes Deo cara,
Dominatrix cœlitum,
Fac nos pie te cantare,
Prædicare et amare;
Audi vota supplicum.
Quis est dignus laude digna
Collaudare te benigna
Virgo, fons charismatum ?
Gratiis es tota plena,
Tota pulchra, lux serena,
Dei tabernaculum!

O quam magna tibi fecit
Qui potens est et adjecit
Gratiam ad gratiam!
Qui cœlum terramque regit,
Matrem sibi te selegit,

Sponsam atque filiam.

Virgo vere benedicta,

Culpâ nunquam es obstricta

Carnis in exilio,

Sine labe tu concepta,

Magno lapsui prærepta,

Summo privilegio.

Contendebat certatura
Tunc cum gratia natura,
Gratia prævaluit;

A peccato præservatam,
Immunem et illibatam
Mire te constituit.

Eva novæ legis,
Præelecta summi Regis,
Consors ejus gloriæ,
Tu draconem domuisti,
Forti pede contrivisti
Victrix caput satanæ.

Semper fulgens munda stola,
Inter mundas munda sola
Ascendisti sidera;

Super agmina sanctorum,
Super choros Angelorum
Sceptra geris Domina.

Oras nunc a dextris Nati
Jugo solvat ut peccati
Quos redemit sanguine;
Manus tuæ stillant dona,
Vitæ fac cœlestis bona
Et in nos defluere.

Esto nobis maris stella,
Ne nos fluctuum procella
Navigantes obruat;
Ex qua salus est exorta,
Esto nobis cœli porta
Quæ salvandis pateat.
Virgo clemens, Virgo pia,
Duc salutis nos in via
Vitæ per exilium.

Nos, o Mater, hic tuere,
Olim istic fac videre
Te tuumque Filium.

Fac, te duce, nos orare,

Vigilare et certare,
Certos tuæ gratiæ;

Funde nobis pia dona,

Custos, Mater et patrona

Sanctæ sis Ecclesiæ (Coloniæ).

Fac nos stare fide vera,

Charitate, spe sincera,
Absque culpæ macula;
Gregem tibi sic dicatum
Jam a patribus sacratum
Protegas in sæcula.

MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE.

Cleve Hall. By the Author of " Amy Herbert," &c. (Longmans.) When man or woman once begin to write stories, it seems that the appetite for such work grows keener and keener, and less patient of wholesome rest. The consequence is, that the stock of material laid up in the writer's brain becomes at last very scanty; and we, the reading public, are sufferers. Let it be romance or sentiment, common life or life of Dumas-like extravagance, pictures of character or tales all incident, or even the seemingly inexhaustible subject of morals,-there is always a bottom to the well; and when it is nearly reached, the water grows flat and muddy: and if an agreeable draught is to be drunk from it again, time must be given for the influx of fresh springs. There is a brackish taste about Cleve Hall (not to be explained by its being a sea-side story), which should warn the author that the well has been

allowed too little rest, and that it requires to be replenished before it will yield such palatable water as it formerly yielded.

Miss Sewell's strong point is character, which, indeed, she draws so accurately as to remind one of the minute and homely finish of a Dutch painting. The details are equally exact, and suggestive of the occurrences of every-day life; and the living personages are surrounded by an abundance of objects of "still-life," introduced solely for the exhibition of form and colour, light and shade. But, as in a Dutch "interior" we sometimes feel that the vraisemblance of the scene would have been even greater if the artist had bestowed less labour upon or even left out altogether some of the pots and pans, so we could be satisfied if Miss Sewell would omit the extreme minuteness of detail which supplies us with so many illustrations of the petty trials by which the virtues or faults of her characters are brought out. It is true that "trifles make the sum of human things;" but we have all of us sufficient experience of the irritation caused by wilful children, unpunctual habits, lazy dawdling, and reckless gossiping, to be able to supply the needful illustrations. A hint is usually enough, and we don't want to be told all about it." The characteristic merits of this lady's writings are the truth with which she depicts that outer side of human life which the world sees, and in which the thoughts and dreams of the hidden life take shape and become action; her clever delineation of the importance of trifles, and their influence on life, her perception of the action of one mind upon another, and of the evils of separating goodness from kindness, and agreeableness from religion, have obtained for her stories a wide-spread popularity, not diminished by their general good sense and good feeling, and certain good sayings, occasionally expressed in so terse a manner, that most readers will feel that they are obliged to her for the hints thus afforded.

All these characteristics are again before us in Cleve Hall, but unfortunately not in an attractive form. The faults of her former books are exaggerated; the lengthiness of the conversations, and the Dutch minutiæ of the details, are not compensated for by any animation in the story; though it is an outline that would have admitted of a good deal of working up. There is a stern father, the proud upright owner of Cleve Hall, whose god is justice; who, having by severe self-denial redeemed the family acres from the effects of ancestral extravagance, disinherits his only son, who married " to displease" him, and who had been moderately extravagant, but has been represented to his father as a double-dyed rogue by the clumsy machinations of the man whose lady-love he had married, his letters of explanation having been intercepted. His sister killed by the grief his conduct has brought upon her, Edward Vivian becomes a banished man. His implacable enemy, who is also his cousin, but a smuggler and gambler, tries to ruin his son, and nearly succeeds. The chief part of the story is occupied with the children of this Edward Vivian, whose characters are very well brought out. Then we have two aunts, each in their way well done: the invalid Mildred, who would win obedience and love, whose motto is to go two steps with the person you would get to go one with you; Bertha, formed on the strong and anxious type of Miss Ophelia in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," with plenty of heart, if it could be found under the hard crust of duty by which it is surrounded. This latter lady is a good proof of how distasteful duty may be made by being divorced from love, or even from a loving manner. In the way of incidents we have a shipwreck, a fight with smugglers, a ruffianly seizure of a lady's pocketbook, a rescue of a child by her father, and a reconciliation,-incidents