New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-08-05
THE PAPACY
An Episodical History OF the In
stitution.
CRISES IN THE HISTORY OF THE PApAc,

CRISES IN THE HISTORY OF THE PAPAcI
By Joseph McCsbe. Svo ~. rs. ass G. r
Putnans Sons
By choosing for consideration some
twenty pontiffs whose careers ana
whose influence were important IN the
development Of the Church and in the
history of the world, DR.. McCabe en-
ploys the most serviceable mode OF dis
playing the evolution OF the Papacy'
Since Of the first hundred Popes scarce.
ly dozen contributed 10 the making OF
the institution, it Is advantageous to
select the more significant periods and
personalities; and this has been done
with the facility Of one who has FOR
long time been at home with his SUB
iect. The earlier chapters are based
almost entirely on the Latin or Greek
sources, and in the later chapters, at
points inviting differences of judgment,
the original texts have been carefully
weighed In discussing the historians
of the Papacy DR.. McCabe pays tribute
TO the Catholic author Ludwig Pastor,
as not less courageous than scholarly,
and to Father II. Grisar for his learned
and moderate partisan study OF tho
pontifcate in the first four centuries.
While neither the theme nor the
treatment allows Of dulness. there is
marked vivacity in the sketches dealing
with the rise of the idea OF Roman
primacy and with the achieving o. tenn
/ moral power, a power which was ac-
/ ouired bv reason Of the default of secu-
/ lar authorities in a disorganized world.
/ The author is one OF those who believe
/ that the Roman Church has, relatively
TO population, declined in numbers, yet
/ his impressive studies remind US that
no other religious institution in the
world has had so remarkable q history.
( The successive dynasties of the priests
Of ancient Egypt were, by comparison,
parochial in their power and ephemerai
| in their duration and while, one by
one, the stately institutions Of the
J older world-the schools, the law courts,
the guilds Of craftsmen. the military
system, the municipal forms and COM
mercial routes-disappeared in flood
Of barbarism, this institution, which
seemed the least established was hard
" shaken and was quickly accepted by
the strange new world. To-day in the
three greatest Protestant countries, the
lands of Luther, of Henry VIII and of
the Puritan fathers, 1t has some thirty
FIVE million adherents.
In his incisive accounts Of Plus *
and Leo XIII DR.. McCabe provides an
admirable insight Of the status Of the
Church among modern peoples. lndul-
gent as possible to the memory Of Pic
Mono, he makes no high claim for that
steward of the papal heritage. Leo's
story still awaits the candor and bal
ance of historical writer's; but the
forces he most fercely combated, so
cialism and rationalism, made during
his pontifcate a progress out Of all
proportion to the increase of popula-
ton. The chief means By which, &C
cording to our author, this Pope created
in his followers the illusion OF tri-
umphant craftsmanship was the en-
cyclical A most assiduous student of
Latin from his boyhood. he raised the
ecclesiastical tongue to a level il had
rarely touched and impressed the
world with his literary scholarship.