Who was Gwendoline? and when was she canonized? or in what collection can we find the Acts of her holy life? These questions at once suggest themselves to the reader of one of the most charming of the books of the past holiday season.[1] But there is no answer in the work itself; so that we can do no more than try to be content with this Legend cast upon our shores by that great tide-wave, which is ever rolling on toward the eternal throne, and bearing forward the good deeds of the blessed servants of God, in the full flow of love and sacrifice. Perhaps, after all, Saint Gwendoline was an imaginary person, and this legend is no more than an invention; and if it should so turn out, the volume will not be less precious; for the shadow, if shadow it be, has a correspondent substance in the world of realities; the image is a faithful copy, and the soul in which this ideal was born is familiar with the purest and best thoughts of the old Religion, and has caught its spirit and divined its power. In much, and probably in most, of the light literature of the day, there is a perceptible flavor of sensuality, a taint of materialism, which tells a bad story of the state of popular morals. It would seem that the public demand a seasoning of the vulgar, the voluptuous, before the palate can be satisfied: if this be not afforded, they turn from the feast. Therefore, a pure, sweet story like this Legend appears to be out of place in this debased andde graded age; and for that very reason it is the more important that it should have been written and printed. In the midst of the pruriency and indecency of modern fiction, a book like this shines as a light in a dark place. The contrast is great, and therefore useful. What a bright lily, or other fresh, clean flower is in a chamber of loathsome sickness, such is Saint Gwendoline in the midst of the rouged, false, foul shapes who act as our heroines of romance. It is a page from the volume of that old Religion which is now all but forgotten, and, by the multitude, despised and set at nought; the Religion whose grand ideas are Love and Sacrifice, and which teaches us, that to give up the heart's desire for God's sake is not less laudable, nay is more laudable, than to resign it for the sake of one's neighbor or for one's own advantage. It is the story of an earthly affection renounced for a heavenly one; of rank, wealth, and influence devoted to the glory of him who divested himself of everything for us; of a crown and a future offered (strange to say!) on the altar of the Lord of Hosts instead of being given to a worldly lover; of a rebellious will utterly subdued by the presentation of the law of duty, and the command of Christ; of human devotion rewarded by signal favors from Heaven; of souls helped and saved through the example and the voluntary self-abnegation of another like unto themselves. These are old ideas; they are not in harmony with modern religious notions, and still less in keeping with common practice; but one can hardly help feeling that, in losing sight of them, we have indeed incurred a grievous loss, and that we should be a better and happier people if we could get them back. The hardest of our social problems have their solution in the applications of the ancient Catholic faith. Mr. Ehninger's illustrations are in full harmony with the character of the book; among them are some which show deep feeling and a true power. The Legend could not have a worthier interpreter. Altogether, it is a volume full of refreshment. After reading it, and studying the calm devotional pictures which author and artist set before us, in these brief pages, one is better and stronger, and the inner, spiritual
- ↑ The Legend of St. Gwendoline, illustrated by J. W. Ehninger. New York: G. P. Putnam & Co.
