From Hearth to Cloister. By Frances Jackson. (Burns and Oates.
5s.)—This is a curious and significant little narrative, the story of how a, certain Sir John Warner and his wife became Roman Catholics, and ultimately made the monastic profession. There were two children of the marriage, and it is instructive to see what Sir John thought about his duty to them. Ile hakl consulted the Archbishop of Canterbury (Sheldon) as to his duty. "Have you children?" asked the Archbishop. "Yes." "Then you are in conscience obliged to see them educated." The answer was "that by leaving them to a trusty friend with security of a sufficient maintenance, he thought he better satisfied his obligation than by educating them himself, with, hazard of his own salvation." Lady Warner did her best for her children, "who came to her [in the convent] every day for their lessons." She did not live long, however, and the doctor who attended her did not wonder at her death "considering the austerities she had under- gone." The biographer invites us to admire these "devoted men and women who unhesitatingly renounced all that they possessed to become more perfectly disciples." It seems to us that St. Paul understood the Master's teaching better when he could be willing "to be accursed from Christ" for his brethren's sake. There is a curious anticipation of a recent development in the Anglican Church in the utterances of a certain Dr. Buck, who was one of the King's chaplains. He made no objection to Roman doctrine, but when it came to being told that there was "no true ordination or priesthood" in the Protestant Church, "he could only say that the author of that pamphlet deserved severe punishment."
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