pleasant reading than they do at present. After all, we tire of a crowd of “awfully wicked” people, going through all their wickedness for our special edification and instruction. Miss Hooper’s translation is excellent. THE CHURCH AND THE GENTILE WORLD AT THE FIRST PROMULGATION OF THE GOSPEL. Considerations on the Catholicity of the Church soon after her Birth. By the Rev. Aug. J. Thébaud, S.J. Vol. I. New York: Peter F. Collier. 1878. We can do no more now than acknowledge the receipt of advance sheets of this first volume of a work that promises to be one of great value and importance. Father Thébaud needs no introduction to our readers. He is known to them as a man of wide and accurate knowledge, keen observation, and deep thought. These qualities are not conceded to him idly and for the sake of saying something graceful. They are too rare in these days, and are still more rarely found united in one person. Nothing, then, that comes from the pen of this learned Jesuit can be thought unworthy of careful attention by an intelligent Catholic reader. The title of the present volume gives some indication of the scope and aim of the work. These are still further set forth in the following words, which we quote from the preface: “Her (the church’s) expansion took place instantaneously, as soon as the apostles began to preach. Thenceforth her universal sway on earth began, never to end until the last day, when she will be transferred to heaven. The whole world at the time was comprised in the three old continents. It is doubtful if there were already on this western hemisphere any of the nations which were found in it when it was discovered by Europeans at the end of the fifteenth century.... The church, therefore, became at once universal if she filled the greatest part of the old world, and subdued the chief nations that inhabited it. It can be proved at this time that her conquests in Asia went much further than was for a long time believed, and that she was rapidly spreading toward the Eastern ocean when Moslem fanaticism arrested her in her career. A like result follows an attentive study of her early progress in the interior of Africa. Of Europe all concede that she rapidly attained the leadership, and that she was afterwards mainly instrumental in giving birth to European civilization.