object of her life, her Institute might have been easily drawn aside. from its special vocation.

These incidents and many other topics we have not mentioned, connected with the spiritual trials and experiences of Madame d'Osseville are narrated in this work.

A HISTORY OF MARYLAND, UPON THE BASIS OF MCSHERRY. By Henry Onderdonk, A.M. Second Revised and Enlarged Edition. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co., PP. 360.

This book is gotten up in simple style for the use of schools. The author has done his work of condensing McSherry conscientiously and creditably. About one hundred and fifty pages of the book are of his own composing. They refer to the late war, and are not the least interesting portion. The author has treated the Merryman Case in a very agreeable manner. We would like to see condensed estimates of the true worth of such men among Maryland's sons as Chief Justice Taney. The history is done up in the old style of narrating battles and wars. We submit that this is becoming antiquated. The inner life of Maryland is of much more importance; but we get glimpses of it "few and far between" in the book under review. We understand that the book has been regarded as too decidedly Catholic. We think it is all the other way, inasmuch as it is too negative on Catholic issues.. What a glowing chapter, for instance, might be written for our Catholic youth upon the lives of the first noble missionaries! And a chapter upon education in Maryland would have much to say upon the flourishing Catholic institutions that dot the State. Then there are the numerous religious Orders, which are certainly deserving of a more than passing notice. These are precisely the things our Catholic youth ought not be kept in ignorance of. The day is past when a Catholic need fear to hold up his head and speak out the truth. The history of the Church' in the United States is a glorious proof of its undying vitality.

LAST SEVEN WORDS OF JESUS ON THE CROSS. By a Passionist Missionary Priest. Permissu Superiorum. New York: P. O'Shea, Publisher, 1877.

Volumes have been written and volumes more might be written on the "Last Words" of our Divine Lord while hanging on the cross, without exhausting their meaning. They form a most fruitful subject for devout meditation. Those who seek to be perfect, and those, too, whose aspirations are less high, but who still sincerely desire to overcome temptation and fight the good fight of faith, can find no better spiritual exercise than devout meditation on these Last Words. For, as is well remarked in the work before us, "our Divine Master during his whole life was a most perfect model of all Christian virtues; and like a bright lamp the splendor of His example shone most brilliantly at the close of His life, during His three hours' agony on the golden candlestick of His holy cross." "The last words of every great personage are treasured by all his relations, friends, and admirers. This particularly is the case with the dying expressions of persons eminent for sanctity. But who can be greater than the King of kings, and the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth? Who can be more holy than Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the source of all grace, virtue, and sanctity? He is our Creator, our best Benefactor, our wisest Teacher, our most faithful Friend, our nearest Relative, our Brother, our Father, our Redeemer, our All." In his exposition of the seven sentences spoken by our Saviour on the

cross, commonly called His "Seven Last Words," the author of the work before us makes the following general division:

"The first three words of our crucified Redeemer have relation to men upon earth. The four last words relate more immediately to Himself. The former represent our Saviour as the most perfect model of good example. The latter represent Him as the most perfect victim of our atonement, and as the full price of our redemption: Copiosa apud Deum redemptio."

Each "Consideration" is concluded with a devout and appropriate prayer. The work throughout is full of edifying and devout thoughts, and constitutes an excellent help towards understanding the profound and most important truths comprehended in the passion and death of our Divine Lord.

A SHORT CATECHISM FOR YOUNG MEN AND YOUNG WOMEN CONTEMPLATING MARRIAGE. By Michael Dausch, Secular Priest of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Printed at St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, Carroll P. O., Baltimore County, Md. 1878.

One of the most fruitful causes of the scandals which mark our age, and of life-long misery even where it does not give rise to public scandal, is the rashness and wrong dispositions with which so many persons contract marriage. This is not only the cause of misery and of sin in countless instances, but is wrong in itself. St. John Chrysostom says: "Whenever you are about to take a wife, read not only the laws of the land, but, more than these, consider those of the Church; for by these, and not by those of the State, will God judge you in that day." Matrimony is a sacrament of the Church sanctifying the relation of husband and wife, and strengthening them for the discharge of the duties of the holy relation into which they have entered.

Catholics living in constant contact with, and often in, the families of Protestants and other non-Catholics, are in great danger of forgetting this, and of insensibly adopting the wrong and loose ideas of matrimony which prevail outside the Church.

The little work before us is designed to guard young persons against this, and to instruct them in the dispositions they should have, and the preparation they should make, for entering into the marriage relation, so as to preserve its sacred character, and faithfully discharge the duties it involves. Father Dausch's work is put forth with the imprimatur of the Most Rev. Archbishop of Baltimore. In the form of question and answer, it gives plain, practical, and important instructions in regard to the various subjects on which it treats. It is a timely and useful work, and we would be glad to see it in the hands of all young Catholics. Married persons, also, may derive from its pages useful instruction and practical hints how they may avoid the unhappiness which frequently arises in families from want of consideration, ill-judgment, ill-temper, the absence of the dispositions which religion inculcates and encourages, and from other causes.

RAPHAELA; OR, THE HISTORY OF A YOUNG GIRL WHO WOULD NOT TAKE ADVICE. By Mlle Monot. Translated from the French, by a Sister of St. Joseph. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham & Son, 29 South Tenth Street. 1878.

A most charmingly written and interesting sketch of the life, useful labors, and charity of a French lady, born in affluence and high station, who passed safely through the perils of the "days of terror," and though exposed to the insidious influences of the corrupt social life of France in high circles, preserved her faith, led an eminently Christian life, devoting herself in her latter years to the establishment of a highly successful educational institution.

THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

Vol. IV.-APRIL, 1879.-No. 14.

THE OUTLOOK, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL, IN

EUROPE.

F we review the events of the past twelve months, a series of criminal attacks on the lives of sovereigns in Europe arrests our attention. Twice within a few weeks the assassination of the Emperor William, of Germany, was attempted. Thereupon bills, designed to suppress the socialistic movement, were introduced into the then sitting Parliament, and when it refused to pass them its dissolution was ordered. New elections took place, the Parliament assembled and finally sanctioned the anti-socialist bill. It was put into operation with rigorous severity, and is now in full force. Yet still socialism, which is aiming at nothing less than the overthrow of "the powers that be," continues to infect the whole German Empire. In Italy, the discovery of a plot against King Humbert's life, led to the adoption of stringent measures to stay the farther growth and aggressions of the secret revolutionary societies which infest that kingdom throughout its entire extent. Turning to Russia, we find despotism there grappling with a sinister foe, "Nihilism." Murders shrouded in impenetrable mystery, agitate St. Petersburg and Moscow, and in all their appalling atrocity still live fresh in memory. The autocratic power of the North has concentrated all its energies upon the suppression of this internal and fatal force, and the partial closing of the Russian Universities must be regarded as a necessary measure of precaution which the government has been compelled to adopt for the avoidance of more violent and greater collisions than have already occurred. Only a few months ago the cabinet of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was informed by the secret police of Berlin of the existence of a conspiracy against VOL. IV.-13

the life of Emperor Francis Joseph. There is every reason to believe that this timely warning alone prevented in Vienna an occurrence similar to, and, perhaps, more tragical than the one "Unter den Linden," in Berlin. In Spain, likewise, the young King Alfonso has been threatened with a premature end by the hand of an assassin, and the scaffold on which the would-be murderer paid the penalty for his crime is still warm with his blood. Attack followed attack in rapid succession. And if an isolated occurrence, the object of which consists in taking the life of a crowned head, may be regarded as of serious importance, then an array of facts, like those before us, certainly has a formidable significance.

For some time past it has been evident to all reflecting minds that we live in a period the near future of which is fraught with dangers of the gravest character. We seem, indeed, to be on the eve of a social upheaval, which threatens to be of unprecedented magnitude, and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the whole civilized world is more or less confronted with problems, the solution of which threatens the welfare and peace of human society. Those who can and do read the “signs of the times," have not failed to perceive unmistakable indications of decay, if not of dissolution. They note with apprehension and alarm the premonitory warnings which invariably precede the outbreak of most destructive tempests. Within the last year the situation has become such as must disabuse even the optimist of his dreams, and compel even the skeptic to believe in the gravity of the political and social condition of Europe. France, in 1789, raised a cry for “liberty, equality, and fraternity," and since then this cry has constantly resounded over all continental Europe. For upwards of eighty years the ideas called into life by that great revolution have been at work, silently making proselytes, and the results are now before the world.

If we wish to understand the crisis, it will not suffice to acquire a merely superficial knowledge of the startling theories of the day. It is also necessary to examine into their real nature and essence. The doctrines which cause uneasiness in all social and political circles are not apparitions of to-day; they have a genesis, a growth and a mature development. We propose, therefore, in this paper, to ascertain the sources from which they have sprung, rather than merely to describe their present form.

The drift of communistic ideas was so graphically illustrated during the siege of Paris that it seems waste of time and space to enter now upon their discussion. Socialism, the menacing danger of Germany, presents, it is true, a less hideous aspect than the monstrous head of the "Commune;" but it converges, nevertheless, in its ultimate consequences, into communism. In fact,

this is found to be the case with all the "isms," when thoroughly examined. They have, all alike, a decidedly destructive tendency; they aim at the abolition of authority, at the overthrow of the present governments, at the demolition of the existing social and political order. What they propose is, in short, the emancipation of man from all those restrictions which society necessarily imposes upon man as a social being. The only possible means by which this grand result can be accomplished is, of course, a general revolution, doing away completely, once and forever, with the old order of things, and then society will have to be reconstructed on an entirely new basis.

It is not uninteresting here to observe how arguments abound as long as the necessity of pulling down is under discussion, but when that part of the process is reached where the work of rebuilding ought to be explained, diligent search generally reveals but -a vacuum. The identity of the end indicates an identical startingpoint, and there is in reality one common principle which underlies all the modern doctrines. They vary only in their own formulations, and these slight diversities are easily explained by the preponderance of certain differing circumstances where they originated and first obtained. The various characters of nations have imprinted characteristic marks upon them. But apart from these purely accidental differences, the underlying principle of all is, as we have said, but one, and constitutes what has been called, with a good deal of sarcastic humor, "the creed of the nineteenth century," namely, the abolition of religion as belief in a supernatural order, and its replacement by the cultus of society.

Thus, we hear, on one side, complaints that the tide of infidelity which has set in, threatens in its onward flow to destroy religion; while, on the other side, it is urged that religion is an institution which has outlived its time, and must not be allowed to stand in the way of modern science. Modern science, we are told, diffuses light, frees from bigoted prejudice and places man on the firm ground of intelligence and reason, elevating him into a sphere where he soars with mighty wings above the narrowing influences of creeds and the debasing fear of eternity.

The intellectual hunger of the nineteenth century for knowledge cannot be satisfied with the husks of religious superstition. Science, it is urged, frees man from the bondage in which mind has been held and loosens the fetters which for centuries prevented him from advancing to the place to which his intellect entitles him in creation. Science restores him to liberty, because it restores him to reason. Therefore science transforms the slave into a freeholder, and man into the lord of creation. Behold, it is said, how scientific progress undermines the very foundations on which religion