bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Doctrine of the Two Natures in Christ
Authors: Walker Luke 
Published: July 2007

We may begin by speaking of two books recently published. The first consists of essays on various doctrinal subjects by fourteen members of the Anglican Church. One or two of the essays—for instance, Professor A. E. Taylor’s on ‘The Vindication of Religion’ —reach a high level. Others have little claim to be called either Catholic or critical. The only essay, however, that concerns us here is one entitled ‘The Incarnation,’ by the Rev. J. K. Mozley. The second of the two books is a plain, useful exposition of the doctrine of the Incarnation by Dr. J. P. Arendzen.Mr. Mozley’s essay contains statements which a Catholic could hardly accept, but as an attempt at showing the reasonableness of the definition of Chalcedon concerning the two natures in Christ it seems to us to deserve praise. As Mr. Mozley and Dr. Arendzen both remind us, that definition is nowadays held in contempt by many who would call themselves Christian theologians. The former describes the state of things mildly when he says (p. 190): ‘In the doctrine of Christ’s Person the disparagement of the formula of the Two Natures has become in some circles almost a convention.’ This attitude, of course, is not new. Just twenty years ago Holtzmann could finish a well-known book of his on Jesus Christ with the assertion that’ no Protestant theologian of note any longer professes the doctrine of the Creeds on the two natures.’
Clerical Journalism
Authors: Editor  
Published: July 2007

The Catholic bishops of Slovakia and Carpatho-Russia not long ago issued a peremptory order strictly forbidding priests in their dioceses to edit newspapers, even Catholic newspapers, or to become permanent writers for the Press. We have not been able to discover the reasons that have dictated this episcopal discouragement of clerical journalism; but it may, without rashness, be guessed that the prohibition had something to do with the complicated political situation in Slovakia. The bishops are doubtless only giving expression to the wise desire to withhold their clergy from entering an unseemly welter of political passion and racial fury : there is no evidence to show that they have banned clerical journalism on the general principle that priests, by reason of their priestly office, are unsuitable persons to hold pens in their hands or to sit in editorial chairs. Indeed, the fact that St. Francis of Sales has been officially declared the Patron of Journalists would seem to make so sweeping a proscription impossible.Yet a writer in The Fortnightly Review (St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.) quotes this action of the Slovakian bishops as an argument against all priest-editors and clerical journalism in general. ‘A similar prohibition might be salutary and profitable,’ he says, ‘if extended to other countries.’ A priest who becomes an editor, he goes on to say, ‘deserts his calling, neglects his training, and gives himself to a service that a layman can do as well.’
Parliament at the Crossways
Authors: McNabb Vincent 
Published: July 2007

This autumn session of Parliament, when the Alternative Prayer Book of the Established Church is to be brought before the House of Commons, will provide a real crisis in the history of the Church of England: and in that crisis even the Roman Catholics must be not spectators only, but actors. When the Deposited Prayer Book comes before the Legislature of the nation, everyone who has a parliamentary vote has a moral duty, which he cannot shirk through sloth or fear.At first sight it would seem that Roman Catholic voters and members of Parliament, inasmuch as they have no part or lot with the Church of England may easily satisfy their conscience by what is called ‘abstention.’ Indeed, on all sides we have members of the Church of England urging the incongruity of Methodists, Wesleyans, Baptists, Congregationalists, Quakers, Buddhists, Brahmins, Moslems, Atheists using their constitutional powers to vote on a domestic religious issue of a religious body claiming to be an integral part of the Christian Church. Yet something more than incongruity might be created by abstention. Just as nothing is more dogmatic than denial, so, too, nothing can be more effective than abstention. Every abstention is at least one decisive vote for the majority! To abstain from voting may merely salve and deceive the conscience of men who feel their conscience cannot allow them the positive act of voting.In speaking of conscience-salving we have touched the heart of what we feel should be put not only before the readers of Blackfriars, but even before the electorate of England.
October
Authors: Gray John 
Published: July 2007

You have set off before eleven from Ballindalloch Station. The sky is high and overcast; delicate as an answer to prayer. The air is still and cool. These conditions are well met; bright sun is no more favourable to perspective than to walking comfort; wind is seldom acceptable. You must provide a merry heart to breast the matter ahead in snow time; it is a stormy region.In the precincts of the Railway Goods Yard (the good thing implied is whisky) a commercial name suggests a subject for reminiscence, to pass the time.There was a man named Gilbey, a breeder of shire horses, slight and wonderfully tailored, with a small, grey, cadaverous head; the two elements becomingly united by abundance of white stock.‘The Prince once said to me (but that was, of course, before my title): “I am going to have a few serious words with Mrs. Gilbey.”‘I must have looked astonished, for the Prince said: “I do not think that she takes proper care of you”; adding something about a man of value and importance.‘I must have looked more astonished, for the Prince said: “I do not think you are sufficiently clad.”‘“Oh, Sir,” I said; “I may mention that I am wearing at the present moment four pairs of socks, two pairs of drawers, three undershirts, two waistcoats, five coats, two pairs of trousers, some other garments and two pairs of boots.”‘But the Prince did not seem at all satisfied.’ Cross the traffic road, and continue by the direction ‘Kilnamachlie.’ The scene soon gets to work.
Oscar Wilde
Authors: Michaelson Alexander 
Published: July 2007

For the sake of those—perhaps the bulk of our readers—to whom the name of Wilde is only a faint memory, we may venture to say, with the help of D.N.B., that Oscar O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, wit and dramatist, born in Dublin on October 15th, 1856, was the younger son of Sir William Robert Wills Wilde, who married, in 1851, Jane Francisca Elgee, a granddaughter of Archdeacon Elgee of Wexford. This lady, who wrote under the signature of ‘Speranza,’ had a literary salon in Dublin, where much clever talk was listened to by the children.From a school in Enniskillen Oscar Wilde went, in 1873, to Trinity College, Dublin, where he won a gold medal with an essay on the Greek comic poets. He entered Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1874, where he obtained with ease a First Class both in classical moderations and in literes humaniores. A vacation ramble, during which he visited Ravenna and Greece, in company with Professor Mahaffy, was followed by his winning the Newdigate Prize with a poem on ‘Ravenna.’ At Oxford he heard Ruskin lecture, and took part in Ruskin’s road-making schemes: he eschewed games and sport of alj kinds, except riding, and became the apostle of the aesthetic movement which took ‘Art for Art’s Sake’ as its watchword.On leaving Oxford, Wilde was already well-known : he won the fame of frequent notice in Punch, and was caricatured in Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera Patience. He published Poems; founded the aesthetic cult, the symbols of which were peacocks’ feathers, sunflowers, dados, and blue china, long hair, and velveteen breeches; and his smart sayings were passed from mouth to mouth as those of one of the professed wits of the age.
Sir Mark Sykes and the Middle East
Authors: Gwynn Denis 
Published: July 2007

For those Catholics who have always been fascinated by the part played by the late Sir Mark Sykes, and other of his colleagues who were very definitely Catholic in their outlook upon foreign affairs, in connection with British policy in the Middle East during the war, the two volumes of Miss Gertrude Bell’s Letters will have aroused hopes of enlightenment upon several problems and paradoxes. It must be said at once that in this respect the two large volumes are a profound disappointment. But that does not imply any disparagement of the most remarkable qualities and the very varied interest of her correspondence. Her letters have already been one of the most successful publications of the year. And as a record of the adventures and the indefatigable energy and industry of a patriotic Englishwoman who devoted her boundless enthusiasm, her oriental scholarship, her wide experience of the Eastern peoples, and her brilliant and attractive personality to the service of the Government during and after the war, they deserve all the publicity that they have received.Nor do the letters themselves give any suggestion, such as is apparent in the writings of Colonel Lawrence, that their author has assisted in creating the legend that has grown round her name. Gertrude Bell is described on the wrapper of the book, and has been referred to in innumerable reviews of these two volumes as the ‘Uncrowned Queen of Arabia.’ But nothing could be more modest and frank than her own account of her work among the Arabs.
A Glimpse of America
Authors: Belloc Elizabeth 
Published: July 2007

There is a tragic poetry in the phrase ‘going West’ and not even the apparent banality of a journey to America in a huge modern liner could undo the ancient birthright of that phrase. The wild October dawns came up cold and desolate in the wake of the flying ship, and night after night we plunged into the heart of stormy red sunsets, as if making an effort to keep up with the fugitive daylight—only to be defeated in the race as the starless nights overtook us and shrouded us in bitter darkness and shrieking winds. Perhaps it is because of the thinning of the atmosphere that sounds become louder at night; or it may be a question of emphasis and setting. But the noise of the ship always seemed to increase five-fold with the fall of darkness. The strenuous chorus of engine and screw, threshing and booming, vied with the piercing whistling of the wind and the surge of the waters along the side of the ship. In the midst of this weird uproar, the Italian emigrants on the second-class deck would group together and sing a goodnight hymn before going down below, a lovely plaintive Italian chant with seconds and thirds : ‘O Santa Vergine—prega per me’—pray for me—‘because I am in the midst of the sea.’After six days of racing and tearing across the Atlantic, the sense of direction became an obsession, and the very soul felt as if it was streaming east and west like a banner in a high wind. As our ship slowed up to go into New York harbour, The Majestic, the largest liner in the world, sailed out on her way to Europe, and it was almost painful to see such an immense object as The Majestic proceeding eastward with so much confidence and weight, opposing the whole Strained direction of one’s being!
Sir Robert Peel and O'Connell
Authors: Gwynn Denis 
Published: July 2007

When Sir Robert Peel, as leader of the House of Commons in the Duke of Wellington’s administration, dramatically resigned his seat for Oxford University in the spring of 1829 to obtain its approval for his change of front in regard to the concession of Catholic Emancipation, he was ignominiously rejected for his constituency at the very time when O’Connell had been triumphantly returned for Clare. Peel’s defeat was the climax of a long conflict between the two men. It had begun when Peel came to Dublin as Chief Secretary in 1812, a young man of twenty-four, at the opening of his ,career. The conflict between them was thus symbolical of the forces that were arrayed on each side in the last and most bitter phase of the agitation for Catholic rights.Peel had come to Dublin full of self-confidence and energy, wealthy, backed by powerful interests, and as the rising hope of the English Conservatives, keenly interested in politics, hard working and determined to assert his mastery in a position which could be made important or insignificant according to his own abilities and success as an administrator. Miss Ramsay in her admirably sympathetic study of his life points out how chance favoured him in the first year of his new office. Neither the Viceroy nor the Chief Secretary for Ireland in those days had a seat in the Cabinet, and ‘the division of authority between them varied according to the character of the individuals who held the posts.’
Henry Swinburne the Traveller
Authors: Bracev Robert 
Published: July 2007

There is a well-known passage in Lord Macaulay’s History, in which he describes the Catholic country gentleman of penal days. The typical Catholic squire (so he tells us) ‘if he differed from the neighbouring squires, differed from them by being somewhat more clownish than they. The disabilities under which he lay prevented his mind from expanding. His fields, his greyhounds, his gun occupied almost all his thoughts.’ This has always struck us as an entirely mistaken idea. For, so far from the Catholic squire being more insular than his fellows, he was from the very nature of the case usually far less so. In most instances he had had a foreign education, and consequently some opportunities for foreign travel. His uncles or younger brothers (denied a career in their own land) might be in the service of the Catholic princes of France, Spain, or Austria, while sisters and cousins would perhaps have entered English religious houses on the Continent. Among his correspondents would probably be relatives whose Jacobite proclivities had made them exiles abroad. He could hardly help being something of a linguist, and from time to time would receive parcels of foreign books and journals and scraps of international gossip; and (more likely than not) his domestic chaplain and family tutor—a daily companion—would be a man of scholarly tastes and literary ability. His outlook would as a natural consequence be altogether wider and more cosmopolitan than that of his neighbours.One Catholic family of penal days in which the characteristics we have in mind were markedly prominent in many of its members was that of the Swinburnes of Capheaton in Northumberland.
Art and the Reformation
Authors: Manson Aelfric 
Published: July 2007

Mr. Coulton is consciously out to break idols, and he does so effectively. In moderation it is healthy and exhilarating; pursued for long stretches, it leaves one a little weary, invites reaction and confuses issues. A more eirenic perusal, for instance, of M. Maritain’s Art et Scholaslique—the contents of which he realises so inadequately—would have shown him that the scholastics held art to be a contemplative activity in the natural order, entirely engaged in the right way of making things. It may use religious symbols for material; it does not ‘express’ religion. The only thing it expresses is the form in the artist’s mind. If the artist happens to be a mystic, his work, however secular the subject, will be religious art: it results from his being. In any given civilisation the artist will use the symbols common to it. During the Middle Ages these were religious. It by no means follows that specifically Christian art was abundant. Indeed, it becomes increasingly rare as we descend from the Byzantine heights to the dreary flats of naturalism.We think also that Mr. Coulton has not escaped confusing a discussion of medieval civilisation—that brief period in the history of the Church of Christ— with a polemic against, or an apologetic for, the truths of the Catholic Faith. This imperils judgment, evokes unnecessary passion, and fogs objective vision.‘It would be a mortal error,’ M. Maritain has written, ‘to confound the universal cause of the Church with the cause of a particular civilisation….
Catholic Martyrs and Anglican Historians
Authors: Clayton Joseph 
Published: July 2007

The English Martyrs are, for the majority of English people, the men and women burnt under Mary; in especial the Protestant bishops, Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer and Hooper. So the history books have it. Our Protestant historians know nothing of Catholic martyrs—in England. The Protestant martyrs are the English martyrs. Foxe with his Book of Martyrs settled the matter a long time ago. Why re-open it? Foxe decided for the Church of England, and therefore for the English people, who were to be accounted martyrs; his decisions were not to be gainsaid. After all to accept the authority of Foxe is a much simpler process than to seek the decision of Rome. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs was the Anglican martyrology; it was set up in parish churches, side by side with the Bible, for all to read. Its literal accuracy and complete truthfulness were no more questioned than the accuracy and truthfulness of the Bible itself.The influence of Foxe, then, largely accounts for the refusal of Anglicans, and English people generally, to receive as martyrs the Catholics who died for their faith in England between 1535 and 1680.Very broad-church historians, it is true, in their desire to be fair all round, freely award the martyr’s crown where death for conscience’ sake can be detected; and so will not deny a small percentage of martyrs to Catholics.J. R. Green, for instance, in his Short History of the English People really does apply the word martyr (once) to the priests who suffered under Elizabeth :—’ The torture and death of the Jesuit martyrs sent a thrill of horror through the whole Catholic Church and roused at last into action the sluggish hostility of Spain.’
Walter Pater. In Memoriam
Authors: Michaelson Alexander 
Published: July 2007

Hester (Tottie) and Clara Pater gave me their brother’s Rituate. The white and violet volume is now in the library of Blackfriars, Oxford. He would have been pleased, no doubt, had he been told that his house in St. Giles (’ with a plastered front of some antiquity, with a pleasant row of trees in front of it; at the left .... a little passage leading to the back of the house, the inner arch .... surmounted with a quaint carved face’ ) was fated to be occupied by Dominicans and that learning and sanctity would dwell where his learning and his aspirations had stretched imploringly towards holiness.His aspirations: hear him (how unlike the Mr. Rose of Mallock’s New Republic) as he meditates on the Discobolus at rest: ‘With the heavy discus still in his left hand, he is preparing for his venture, taking stand carefully on the right foot. Eye and mind concentre, loyally, entirely, upon the business in hand. The very finger is reckoning while he watches, intent upon the cast of another, as the metal glides to the goal. Take him, to lead you forth quite out of the narrow limits of the Greek world. You have pure humanity there, with a glowing, yet restrained joy and delight in itself, but without vanity; and it is pure. There is nothing certainly supersensual in that fair, round head, any more than in the long, agile limbs; but also no impediment, natural or acquired. To have achieved just that, was the Greek’s truest claim for furtherance in the main line of human development.
Leo Tolstoy, 1828–1928
Authors: Bugeja Henery 
Published: July 2007

For the best part of the nineteenth century Russia was intellectually divided between two hostile camps—the ‘Westernizers’ and the ‘Slavophils.’ Had Russia a particular mission of her own, or was she to follow the rest of Europe? The Slavophils stood for a national culture : they believed that Russia, with her profound religious sense, might bring together the scattered elements of mankind into an inner organic union. The Westernizers, on the other hand, were all for cosmopolitan eclecticism; some looking for salvation to a close co-operation with the Catholic West; others—the radicals—inclining to the scientific, liberal and socialistic ideas, then becoming prevalent in Europe.From the early thirties of last century to the sixties both schools were under the influence of second-rate philosophers, mostly French and German. Spencer, Stuart Mill, and Comte did not influence Russian thought until later on. These theories, imported from abroad and followed with great enthusiasm, did not produce a single original thinker. For the last century Russia can only boast of one really great philosopher, Vladimir Soloviev. His was a creative mind. A great scholar, a profound thinker, one of the most delicate of Russian poets, Soloviev had no equal among his contemporaries. Apart from him all Russian philosophic and social thought found expression in fiction.It was into this welter of religious, scientific, and political argument that Leo Tolstoy was born in August, 1828. The age in which he was born and ripened into manhood, and which he ultimately influenced so profoundly with his own writings, was not only an age of ardent quest for truth in all spheres of human activity, but—for Russia especially—one ofgreat passions and cruel strife.
Dickens and Monasticism
Authors: Clayton Joseph 
Published: July 2007

Not in the Pictures from Italy, published in 1846 after the first long visit to that country, is the true perception of monasticism revealed. In the presence of ceremonial activities the comic spirit possessed Dickens. Ludicrous comparisons invaded his mind when he gazed upon ecclesiastical or civil solemnities. The constitutional irreverence of the newspaper reporter could not be subdued—not even in Rome itself. Dickens noted that the Pope had ‘a pleasant and venerable face,’ but the carrying of his Holiness in a chair round St. Peter’s on a great occasion after High Mass had ‘nothing solemn or effective in it; and certainly much that was droll and tawdry.’ The ‘whole ceremony’ indeed left no other impression ; ‘except the raising of the Host, when every man in the guard dropped on one knee instantly, and dashed his naked sword on the ground; which had a fine effect.’Dickens, of course, poked fun at the regular clergy —as good men have done in every age—and he found them everywhere in Italy in the forties. Dislike of the Jesuits is not concealed. The sons of St. Ignatius are ‘stealthy,’ they ‘creep in and out’ of St. Peter’s; in Milan they were observed in the streets ‘slinking noiselessly about in pairs.’ (But how did Dickens know they were Jesuits? Did the ‘velvet tread’ of popular repute give them away? Is the footgear of the Jesuit really unique? Father Thurston might clear up the mystery).