tainable, we cordially recommend to the young Catholic, whose route it may serve, to study well previous to setting out on that most profitable and delightful course of study-foreign travel.

His treatise on the moveable Feasts and Festivals was reprinted about two years ago. Though a posthumous work, it is most excellent -full of learning and piety-and when we rise from its perusal, our only regret is that the gifted author lived not to complete it. In like manner, the work now before us is also posthumous; the greater part are as they were delivered from the pulpit by the pious author, but if any thing be wanting in polish it is amply made up for by the additional simplicity acquired thereby. This edition has been carefully revised and arranged by Dr. Lanigan, to whom, and Mr. Duffy, the Catholic public owe no small thanks. The three volumes of the original are here comprised in one, and five hundred and twenty-eight closely printed pages, are sold at so moderate a charge as to put it within the compass of nearly all.

We cordially recommend the above work to the notice of all Catholic masters and mistresses; for learned though he were, we know of no one who could clothe the plain duties of life, and the holy maxims of our faith in more seemly and becoming language, suited at once to the wants and capacities of all, both learned and simple. We would gladly have this work in the hands of many, for we are sure that it would add much to the love both of the precepts and practice of what the faith requires, and that a lifetime of pious entertainment and improvement on Sundays and festivals might be profitably spent in poring over these unassuming discourses and instructions. Many a happy hour now, and many a happy day as life draws on to its close, would reward those who thus spend the evening of those days set apart by the Church for such like employment; and as the first catechism tells us to spend the Sundays and holidays, not only in hearing mass and going to the sacraments, but also in reading good books, so we would remind all parents to set a good example by doing what they teach their children they ought to do; and let them take our vouching for it, they will never have cause to regret the time as misspent, which they devoted to the conning over with their families the plain but delightful pages of Alban Butler's Discourses.

163

MOHLER'S LIFE OF ST. ANSELM.

St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury. A contribution to a knowledge of the moral, ecclesiastical, and literary life of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Translated from the German of the late J. A. Möhler, D.D. &c. &c. &c. by Henry Rymer, Student of St. Edmund's College, Old Hall Green. London, T. Jones, 1842.

THE appearance of this little work in English, we cannot help thinking very opportune at the present moment, when so many eyes are turned back upon past ages, in order to examine whether or no they agree with the portraits which have been so generally exhibited as theirs, but of which the accuracy is now doubted. The more that is known of the calumniated Middle Ages, the stronger will be the conviction that to the Church we owe everything whatsoever of learning and civilisation that we possess. To this end, we expect this account of the great prelate of Canterbury to contribute not a little. It shows how deeply the great men of those times studied all branches, not only of sacred but also of profane learning; not as a profession, or a means of making a livelihood, but for the glory of God; and how this motive enabled those faithful soldiers of Christ to spend their days and nights in labour, and supported them through years of toil and danger, combating against the world for the salvation of souls! Our author gives us a fearful picture of the state of the Church in this country, when the tyrant William Rufus was reluctantly prevailed upon to call Anselm to its primacy. The firmness and constancy with which he stood for the right against William and Henry, must be the admiration of all ages so long as learning, virtue, and religion shall be esteemed. We recommend the book to our readers, most confidently promising them both pleasure and profit in its perusal.

NOTICE OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHANNES THAULERUS, OF THE ORDER OF ST. DOMINIC.*

THE life of a good religious is soon told, if we measure our interest by the standard of stirring events, and changeful action. To the world, or to such as seek for the above, his life closes when he has taken his vows, and given himself to the solitude and seclusion of the cloister; but it is far otherwise with those who are wont to make the heart of man their book of history, and to trace in its growing purity and elevation, the one great end for which Almighty God vouchsafed us being. To such, the busy strifes of the world afford opposition, not advancement, like rocks in a mountain torrent, their obstruction seems, by the turmoil, to cause the troubled waters to rush more headlong on, all the while it retards their progress, and keeps them back from the green and tranquil meadow, to waste their energies in idle foam.

But how goodly and serene are the pastures, where, apart from man, and in converse only with God, the soul woos her spouse, and holds divine intercourse with him, in the practice of the monastic virtues. In the solemnity of the holy office, and the long watchings in the cloister chapel, the seeds of contemplation are cast on the good soil, and ripen by devout meditation into wondrous fruit of purity and faith. As St. Bernard confessed, he never had any other master in divine learning but the oaks and beeches of the forest. "For that spiritual learning," says Alban Butler, "was a gift of the Holy Ghost, obtained by his extraordinary purity of heart, and assiduous meditation and prayer." (In Aug. 20.) And as in the silence and shade of old ancestral trees, so in the seclusion of the monastic life, the contemplative heart gathers rich fruit, and becomes every day more assimulated to that perfection, which the daily office sets before them, not in signs only and in symbols, but conjointly with these in all the variety which humanity requires, in very deed through the especial presence in the divine sacrament of the altar.

* Authorities.-Jacobi Quetif et Jacobi Echard, Scriptores Ordinis Prædicatorum, 2 vol. folio, vol. 1. p. 677, in Vitâ Tauleri, and vol. 2. p. 811, necnon in Vitâ Joannis Tambachi. vol. 1. p. 667.-Touron, Histoire des Hommes Illustres de l'Ord, S. Dom. tom 3. p. 437, and Seq: Cave Script: Eccles: Hist. Lit. 1. 44. A. (follows the error of Surius). Historia et Enarratio Vitæ sublimis ac illuminati Theologi D. Joannis Thauleri. passim p. 1 to 48.

When we look back on the history of the Church, and open any of the annals of the monastic orders, the first reflection that must strike us is this; that there, unknown to men, but known to God, have flourished innumerable souls, that have been gathered out of this weary world, and made suitable for a better life. For there we may aptly apply with Mabillon, the inspired writings of the Evangelic Prophet, and say, that in the day of Christ, "The land that was desolate and impassable shall be glad, and the wilderness shall rejoice, and shall flourish like the lily. It shall bud and blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and praise," (Isaia. v. 8), and that which was dry land, shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water, in the dens where dragons dwelt before, shall rise up the verdure of the reed and the bulrush." (Ibid. v. 8.) "The desert shall be as Carmel, and Carmel shall be counted for a forest.” (Ibid. xxxii. 15.) And again, wherein the efficient cause of this marvellous change, is so sweetly foreshown. "The Lord their God will save them in that day, as the flock of his people; for holy stones shall be lifted up over his land. For what is the good thing of Him, and what is his beautiful thing, but the CORN of the elect, and WINE springing forth VIRGINS." (Zach. ix. 11.) Surely in the sweet serenity of the monastic institute, as well as in the holy Christian priesthood, we see these prophecies fulfilled, and the heart that has all its strings tuned in accordance with the Catholic Church, may well exclaim with the spouse, "Fulcite me floribus, stipate me malis-quia amore langueo." (Cant. ii. 5). “Flores apparuerunt in terra nostra, tempus putationis advenit; vox turturis audita est in terra nostra; Ficus protulit grossos suos: Vineæ florentes dederunt odorem suum. Surge, amica, speciosa mea, et veni." (Id. v. 12.) "Inveni QUEM diligit anima mea.” (Ibid. iii. 4.) "Stay me up with flowers, compass me about with apples; because I languish with love." "The flowers have appeared in our land, the time of pruning is come; the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; the fig-tree hath figs; the vines in flower yield their sweet smell.

put forth her green Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come;" "for I have found HIM whom my soul loveth."

It is well in this country that we should often recall the remembrance of this holy institute, seeing that we are comparatively, shall we say, considering our few instances, wholly, strangers to the living cloister; and yet, thank God, there is a strong feeling, even among our separated brethren, that longs after those higher virtues, which they are now as ready as ourselves to confess, perhaps more ready to

admire, and full as willing to practice. It is well, then, to recall them often before our eyes, for, though the evangelical counsels can be followed but by a few, yet all even of those who would live well in the world, are at least bound to follow them in spirit, and to raise their lives, by a certain leaven of the monastic rule; and, by so acting, we shall, in a measure, smooth the way for its more frequent introduction amongst us, and be instrumental in the good fruits which are sure to follow in its wake.

The life of Johannes Thaulerus, like the type of a good religious, is not varied by any striking or stirring adventure; it is to be traced more in his writings than in incident, for it is the biography of contemplation rather than of action. The facts of his life are few and meagre. Of his early history we know nothing. Even to the dates. of his birth and death, we can only come by an approximation; and when we say that he was by birth a German, a monk of the Dominican order, that he flourished in the fourteenth century, and spoke in moving tones from the chair of truth at Strasburg, and perhaps at Cologne and other places, we have nearly told the little all that is known of the incidents of the life of one, whose devout writings have had a great effect on the religious mind of Germany, and whose Meditations on the Life of Christ, have been translated into most of the modern continental languages, and all of which have ever been looked upon as solid, pious, edifying, and devotional.

Yet there is one incident in his life certainly curious in itself, and which having been circulated in the popular pages of Touron, requires that we should briefly notice, were it only that we might subscribe our opinion to the judicious Quetif and Echard, who view it in the light of a parable, and not as an historical fact, and who produce internal evidence, which we shall notice hereafter, amply sufficient to shake our credibility in the narrative, without requiring us to draw on the anti-Catholic unlikeliness of lay agency being employed in so grave and spiritual a matter.

According to this legend, Thaulerus, after travelling to Paris, returned and took his doctor's degree in the university of Cologne, where, and in Strasburg, he was appointed by his superiors, to exercise his faculties in public preaching. In both cities his eloquence, learning, and energetic language, caused him to be much sought after as a zealous and powerful teacher, and such in a short time was his fame, that persons of the highest rank flocked to hear him, and place themselves under his spiritual direction. But, nevertheless, Thaulerus