[53] _Two Essays on Scripture Miracles and on Ecclesiastical_. By John Henry Newman, formerly Fellow of Oriel College. Second edition. London: Pickering. 1870. New York: Sold by the Catholic Publication Society. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 396.
THE LIQUEFACTION OF THE BLOOD OF ST. JANUARIUS, AT NAPLES. An Historical and Critical Examination of the Miracle. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1872.
This is a republication of several very able and interesting articles which have lately appeared on this subject in THE CATHOLIC WORLD. Their appearance in the present form cannot but be welcomed by all well-disposed persons, whether they be desirous to ascertain the truth or anxious to have the means for defending it. Catholics, who are accustomed to hear this miracle, as well as the many others which have occurred in the church from the earliest times, coolly dismissed by their Protestant acquaintances as undoubted impostures or superstitions, will find in this account all that is needed to silence, if not to convince, their opponents, and to enable them to assert their own faith; while the fair and candid non-Catholic will find in it an array of facts and of reasoning which cannot fail to produce a deep impression on his mind, and which may serve as a basis for his conversion to the faith. But we would not advise anyone who is determined in any event to remain a Protestant or an infidel to have anything to do with it. The failure to find any false but plausible theory to account for certain phenomena which do not agree with one’s preconceived ideas sometimes leads to a very unpleasant and dangerous frame of mind--that in which it impugns the known truth. The book contains seventy-nine pages, and is illustrated by an engraving representing the celebrated reliquary in which the blood of the saint is contained. It is the only complete and exhaustive treatise on the subject in the English language.
AMERICANISMS: The English of the New World. By M. Schele De Vere, LL.D. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1872.