ZEAL IN THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY. By L’Abbé Dubois. London: J. C. Newby. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.
It is encouraging to see books of this kind published in the English language. We know not how to make any extracts from this volume, for every page of it is filled with good sense, practical advice, and the true spirit of the priesthood. Could we realize our wishes, we would place in the hands of every priest and candidate preparing for ordination a copy. It would be most wholesome for daily spiritual reading and meditation. The author reveals his object in writing the book in the following passage in the preface, p. viii.:
“To rekindle in the bosom of the priesthood the ardor of that zeal which should be its animating principle; to call to remembrance those noblest virtues without which it languishes, and with which it works miracles; further, to bring that zeal into practice by showing how the priest ought to act in the various circumstances of daily life, and in his intercourse with the various persons with whom he is perpetually brought into contact; such, in short, is the plan I have adopted. God grant that I may have carried it into execution in such a way as to procure abundantly his glory and the salvation of souls!”
One evidence that he has not been unsuccessful in attaining his object, is that this translation is made from the fifth French edition.
THE BOOK OF PSALMS. Translated from the Latin Vulgate. Being a Revised Edition of the Douay Version. London: Burns, Oates & Co. 16mo, pp. 193. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren Street.
“This English version of the Book of Psalms,” says the Most Rev. Dr. Manning in the preface, “may be regarded as one more of the many gifts bequeathed to us by my learned and lamented predecessor [Cardinal Wiseman]. One-half, at least, of the psalms were revised by his own hand.” Critics will regret that there is nothing to enable them to distinguish the precise psalms on which the illustrious cardinal brought his great Biblical learning and his pure English taste to the task of revision.
The term “Douay Version” in the title is used in the loose way which his eminence himself opposed, and the basis is not the Douay, but Dr. Challoner’s text.