forward. He speaks of the miracles recorded and witnessed by himself, of the devotion of the Popes and distinguished persons noting the pilgrimages to the shrine made by Urban VIII. and Pius IX., and the continuous popular pilgrimages; of the indulgences granted; of the Pious Union established by Benedict XIV., and of which that celebrated Pontiff was the first member; of the proper mass and office granted in 1779; of the Church of Santa Maria"; and, in order to dispel certain illusions not always confined to Protestants, regarding Italy and the devotion to Our Lady, he has added two very valuable chapters on the faith of the Italian people and on the Catholic worship and invocation of Mary. An Appendix treats of several important matters, amongst which is a chapter on the "Value of a Roman Ecclesiastical Education," written evidently with the view to aid the establishment of an Australian college in Rome; and as Cardinal Simeoni expresses it, he has here also opportunely touched upon the recent spoliation of the Propaganda by the Italian Government.

We but follow the example of the Holy Father and the Cardinal Prefect of the Propaganda in congratulating the author upon the production of this useful and interesting work. It establishes on a sold basis the beautiful devotion to Our Lady which it aims at extending. It is well printed, and considering the difficulties of correcting the press when dealing with compositors not acquainted with the language they put in type, unusually free from errors. We are glad to learn that the author means to bring out a more concise and popular work on the same subject. But no such work could well appear in our language unless the documentary evidence given in this volume had preceded it. The book is well bound, and on the whole a pleasing and valuable addition to our Catholic literature.

From "THE NEW YORK FREEMAN'S JOURNAL AND CATHOLIC

REGISTER," December 20, 1884.

WE live in a time when an historical or scientific "fact" will be received with interest, provided that nothing of the supernatural is claimed for it. It may rest on slight human authority, but so long as no divine authority is quoted, it is taken for granted. But let the word "miraculous" occur in the recital of it, and the supercilious reader turns away from the subject in disgust. The evidence of trustworthy witnesses, unbroken traditions, voluminous records, are as nothing. The man thoroughly impregnated with the miasma of the century would rather doubt the testimony of his own senses than believe in a miracle.

Henri Lasserre's wonderful records of the miracles at Lourdes, well supported as they are by the testimony of experts in the case of Louise Lateau, are simply ignored by adepts in "modern thought," who distrust their favorite methods when they tend to prove a miracle.

Especially Catholics in English-speaking countries start back distrustfully at the line that materialistic teaching draws between the natural and the supernatural. People who say "Credo" with all their hearts are unworthy of the gift of Faith if they need a miracle to keep them firm; but it is no proof of the firmness of their Faith to decline to consider any corroboration of it, and while accepting the miracles recorded in Sacred Scripture in a perfunctory manner, to look with distrust on all modern miracles. This distrust is not always so much incredulity as it is the revolt of a falsely-formed state of mind against any widening of the bounds of Faith. It is an illogical, a prejudiced state of mind, brought about by the modern sophistry which has contrived to associate Faith with ignorance.

A remarkable exhaustive and erudite work by the Rev. Dr. George F. Dillon, of Sydney, Australia, on the ancient sanctuary of Our Lady of Good Counsel, in Genazzano, has been recently issued from the press of the Propaganda Fide at Rome. We have favourably alluded to it before. It is the record of a miracle, incrusted with a most valuable mass of historical learning, carefully wrought out and arranged by a loving hand, entirely devoted to the service of Our Lady of Good Counsel. Dr. Dillon has produced, writing in the

very shadow of the sanctuary of Genazzano, a volume which includes the whole history, sacred and profane, of the shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel, besides a hundred details, the fruit of untiring research, which leave nothing to be said. Dr. Dillon's volume of nearly seven hundred pages covers the ground fully.

Dr. Dillon hopes to assist in spreading devotion to Our Lady of Good Counsel, which is so fervently kept up in Italy. "This devotion," Dr. Dillon says, "aims at obtaining all that the gift of Good Counsel gives through the intercession of Mary, the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God, to Whom the Infallible Spouse of Christ attributes the very words of the Holy Ghost, 'In Me is Counsel.' This devotion is now beginning to be made known in Englishspeaking countries. And in no time has the gift of the Holy Ghost been more needed in all countries than in the present.

Near the city of Rome, in ancient Latium, on a spot where the lascivious rites of the Roman worship of Venus were performed, where the masters of the world indulged in nameless excesses in honour of their goddess, a shrine to the Immaculate Virgin has risen. Dr. Dillon gives an interesting history of Genazzano. The famous Prænestine roses that once bloomed in honour of Venus now deck the shrine of the Purest of God's creatures. Dr. Dillon sharply points out this contrast.

To Genazzano, whose inhabitants, having been delirious in their worship of the devil, but who were now fervent worshippers of God, there passed one day a lovely image of the Mother of God holding the Saviour of the world in her arms. Scutari in Albania had just been taken by the Turks, in 1467. From thence to Genazzano in broad daylight passed the fresco, to be welcomed by a population which for nearly ten centuries had honoured the Mother of God. Its appearance on the public square was witnessed by crowds of people, for it came on a festival. Heavenly singing and wonderful light followed it. "In its passage from Scutari to Genazzano," writes Dr. Dillon, "it was followed over land and sea by two trustworthy witnesses, who afterwards lived and died and left families in Latium." Italy made itself into a huge pilgrimage to visit it. Pope Paul II. instituted an inquiry not more than two months after its appearance. Sixtus IV., who succeeded him, was ardently devoted to the Virgin Mother of Good Counsel. Miracle after miracle was wrought at her shrine. Copies and pictures of the Sacred Image have wrought miracles. St. Alphonsus was devoted to the Virgin Mother of Good Counsel, and her picture is usually reproduced in his portraits. Dr. Dillon tell us that picture of Our Lady, which spoke so lovingly to the angelic youth, St. Aloysius Gonzaga, was a copy." Other copies have worked wonderful prodigies in Rome, Naples, Genoa, Lucca, Frosinone, San Benedetto Ullano, and numbers of cities in Italy and Germany.

When the Sacred Image fled from Scutari to Genazzano, the cross seemed to be flying from the crescent in the East. Scanderbeg-King George Castriota, of Albania, protector of the shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel-had heroically driven back the invading and unspeakable host. At his death, the Turks broke in like the ocean through a frail dyke. Italy was threatened. The Pope kept the Moslems at bay; but Europe seemed lost when St. Pius V., intensely devoted to the Virgin Mother of Good Counsel, called Colonna, Lord of Genazzano, to command his fleet. The Turk was all-powerful; but then came the crushing victory of Lepanto, gained by the Mother of God for her clients. Later, Sobieski triumphed at Vienna, and the baleful fire of the crescent paled before the halo that surrounded the Virgin Mother of Good Counsel.

Dr. Dillon points out the more subtle Islam that now threatens, not only Europe, but the world. The new enemy cannot be met with material weapons; a Scanderberg, a Colonna, a Don John of Austria, a Sobieski, would be powerless against the new enemy. It does not come, barbaric and blood-stained, but pleasant to the sense, gentle, refined, æsthetic. It is modern culture, Liberal Catholicism, unbelief-all those forms of modern thought and sensuousness so subtly opposed to Christianity. Surely we need the help of the Virgin Mother of Good Counsel now more than ever!

"In addition," writes Dr. Dillon, "to the millions of Catholics who live in comparative spiritual security in faithful Ireland, and the millions of Catholics

now in Great Britan, the writer has special reasons to think, most of all, of those other millions who leave Catholic homes for a life among strangers, the majority of whom differ from them in religion, in distant lands such as America and the principal English-speaking colonies. Twenty years' experience in Australia has convinced him that a greater and more constant devotion is now more than ever needed to keep the faith alive in themselves and in their children. They have to encounter all the perils which come from the infidel movements now supreme over the vital question of primary education in the United States, in Australia, and almost everywhere in English-speaking countries. In England, and even in Ireland, a strong effort is made to go with the universal current against religion upon this and other most important subjects. Then in new countries, more than in old ones, the tendency is very great to contract mixed marriages, to frequent dangerous associations and renuions, and to lose the ring and vigour of sound faith by concession to the prevailing spirit of a worldliness invariably anti-Catholic."

From "THE CATHOLIC TIMES AND CATHOLIC OPINION,"
September 26th, 1884.

ENGLISH-SPEAKING Catholics, as a rule, know little of the devotion to Our Lady of Good Counsel and amongst them it will probably be a matter of surprise that a book of importance could be written on the subject. But if, to use the well-known phrase addressed to Augustine, they "take and read," we feel assured all will be convinced that the subject was eminently worthy of being treated for the benefit of English-speaking Catholics, and that, in point of fact, the author is a writer who can invest any subject with paramount interest. Mgr. Dillon first visited Italy in the Spring of last year, with the view of recruiting his health which was impaired after twenty years of missionary labours in Australia. That he derived great pleasure from his visit to the Ansonian land, that fertile nurse of great men, we have testimony sufficient in what he has written; but if the labour of writing an elaborate work such as this since the spring of last year, was, in his case, consistent with the spending of holidays for the benefit of health, we must conclude that he is endowed with ability far above the ordinary kind, and a wonderful facility of composition. He travelled much through Italy, and ever with the resolution to judge fairly and to treasure all the information he could gather concerning men and manners in the Peninsula. His observations prove that in the course of his short experience he laid up a great store of information. What he did see he describes in graphic language; it taught him that at least nine-tenths of the Italians are practical Catholics, that they are far from being in sympathy with the opponents of Catholicism, and that they not only recognise the Pope as their spiritual ruler, but that they would hail with joy the restitution of his temporal sovereignty. They do not exert their power in political affairs, but to all attempts upon their religion they offer a determined and passive resistance. Mgr. Dillon pays a tribute to the purity of their domestic life. He assures us that, in general, family life amongst them equals the purity and innocence of the farm-houses of Ireland. From their intense and universal devotion to the Blessed Virgin he derived much edification, and his knowledge of the many favours conferred upon them in consequence of their devotion to Our Lady of Good Counsel induced him to compare the present work giving an account of her shrine at Genazzano, and the miraculous translation of her Sacred image from Scutari in Albania to Genazzano. When this extraordinary event occurred, the Crescent had supplanted the Cross in the East, and the heroic Scanderbeg, who had received help and counsel at the shrine of this very image in Albania, had passed away. Then "Mary caused the miraculous image to break away from the walls of her temple in Scutari and to pass to Latium." The writer examines critically the proofs of the translation of the image and of its apparition amongst a multitude of people on the occasion of a public festival; and the preservation of Europe from the hordes of Turks who poured down upon it and were crushed at Lepanto at the walls of Vienna, he sees the influence of the Mother of Good Counsel. Of the supernatural results of devotion at the shrine at Genazzano he has had the most reliable and

convincing testimony. No one ever, he informs us, went to that shrine less credulous than he was; but in the sight of the miracles wrought before his eyes and carefully examined and proved, he could only say that the hand of God is not shortened, and that miracles wrought through the intercession of His Mother will never cease. There is in Mgr. Dillon's work an immense amount of what may be called collateral information. Interesting historical incidents are brought to mind, customs are carefully noted, and landscapes are depicted with a master hand. A chapter is devoted to an explanation, intended for non-Catholics, of the worship which Catholics pay to the Blessed Virgin. Mgr. Dillon, by making known to English-speaking Catholics a devotion so largely practised and so fruitful in Italy, has done a service which will, it is to be hoped, prove of permanent utility; and he has, at the same time, brought together a store of most important information respecting Rome, the centre of the Catholic world, and the Italian people, whose character is the subject of so many contradictory statements. There is great beauty in his style; throughout the book is to be found ample proof that in narrative and descriptions he has a facile pen, and that he has at command a rich vocabulary. Every sentence is vigorous and graceful.

From the "WEEKLY REGISTER." January 3rd, 1885.

MONSIGNOR DILLON, who describes himself simply as a visitor from Sydney to the shrine of Our Lady at Genazzano, has devoted a goodly volume to an account of his experiences in Italy, and especially to a description of that famous place of pilgrimage. Not the history of the miraculous image only, but of almost everything that has any possible connection with it is painted by his pen. The book thus covers a very wide field; but Monsignor Dillon writes mainly with the object of introducing to English speaking Catholics a devotion which is very popular on some parts of the Continent.

The representation of Our Lady at this shrine is a fresco, painted long ages ago, but when and in what country none can tell. It has remained in the place where it now is for four hunded and sixteen years; and how many centuries it existed before is unknown. It first came into public notice during that great struggle between the Crescent and the Cross, when the eastern empire was overthrown. The heroic Scanderbeg, King of Albania, in whose country Scutari with its shrine and image lay, was enabled to resist the advancing arms of Islam and drive back Mahomet II., the captor of Constantinople, from the walls of his little capital. For twenty years he saved his country and Christendom; and, when he died, his ashes were not cold before the Turks swept over the land and passed to the Adriatic. It was then that the miraculous translation of the image from Scutari to Genazzano took place; and from that date Italy presented an impregnable barrier to the infidel. A second Scanderbeg arose in the person of Colonna, Lord of Genazzano whom Pius V., in an hour of supreme danger, called to the defence of Christendom. At Lepanto, Colonna, as Admiral of the Pope's fleet, and Don John of Austria, together representing the two outposts of Christian Europe, struck such a decisive blow that the Turks were driven from the waters, which they have never since regained. From that day to the present time the shrine has had varied fortunes. Many miraculous cures took place, and pilgrimages were attracted from all parts of Italy and the Continent. In course of time a new church was built, and was enriched by the devotion of pilgrims with precious gifts of gold, silver, and gems. The wealth of the shrine before long excited the cupidity of spoilers, and it was stripped to feed the ambition of Napoleon. But it was left to the agents of Victor Emmanuel to drive the inmates of the convent from their home and to confiscate the monastic revenues; and though afterwards the religious were permitted, through fear of popular disaffection, to occupy part of the old conventual buildings, they were allowed to do so only as tenants paying rent. The Church of Genazzano has lately been restored to somewhat of its ancient glory, and now glows with beautiful marbles and frescoes.

Monsignor Dillon had abundant opportunities of mixing with the people of the country, and studying their feelings and convictions. He tells us that he thinks no pepole could be more devoted to their religion than they. His

impression was that the bulk of the people in the Roman States would gladly receive back the temporal government of the Pontiff. Heavy burdens of taxation and conscription have followed in the steps of the new régime. It is, he thinks, by means of hired mobs and newspaper correspondents that public opinion in England and France is misled. The Italian people have obtained the reputation of being formal in their religion, but Monsignor Dillon shows that though they are fond of the beautiful ceremonies of the Church their religion is far from being confined to externals.

"Long hours before the English visitors leave their hotel beds the Italian population in cities and villages are up and stirring, and up and stirring, too, simply because of religion. As early as half-past four, even on winter mornings, the Church of Santa Maria in Genazzano is crowded by a congregation of people who desire to hear Mass before going to their daily labour. With thousands in every city Mass is not confined to the Sunday. The devout attend it every day. The works of St. Liguori, which are very common, lead some millions in Italy to practice without ostentation meditation, visits to the Most Holy Sacrament, and works even of the highest perfection."

The volume, which was printed at the Propaganda in Rome, and contains four illustrations, will doubtless become a classic on the subject which Monsignor Dillon has so happily taken in hand.

From "THE AVE MARIA," Indiana, U. S., November 1, 1884.

A MOST attractive volume. The learned author begins at the very origin of the town of Genazzano, traces its history through the times when it was the scene of the infamous orgies of heathen worship, to the blessed dawn of Christianity, which purified and consecrated its polluted walls and groves; and then through the vicissitudes which followed the decline of the Roman Empire in Italy, interesting alike to the archeologist, the historian, and the poet. But most interesting among all events that have occurred in that favoured spot is the coming of the miraculous painting from Scutari to the church rebuilt by the devotion of a poor widow, who lacked the means to complete the good work she had begun, but whose faith and piety were rewarded by this signal assistance from Heaven. Full particulars of the miracle are given, and a detailed narrative of the event, illustrated by drawings, of the ruined church in Scutari whence the picture-a fresco painted on the wall--was conveyed by angelic hands, after the final capture of Albania by the Turks. The sworn testimony of witnesses, copied from the records, follows, and a family tree of the principal Albanian witness, whose descendants now reside in Genazzano, is given. Then follows as perfect an account as could be found of the miracles since wrought at the shrine, the records of which were imperfectly kept, both on account of their great frequency and the expense of the formalities which ecclesiastical law requires for the verification of supernatural events, and also on account of the troubled state of the country, and the frequent robberies committed in the name of secular authority. These miracles are extremely interesting, especially one that occurred under the very eye of the author of the present work-the cure of blindness and epileptic fits in a young girl who had been given up by the physicians. They extend from the middle of the fifteenth century to the present time-over four hundred years of constant divine interposition. Following, we find accounts of various miraculous copies of the original picture of Our Lady of Good Counsel, piously venerated in different localities. The volume itself is enriched with engraved copies of the painting, the beauty of whose execution is what might be expected from the Italian artists. Succeeding chapters give an account of the devotion of many distinguished Popes and many learned and pious men to this remarkable shrine; of the pilgrimages that are constantly made to it; of the apostles of this devotion, and in particular of Canon Bacci and Don Stephen Andrea Rodotà; of the Proper Mass and Office granted as the most distinguished mark of ecclesiastical approbation; of the indulgences attached to the devotion; of the rise, progress, and present prosperity of the confraternity known as the Pious Union; of the present state of the church and sanctuary itself of Our Lady of Good Counsel; and of the devotion of the Italian people. A concluding chapter gives a full and dogmatic account of the veneration due and paid by the Catholic Church to the Blessed Virgin, with the blessings that have attended its practice.