Excerpt from The Dublin Review, Vol. 7

Shall we leave him to conclude, that the body of doctrine how pomted out, is to be found in the combined effects of such a selection of detached works, such a translation, and such explanatory notes and prefaces, as to present a series of ancient writers, arrayed in the support of doctrines hitherto unknown to the Catholic world? The character of the editors is a full guarantee against the intentional production of any such result. Whether the system they have chalked out to them selves may not tend to this purpose, independently of their own desires, is a question we shall have occasion to examine farther on. May not the most probable solution of the stranger's difficulty be presented to him, by Offering a counter demand? Let us ask him, if, when struck with admiration on his first arrival in our country, at the innumerable speci mens around of the perfection to which art was carried in all the details of life, he did not feel frequently inclined to call upon his English companion to share in his astonishment; as if the scene had been novel to him also? His answer will probably remind him, how easy it might be for men, awaking, as it were, after centuries, to the discovery of treasures hidden under lumber in their own storehouses, to forget, in their joy, that the rest of the world had been continuing its ordinary train; and was incapable of participating in the feelings of those who had only just now discovered the advantages which constant usage had habituated their neighbours to contemplate without emotion.

But, Whatever may be our opinions on the logic of the particular motives alleged by Messrs. Pusey, Keeble, and Newman, in its favour, we congratulate them upon the under taking; and agree fully in the principle, that the attention of this country cannot be too earnestly called to the study of ecclesiastical antiquity. Let us examine, whether the dirce tion likely to be given to this study, by the plan adopted in the publication of the Library, is such as to answer the great end to which ecclesiastical antiquity ought to be made service able. We will, for this purpose, take a rapid survey of the object to be attained by the study of the Fathers; and the method required to secure its attainment: we will then ex amine, how the principles, and the system adopted, by the editors of the Library, are adapted to answer the Object pro posed: and, finally, in the review of the specimen before us.

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