BOOK NOTICES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 50, 16 December 1925, Page 13

BOOK NOTICES

Masterpieces of Wit and Humor. Six volumes. Price 27/6 post free. (From Johnston Sons & Co., Box 60, Dunedin). All the great names in American literature are here. The contents of this library make you acquainted with the past and present men and women of letters. Of course Mark Twain, at his best, comes before you. And Oliver Wendell Holmes, Hay, Lowell, Howells and Bryant make their bow in these pages. Nor are the moderns forgotten. Agnes Repplier, the best essayist in the United States to-day, is represented, as well as Bert Leeson Taylor. In prose and verse, the Masterpieces give the reader a vast amount of good entertainment as well as sound literature. One can take up any of the volumes at random and be certain of finding amusement for half an hour or for a whole evening, as he wishes. The binding is good, and paper and letterpress all that could be desired. The Falstaff Plays of William Shakespeare, edited by William. Donovan, Price 12/6. Angus and Robertson, Sydney. Mr. Donovan is a Shaksperian "scholar of repute whose work has had gracious recognition from leading critics before now. His two volumes ■ containing historical plays by Shakspere and ; his Y famous contemporaries were welcomed by the - leading British reviewers with unanimous praise. s He has now collected and edited ■ in one volume ,the four plays in which; we meet Falstaff:— The Merry Wives "of Windsor; King Henry IV, Part I; King Henry IV, Part 11-and King Henry V. He has made some emendations and restora-

}tiohs in the text, suggested by his studies of \ the oldest editions of the poet's works. The four great ; dramatic pieces are combined in a. single volume of two hundred and fifty pages, ;beautifully printed oh. excellent paper and well bound in red cloth. There are several full-page "illustrations which illustrate the plays. The idea "of grouping the plays in this; Way, according to their natural connection is a very good one, and ought to find favor with lovers of the immortal .poet. • '■] Defenders of the Ford, by Mrs. Concannon. Tablet Office. Readers who know Mrs. Concannon from her earlier works: St. Golumbanus, Women of 'Ninety-Eight, and Daughters of Banba, will welcome this volume which gives us beautiful and vivid pictures of the boy heroes of Ireland. Her knowledge of Irish History is deep and she has the true Celtic magic in her pen, so that whatever she touches, at least in her own province of learning, she not only adorns but quickens. An excellent Christmas book for any boy or girl is this. The Irish Monthly. Price 8/- yearly. Per Linehan, Melbourne. As usual this fine old Irish periodical contains a number of interesting articles on more or less important topics. Father Corcoran writes on the Catholic tradition of free education. There is a sympathetic memorial poem on George Sigerson by Agnes O'Farrelly. Eastward Ho! Stories of Young Crusaders, by Miriam Agatha. From St. Columban's, Essendon, Victoria. Here is a handsome volume of delightful stories by a well-known Catholic writer. They have appeared already in the Far East; and it is good that they have now been collected and published in book form. Wholesome and entertaining reading of this kind is a commodity of which we can hardly have too much. These stories are Catholic in tone, and they are edifying as well as exhilarating reading. The volume is beautifully illustrated, and it is a credit to the Advocate Press, the imprint of which, we notice, Cit bears. It contains ten short stories and, one long onewhich is not long enough;'; The price is not indicated. ■ ;^ Truly a Lover, by Rev. J. Carr, C.SS.R., Galong, N.S.W. Dwyer, Sydney.— One of her companions, a sister in the same community, once said of St. Teresa, or "The Little Flower," "I know not what will be told of her after her death : she seems to have done nothing at all!" Yet, this young saint, whose life was thus summed up by one who saw her every day, lias inspired the whole Catholic world with admiration and wonder. Not only children,' and young girls, but even old people j are taken with the spirit of devotion to her, and her clients are countless in every clime. ,'.i / J", *// ■''■■/;' • Father Carr's beautiful little book is not a biography. - It 'is a study of the spirit of the saint: an. explanation of what was" really achieved by her who seemed f 'to have done nothing at all. y And its title gives us the key to the mystery. She was a true lover. As a ; child she had . a heart . overflowing with natural affection, and as she grew up and learned to know Jesus "Christ she gave to

Him the fresh, pure young heart He had given her, in a love which few even of the great saints surpassed. Father Carr explains what love means, and how different it is from the distortion of its beauty which goes by the same name.in current literature. True love is selfless, while the love the world knows seeks only self. Teresa's life was a concrete example of what genuine love for Christ ought to be. Sometimes we say that this young French girl got to heaven very easily, sheltered in as she was by her convent cloister. But the heights of love to which she attained were not easy, and it was they that made her a saint. Read this charming study quietly and you will understand "The Little Flower" better than ever. <X> ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS Sacerdos.—(l) A person is not bound to use a privilege unless, per accidents, for some extrinsic reason. For instance, he might be bound by charity or for the sake of the common good. (2) An act of Faith is necessary for all who have'come to the use of reason. For. all such the minimum is belief in God, our Creator and Remunerator. It is probable also that belief in the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation is necessary. (3) A person who is ignorant of these truths which are necessary to be believed, necessitate medii, cannot be absolved either lawfully or validly. A person ignorant of the Mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation may not be absolved lawfully except in case of necessity. Reader.— is not a sacrilege to use for profane purposes holy water or blessed candles. A sacrilege is the abuse of a sacred thing, but sacred must be taken in a restricted sense, a s defining something dedicated to divine worship by public ceremony, or by divine or ecclesiastical institution, or by the authority of the Church. A simple blessing does not make a thing sacred in this sense.

H.C.— observation is a form of superstition. It consists in using means, which have no proportion with the effect intended, to obtain certain effects. It is very common. Some of its forms are: wealing charms to avoid diseases or to bring luck; refusing to sit at table with twelve others; having recourse to spells and superstitious forms of prayer to obtain cures of animals or to stop bleeding. Supeistition of this kind may very easily creep into devotions, e.g. carrying certain prayers to St. Brigit and attributing to the custom infallible results also to attach too much importance and to expect certain results from the number of prayers said, or from the time when they are said.

Inquirer. The Statute of Limitations does not extinguish the obligation in conscience to pay a debt. It is a legal device which has its uses. The old theory about usury does not apply strictly in modern times. Hence it is lawful to seek a reasonable interest on money lent, because money is now productive itself.

Celt. There might be several answers to your question. America is probably the most Catholic country in the world if we take the total number of Catholics there, north and south. For one State, Italy has the largest Catholic population. But if you want to know what people are the most Catholic we should say the Irish, for in Ireland it is rare that a Catholic misses Mass or fails to go to the Sacraments. Statistics that Every Catholic Should Study FROM THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE WELLINGTON CATHOLIC EDUCATION BOARD. Catholics should know what the State system of education in New Zeaalnd costs, and the quota they are contributing towards its upkeep. It is true that the payment is not made direct and, consequently, some people are inclined to overlook the fact that they are supporting the State system. Through taxation on the" necessaries of life, each man, woman, and child in the Dominion is contributing the sum of £2 12s 9d per annum. In addition to this, Catholics are supporting, at considerable sacrifice and cost, their own system of education, because they cannot conscientiously avail themselves of the Godless system which they are unjustly compelled to support financially. The following figures are extracted from the annual report of the Government Education Department (E. 1) presented to Parliament during the past Session. As primary education is the present concern of this board, we will quote figures referring to State primary education. The cost of educating a child in the State primary schools works out at £ll 8s per pupil per annum. This is ascertained by dividing the number of children, 213,290, attending the State primary schools into the amount expended, £2,432,880. The number of children attending registered Catholic primary schools is recorded in the same report as 20,598. If this number is multiplied by the cost of educating a child in the State primary schools (£ll 8s) it will be found that the amount totals £234,817. This sum represents the amount which the State would be required to pay if the number of children attending Catholic schools were taught in State schools; or this amount represents what Catholics are saving the Government through providing their own system of Christian education. The Catholic population is estimated at 164,133, and the cost per head per annum for primary education is £1 15s 3d. If these figures are multiplied, the result, £289,283, gives the amount which Catholics are compelled to contribute, through taxation, to the State primary system of education. If the cost per head for both State primary and secondary education, £2 12s 9d, is taken into consideration, Catholics are contributing the enormous sum of £432,909 to a system from which they receive practically nothing in return. *

Summarised, the position is as follows:

1. Cost of State primary education £2,482,880 per annum. : 2. Number of children attending State primary schools, 213,290. . _.[;_ 3. Cost of educating a child in the State primary schools, £ll Bs. 4. Number of children attending Catholic primary schools, 20,598. 5. The Catholics of New Zealand save the Government, on primary education alone, the sum of £234,817. 6. The amount contributed by Catholics through taxation to State primary education, £289,283 —this in addition to saving the Government the amount mentioned in (5.) £234,817. • 7. The Catholic population of New Zealand is, according to the 1921 Census, 164,133. 8. Cost per head of the population per annum for State primary education, £1 15s 3d. 9. Cost per head of the population for education in all its branches, £2 12s 9d. 10. The amount contributed by Catholics to the total cost of State education, including all branches, at £2 12s 9d. per head, £432,909. 11. If the Government allowed Catholics the sum of £ll 8s per annum for each child educated in Catholic primary schools—£234817—there would still be left in the Treasury of the amount contributed by Catholics the sum of £198,092. 12. Number of teachers engaged in Catholic schools—Nuns, 581 j Brothers, 48—Total, 629. 13. Number of Catholic schools, 187. 14. Average of salary of State school teachers, £276 per annum. 15. Amount of salaries which the Government would be required to pay the Nuns and Brothers if they were State employees, £174,604. Few take care to live well, but many to live long, though it is in every man's power to do the former, but in no man's power to do the latter.