were far more attractive in the eyes of those whom we may presume they are anxious to please, when clad in modest, becoming, and suitable raiment. I remember well, when years ago I lived on the shores of Carlingford Lough, being much struck with the simple, comfortable, and altogether becoming costume, home-made, of the peasant girls in that part of the country; and I cannot help thinking how much more becoming, and even more picturesquely effective, not to say more æsthetically correct, such a style was than any that depended either wholly or in part on the ingenuity and skill of the town milliner. In Lurgan the loom workers, veiners, or stitchers, and what not-for I cannot pretend to specify all the different departments of the trade-seem to me to display a by no means commendable taste when they dress themselves out in gaudy prints, with hats decorated with immense feathers, and their entire persons so tricked out in gewgaws of various sorts as to make them ridiculous and not always very sightly persons.

"I am sorry that the necessities of the position I this evening occupy render it requisite for me to deal with some phases and habits of our people neither encouraging nor satisfactory. Happily, however, whenever we return to it, and in whatever way we regard it, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul offers something to stimulate and direct us. Among the various other measures by which the Fathers and Brothers of the Society try to benefit those under their charge, is the inculcation of temperance principles. They insist on the practice of temperance, not teetotalism, but of that rational moderation which naturally commends itself to good sense. I am not myself a teetotaler, but for several years of my life, when I was working very hard, and when every energy was taxed to its utmost, I drank no alcoholic stimulant, and, judging by experience, I have come to the conclusion I can get more and better work out of myself when I abstain entirely from intoxicants. For eight of the hardest working years of my life I never touched a drop of any intoxicating liquor, and I am now constrained to confess that I never during all that time felt the least want of it."

FOR THEE!

May all I feel

And think and do and say

Bear this for seal :

Mi Deus, propter Te.

NOTES ON NEW BOOKS

1. The Life of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and of His Virgin Mother Mary. Translated by the Rev. Richard Brennan, LL.D. New York: Benziger Brothers. (Price £2.)

This is probably the weightiest and the most sumptuous volume that has ever lain on our review table. It is a splendid trophy of the printer's art; and the stout binding, with its brilliant red and gold which are modern, remind one of the indestructible boards which enshrine some ancient folios. The work is worthy of such a splendid setting, with which indeed we ought to have linked the thirty-two full-page pictures by Feuerstein and the innumerable illustrations in the text. The original work by L. C. Businger is most solid and instructive, giving much more than the title promises: for it contains not only a full and accurate account of our Saviour's life, but instructs the reader on all the points of Catholic belief, beginning with a narrative of God's dealings with man since the creation. It is in itself a whole library of religious literature. High as is the price placed upon it, it will require a vast circulation to make a due return for the capital that the spirited publishers must have invested in this single tome.

2. Waters that go Softly, or Thoughts for time of Retreat. By Joseph Rickaby, S.J. London: Burns and Oates. (Price 2s. 6d.)

The title of this book is hardly justified by the reference to Isaias viii. 6, of which the Douay version is not given; but the book itself is fresh and original and full of stimulating thought, often condensed into an epigram both spiritual and spirituel. Father Rickaby is very strong in unhackneyed quotations, pressing into service Shakespeare and even Bunyan, but especially Aristotle and Plato. These last will often have for the ordinary reader very little of the power that they have for the author himself, much less than that fine sentence from St. Leo which is so skilfully translated at page 62. But the readers who will derive most pleasure and profit from Father Rickaby's Thoughts for time of Retreat are those who have made the Exercitia Spiritualia of St. Ignatius their special study.

3. The Mystery of Cleverly. A Story for Boys. By George Barton. Benziger Brothers: New York, Cincinnati, Chicago. (Price 38. net.)

Another of the wholesome, spirited stories that American Catholic writers are giving us. We think Mr. Barton's name has

This

only appeared in connexion with short stories hitherto. is a book of considerably more than two hundred pages. The plot is very well managed, and the style is brisk and unaffected. The life of a journalist in New York is described pretty minutely. Everything winds up most satisfactorily in the last chapter. which gathers into one merry scene the five or six people that we are interested in. We have tried to suppress a painfully obvious pun, but it must out at last-Mr. Barton unravels the "Mystery" cleverly.

4. St. Brigid, Patroness of Ireland. By the Rev. J. A. Knowles, O.S.A. Dublin: Browne and Nolan, Ltd. (Price 2s. 6d. net.)

This is the fullest account that has yet appeared of the Mary of Erin. It seems to have been written on the occasion of the centenary of the foundation of the Sisters of St. Brigid, which was duly celebrated this year. No portion of the book is more interesting or more edifying than the last sixty pages, which give a full account of the Order of Brigidines and of their Founder, Dr. Daniel Delaney, Bishop of Kildare, at the beginning of the last century. Pictures are given of their convents in Tullow, Mountrath, Abbeyleix, and Goresbridge, and of the five or six convents of the Order in Australia, where it flourishes. There is so rigorous an abstention from notes, and the references are given so briefly that these might well have been placed at the foot of the page, instead of being hidden away at the end. We already owed Father Knowles thanks for his history of Fethard and its Abbey. He has now done his duty well as biographer of St. Brigid. So large and handsome a volume is cheap at half-a-crown.

5. The Licensed Trade. An Independent Survey. By Edwin A. Platt. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street (Price 5s. net.)

It is not clear what meaning is to be attached to the word "independent" in this title-page, but the independence at least does not exclude a determined partizanship in favour of those who sell intoxcating drinks on such a tremendous scale that their business is called-not par excellence-" the Trade." Holding a brief for the Trade, Mr. Platt is conveniently forgetful of the medical evidence about the destructive influence of alcoholic drinks on many who do not compromise themselves publicly and who would not be pointed to as instances of the abuse of drink. We greatly prefer the scientific testimony to be found in such books as that which we noticed in May (antea, page 291), The Drink Problem in its Medico-Sociological Aspects, by Fourteen Medical Authorities (Methuen & Co., London).

6. The Eloquent Dempsey. A Comedy in Three Acts. By William Boyle. Dublin: O'Donoghue & Co., 15, Hume Street. (Price Is. net.)

Mr. Boyle did himself credit lately by withdrawing his plays from a certain theatrical company which had drawn upon itself much angry censure by exhibiting what seems to have been an atrocious travesty of Irish life and character. What must it have been when Mr. Boyle's own play appears to us not quite free from blame in the same direction? Of course comedy must fasten on comic incidents, and must deal with comic characters; but we think the dramatist could amuse us and make us laugh while giving a better impression of our people. But there are "eloquent Dempseys" in real life, and the type is here caricatured very cleverly.

7. B. Herder of St. Louis, Missouri, and Freiburg, Germany, has published, at gd., two paper-covered books far more solid and valuable than many pretentious volumes. They are both by the Rev. Bernard Otten, S.J., Professor of Philosophy in St. Louis University. What Need is there for Religion? A Plain Statement of the Reasons for Religion and its Practice, and then, Why Should I Believe? A Brief Statement of the Reasons Reasons for the Truth of Supernatural Religion. These are not mere popular tracts, but solid, wellreasoned treatises which require thought and study from their reader, and which will, we hope, fall into the hands of a great number of thoughtful readers on both sides of the Atlantic. Father Otton writes with a special view to the needs of the men of his own country; but there are very many in Ireland who will profit equally by the study of his excellent little treatises. The same publisher has issued an edition, adapted for stage purposes, of the morality play, Everyman, which has recently been performed with great reverence and impressiveness. This edition consists of only 36 pages, yet the price is a shilling-probably because a limited circulation is anticipated. Yet it is more interesting than the mere text of most plays.

8. Madame Rose Lummis. By Delia Gleeson. London: Burns and Oates. New York: Benziger. (Price 2s. 6d. net.)

This must be singled out from the large number of edifying biographies that are added year by year to Catholic literature. It is a book of quite exceptional charm and interest, both on account of the character of the woman whose story is told, and on account of the skilful simplicity of the telling. It was hardly judicious to let Madame be the first word of the title, for it may make the reader imagine that Miss Rose Lummis is translated

from the French." She belonged to a wealthy and cultivated set of people who were pure Americans. She won her way into the Catholic Church as a girl with hardly any human assistance. She became an incurable invalid early in life; but, as she thus could not become a Religious of the Sacred Heart, she was received in some way as an external associate and did an immense amount of good work in different parts of the United States, gathering Catholics together and establishing small missions in several districts where Catholicity had before been unknown. Her entire time and means, and the time and means of as many others, Catholics and Protestants, as she could influence, were devoted to the service of religion and the poor. Miss Delia Gleeson was closely united with her in her later years, and has given here a very skilful and tenderly sympathetic sketch of a delightful and saintly soul. But why does she give no dates? Madame Lummis died recently enough to be amused on her deathbed by a chapter of My New Curate. Miss Gleeson is so unconventional as to throw her preface into the form of a poem -which would have looked better if divided into five stanzas of four lines each. If the third line were altered into " I said, 'No flowers it yields,'" the one solitary break in the rhyme-scheme would be got rid of.

9. The Life of St. Humphrey (St. Onofrius) Hermit, by the Abbot Paphnutius. Translated by Dean Kavanagh. London : Burns and Oates. (Price 2s. net.)

This very slim and dainty octavo consists of forty pages, which would have borne well the addition of a few pages of preface, proving among other matters that "Onofrius" is "Humphrey." If it is, it escaped the compiler of Nomina Patrum et Fratrum qui Societatem Jesu ingressi in eâ supremum diem obierunt 1814-1894, for Father Humphrey Donovan, who was born in 1807 and died in 1848, is called here "Pater Humphredus Donovan."

10. M. H. Gill & Son, Dublin, have "designed, printed, and published" a large sheet, very beautifully ornamented, and meant to be framed and hung up in the house of a member of the AntiTreating League of St. Patrick. The arguments against this fruitful cause of intemperance are stated very briefly and forcibly, and in this form they will, please God, induce many to sign the pledge which is given at the bottom of the sheet.

II. Messrs. Burns and Oates are the publishers of On Christmas Eve A Domestic Play for Children, by Annie D. Scott, which seems to us very much above the average of such things in literary and dramatic merit. The writer's name is quite new