Mr. Shea has also succeeded in producing a very readable life of the Holy Father, though we do not think he has done full justice to his own merits as an accomplished and painstaking writer. There are evident marks of haste throughout his pages which, though they do not seriously interfere with the continuity or authority of the work, are apt to produce an unsatisfactory impression on the minds of critical readers. His _Life of Pope Pius IX._ will, however, have its admirers; for, excepting these slight defects, it is a book that will interest the general reader, no matter what may be his opinions or prepossessions, written as it is by an intelligent layman whose reputation as an author has long since been established in this country and in Europe.
The Rev. Father O’Reilly’s biography is, however, not only more voluminous and more ample in its details than either of the preceding, but it is enriched by copious extracts from encyclical letters and other important documents, the proper understanding of which necessarily belongs to the elucidation of the history of Pius IX.’s pontificate. Apart from its completeness and elegance of style, its chief distinguishing feature is the insight it gives us into the policy and designs of contemporary rulers and conspirators in France, Italy, and Germany in their attempts on the integrity of the church, and their underhand alliances with the secret societies to effect their evil purposes. Only a man who has had personal knowledge of the actors who figured in the bloody drama of “United Italy,” and an intimate acquaintance with their present and prospective strategy, could unfold to the public gaze, in all its base enormity, the culpable indifference of the men who professed the greatest regard for the sovereign of the states of the church, and the insidious schemes of the modern champions of liberty, whose sole and whole object is the disruption of all forms of government under which civil and religious freedom would be possible. This it is that makes Father O’Reilly’s book not only interesting but highly instructive; for, to a certain extent at least, it furnishes us with a key to the enigma of European Continental politics which we Americans, happily removed from kingcraft and secret terrorism, so much require. The venerable and venerated Chief Pastor of the church has been fortunate in his American biographers, and we have little doubt that he will find some solace in his afflictions in the thought that three among our writers have almost simultaneously devoted their pens to recording the incidents of his life and defending his rights as a spiritual and temporal sovereign.