Irish Jesuit Province

Learn of Me by John KearneyReview by: P. C. T.The Irish Monthly, Vol. 67, No. 795 (Sep., 1939), p. 666Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20514597 .

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666 THE IRISH MONTHLY

decides to exhume are Burridge the Blasphemer who led a " career of com plete, and therefore oddly satisfactory wickedness "; a John Lacy who got himself thoroughly mixed up with some religious maniacs; Miss Addison, the stupid and lightheaded daughter of the essayist; and Mathews, a young printer who was hanged for printing a few sheets of treasonable matter entitled Vox Populi, Vox Dei. These are the unknowns, and they do make a large assembly. One wishes that Professor Sutherland had chosen a few

more nonentities for his background, for he has a way of making them more interesting than the personages whom the years applaud. The personages are Joseph Addison in the last sad years when he was in two most unsuitable states: a high government position and matrimony with a formidably titled lady; John, Duke of Marlborough, going to his grave after being kept a fortnight out of it, with more pomp and vulgar display than even attended the obsequies of sychophanted kings; and Dr. Swift in London.

This chapter on Swift, drawn mostly from the Journal to Stella, is a fine piece of reconstruction, but it is more than a little distorted by a notion of the author's, which is that Swift was very fond of England. That is about as right as saying, as some of our own patriotic writers say when they are packing the national Parthenon, that Swift was an Irish patriot. The truth is that Swift's affections were peculiarly directed to individuals and that he had a distaste, even a disgust, for groups such as, for example, the human race.

F. MACM.

Learn of Me. By Rev. John Kearney, C.S.Sp. (London and Dublin: Burns, Oates and Washbourne. Pp. 292. Price 6/-.)

This third volume completes the triology of which the other two volumes, My Yoke is Sweet and You Shall Find Rest, have already found a very wide public. The aim of this book and, indeed, of the triology is to show that, for us, sanctity is to be found in the child-like conformity of our will with the will of God. This conclusion, says Father Kearney, is confirmed by the fact that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is an act by which we acknowledge our total dependence on God; it is the public sign of the surrender of our will to the divine will in union with' the surrender of the human created will of Our Saviour. We learn this lesson from Christ Himself in His holy living and holy dying, and thus Father Kearney has divided his book into two parts: The Imitation of Christ; The Cross in Our Spiritual Life.

This book has the simplicity of style and exposition that distinguishes Father Kearney's writings and that indwelling of sympathy that comes of the gift of understanding.

P. C. T.

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