the Church in the seventeenth century and the days of the martyrs, so that it is of vital interest and importance."

Bishop Challoner's prominence during this period is most remarkable. His very long life, beginning and ending at two most important points in history, was wrapped up very closely with all the intervening events. As Dr. Burton says:

"With this period the name of Bishop Challoner is forever identified. Born within three years of the Revolution, he lived to see the first Relief Act in 1778, and he died just ten years before the second, that of 1791, gave Catholics liberty of worship once more. For nearly half a century he was the leader and the foremost figure among English Catholics; and since his day no name has ever been held by them in greater veneration. Even now, when the details of his life are largely forgotten, his memory is held in reverence by many who know little or nothing of the work which he did. That his name thus became a household word among our people is due to two causes. First, there was the memory of the preeminent personal holiness of his life; and next, the fact that he was the writer of those works of devotion and instruction on which the succeeding generations of English Catholics were formed. For a long space of time his books were the most popular and widely used volumes in our literature; and, even now, to many who know nothing of his work as a Bishop, his name is familiar as the saintly author of the 'Garden of the Soul,' the 'Meditations' and the 'Memoirs of Missionary Priests.'

"The century which has elapsed since his death has seen a great revival of the Catholic Church in this country. In 1791 the penal laws were abolished; in 1829 emancipation was won; in 1850 the hierarchy was restored. The large influx of Catholics from Ireland and numerous conversions in England has multiplied our number many times over, and the land is covered with churches, schools, monasteries and convents. We have now a large and varied literature expressing the manifold activities of Catholicity. There is, above all, a vigorous spiritual life finding expression in the worthy celebration of the liturgy and public worship; in a vast system of organized charity; in countless associations for carrying on the religious and social work of the Church. Without minimizing either our shortcomings or difficulties, we may gladly recognize, when we compare the state of the Church in England to-day with its condition in the year of Bishop Challoner's death, that God has wrought His wonders in our midst and has given an increase beyond all hope.

"But this vigorous and flourishing growth has not been called into being by the creative power of God without reference to everything that went before. Rather it is the ordered development of the Cath

olic life that preserved the hidden existence through the long winter of persecution. In the dark days was the seed sown which has given us so great a harvest. 'Euntes ibant et flebant mittentes semina sua.' To understand fully our present condition, its problems and its responsibilities, the seed-time must be studied so that we may come to know our life-story as a whole. It may be that in the joy and exhiliration which accompanied the rapid growth of our 'Second Spring' there was a tendency to forget the past in the stress and excitement of the present. Catholics who were exulting in their freshly won emancipation, in their recently gained hierarchy and in the new possibilities of the work lying ready to their hands, may be excused if, in the onrush and vigor of their new life, they did not dwell much on the old, narrow and contracted existence, painfully endured by their fathers. So little by little the dark days were forgotten."

His activity was amazing, and the wonder is how he accomplished so much, and in such varied ways. Many men have become famous who have not done a tithe of the work which fell to his lot, but his untiring zeal, his singleness of purpose and his constant application worked wonders. A glance at some of his works will show this.

"It is surprising how much even in our present spiritual life we owe to him in one form or another. To him is due our version of the Bible, the popular edition of the 'Imitation of Christ,' the present form of the 'Penny Catechism' learned by our children, to say nothing of the ever popular 'Garden of the Soul,' that almost universal manual of prayers, 'Think Well On't,' and the book of 'Meditations.' It was he who restored to our Missals and Breviaries the English Supplement with the festivals of English saints, who instituted the clergy conferences, who kept alive for us the memory of the English martyrs. Of existing institutions, St. Edmund's College, Old Hall, was built up after the fall of Douay College on the foundation of the school he had established at Standon Lordship; St. Wilfrid's College, Oakamoor, was founded by him at Sedgley Park, and the venerable English Colleges of Valladolid and Lisbon owe him so much that they may with justice claim him as their second founder.

"Besides all this, there was the work he did in supplying the needs of his own time. When books of instruction were needed he wrote them; if a controversy became necessary, he undertook it. In turn he gave to his people not only prayer-books and meditation books, but lives of the saints, a martyrology, a summary of Bible history, a short church history and translations of the chief work of St. Augustine, St. Francis of Sales and St. Teresa. All these labors were carried on, not only in addition to the ordinary work of a Bishop, but under conditions often arduous and hampering; sometimes, indeed, under the stress of actual persecution. The story of Bishop Challoner's life, then, is very far from being a mere record of passive endurance, and there are many points where it throws a stream of light upon the practices and institutions of to-day."

The book is indispensable to a right understanding of this very important historical epoch. The story is inspiring, and will act as a spur to churchmen in succeeding generations. It illumines the present, and its rays will extend far into the future.

DAS EVANGELIUM VOM GOTTESSOHN. Von Dr. Anton Seitz, Professor der Apologetik an der Universität München. JESUS CHRISTUS. Vorträge auf dem Hochschulkurs zu Freiburg (1. B.), 1908. Gehalten von verschiedenden Professoren. Freiburg: Herder (St. Louis, Mo.), 1908.

The question which the Incarnate Word put to the Pharisees of old, "What think ye of Christ?" has to be answered in every age and by every individual to whom "the good news" of His mission has been made known. And as Christ Himself confounded the skeptics around Him by retorting on them their own principles, so has His vicegerents at the present day to refute the captious critics. This they can hope to do only by employing a searching historical examination of the documents and data whereon the truth of the Divine Sonship of Christ is based. But here the parallelism terminates, both as regards the defendant and the objector. For whereas Christ stood visibly and spoke audibly before His enemies, His followers to-day have no such sensible advantage; and while He could place His adversaries beyond the possibility of their asking "any more questions," His present disciples, with their personal and circumstantial limitations, have to pursue the unending tergiversations of their opponents. It is these devious windings of modern criticism that makes the labor of the present defender of the faith so incessant and so intricate. No brief or easy task at any time is it to follow the labyrinthine ways of the naturalistic spirit in its endeavor to escape the supernatural; but when that spirit has trained itself by the supple discipline of modern science and has shaped itself with the elusive forms of German idealism the efforts of him whose mission it is to defend the supernatural and objective truth of revelation meet with peculiar difficulties. Fortunately he is not left without helpful aids and instruments, some entailed, of course, by his vocation and others by the steadily if not too rapidly growing apologetic literature. To the latter class belong such works as are introduced above. The sub-title of the first book-"A Defense (Apologie) of the Essential Sonship of Christ Against the Attack (Kritik) of the

Latest German Theology"-indicates the author's specific purposei. e., to be at once critical and constructive. The first chapter reflects predominately the former of these two characteristics, embodying as it does a very searching exposition of German "evangelical liberalism"-especially of Harnack's "semi-dogmatic Christianity"-which, developing to its ultimate consequences the individualistic exegesis set up by Luther, seeks to deprive the Gospel narrative, especially Christ's testimony to Himself, of all doctrinal, i. e., definitely intellectual content. The succeeding chapters are primarily constructive, though the positive argumentation is continuously developed over against the adverse speculation of the rationalistic criticism. These chapters unfold our Lord's testimonies to His Divine Sonship-the Gospel testimonies in their doctrinal and practical elements and implications. The closing chapter develops the evidence for the same truth as presented by Christ's messengers-the Precursor, the Evangelists, and particularly St. Paul. We cannot enter into any details of the author's exposition. We must leave this to the student, promising him that he will be well rewarded by the perusal of a work than which he will scarcely find another that within an equal compass so thoroughly and so comprehensively, so strongly and so reverently vindicates the Divinity of Christ against the insidious attacks of present day rationalism.

The second book mentioned above embodies a series of lecturestreating of the same general subject as the volume just describedgiven before an audience composed principally of the priests of the Diocese of Freiburg (Congregatio Mariana Sacerdotalis) assembled at the university in the latter city. The lectures were delivered by the well-known professors, Braig, Hoberg, Krieg, Weber, of Freiburg, and Esser, of Bonn. These names guarantee the scholarship, it need hardly be said, of the respective contributions. There are in all seventeen lectures. Two by Professor Hoberg treat of the historicity of the Gospels; three by Dr. Weber expound the Scriptural testimonies to our Lord Divinity; three by Dr. Braig on the beliefs of men outside the Church concerning Christ's person, teaching and institutions; four by Professor Esser, two on Protestant and modernist Christology and two on the dogma of the Hypostatic Union; three by Dr. Krieg on our Lord as the Way, the Truth and the Life. The appendix contains two lectures by Professors Hoberg and Braig on Modernism. Needless to say that while these lectures throughout are both solid in their argumentation and scholarly in their wealth of fact, they have a literary finish befitting the occasion of their delivery. The personal charm of the spoken word pervades the pages and makes them pleasant without ceasing to be instructive reading.

MEMOIRS OF SCOTTISH CATHOLICS DURING THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. Selected from hitherto inedited manuscripts by William Forbes Leith, S. J. Two volumes, 8vo., pp. 381 and 415. Vol. I.: "The Reign of King Charles I., 1627-1649. Vol. II.: "From Commonwealth to Emancipation, 1647-1793." With illustrations. Longmans, Green & Co., 39 Paternoster Row, London; New York, Bombay and Calcutta. 1909.

The student of history ought to be very grateful for this book. It is history in the best sense of that much abused word, for it is was really written by the saintly men who were the principal actors in the events narrated and who wrote not for publication or notoriety, but for truth. In the introduction we read:

"A very homely proverb tells us that no man knows where the shoe pinches better than he who wears it. However soft to the touch the leather is shown to be, however high the repute of the maker, no argument derived from the evidence of others can outweigh the statement based on personal experience.

"We have heard the history of religion in Scotland from many a friend of the Covenant, from many an admirer of the Royalists, but a personal narrative of the sufferings endured by the members of the ancient faith has not been put before the world.

"The letters here printed were written from Scotland during the worst times by men who were bearing the extremity of the persecution. We hear at first hand of the courage, patience, resource and religious fortitude with which large numbers of Scots bore for generations trials which are without a parallel for severity and protraction, even in the annals of our strong and long enduring nation. In a previous volume of 'Narratives of Scottish Catholics' their history has been traced in the days of Mary Stuart and of King James VI. The documents now printed illustrate their troubles during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a period during which their interesting history has been too often ignored, amidst the momentous conflicts of the Crown, the Covenant and the Parliament.

"The majority of the letters which follow were written by the Jesuit missionaries in Scotland to the general of their society in Rome. Some were actors in or witnesses of the events described. In other cases the letters were written abroad by a superior or representative who had retired for the nonce to the Continent, where he could transact business with less fear of his letters being intercepted. None of these men were thinking of history or publication when they wrote. They recorded the daily life of the Scottish Catholics just as it passed before their eyes."

In some ways the letters are disappointing, but through no fault of the writers. They hardly ever mention the names and abodes of their principal friends, and even the names of the most heroic char