The Catholic World
Chapter 354 : _Native Borax_.--A lake about two miles in circ.u.mference, from which borax is obtain

_Native Borax_.--A lake about two miles in circ.u.mference, from which borax is obtained in extremely pure condition and in very large quant.i.ty, has recently been discovered in California. The borax hitherto in use has been procured by combining boracic acid, procured from Tuscany, with soda. It is used in large quant.i.ties in England, the potteries of Staffords.h.i.+re alone consuming more than 1100 tons annually.

_Fall of the Temperature of Metals_.--At the last meeting of the Chemical Society of Paris, Dr. Phipson called attention to the sudden fall of temperature which occurs when certain metals are mixed together at the ordinary temperature of the atmosphere. The most extraordinary descent of temperature occurs when 207 parts of lead, 118 of tin, 284 of bis.m.u.th, and l,617 of mercury are alloyed together.

The external temperature being at +170 centigrade at the time of the mixture, the thermometer instantly falls to--10 below zero. Even when these proportions are not taken with absolute rigor, the cold produced is such that the moisture of the atmosphere is immediately condensed on the sides of the vessel in which the metallic mixture is made. The presence of lead in the alloy does not appear to be so indispensable as that of bis.m.u.th. Dr. Phipson explains this fact by a.s.suming that the cold is produced by the liquefaction at the ordinary temperature of the air of such dense metals as bis.m.u.th, etc., in their contact with the mercury.

_Greek and Egyptian Inscriptions_.--The discovery of a stone bearing a Greek inscription with equivalent Egyptian hieroglyphics, by Messrs.

Lepsius, Reinisch, Rosler, and Weidenbach, four German explorers, at Sane, the former Tanis, the chief scene of the grand architectural undertakings of Rameses the Second, is an important event for students of Egyptology. The Greek inscription consists of seventy-six lines, in the most perfect preservation, dating from the time of Ptolemy Energetes I. (238 B.C.) The stone is twenty-two centimetres high, and seventy-eight centimetres wide, and is completely covered by the inscriptions. The finders devoted two days to copying the inscriptions, taking three photographs of the stone, and securing impressions of the hieroglyphics. Egyptologists are therefore anxiously looking forward to the production of these facsimiles and photographs.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

MISCELLANEA: comprising Reviews, Lectures, and Essays, on Historical, Theological, and Miscellaneous Subjects, By M. J. Spalding, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore. Fourth edition. 2 vols. 8vo. Pp. 807.

Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1866.

This work has attained a well deserved popularity in the Catholic community; and we hail with pleasure this new and enlarged edition of it. Dr. Spalding has obtained the first place amongst the few of our popular writers; and by his contributions to Catholic literature will leave after him evidences of a "good fight" for the truth and faith of Christ. The Miscellanea is a book for the times, such as the Church always needs, and of which in later years we have sadly felt the want.

The prolific Anti-catholic press has deluged the country with {572} publications of all sizes and of every character, unfair in their statements of our doctrine and practice, and but too often marked by bitter invective and wilful misrepresentation. The prejudices thus engendered and deepened must be quickly and pointedly met before the poison has had time to spread. We must not be content with a pa.s.sive confidence in the inherent strength of truth. In the long run truth will prevail, we know; but there is no reason why truth should not also prevail in the short run. Our American style of making a mental meal is not very far different from that of our physical meal. We read as fast as we eat, and are not over dainty. It is perfectly marvellous what hashes of literary refuse your anti-church, anti-papal, and liberal (sic) caterer has the impudence to set before a people hungering after righteousness and truth: and it is equally marvellous that these same people so hastily gulp down the newly spiced dish, without evincing any suspicion of their having once or twice before seen and rejected the same well-picked bones and unsavory morsels.

Experience proves the necessity of providing for the American mind good solid food, cooked _a la hate_, and served with few accompaniments. They are not partial to long introductory soups, and totally disregard all side-dish references and quotations. Comparisons aside, we need quick and popular answers to these popular and hasty accusations. The difficulty we experience is in the fact that the books, pamphlets, and tracts which disseminate error, contain such a ma.s.s of illogical reasoning, and are based upon so many contradictory principles, that to answer them all fully and logically would require as many octavos as they possess pages. To give a fair, unsophistical, and popular response to the questions of the day, as presented to us in the forms we have mentioned, requires no little critical skill, and real literary genius. In the perusal of the work before us we have had frequent occasion to admire these characteristics of the distinguished author. His trenchant blows decapitate at once a host of hydra-headed errors, and he displays a happy faculty of marking and dealing with those particular points which would be noticeable ones for the reader of the productions which come under the judgment of his pen. We have cause to congratulate ourselves that we have in him a popular writer for the American people. An American himself, he understands his countrymen, appreciates their merits, and is not blind to their failings. It is true we find in these pages many qualifications of the motives of Protestant antagonists and of Protestant movements generally which we wish might be read only by those to whom they apply; still the intelligent reader will not fail to observe that they were called forth by the temper of the times in which these different essays were written. The author himself observes in his preface to this edition: "As some of them were written as far back as twenty years, it is but natural to suppose that they occasionally exhibit more spirit and heat in argument, than the cooler temper and riper taste of advancing years would fully approve." And he very justly adds: "While I am free to make this acknowledgment, justice to my own convictions and feelings requires me to state, that in regard to the facts alleged, I have nothing to retract, or even, materially to modify, and that in the tone and temper I do not even now believe that I set down aught in malice, or with any other than the good intent of correcting error and establis.h.i.+ng truth, without a.s.suming the aggressive except for the sake of what I believed to be the legitimate defence of the Church of G.o.d."

What the learned writer here hints at, we feel to be his own profound convictions at the present day, and the wisdom of which the aspect of controversy as it is now successfully being carried on here and in Europe, also proves, that it is better to convince and to teach, than to silence. We are not, however, altogether averse to sharp reproof or good-natured ridicule where it is well deserved. Fools are to be answered, says the Holy Scripture, according to their folly; and fools not unfrequently attack the truth and do a deal of mischief. When a writer or public orator presumes to talk nonsense, or appeals to the vulgar prejudices or the fears of the ignorant, it becomes necessary to exhibit both his character and motives. Calm and unimpa.s.sioned argument is thrown away upon him, and is looked upon by the unthinking ma.s.ses as a confession of weakness. Few instances, if any, can be shown where a Catholic polemic writer has treated an honorable {573} antagonist with discourtesy: and we venture to say that the scathing criticisms which are to be found in the work before us were richly merited, and on the whole will be so judged by the dispa.s.sionate reader.

This edition contains upward of one hundred and sixty pages of new matter, of equal interest with that of the fore-going editions.

We give it our humble and earnest commendation, heartily wis.h.i.+ng that it may be widely circulated and read; confidently a.s.sured as we are that it will do good, and advance the cause of truth.

CHRISTIANITY, Its Influence on Civilization, and its Relation to Nature's Religion: the "Harmonial" or Universal Philosophy. A Lecture.

By Caleb S. Weeks. New York: W. White & Co. 1866.

What a pity Mr. Caleb S. Weeks was not born earlier! The whole world has been running for nineteen centuries after the "Nazarene," and his "religious system," when it might have been running after Mister Weeks, and his shallow spiritualistic humanitarian philosophy! Who knows? Reading effusions of this kind, we are reminded of Beppolo's Fanfarone:

"What is't that boils within me?

Is't the throes of nascent genius; or the strength Of high immortal thoughts to find vent; Or, is it wind?"

REPORT OF THE HOLY CHILDHOOD IN U. S. ANNALS OF THE HOLY CHILDHOOD, etc. 1866.

We are in receipt of the above in French and in English, together with various circulars and pictures ill.u.s.trating and recommending the extensive and admirable work of charity, called "The Holy Childhood"

It was founded by the Bishop of Nancy in France, the Rt. Rev.

Forbin-Janson: and its object is princ.i.p.ally to rescue the abandoned children of the Chinese, baptize them, and educate them as Christians.

Chinese parents have irresponsible control over the life and death of their children, and hence the crime of infanticide is very common amongst them, and that in its most revolting forms, the heartless parents drowning them, leaving them to die by exposure, and even to be eaten alive by dogs and swine. The poor will sell their young children for a paltry sum, apparently without much regret. It was impossible that Catholic charity should forever pa.s.s by unnoticed such a plague-spot upon humanity. Wherever humanity suffers, she knows how to inspire devoted souls with an ardent desire for the alleviation of its misery. Founded only since 1843, the a.s.sociation of the Holy Childhood has rescued and baptized three millions of these children. The report for this year gives the number of those under education at twenty-three thousand four hundred and sixteen. Such a n.o.ble work, so truly Catholic in its spirit, needs no commendation of ours. We are sure that all Catholic children, who are the ones particularly invited to be members of it, and to contribute to its support, will vie with each other in their prayers and offerings for its success. Catholic charity effects great things with little means. The entire annual expenditures of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, with which we hope our readers are well acquainted, did not amount, a few years since, to more than eight thousand dollars. The Society of the Holy Childhood asks for a contribution of only one cent a month from each of its members, and requires each one to say daily a Hail Mary and an invocation to the child Jesus, to have pity upon all poor pagan children.

We have been much interested in looking over the number of the annals sent us, but we are sorry to see certain Religious Orders singled out by name as not yet having made this enterprise a part of their work.

Those holy and devoted men need no stimulation of this kind to do all that comes within their sphere for G.o.d's greater glory, and the salvation of mankind: and one does not like one's name called out as a delinquent by him who solicits, but has not yet obtained our name for his subscription-list It is, to say the least, injudicious; but we hope that the well-known zeal and ardent charity of the Directors of this pious work will be sufficient apology for the incautious remark.

{574}

A BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.

Compiled and arranged by the Rev. Charles Hole, B.A., Trinity College, Cambridge; with additions and corrections by William A. Wheeler, M.A., a.s.sistant editor of Webster's Dictionary, author of "A Dictionary of Noted Names of Fiction," etc. 12mo, pp. 453. New-York: Hurd & Houghton. 1866.

We have here a most convenient little volume for reference, and one that is also pretty accurate and complete. It merely gives the name of the person, his country, profession, date of birth and death. The American editor has done his work well, as well as it is possible, humanly speaking, to compile such a work; but he certainly should have added the name of Dr. J.V. Huntington to the Appendix, which contains the names of those omitted by Mr. Hole, He has placed names there that are not half so well known to men of letters as that of the late lamented Dr. Huntington. We make special mention of his name, as the American editor of this useful little book is the author of "A Dictionary of Noted Names of Fiction," and must have read of the author of "Alban," "The Forest," "Rosemary," "Pretty Plate," "Blonde and Brunette," etc., etc. There may be other omissions, but this author being one of the most prominent of our deceased American Catholic writers, there can be no good excuse for the exclusion of his name.

DEVOTION TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY IN NORTH AMERICA.

By the Rev. Xavier Donald Macleod. With a Memoir of the author by the Most Rev. John B. Purcell, D.D., Archbishop of Cincinnati. 8vo, pp.

467. Virtue & Yorston, New-York.

Few Americans are well acquainted with the religious history of their own country. It is to be regretted, for in the religious history of any nation we find a revelation of life no less interesting, and far more important than the detail of its political fortunes. Indeed, we believe that history written so as to exclude the mention of religion and its influence upon the social character, civilization, and the national peculiarities of a people, would be as incomplete as it would be unintelligible. Americans are educated to believe that this country, with the exception of Mexico, has been a Protestant country from the start; that its religious activity has been purely Protestant; that Catholicity has been chiefly hitherto a work confined to the spiritual ministrations of foreign priests to a foreign immigrant population; and he is surprised to learn that the only missionary work done on this continent worthy of record on the page of its history is wholly Catholic. And we venture to affirm that the only picture of the religion of America, either of its early or its later days, which will be looked upon by future generations with pleasure and pride, will be that which the Catholic Church presents in the apostolic labors of her missionaries, through which the savage Indian becomes the docile Christian; the rude, uneducated ma.s.ses, whether white or black, are guided, instructed, and saved; the truth and grace of the holy faith is preached in hards.h.i.+p, toil, privation, persecution, and death. It is true that the book before as treats of religion in America with only the devotion toward our Blessed Lady as its particular theme, but it necessarily offers us a view of the progress of the Catholic religion in every part of the continent. It is written in a most charming style, replete with graphic descriptions, and marked throughout by that tone of enthusiastic loyalty to the faith so characteristic of the gifted and lamented author. There is no portion of the work we have read with greater interest than that which concerns the conversion and religious life of the Indians. There has been no truer type of the Catholic missionary than is displayed by those devoted priests, who came to this country burning with the desire to win its savage aborigines to the faith of Christ. Let us give a little extract:

"For thirty years now has Father Sebastian Rasle dwelt in the forest, teaching to its wild, red children the love of G.o.d and Mary.

He is burned by sun and tanned by wind until he is almost as red as his paris.h.i.+oners. The languages of the Abenaki and Huron, the Algonquin and Illinois, are more familiar to him than the tongue in which his mother taught him the Ave Maria. The huts of Norridgewock contain his people; the river Kennebec flows swiftly past his dwelling to the sea. There he has built a church--handsome, he thinks and says; perhaps it would not much excite our luxurious imagination. At any rate, the altar is handsome; and he has gathered a store of copes and chasubles, albs and embroidered stoles for the dignity of the holy service. He has trained, also, as many as forty Indian boys in the ceremonies, and, in their crimson ca.s.socks and white surplices, they aid the sacred pomp. Besides the church, there are two chapels, one on the road which leads to the forest, {575} where the braves are wont to make a short retreat before they start to trap and hunt; the other on the path to the cultivated lands, where prayers are offered when they go to plant or gather in the harvest. The one is dedicated to the guardian angel of the tribe, the other to our most holy mother, Mary Immaculate. To adorn this latter is the especial emulation of the women. Whatever they have of jewels, of silk stuff from the settlements, or delicate embroidery of porcupine-quill, or richly tinted moose-hair, is found here; and from amidst their offerings rises, white and fair, the statue of the Virgin; and her sweet face looks down benignantly upon her swarthy children, kneeling before her to recite their rosaries. One beautiful inanimate ministrant to G.o.d's wors.h.i.+p they have in abundance--light from wax candles. The wax is not precisely _opus apium_, but it is a nearer approach to it than you find in richer and less excusable places. It is wax from the berry of the laurels, which cover the hills of Maine. And to the chapel every night and morning come all the Indian Christians. At morning they make their prayer in common, and a.s.sist at ma.s.s, chanting, in their own dialect, hymns written for that purpose by their pastor. Then they go to their employment for the day; he to his continuous, orderly, and ceaseless labor. The morning is given up to visitors, who come to their good father with their sorrows and disquietudes; to ask his relief against some little injustice of their fellows; his advice on their marriage or other projects. He consoles this one, instructs that, reestablishes peace in disunited families, calms troubled consciences, administers gentle rebuke, or gives encouragement to the timid. The afternoon belongs to the sick, who are visited in their own cabins. If there be a council, the black-robe must come to invoke the Holy Spirit on their deliberations; if a feast, he must be present to bless the viands and to check all approaches to disorder. And always in the afternoon, old and young, warrior and gray-haired squaw, Christian and catechumen, a.s.semble for the catechism. When the sun declines westward, and the shadows creep over the village, they seek the chapel for the public prayer, and to sing a hymn to St. Mary. Then each to his own home; but before bed-time, neighbors gather again, in the house of one of them, and in antiphonal choirs they _sing_ their beads, and with another hymn they separate for sleep."

The work does not need any commendation at our hands; it will a.s.suredly become popular wherever it is introduced, whether it be into the libraries of colleges or literary a.s.sociations, or into the family circle.

LIFE AND CAMPAIGNS OF LIEUT.-GENERAL U. S. GRANT, from his Boyhood to the Surrender of General Lee; including an accurate account of Sherman's great march from Chattanooga to Was.h.i.+ngton, and the final official Reports of Sheridan, Meade, Sherman, and Grant; with portraits on steel of Stanton, Grant and his Generals, and other ill.u.s.trations. By Rev. P.G. Headley, author of Life of Napoleon, Life of Josephine, etc., etc. 8vo, pp. 720. New York: Derby & Miller Publis.h.i.+ng Co. 1866.

The t.i.tle of this work is sufficiently ambitious to justify the expectation that it is really a valuable contribution to our national historical literature. Such is, however, not the case. The only valuable portions of the book are the reports of different commanding generals, which are appended. The style is of the inflated, mock-heroic order, of which we have had a surfeit, especially since the commencement of the late war. The descriptions of battles remind us of a certain cla.s.s of cheap battle pictures, in which smoke, artillery horses, and men are arranged and rearranged to suit any desired emergency. One is left in doubt in reading the account of the famous charge on the left at Fort Donelson, whether C. F. Smith or Morgan L. Smith was the officer in command. Morgan L. Smith was a brave and valuable officer, but the decisive charge in question was led by C. F. Smith, and was one of the most remarkable and brilliant military exploits of the war. We cannot pretend to wade through all the crudities, plat.i.tudes, and mistakes of this bulky volume, manufactured to order, not written. There is one glaring blunder or intentional perversion, in the desire to please every body, which all cannot pa.s.s over. The relief of Major-General McClernand in front of Vicksburg is made to appear to be a reluctant act on the part of General Grant. Mr. Headley represents General Grant as complying with an urgent military necessity, at the cost of _his friend_. This is all sheer nonsense. There was and could be no friends.h.i.+p between Grant and McClernand. One might as well expect fellows.h.i.+p between light and darkness. There was a military necessity to remove McClernand, for every day that he commanded a corps imperilled the safety of the whole army. Sherman and McPherson united in demanding his removal, {576} and General Grant chose the right moment to relieve him--when he had demonstrated his incapacity, or worse, to the mind of every soldier on the field, and ruined forever the false popularity he had acquired as a politician of the lowest grade. Mr. Headley makes an unsuccessful effort to glaze over General Wallace's unaccountable delay in coming up to the field of' s.h.i.+loh. In fact, he deals in indiscriminate praise for an obvious reason, and like all such people is certain to get very little himself from his critics. The book no doubt sells, and will probably stimulate a desire to read the authentic histories which will in due season appear, and of which Wm. Swinton's History of the Army of the Potomac (not without its faults) is a specimen. We expect a first-cla.s.s scientific History of the War. Major-General Schofield is the man to write it, when the proper time arrives.

POETRY, LYRICAL, NARRATIVE, AND SATIRICAL, OF THE CIVIL WAR.

Selected and edited by Richard Grant White. 12mo, pp. 384. American News Co.

Mr. White's preface to this volume of selected poetry is the best criticism which the book could have, and is an exhaustive and elegant essay. It is a remarkably complete collection of the pieces which have appeared from time to time in the progress of the war. The value of such a work is in its completeness less than in the merits of the compositions selected. We should be glad to see another edition, containing some which have been overlooked or omitted. The value of such a collection increases with time, and it will be eagerly sought for and highly prized when the hateful, painful, and commonplace features of the struggle have softened into the elements of pleasing reminiscence and romance, and become the incentives to heroism and patriotism to unborn children.

A TEXT BOOK ON PHYSIOLOGY.

For the use of Schools and Colleges, being an Abridgement of the author's larger work on Human Physiology. By John William Draper, M.D., LL.D., author of A Treatise on Human Physiology, and A History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, etc. 12mo, pp. 376. Harper & Brothers, 1866.

A TEXT BOOK ON CHEMISTRY.

For the use of Schools and Colleges. By Henry Draper, M.D., Professor Adjunct of Chemistry and Natural History in the University of New York. 12mo, pp. 507. Harper & Brothers. 1866.

The Drapers, father and sons, present the rare example in this materialistic age and most materialistic city, of a whole family devoted to literary and scientific pursuits, and working in that harmony which the sincere and loyal pursuit of science is sure to produce. Although we have had occasion to differ with Professor Draper in his philosophical and some of his political deductions, we admire his intellect and attainments, and in the purely scientific order consider him ent.i.tled to the highest consideration and respect. He is a close student and an original observer, and we believe him ardently and faithfully devoted to the ascertainment of exact scientific truth.

His sons are men of great promise, and have already done more in their short lives in the respective departments of natural science than many of twice their age.

Catholicity courts scientific investigation and verification in every department of inquiry, and delights to honor all men who devote their lives to these self-denying labors. There is, so to speak, a sanct.i.ty of science. Science inevitably tends toward religion, and is the most powerful safeguard of society and civilization next to religion.

The two manuals whose t.i.tles are given above are excellent of their kind, and we cordially recommend them to our schools and colleges.