VI.-1. The History of Mary, Queen of Scots. By F. A. MIGNET, Member of the Institute, &c. 2. The Westminster Review, No. CXI. (Art. "Mary Stuart.") London: John Chapman, 1852. VII. An Account of the Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland, and Ireland. By J. J. A. WORSAAE. For F. S. A. London, a Royal Commissioner for the pre- servation of the National Monuments of Denmark; VIII.-Lectures on the Present Position of Catholicism in Eng- land, by JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D., Priest of the Con- I.-The Practical Working of the Church in Spain. By the ... ... 289 II. Letters to a Seceder from the Church of England to the Communion of Rome. By W. E. SCUDAMORE, M.A. Rector of Ditchingham, and late Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. London: Rivingtons, 1851. III.-Sophisms of Free Trade and Popular Political Economy Examined. By JOHN BARNARD BYLES, Serjeant at V. Journal of a Tour in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Greece; with Notes, and an Appendix on Ecclesiastical Sub- VI.-1. Miss Sellon and the Sisters of Mercy. An Exposure of the Constitution, Rules, Religious Views, and Practical Working of their Society, obtained through a "Sister" who has recently seceded. By the Rev. JAMES SPURRELL, A.M., Vicar of Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire. (Fourteenth Thousand.) London: 2. A Reply to a Tract by the Rev. James Spurrell, containing certain charges concerning the Society of the Sisters of Mercy of Devonport aud Plymouth. 3. A Letter to Miss Sellon, Superior of the Society of Sisters of Mercy, Plymouth. By HENRY, LORD BISHOP OF EXETER. London: Murray, 1852. 4. A Rejoinder to the Reply of the Superior of the Society of the Sisters of Mercy of Devonport and Plymouth, to a pamphlet entitled Miss Sellon. &c., by the Rev. JAMES SPURRELL, A.M., Vicar of Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire. By the Same. Second Edition. London: Hatchard, 1852. 5. Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Misery; or, Miss Sellon in the Family: with some Remarks on a Reply to the Rev. James Spurrell, &c. By the Rev. W. M. COLLES, A.B., Curate of Melton Mowbray. Third Edition. London: Hatchard. 1852. 6. Miss Sellon and the Sisters of Mercy. Further Statement of the Rules, Constitution, and Working of the Society called "The Sisters of Mercy;" together with an exact Review of Miss Sellon's Reply. By DIANA A. G. CAMPBELL, a Novice lately VII.—Life of Lord Jeffrey, with a Selection from his Corres- pondence. By LORD COCKBURN, one of the Judges 464 ... VIII.-A Manual of Ecclesiastical History from the First to THE DUBLIN REVIEW. MARCH, 1852. ART. I.-Etudes Philosophiques sur le Christianisme. Par AUGUSTE NICHOLAS, Jugue de Paix. Ancien Avocat à la Cour Royale de Bordeaux. 2 vols. Troisieme edition, Bruxelles, 1849. AT no former time have the Christian evidences as sumed a bolder front, occupied a wider field, or been in a more solid and compact array, than in the present age. The literary and scientific labours of the nineteenth century have been overthrowing, in succession, all the Anti-Christian theories of the preceding age. The various sciences, physical as well as moral, have been returning, one by one, to minister to their Divine Queen, from whom alone they can derive dignity and permanent support. Geology and Physics prove the order of creation as related by Moses; Physiology the descent of mankind from one couple; Philology the original unity and subsequent disrupture in human language. Ethnography in its progress testifies more and more to that primeval division of mankind into three great races, as recorded in the Mosaic genealogy of nations; while the labours of archæology in deciphering the mysterious monuments, and bringing to light the buried remains of primitive nations, more or less connected with the people of God, corroborate to a remarkable extent the historic and chronological statements of Holy Writ. The religious traditions of VOL. XXXII.-No. LXIII. Heathenism, in every age and clime, investigated with more diligence, and in a more critical and philosophic spirit than in former times, have served to give the most brilliant confirmation to the truths of Revelation, and the records of sacred history. Even the recent researches into the authenticity of the Gospels, provoked by the assaults of Strauss and his impious school, who had ascribed a mythic origin to Christianity, have but brought into clearer prominence the substantial reality-the historic truthfulness of those sacred writings.* The evidences of religion can wonderfully adapt themselves to various degrees of intellectual culture, to various classes of life, to various habits and tempers of mind, and to various epochs of society. We must not suppose that it is the learned alone who can show a reasonable obedience, or who can give a reason for the faith that is in them. The educated of course, according to the measure of their talents and information, take a wider survey, and possess a deeper insight into the truths of Revelation; but independently of the gift of faith, those truths often come home to the reason of the vulgar uneducated mind. An unlettered peasant could not of course, like Clarke or Fénélon, give an elaborate demonstration of the being of a God; but the enunciations of Revelation, and the testimony of reason and conscience on that fundamental article of all belief, he could prove after his own homely fashion. An illiterate Arab was once asked, how he felt assured of the existence of God. "In the same manner," he replied, "as I know by the foot-prints on the sand, that a man or a beast has there passed by." So an unlearned Catholic -one who has received no more than an elementary instruction in his religion, when he sees a confirmed libertine, or an habitual drunkard (difficult as is conversion in the latter case especially), suddenly reclaimed by the sacrament of Penance, will here discern a palpable proof of the divinity of his faith. So the ineffable consolations which such a Catholic experiences in the reception of the Eucharist, and even the interior illuminations he receives in See in particular the very learned work Das Leben Christi, "The Life of Christ," in 7 vols. By Dr. J. N. Sepp, with a preface by Görres. † See Voyage en Arabie, par M. Darrieux. |