GOD OUR FATHER. By a Father of the Society of Jesus, author of _The Happiness of Heaven_. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1873. After reading this little book, we felt an ardent desire to tell everybody we had found a treasure. Its title, a rather unusual thing nowadays, is the true exponent of its contents. That God is our Father—our kind, indulgent, beneficent, merciful, loving Father—it proves as we have never seen proved before. We do think, if Voltaire had seen this little treatise, he would not have called God a “tyrant and the father of tyrants,” and he, Voltaire, would not have been a fool and the father of a generation of fools. Some Christians other than Calvinists are accustomed to regard God as a stern judge or an exacting master, ignoring altogether his parental relationship. This way of regarding God not unfrequently produces a morbid spirituality, if not worse. Under its baneful influence, the soul is parched up and rendered incapable of any other sentiment than that of fear. It is true that “fear is the beginning of wisdom”; but it is no less true that “love is the fulfilment of the law” and the sublime summary of the new dispensation. And who can love a being whom he sees only in the light of a stern judge, an exacting master? God, as he is represented in this work, is a being whom you cannot but love. In very truth, the author himself must love much, or he could never write so eloquently of divine love. To all Catholics who look with a filial confidence to God, and love him as their Father, we recommend this book as a means of strengthening their confidence and increasing their love. To those Catholics, happily few, who see in God only a rigid master, we prescribe the perusal of this work as the best remedy for their dangerous disease. To our separated brethren, who want to get a Christian idea of our common Father, we would respectfully suggest the careful study of this treatise; they will find it sufficiently scriptural and sufficiently simple for their tastes. We cannot, perhaps, pay the publishers a higher compliment than by saying that the setting is in every way worthy of the gem. LECTURES ON THE PRINCIPAL DOCTRINES AND PRACTICES OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. By Cardinal Wiseman. New York: P. O’Shea. These two volumes belong to the uniform series of Cardinal Wiseman’s works now being issued by Mr. O’Shea, and, as we understand, are printed from the same plates as the one-volume edition heretofore issued by Kelly, Piet & Co. It is a strong evidence of the permanent interest which attaches to Catholic doctrine—the faith ever ancient, ever new—that these lectures are read now with almost equal avidity with that which greeted their appearance almost forty years ago, while as many weeks suffice to lay on the shelf the productions of many a popular preacher of the day.