of his diocese. He relieved the poor, paid especial attention to the education and training of the young, and finally crowned his well-spent life with the erection of that noble monument to his love of learning and his zeal for his people, the College of the Holy Cross, at Worcester, destined to be, if the youngest, yet the first, of the noble literary institutions of New England, and where the grateful student long shall kneel at his tomb, and pray that he may be like him, and his last end like his. His remains, on the Thursday after his death, were carried in procession, an immense concourse of people following, from the Cathedral of the Holy Cross to the railroad depot, from there on the cars to the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, where they were deposited agreeably to his wish and his special request. Requiescat in pace. Take him all in all he was such a man as Heaven seldom vouchsafes us. It will be long before we look upon his like again. But he has been ours; he has left his light along our pathways; he has blessed us all by his pure example and his labors of love, and we are thankful. We bless God that he gave him to us; we bless God that he has seen fit to remove him from his labors to his rest. Our whole city Not Catholics alone wept his removal. seemed to feel that one of her firmest supports was taken away. Religious differences and prejudices for the moment were hushed, for it was felt that God was speaking. The conduct of our citizens during his sickness and the funeral obsequies was what we expected from Bostonians, and induced many a regret that they are not more generally members of that Church which alone can exalt their proverbial philanthropy into charity, and give to their benevolence and energy a direction safe for themselves and glorious for humanity. Bishop Fenwick is succeeded by his former coadjutor, the Right Reverend John Bernard Fitzpatrick, a native Bostonian, born November 1, 1812. He received his early education in the public schools of this city; he made his humanities and philosophy at Montreal, Canada, and his theology at the Seminary of St. Sulpice, Paris. He was selected by Bishop Fenwick to succeed him, and we may be permitted to trust that not all of the father we have lost will disappear in the one we have found. Long may his life be spared to us, and, when called to the reward of his labors, may he be followed by the tears and benedictions of his people! The Church is now firmly established in this diocese; the principal obstacles have been overcome; and its course will be constantly onward, if Catholics are only careful to practise the requirements of their holy religion. ART. VI. Thornberry Abbey: a Tale of the Times. New THIS makes the fourth number of Dunigan's Home Library, and, as a literary production, is the most finished of any number of the series which has yet appeared. It is reprinted from an English work, founded on incidents supplied by the recent extraordinary movement in the Anglican Establishment. Though we take a deep interest in our own literature, and are ready to welcome any work of merit from an American author, we think Mr. Dunigan has done well to depart from his original intention, of confining himself to domestic productions, and to include this interesting tale in his series of works for popular reading. Mr. Dunigan is one of our most liberal and enterprising publishers, and he has a laudable desire to encourage native talent, and to call forth a domestic literature for the Catholic public; but we are inclined to think his attempt somewhat premature. For the present, better works, works far better adapted to nourish and strengthen the Catholic life, may be obtained from Ireland and England, or by translation from the French and German, Italian and Spanish, than we can ourselves produce. The time is not distant when we may engage in the work of producing a national literature in earnest and with success. There is to be an American literature which will compare favorably, and more than favorably, with the most admired literatures of the world, and this literature is to be the product of Catholic America. The present national literature is virtually infidel, and must be shortlived; Protestantism, which is a reaction against Christianity, must soon burst and vanish in thin air, with its works; modern civilization, as distinguished from the ancient Greek and Roman, is Christian, has been the work of the Church, and is informed with the Catholic spirit, and will not assimilate to itself what is not Catholic. It may receive it as an indigestible mass for a time, but must, sooner or later, expel it as a foreign substance. The heathen and the utmost parts of the earth are given to our Lord for his inheritance and possession, and no attempt to wrest them from him will succeed. They must all come under his law. Catholicity is the only living or lifegiving principle in the world, and no national literature not Catholic can really flourish, and attain a permanent growth, or a respectable rank among the living literatures of the world. There need be no question, then, as to the fact that Catholic America will be the author of our national literature. This we look upon as settled. But, at present, we are not in the condition to make any important contributions to this national literature. National literature is the expression of the national life, and follows the formation of the national character. The Greek character preceded Greek literature, and the Roman character was fixed centuries before there was a Roman literature. Our national character is not yet formed. What we term our national character is merely provisional, and will disappear, or be essentially modified, when the mass of our people cease to be Protestants and infidels, and place themselves in harmony with Christian civilization. The real American character is yet to be formed, and to be formed under Catholic influences. It is to Catholic America we are to look; for it alone is living and has the promise of the future; and Catholic America as yet hardly exists. Our Catholic population is not yet homogeneous, has no common national character. It is Irish, French, German, and each division retains the national peculiarities of the country from which it has emigrated. There has been, as yet, no time to melt down the mass, and combine its separate elements in a new national character, neither Irish, nor French, nor German, but composed of the real excellences of each. The portion descended from the early American settlers are themselves as far as either of the others from possessing what is to be, ultimately, the American character; for, as to their social habits, literary tastes, their general culture, as to all, in fact, not strictly of faith, they are Protestant rather than Catholic. Now, till this fusion takes place, till national diversities and peculiarities lose themselves in one common national character, with common habits, views, tastes, and feelings, we have not the indispensable conditions of a national literature. The native American portion demand a literature which smacks of the provisional national character; the Irish require their national tastes and peculiarities to be addressed; and the French and Germans cannot be pleased to have theirs neglected. All this is natural and inevitable. It implies no reproach to one or to another. Nobody can blame the German because his affections cluster around his fatherland, and his heart is moved by the songs of the Rhine, as it cannot be by those of the Ohio and the Mississippi; the Irishman is not censurable because his heart turns to "the Green Isle of the Ocean," all the dearer from the memory of her wrongs, and because no strains can touch him like those to which he listened in his childhood; nor any more the native American for finding dearest to him those accents which soothed him in the caresses of his mother. Cold is the heart that does not beat quicker at the men A tion of its native land, and that does not linger with its sweetest affections around its early home, the only home it ever finds in this wide world. Dear to us is that home of our childhood, and fresh are the breezes which come freely over the green hills which skirt it. No sky is so serene as that which bends over it; no sun so bright as that which shines on it; no air so pure as that we breathed when in it, before the wanderings, the turmoils, and cares of life began. We love that mountain home; we love its very look, its tone, and its simple manners, and we find elsewhere nothing to compensate for their loss. We complain not that the emigrant turns fondly to his fatherland, and clings to the life he received from it. No people ever becomes great which is not thoroughly national, and which cannot more easily part with life than with its nationality. All we say, or mean to say, is, that our Catholic population is collected from different nations, with diverse national characters; and while they are so, before they become homogeneous in their character, we cannot find in them the public requisite for the creation and growth of a national literature. This, however, is only a temporary obstacle, and will soon disappear. But while it remains, we cannot do much for a national literature, and must content ourselves with such works as address themselves to the intellect alone, or to those sentiments and affections which are common to all men, whatever the diversity of their national origin or breeding. But even if we had the public, we have not the authors. This is yet a missionary country, and the clergy, on whom the literature of every country mainly depends, are so few in proportion to the number of the faithful who need their services, their professional duties are so great, so pressing, and so arduous, that they have little leisure for purely literary pursuits. The field of their labors is in the obscure courts, the dark lanes, the damp cellars, the unventilated garrets, in the hut of poverty, by the side of wretchedness and grief, administering to the sick and dying, fathers to the fatherless, friends to the friendless, pouring the oil and wine into the broken heart, and binding up the bruised spirit; and we would not see them abandoning this field for the low and comparatively unimportant calls of literature and science. They have the learning, the genius, the ability, for a rich and living literature; but they have a higher vocation, more glorious duties, and too deep a love for souls to neglect them. After the clergy, where are our authors? The literary portion of the nations which have furnished us our Catholic population do not emigrate. The mass of emigrants are from the poorer and less educated classes, with some individual exceptions, surely; and their motive for emigrating is, not to call forth an American literature, but to better their worldly condition, and to leave a richer worldly inheritance to their children. The laity born among ourselves, whether of later or earlier emigrants, educated as they are in a Protestant atmosphere, with literary habits and tastes formed on Protestant models, are but poorly qualified to give tone and character to Catholic literature. They may be able to write well in exposition and defence of the faith, if they take the pains to inform themselves, and do not feel themselves too proud to submit what they write, before going to press, to the criticism and revision of the authorized teacher; but the moment they attempt to go beyond what is set down for them, aspire to be original, and to speak out from their own spontaneous life, as every man must do if he is to attain to any literary excellence, they betray their Protestant tastes and associations, and exert an influence altogether unfavorable to the growth and purity of Catholic life. Our own schools and colleges will, in time, correct this evil; but as yet they have not corrected it. Most of them are of too recent origin to ⚫ have exerted much influence, and none of them have sent out many Catholic scholars who have remained in the ranks of the laity. But few Catholic parents have been able to educate their children abroad, and it cannot be denied that the education of our laity, thus far, has been but partially Catholic. Even our schools have been for Protestants as much as for ourselves, and, through a real or supposed necessity, we have had to submit to all the evils of a mixed education, alike unfavorable to Catholics and Protestants. Hence, those among our laity who are educated have more or less of a Protestant incrustation, and, when it comes to pure literature, write as much in the Protestant as in the Catholic spirit. We speak of literature proper, of works intended for popular reading. These are the works which need the most to be looked after. The most influential writers, whether for good or for evil, are those who are taken from the ranks of the people, and who write for the people. They may exert an influence wholly repug. nant to our holy religion, and do immense harm, without departing in a single instance from the strict letter of the faith. We have ourselves had frequent occasion to examine books professedly Catholic, and designed for popular reading, which, though we could not lay our finger on a passage absolutely heterodox, breathed a purely Protestant tone and spirit, wholly offensive to the Catholic instinct. The tone and spirit of a book intended for the people is the main thing. The distinct and formal statements of a popular book are not what produces its effects on the mass of readers. It is the unconscious life of the author diffused through the work, and which he could not avoid diffusing through it, if he would, that determines its influence for good or for evil. Hence the reason why the Church is so strict in her discipline, and shows so little mercy especially to the purely literary works of heretics. She knows that a literary work of any worth, in a literary point of view, must be, to a considerable extent, the expression of the life of its author, |