The Catholic World, Vol. 03, April to September, 1866Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 03, April to September, 1866
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
Mr. H. T. Tuckerman is a man of letters, and we thought he would not
be likely to put his name to anything discreditable to an enlightened
author; but, to judge from many things in the above production, we
think he has missed his vocation, and would find more appropriate
employment as a contributor to the publications of the American Tract
Society, or the magazine put forth, monthly, by the "Foreign and
Christian Union." Else, why is every pope "shrewd," every priest an
"incarnation of fiery zeal?" why "the lonely existence and the subtle
eye of the Catholic?" why "the medical Jesuit, who, like his religious
prototype, operates through the female branches, and thus controls the
heads of families, regulating their domestic arrangements, etc.?" why
"Bloody Mary" and "Rom_ish?_" why is "superstition the usual trait of
Romanists?" and this: "One may pace the chaste aisles of the
Madeleine, and feel his devotion stirred, perhaps, by the dark
catafalque awaiting the dead in the centre of the spacious floor; and
then what to him is the doctrine of transubstantiation?" (!) We are
truly sorry to see these indications of a spirit with which we think
the author will find very little sympathy outside the clique of
benighted readers of the publications above quoted.
{144}
CHRIST THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.
By C. J. Vaughan, D.D., Vicar of Doncaster. 18mo., pp. 269. Alexander
Strahan, London and New York. 1865.
This beautiful little volume contains twelve sermons, or rather
religious essays, written in a pleasing style, but altogether too
lengthy and too exhaustive in character. We have no doubt but that the
author is a good preacher, and if these essays were ever preached by
him as sermons, they were listened to with pleasure. But in their
present shape, enlarged, systematized, and--shall we say--almost too
carefully prepared for the press, they are a little tiresome. One
feels in reading them how much the naturalness, as well as the
elegance of diction, is marred by the vague evangelical phraseology,
"coming to Christ," "laying hold on Christ," etc., which occurs so
constantly in these pages. The author, being a Low Evangelical
Churchman, gives us, of course, "justification by faith" and the
Calvinistic view of the Fall. Yet, in the latter half of the volume he
seems to speak more like one who imagines that man has something to do
for his own justification, and takes a higher and nobler view of
humanity. We give the following passage from the last sermon, entitled
"Cast out and found," as a good specimen of what we should call
practical preaching. "When Jesus found him, he said unto him. Dost
thou believe on the Son of God? 'Thou!' The word is emphatic in the
original, 'Thou--believest thou?' We are glad to escape into the
crowd, and shelter ourselves behind a church's confession. But a day
is coming, in which nothing but an individual faith will carry with it
either strength or comfort. It will be idle to say in a moment of keen
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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