end this month by giving our heartiest welcome to a new Catholic Magazine conducted by the Sisters of Mercy, Manchester, New Hampshire, U.S.A. The first number of The Magnificat, an Illustrated Monthly, dated November, 1907, is admirable in every respect. Canon Sheehan contributes a striking story, and the author of Leaves from the Annals of the Sisters of Mercy has an interesting sketch of a great and public-sprited citizen of New Orleans when its Spanish story was just coming to an end There is an exceedingly able and well-informed article on "The French Crisis and French Literature." It refers in one place to Henri Rochfort as "the most obstreperous revolutionist of modern France." Yet an earlier page gives the exquisite and pious sonnet for which in 1855 young Rochefort was crowned at the Jeux Floraux of Toulouse. It is here translated most skilfully by the Rev. John Fitzpatrick, O.M.I. Mr. H. F. Aylward introduces to us a New Hampshire poet, Sam Walker Foss, whose poetry is really fresh and true. The other stories and poems have, each of them in its own way, very considerable merit. The last sheet is given to Mount St. Mary's Record, which is completely ignored in the table of contents. The pupils of Mount St. Mary's contribute several good stories, such as Miss Ruth Cheney's "Cyrus." "Judith, Daughter of Jairus," is a very ingenious expansion of the Scripture narrative. But the items are too numerous to specify further. If The Magnificat continues as it has begun, its success is secure. The fine array of advertisements partly explains how so stately a periodical can be produced for the modest subscription of a dollar a year. 19. We had almost overlooked a little green pennyworth from Messrs. Browne & Nolan, 24, Nassau Street, Dublin, of which alas! no further account can be given than that it is a collection of Irish songs with the music given in Tonic Sol-fa notation. 20. Children of Mary-and we are all her children-could not desire any prettier Christmas gift than Regina Poetarum, Our Lady's Anthology, by the Hon. Alison Stourton (R. & T. Washbourne, London, price 3s. 6d. net). This dainty volume contains the tributes of some fifty poets to the Blessed Virgin. The frontispiece is Lippo Lippi's Annunciation in the National Gallery, London. 708 GOOD THINGS WELL SAID 1. Every lay is a little life, and our whole life is but a day repeated.-Anon. 2. The answer to most of life's riddles and perplexities is simply, wait.-Christian Reid. 3. There is a great deal of theology in the idea of the little girl who said, it was easy enough to read her Bible and pray, but it was pretty hard to mind grandmother.-Anon. 4. Many might go to Heaven with half the labour they go to Hell, if they would venture their industry the right way.— Ben Jonson. 5. I have no affection for freethinkers; they are no better than fools who bid defiance to the unknown.-Napoleon I. 6. Time is the great healer, and silence is Time's greatest helpmate.-Grace Keon. 7. Sufferings must be borne till the great day when the secret of all suffering will be laid bare.-The Same. 8. They who lack energy of goodness and drop into a languid neutrality between the antagonist spiritual forces of this world must serve the devil as slaves if they will not decide to serve God as freemen.-Professor Dowden. 9. I feel more and more how vain all our efforts are to improve either ourselves or others without very great graces from God, and how useless it is to expect great graces without much and persevering prayer.-Father Frederick Hathaway, S.J. 10. Everything becomes very easy when one has said once Fiat from his heart.-J. K. Huysmans. II. A great man knows that the greatest men owe much to those who work with them and under them.-Saturday Review. 12. Wrongheadedness can hardly be cured. It is a sort of mitigated insanity.-Father Edmund O'Reilly, S.J. 13. Half the pains which some men take to be damned would have compassed their salvation.-Jonathan Swift. END OF VOL. XXXV. FEB 1 6 1918 |