bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Cardinals of English Sees
Authors: Gumbley Walter
Published: July 2007

With the elevation of the present Archbishop to the Sacred College the see of Westminster has seen all its rulers raised to the purple, Nicholas Wiseman, Henry Edward Manning, Herbert Vaughan, Francis Bourne, and Arthur Hinsley. The ancient see of Canterbury saw only four of its archbishops made Cardinals: Robert Kilwardy, Simon Lang- ham, Thomas Bourchier and John Morton, and of these the first two had to surrender their see on their promotion. Three others, Stephen Langton, John Kemp and Reginald Pole were already Cardinals when appointed Primates. There is no truth in the statement that Archbishops Chichele (1414-1443) and John Stafford (1443-1452) were Cardinals, though this statement, based on careless seventeenth century writers, has crept into so good a reference book as the Catholic Encyclopedia under the article, Canterbury, and has been several times repeated. Henry Chichele, far from being a Cardinal, was the cause of Pope Eugenius IV publishing a decree, dated 1439, declaring the precedence of Cardinals over all other prelates, particularly mentioning primates and archbishops. In this Bull, known as Non mediocri, the Pope tells Chichele of the displeasure with which he has heard that the archbishop, for close on fourteen years, has given precedence to the Cardinal of St. Eusebius, Henry Beaufort, presumably because of his royal birth, yet now refuses a like precedence to the Cardinal of St. Balbina (John Kemp, Archbishop of York). The Pope orders him to desist from this conduct, reminds him of the precedence of Cardinals over all other prelates in the Church, and instances the custom observed in the General Councils.
Psychology Down the Ages
Authors: Elrington Aidan
Published: July 2007

Like other sciences which have gradually emerged from a pre-scientific state, psychology arose when man began to ruminate on the mystery of life and the ways of human beings. The general facts of knowing, striving, feeling, desiring, willing, and so forth, were recognized and expressed in the common sense of people and expressed in perhaps a crude form in the customs language—folk-lore and myths of early times. In the attempt on the part of thinkers to find a rational explanation and a systematic grouping of such facts lay the beginnings of scientific psychology, the science of the psyche.

Professor Spearman traces the rise of psychology and the course it has taken throughout the ages to the present day, carrying the reader pleasantly and not too arduously through the intricacies of opposing ideas and theories as these have in successive epochs come to the fore.
Doctrine in the Church of England
Authors: White Victor
Published: July 2007

The fidelity and purity of the Anglican witness to the Gospel of Christ is a matter of utmost concern to all Christians. Least of all can an English Catholic, anxious for the temporal and eternal welfare of the people of his own race and nation, be indifferent to it. It is estimated that, at the present time, some 20,000,000 souls in Great Britain and some 11,000,000 in other parts of the world, are directly dependent upon the Anglican churches for whatever they know, or humanly speaking are likely to know, of the message of salvation. When it is further remembered that, in nearly all parts of the English-speaking world, the Anglican community enjoys a prestige as an authorised representative of organised Christianity far in excess of its numbers, and is to millions of non-Christians the most familiar spokesman of Christianity, the character of its doctrine is seen to be a matter of almost cosmic importance. Distortions of the purity of the Gospel message and of the integrity of the Catholic faith by Anglican divines are as unseemly material for the headlines of sensationalist journalism as they are for the jibes and gloatings of the nagging type of proseltyser. On the other hand, it should be to the apostolic-minded Catholic a subject for praise and thanksgiving when, notwithstanding four centuries of independence from the unity of the Catholica, the Anglican churches still bear witness in an apostate world to the elements of the faith once delivered to the saints.
The Taming of Technics
Authors: Witcutt W. P.
Published: July 2007

German economic and sociological theory has always tended to follow a line of its own, away from the general Western European tendency. In the days when the English “classical” theory, incarnated in John Stuart Mill, had provided a lucid and logical complexus of interlocking “laws” for the whole of the economic activities of society, the German “Historical School,” in the person of Roscher, denied there was such a thing as economic theory at all, merely the study of actual economic facts. Against this theory (or lack of it), and against new-arisen Marxism, the “Austrian School” erected a powerful theoretical structure in defence of Capitalism. The Germans, curiously enough (in view of the industrial development of Germany), as opposed to the Austrians, always tended to react against Industrial Capitalism. Schmoller, who succeeded Roscher as the Archimandrite of the “Historical School,” preached the preservation of the handicrafts as the sole bulwark against “domination by the monied interests”; and this tradition was carried on by Max Weber (the inventor of the famous theory of the origin of Capitalism from Calvinism), and by Werner Sombart.
“Cecil Over England: Philip Over Spain”
Authors: Gumbley Walter
Published: July 2007

From 1558 to 1598 Cecil ruled in England, under Elizabeth the Queen, and all that time Philip II reigned over Spain and America. Philip kept both his country and his continent Catholic, and nearly all his European possession. That he lost Holland can be laid to the wiles of that extraordinary character William Cecil, whose continued opposition to Catholicism was a dominant factor in making England Protestant. Here is the man as seen by a modern writer: Never in the history of England has there appeared a man Cecil’s superior in astuteness. There was something satanic about the man; an hypocrisy almost unparalleled, frightening in its profundity. His duplicity can never have been surpassed by any ruler. With equal facility he deceived friend and foe. Even Philip and the wise Cardinal Pole were his victims, and his success with Elizabeth and his defeat of the Catholics is described in lengthy and masterly fashion by Walsh, famous as the author of “Isabella of Spain,” in his new and vast life of Philip II. There was one however whom he could not deceive, Mary the Catholic, so he let his cold heart feed on his hatred till that unfortunate woman passed to the grave. Vain it was for him to clack his rosary in the church at Wimbledon and in the streets of Stamford.
Perfection and Contemplation
Authors: Farrell Ambrose
Published: July 2007

In an age in which no special premium was placed on experimental science St. Thomas did not feel the urge to submit the Christian life to a process of psycho-analysis. He was as convinced of the validity of reason, and the principles derived therefrom, as that the sense are to place us in touch with reality which would otherwise remain a blank to the human mind. In this sense he was an experimentalist, though his aim was not merely to classify phenomena and to place them under generalizations, but rather to deduce from them principles which in the light of reason would be valid at all times and under all circumstances. He believes in basing his conclusions on tested facts, and when it is a question of pure reason he is unwilling to draw conclusions in advance of the evidence. He is more than usually aware that an attitude of mind may be easily coloured by desires, but he is equally assured that under the influence of grace the desire of charity may give a deeper insight into divine truth by immediate intuition.

Through conscious or unconscious prejudices and preconceived attitudes of mind in matters pertaining to the spiritual life, the intellectualism of Thomism does not appeal to all, while many become wary of impending danger. Even those who might well be expected to know better, are afraid of the intimate connection which Dominicans hold to exist between speculative theology and contemplation. This doubtless is in some measure due to the marked contrast which is observed between the writings of St. Thomas and of those who are classified as mystical writers.
Christ in Exile
Authors: McKechnie W. P.
Published: July 2007

Most often perhaps we Christians picture Christ in glory, at the heart of the Trinity, surrounded by a multitude of the blessed. Yet His earthly life was of the utmost loneliness. The self-emptying of the Godhead, involved in the Incarnation, found its extreme in the desertion by God of His soul at that hour when it most desperately needed support. Alone He lived, and in the isolation and the horror of self-consciousness of the damned, voluntary victim of the pain of loss as of sense, He died.

His mystical body sometimes travels on its pilgrimage with more hardship than His physical body during the hidden years. But from the first we have had Him, and although reciprocally we too are His, yet while we have all to gain from Him, He has nothing from us. He has sought one to console Him and has not found any, since He could not. For the heroism of Jesus lies in the unicity of His act. It was not He who reclined His head on the breast of John.

Since we cannot repay Him, we Christians have become accustomed, with a cynical logic, to insult His divine heart by our cool, proprietary attitude to the love wherewith He continually engulfs us in the Eucharist. So for years on end of Church history we are content to misapprehend and grossly to underestimate the contemporary moment of the Redemption. God, all-knowing of what the act involved, decided the Incarnation, but not by some toss-coin, arbitrary choice of autocratic freedom, not to manifest His glory, as though the creation did not shriek and whisper that.
Dominican Footprints in Scandinavia
Authors: Gumbley Walter
Published: July 2007

Between Stockholm and Upsala, in one of the occasional clearances amongst Sweden’s seemingly eternal forests towards the northern end of the great Lake Malar, lies the lovely village of Sigtuna, the cradle of the Dominican Order in all Scandinavia where, at the time of the Reformation, the Dominican Province (Provincia Daciae) counted forty-three houses of friars and four of nuns. It is, beyond question, one of the most interesting places historically in northern Europe. In this small settlement three massive ecclesiastical stone-built ruins attract attention, the broken tower of the Church of Saint Lawrence and the fortress-like churches of Saint Olaf and of Saint Peter with their chancels roofless but otherwise intact. The last-mentioned church was the cathedral of the bishopric of Sigtuna which early in the twelfth century was split into two dioceses, Weteraos and Upsala.

But if these three ancient relics of Sweden’s early and vigorous Catholicity call for notice, another in Sigtuna commands it. The church of St. Mary, as it is called, is a building of clamorous pink brick, looking scarce more than a decade of years old when viewed from a short distance. When, however, we get close up to it, it shows by the lines of its door and window arches signs of considerable age, and the interior clearly demonstrates its birth in the thirteenth century. It is no other, in fact, than the ancient Dominican Church of Sigtuna, now used as the state or Lutheran place of worship. This explains its intense state of preservation.
Psychotherapy at Oxford
Authors: Elrington Aidan
Published: July 2007

It was the privilege of the present writer to have been able to assist at the 10th International Congress for Psychotherapy which met for the first time in England at Oxford from July 29th to August 2nd, under the presidency of the well-known Swiss psychologist, Professor C. G. Jung. The gathering included many distinguished psychotherapists from England and the Continent, and the United States of America.

As the title of the Congress indicates, the contribution of papers, discussions and exhibitions all had a bearing on the various problems connected with the diagnosis and treatment of those border line cases of mental disorder which may aptly be described as disturbances of the normal functioning of the personality during the childhood, adolescent and adult stages of life. The frequency of such disturbances and the obscurity in which their origin and characteristics were for so long—and still largely are—shrouded, have given rise to intensive studies on the part of those whose interests are focussed on the special problems of childhood. The general public, too, is becoming increasingly aware that there are problems of behaviour which call for expert treatment, but as is so often the case it is apt to become bewildered by the diversity of theories and opinions put forward from time to time. As Professor Jung observed in his opening address, various schools of thought and practice are in existence side by side, the authors of which do not see eye to eye with one another and tend to remain aloof from like theories and practice of others.
Christendoms, New or Old?
Authors: White Victor
Published: July 2007

“Hence the particular problem now before us, which can be formulated as follows: should a new Christendom, in the conditions of the historical age on which we are entering, while incarnating the same (analogical) principles, be conceived as belonging to an essentially (specifically) distinct type from that of the mediaeval world? “

The question is posed on page 133 of the recently published English edition of Maritain's Humanisme intégrale. In its context the “now before us” refers only to one stage— albeit a crucial stage—in the argument of that great book. But I would suggest that it has a far wider significance. For I think that this is the vital question which now confronts Christian social thought and action, a question which calls imperiously for a clear answer. For so long as we fail to answer it, or so long as we answer it contradictorily, our social efforts must lack unity of aim and direction. So long shall we be disastrously divided into muckers-in and muckers-out and muckers-along. So long will there be hostile and irreconcilable “schools of integration” and “schools of separation.” So long will the latter charge the former with compromise with the world and the flesh and with ignoring the devil, and the former regard the latter as escapist saboteurs. So long will there be “Right” Catholics who quite honestly doubt the sincerity of the Catholicity of their brethren on the “Left,” and so long will there be “Left” Catholics who only with difficulty can regard their brethren on the “Right” as deserving the name of Christian.
The Dominicans at Florence in 1439
Authors: Gumbley Walter
Published: July 2007

The part played by the Dominican Order in the General Councils of the Church would make a very interesting study in Ecclesiastical history. The idea of the Order came to fruition in the mind of Saint Dominic when he was attending the Fourth General Council of the Lateran as companion and vicar-general to the bishop of Toulouse. It was then that he opened his mind to the great pontiff Innocent III who eagerly seized on a plan so comformable to the one he himself had already advocated, namely, the creation of groups of preachers to help the bishops in their task of preaching. In the first General Council of Lyons held by Innocent IV in 1245, a leading figure was the renowned theologian and scripture scholar, Hugh of St. Cher, the Order's first cardinal. In the second of Lyons held in 1274 the greatest figure was the venerable ex-Bishop of Ratisbon, Saint Albert the Great. Other prominent Dominicans were Peter of Tarentaise, dean of the sacred college and soon to become the Order's first pope as Blessed Innocent V; Robert Kilwardby, Archbishop of Canterbury and England's foremost scholar; and William of Moerbecke, Archbishop of Corinth, the translator of Aristotle, whose knowledge of Greek was so useful in arranging the re-union with the West and Eastern Churches. It is well known that Saint Thomas Aquinas died on his way to this same Council to which he had been summoned by Pope Gregory X. In the next General Council, that of Vienne in 1311, although no lists are extant of the prelates who attended, we are told by choniclers that the great number of Dominican bishops present caused some embarrassment and no little jealousy.
Georges Bernanos and the Christian Apostolate
Authors: Brocklehurst Mark
Published: July 2007

Whatever the significance of the Munich agreement, whether the pessimists are right in seeing it as a miserable political wangle, or the optimists are justified in their hope for a lasting peace for Europe and the World, one thing is clear, the Christian cannot afford to ignore it, when like the rest of the world he begins to take stock. Even if it was no more than a sign in the sky, not of the shape of things to come, but a taunting reminder of all that might have been, it was clearly a reminder, the meaning of which has not escaped general notice in spite of all the attempts to dilute it with talk of political honour and the flag.

Apart from its possible positive results, one of the main elements we cannot fail to appreciate is the sense of urgency it has imposed on the world, an urgency not to be totally side-tracked by the rush for renewed rearmament. By so substantially increasing the tempo of events it has imposed on the Christian issue in Europe a “now or never” condition in the struggle. It is this connection that M. Bernanos has a special significance.

The immediate instruments of that struggle are Catholics themselves, whose unity is one of dogma and worship, directed by one authority, but who in a larger sphere reflect every shade of opinion not ruled out by creed. It would be useless even if desirable to regret it. It is an expression of the elemental life of the Church.
Christian Tradition in the English Labour Movement
Authors: Clayton Joseph
Published: July 2007

Whether we date the beginning of the English Labour Movement from the years when the famous “Junta” of trade union secretaries consolidated the societies of skilled workmen in the mid-Victorian period, trace its origins to fiercely democratic Chartism, or earlier still to Robert Owen's “socialism” and the national trades-union of a “New Moral World,” the Labour Movement as we know it to-day in Great Britain is really but little more than fifty years old—its course steadily, at first almost imperceptibly, directed to a co-operative commonwealth.

Two notes in the character of this movement have always puzzled and often shocked the leaders of continental trade unionism. Our British trade unions never require profession of political faith from their members; neither do they encourage hostility to the Christian religion. They seek neither to overturn the state nor intrude the dogma of atheism. This indifference to the “materialist conception of history”, and all the rest of it as revealed to Karl Marx, perplexed and distressed the German labour leaders in the years before the War. The Marxian “class-conscious proletariate” should quite definitely affirm its aloofness from Christianity the Germans maintained. French leaders of labour, Catholic and secularist alike, shrugged their shoulders at les Anglais, with their Catholics and Protestants, agnostics and freethinkers, all mixed up in the same trade unions.
The Christian Aspect of Prison Reform
Authors: Ellis Alec R.
Published: July 2007

The new Criminal Justice Bill which was introduced to the House of Commons towards the end of last year is now ploughing its way in some form or other towards the Statute Book.

Its provisions, which have provoked a good deal of discussion up and down the country, have at any rate served to draw the attention of people to the system under which our prisons are being administered.

With every effort at reform there is always the fear present that we may be in danger of taking the sting out of the punishment of imprisonment; there is always the fear that we may be turning our prisons into homes from home.

The history of English prison administration this century has been one of concession, amelioration and improvement to the point where people have begun to wonder whether the reforms have not been carried too far, having in mind the vicious nature of the crimes which our prisons are frequently called upon to handle.
British Foreign Policy Since the War (II)
Authors: Beales A. C. F.
Published: July 2007

If criticism, like charity, begins at home, both virtues are probably served best by examining not the manifest faults, but the hidden ones. If Britain’s official position to-day is that a lead was given to the world and not followed, and that rearmament is a justified and overdue result, it is important to be sure whether or not such is the historical truth. If it is, then the new British policy of 1939 can command the resolute and unreserved support of everyone except a complete pacifist. But if it is not, then the new policy is unsound for lack of a moral certitude, and has none of the easy convenience of unavoidability. And the matter can only be clarified by examining British policy in two ways—our record at key-points, and our greatest post-war achievements as judged by ourselves.

The first key-point occurred very early: in 1919. During the Peace Conference, Britain and the United States had agreed jointly (on June 28th) to strengthen the League system by guaranteeing the territorial integrity of France, backed by force. When the United States Government rejected the Covenant and withdrew from the guarantee, the British Government withdrew also, feeling unable to guarantee the frontiers of France single-handed. But, six years later, we did give precisely such a guarantee, in the Treaty of Locarno. And there is real tragedy in the sequence of events. For, in virtue of the principle that a guarantor can influence the party guaranteed, we have been able since Locarno to influence and to moderate French policy. Had we given the guarantee in 1919 we should have had that power from the start.
Romantic Love and Heresy
Authors: Kehoe Richard
Published: July 2007

There is this special reason and excuse for undertaking a lengthy expositional review of M. de Rougement’s L’Amour et L'Occident, that if, as seems likely, its historical thesis fails to win general approval the book is bound to suffer neglect. Whereas in fact it has a doctrinal significance that does not depend on the soundness of its history. It is alive with the inspiration of a great theological vision. It succeeds in laying open the real meaning of the conflict between the love of Eros and the love of Agape; and to do that is to display one of the deepest and most vital of all religious issues.

The historical thesis turns on a particular theory concerning the origins of the European cult of Romantic, Passionate Love. It is universally recognized that it descends from the cult of Courtly Love practised by the Troubadours of twelfth century Provence, and that it was through the prestige of their poetry that it captured the imagination of Europe and became thereafter the chief theme of our literature and a dominant force in our civilisation. What is new in this book—new at least in the force of its conviction and the weight of its arguments—is the attempt to show that the Troubadour movement was itself originally an integral part of the heresy of Albigensianism or Catharism. It is maintained that the Courtly Love celebrated by the Troubadours was a symbolic idea invented to represent the unearthly love of Catharist mysticism. The characteristic themes of anguished love, of passion frustrated, of marriage denounced and chastity exalted are interpreted as a secret expression of the Catharist ideal of the flight of a soul from this world and all worldly happiness to achieve union with absolute love.
Art in Play‐Time
Authors: Foster Kenelm
Published: July 2007

‘The Machine has no rights,’ said the philosopher, ‘let us exploit it.’ Let it once be made the slave of all men and who knows what other Athens shall arise. It is a pity that this vision of happiness should ever have been called the Leisure State; for if there is one thing certain about Leisure States it is that nobody wants them. If men and women want leisure it is only in order to act in a way which pleases them. Play itself is activity, and, very often, the more it resembles hard work the more fun it provides. You may distinguish play from work as fun is distinguished from drudgery, but this is a bad distinction, for there is no reason why Mr. Selfrdge should not be right in saying, ‘There is no fun like work.’ Play is best distinguished from work as means is distinguished from end; play is for work and work is for the Last End, or is the Last End if we can call work that operation by which man apprehends God. Play is a sort of artificial work freely undertaken for the sake of more work afterwards. It is true that little children do not normally play games with any thought of working better when they leave off; but this is because, being little children, their play is their work, in much the same way as the play of lambs and kittens is the serious work of lambs and kittens. Play, in the sense of recreation, does not begin until responsible human work begins; until the ‘age of reason.’ Until then the child’s play is just one of the ways by which it quite seriously adjusts itself to the Universe. Its play is all movement and mimicry. It cannot play without playing ‘at’ something, unless it simply jumps about.
Some Interpretations of History
Authors: Zacharias H. C. E.
Published: July 2007

‘Circuitus illi jam explosi sunt’, exclaimed St. Augustine, referring to ‘the crushing monotony of endless cycles, period succeeding period and recommencing period, without anything ever advancing,’ that theory of everlasting rebirth, and re-death, which the Indians call samsâra, and of which St. Augustine elsewhere says, ‘qua opinione quid horribilius cogitari possit, nescio.’ With the coming of Christ ‘that infernal cycle explodes. Something new incessantly takes place. The Universe has come into being, it really grows and reaches maturity. The world has also an end, thus has a meaning, a direction, a significance.’ With Christianity, thus for the first time, History becomes something to be explained and understood, and not merely something to be described and remembered; and with History proper there is also born the possibility of the new discipline of a Philosophy of History.

When the well-known Catholic publishing firm of Herder, in 1931, started its great series of a History of the Leading Nations (interrupted, of course, by the advent of Nazidom), the first volume bore the title The Meaning of History. In a profound and masterly manner its author there treated of all the problems falling under a Philosophy of History, without naturally attempting to give a concrete exposition of human history in the light of such ‘meaning.’ But this latter task has never ceased to fascinate, and frequent attempts at it have been made. That non-Christians and even atheists should have made it—vide Mr. H. G. Wells’ Outline—is amusing, and shows to what extent the whole world since the coming of Christ stands under the empire of Christian ideas, whether men are aware of it or not.
Scriptural Bulletin
Authors: Kehoe Richard
Published: July 2007

A recently translated work by Bishop Felder makes a sort of counterpart to his long established work known in its English version as Christ and the Critics. He resumes his defence of the New Testament against these same critics and certain of their descendants. But he is now more concerned to be constructive, and the most substantial part of the book is designed to portray the character of Christ according to the Gospels and to provide a synthesis of the New Testament doctrine concerning the messianic role and the divinity of Christ. The material thus assembled is of great value; and the spirit of the book is impressive and powerfully edifying. It can be strongly recommended to pious readers. As a work of biblical science, however, or quite simply as a piece of writing, it is not so commendable. Neglect of the historical aspect of the New Testament introduces something of flatness, of text-bookish deadness into the treatment of the doctrine. And the apologetics are defective in several ways. There is a want of sympathetic understanding of the position of opponents, and even a certain want of controversial integrity. It is difficult to grasp the point of view that, ‘In the entire history of the intellectual development of man there is hardly a disaster of more frightful tragedy than the collapse of the rationalistic criticism of the gospel and of Jesus.’ Elsewhere the discomfiture of the critics can be contemplated more cheerfully : ‘To-day serious scientists, and even light-footed poets, have at most a compassionate smile for all these clever little essays of rationalistic memory.’
Biography of Father Bede Jarrett (V)
Authors: Reeves John-Baptist
Published: July 2007

In June, 1914, when he had been six years an active member of the Dominican community in London, Father Bede’s brethren elected him their Prior. He was unusually young for such an office—only thirty-three. To his other duties was now added the heavy responsibility of governing a community of religious men, priests and lay-brothers, and exercising authority and jurisdiction over them according to the Dominican Constitutions in all matters spiritual and temporal.

‘As you can guess,’ he wrote to a friend who had sent him congratulations, ‘it is all rather distasteful to me, so that I should be grateful for your prayers when you have any to let.’

Scarcely had he entered upon this new phase of his life when the European war broke out. England entered into it on the Feast of St. Dominic, August 4th.

He published in the Rosary Magazine a translation of the prayers pro pace, ordered by the Cardinal, and added:

‘All our thoughts are preoccupied with the war. Waking, it is perhaps our first thought, and sleeping our last. We have each of us friends and relations who have gone off to their ships or regiments to do battle for their country’s cause, and there are the far larger number of those who, at home, live the more difficult life of peace. Prayer, of course, must take a very large place in our energies. But we must add to that the activities of practice.’
Sacramentals of Wartime
Authors: Meath Gerard
Published: July 2007

Now that events have settled the issue between peace and war a new situation arises which demands the attention of the theologian in respect of the readjustment of life in accord with Christian principles. Many new elements have been brought into our lives, and we not unnaturally pause to reflect how, if at all, they can find place in the Christian life as such.

We are not without reasons, and compelling reasons, in support of our cause. Much as we may abhor jingoism, we must learn to distinguish it from authentic patriotism, a Christian virtue authorised by God and the Church. Yet even patriotism, taken in its fullest sense as a Christian virtue and duty, does not make the whole issue crystal clear; it does not diminish the realities of the horror and attendant evils of war, but on the contrary makes those realities more actual and those evils more apparent, urging thought as to the reorganisation of individual life to meet them. Patriotism emphasises the need of accepting readily the restraint and sacrifices inevitably imposed on all. Can this acceptance be a truly Christian thing, and can the new conditions of civil life be integrated into the Christian life?

There is much that will chiefly affect only one’s private life; and this at least can be accepted in a Christlike way, sanctified and made sacramental. Much has been spoken and written of the life of the Christian in the Body of Christ and of his share in the Sacrifice of the Mass, and it has rightly been pointed out how this participation dignifies human nature and how the quality of ‘alter Christus’ places a man, in some sense, higher than the angels, invited to embark, as an Apostle and Coadjutor of Christ, upon the conversion of the world.
Christian Life
Authors: Pearson Jordan
Published: July 2007

Daily duties are very ordinary things. But when done to serve the needs of the Body of Christ they have extraordinary value. No action of the day is trivial or unimportant to true Catholics, for every action done in Christ has ascetic value and leads to perfect union with Him. When the Christian miner plunges down the shaft he is really soaring to Heaven; his wife at home preparing the dinner is, like Martha, preparing a meal for Christ; every pace a Christian takes is another step towards Christ. The Christian Life is nothing more than growth in Christ, and unto Christ, by membership in His Mystical Body, and Christian Asceticism is the process of growth into a perfect man. This is the thesis of an excellent book which has recently been translated into English, and which has inspired these pages.

The analogy of the Mystical Body comes to us from St. Paul, who distinguishes an historical Christ Who was born of a woman, Who was crucified and rose from the dead; and a mystical Christ with Whom ‘we are buried unto death’ (Rom. vi, 4), and of Whose body we are members (I Cor. xii, 12). The complete mystical Christ is not He Who was born of Mary, but consists in Christ the Head plus the members ... The expression ‘Mystical Body of Christ’ signifies a mysterious union with Him, which is the basis of an actual reality. This does not only indicate our moral relationship to Him, owing to the fact that we love Him and call Him brother and friend, but implies an ontological union.
The Holiness of Truth
Authors: Jarrett Bede
Published: July 2007

In venturing to put in front of you, fellow members of the Aquinas Society, one aspect of the teaching of our Master, I do so diffidently; or I would do so diffidently were I not sure that you trill recognise in my attempt merely the effort of a disciple to piece together the deeper teaching of his Master and find in it something which he can use for his own philosophy in life. For this personal reason I have ventured to put together some stray ideas of St. Thomas in order to comfort myself and perhaps, therefore, assist you in the way of life.

We can now see it to have been indeed the very privilege of St. Thomas that he was never anything else than a professor: he is the great patron of teachers, for he was never anything else than a Teacher. You will remember that when on his tray to the Council of Lyons he set out north from Naples, he teas attacked by some sickness which accentuated the strangeness of that last phase of his life which so perplexed Reginald, his secretary and companion. You have only to read carefully Tocco’s text in the Bollandists’ Acta Sanctorum to see many evidences of this strange condition of absent-mindedness in which he especially laboured. After the vision, or whatever it was, that took place on December 6th, the Feast of St. Nicholas, 1273, St. Thomas, to the consternation of Reginald, refused to write or dictate another word of his still unfinished Summa Theologica, and at last, still obdurate in this, moved out north of Naples when the papal summons to the General Council came. All through that journey St. Thomas’s natural absent-mindedness became a dangerous menace to him, intensified by that vision which made him fix his eyes on God. When on the road by Ticino he fell over a fallen tree and seemed stunned by his fall, Reginald hurried forward and talked hard to him so that he should forget what had happened.
Science and the Ethic of Reproduction
Authors: Drewitt Norbert
Published: July 2007

From the unicellular animalcule reproducing its kind by fission in the muddy pool to the mammal suckling its little ones in the snow, the deserts and the primeval forests, there is found an incredible variety of means and ingenious inventions of living nature for the sure attainment of her universal end—namely, the propagation, provision, and multiplication of offspring. From the simple processes of conjugation in the microscopic filaments of a mould to the complex mechanisms for pollination by insects in the flowering plants one is struck by the fantastic twistings and modifications of the great mother of living beings, organic nature, to safeguard the continuance of these means.

But it is only where all relevant facts have been collected that theories can be built up and principles abstracted from what has been empirically given. Here, perhaps more than in any field, à priori theories and principles are likely to collapse in the exhaustive evaluation of the individual realities of nature.

A man may be convinced of a principle on philosophical grounds. But if he hopes for an oracular ‘confirmation’ from some aspect of twentieth century science he is usually disillusioned. Few things are more treacherous than the surface of physical nature for him who goes unwarily upon it. Principles either emerge from it more or less immediately (e.g. in our considering Quantity as such), or they do not emerge definitely at all. It is usually fruitless and always foolhardy for the student to venture further than the data of research literally allow. A weapon of apologetics welded from a thin collection of facts tends to snap in a generation, perhaps a decade, and frequently as soon as it is used. The misplaced enthusiasm calling it into existence is false and calls down the derision if not of its own age, then most surely of ages that are to come.
‘L'Aube’
Authors: Benenson Mira
Published: July 2007

France, the home of political parties, lias seen the birth not of another party, but of a supra-party group—the ‘Nouvelles Equipes Françaises.’ The NEF, whose daily paper is L'Aube, stands for a united, Christian democracy, based on Christian principles of social justice, liberty and toleration: but it is well aware that such an ideal is not going to be realised without the most generous and whole-uearted work. The congress which it held in Paris last month showed its spirit: I reproduce here the most significant portions of some of the speeches.

The chairman opened the congress by saying that it met under the ‘standard of conquest: the conquest of public minion.’ Financial remedies are insufficient to restore the country. It is necessary to recreate the soul and body of France by reviving her sense of spiritual and human values and by making her into a real community.

The Marquis d'Aragon, known in Oxford and London as well as here for his competence in social problems, described his work in a small village of the South. Mere discussion meetings, he said, are useless: people must first understand what they mean by democracy and spiritual values. We do not wish, he said, to behave like electioneers, and induce people, by fair means or foul, to elect a democrat: we want them to become democratic. We must win their consciences, and save them from finding refuge in authoritarian government out of sheer disgust with the vagueness of our present democratic Government. A disciplined democracy can revise the desire for liberty and for those spiritual and moral values without which realism means abject submission to force, and idealism a fruitless and vague appeal to an unknown god.
The Problem of the Great City
Authors: Quinn Edward
Published: July 2007

It is not easy to express adequately in a single English word the concept implied in the German Grossstadt. It does not mean only metropolis or great city, not necessarily city at all; even a town may have the qualities of a Grossstadt. But if wre have not the word we certainly have the reality. All the great centres of industry, w'here men are gathered together in masses in order to provide for their livelihood and to keep going the great machine of modern civilisation can be described as Grossstädten. In the concrete it is London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds and Newcastle; and even the smaller towns in the industrialised areas share in its spirit, the mining centres of South Yorkshire, the cotton towns of Lancashire, and the dirty villages of County Durham (one of which was described by Edward VIII, then Prince of Wales, as the worst in England).

These centres are either sprung out of a transformed countryside or men have come to them from quiet, orderly lives in the country. In either case they present a peculiar problem, which is part of the greater problem of man in the present age. The man of the great city (using this as the nearest equivalent of the German word) is a definite type, quite distinct from the countryman, and requires a distinctive approach on the part of those who are interested in his soul’s welfare.

How to make that approach has been the subject of a number of German brochures and even large books which have appeared in recent years.
Cosmic Praise
Authors: Pepler Conrad
Published: July 2007

Divine praise and adoration form the heart of religion. As the plot gives life and meaning to the varied characters and actions in the novel, so adoration co-ordinates the many and varied elements of religion and gives them life. And by religion we mean something more than looking pious on Sundays or giving half-a-crown to a beggarman. Religion is not a vestment put over the individuality of the man, nor is it a particular type of action; it is not even the special preserve of man. He may like to think that he alone of all creation can praise God and that the rest of nature is irreligious, but if he does so he will delude himself. For religion pierces to the very depths of being, not merely of man's being, but of all created being. According to St. Thomas, to reverence the one God for one specific reason is the proper action of religion, and that one specific reason is that God is the first principle of creation and of the government of all things. God the creator and director of the universe is the object of religion, so that the whole universe, according to the most fundamental principles of its being, takes some part in religion. God created the universe for his glory, and the universe as a whole, not man alone, glorifies him as its Creator and Governor.
The Hebrew Prophets and National Crises
Authors: McNabb Vincent
Published: July 2007

The subject of the Hebrew Prophets and National Crises is one that could hardly be exhausted in a book of slender bulk. I can, therefore, only sketch out some outline of this great and, at the present time, very important matter.

First of all, we have to consider the wonderful phenomenon of these Prophets. It is not just a natural thing. It has a supernatural element, made up of all that is natural. The supernatural is not built on the natural, but with it. To some, the prophecies, as recorded, would seem to be nothing more than a very fine forecast by one who paid attention to the laws of nature; just as you might account merely by chemical laws for the writing which a person makes on a page, but that would not account for everything, all the intellectual and spiritual values, contained in it.

Another unique element is that, in almost every page, there is a denunciation of the people that recorded those things. You have the phenomenon of a little people transmitting to posterity only one group of writings (I do not think we have any other Hebrew literature of the time of Isaias), and those writings a most appalling account of their own doings. Now that is a very strange phenomenon because, in point of fact, if you asked England to-night to set up a book in English about the size of the Bible, and to transmit it to posterity, what would they put in it?
The Rule of Life
Authors: Pepler Conrad
Published: July 2007

Writers have more than once pointed out that the ‘Ancren Riwle’ is far from being a mere set of austere regulations for a unique and now obsolete type of contemplative life. They have shown that during the later middle ages this Rule was regarded in England as a spiritual classic for every type of Christian, for it is in fact, chiefly concerned with the principles of a good Christian life which it sets forth with great charm and ability. But it is perhaps not so often realized that this fact follows from the very definite conception of the meaning and value of any rule, which the author outlines in his Prologue. All those who are resolved to fulfil their lives as good Christians should study this concise and attractive treatment of the meaning of rule in a good life. The ‘Ancren Riwle’ was written half a century before St. Thomas wrote his Summa Theologica, but the fundamental truths of this Prologue are endorsed by him. Thus those three sisters for whom the Riwle was written, and all those of every station in life who have since read it, have been inspired by truly Thomistic principles. It may, therefore, be of value to set forth the ideas contained in the Prologue of this Rule of Anchoresses.
Education and Evacuation
Authors: Evans Frederic
Published: July 2007

The war has given many education authorities a new and complicated problem to solve. These are the authorities of evacuation and of reception areas. In the former, between twenty and thirty per cent, of elementary school children have been evacuated to and have remained in the reception areas, a small percentage have made private arrangements for shelter in the country, leaving, perhaps, seventy per cent, of the children remaining at home.

Correspondingly the reception areas have had their school rolls increased in number in the same proportion, this necessitating in many cases modifications of the school organization.

The fact, however, remains that the well-planned evacuation scheme for school children in school parties has broken down through lack of complete support from the parents living in the vulnerable areas. A twenty or thirty per cent, response leaves the education authority of the evacuation area with the major task of education still to be carried out within its own precincts. At the same time the teaching staffs, in the first place, left with the evacuated children and were billeted in the reception areas. A large proportion have now, however, been recalled. Taking first the problem as affecting the children who refused to be evacuated, the President of the Board of Education, after much pressure, announced in the House of Lords on November 1st, 1939:
Action and Contemplation
Authors: Pepler Conrad
Published: July 2007

The ordinary Christian is apt to wonder at the traditional teaching of theologians and spiritual writers on the two ways of living a Christian life. He hears of the active and contemplative lives, but to which of the two, he asks himself, does he belong? Of course, his life is one long activity; but it would not seem to be precisely Christian activity. His days are spent in earning his living, and what little time he has for himself he uses for his personal recreation. Must he, therefore, conclude that his life does not come into the Christian scheme of things, that it is neither active nor contemplative? Then again, he remembers how Martha hurried about the house in Bethany; but Mary sat still at His feet. It seems that the rebuke is turned towards him: ‘Martha, Martha, thou art careful and art troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary. Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her’ (Luke x, 41-42). How distant it all seems, how remote from his own life. And what chance has he got of practising the one thing necessary, tvhich would seem to be the life of contemplation? But he recollects perhaps how St. Paul, and the Fathers of the Church after him, taught that variety is necessary for the perfection of the Mystical Body which has some members for more abundant honour and some for less honourable functions: he is perfect if he fills his perfect place in that Body. But he does not appreciate the idea of living perpetually among the second rate.