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GENERAL LITERATURE AND SciE 




VOL. CXIV. 



MARCH, 1922. 



No. 684. 



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CONTENTS. 



VOL. CXIV. OCTOBER, 1921, TO MARCH, 1922 



"A Divine Failure." M. G. Chad- 
wick 674 

"American Catholics in the War." 

Thomas F. Burke, C.S.P., . . 475 
American Spirit, The. George N. 

Shuster 1 

Da/in and Hardy. Joseph J. Reilly, 

Ph.D., 629 

Beginnings of a Novelist, The. 

Albert B. Purdie, O.B.E., B.A., 787 
Benedict XV., Pope. Edward A. 

Pace, Ph.D 721 

Catholic Community Life, A Mid- 
Western Experiment in. James 

Louis Small 793 

Catholics, Social Organization of 

Italian. J. P. Conry, ... 35 
Catholic Social Worker in an 

Italian District. Daisy H. Moseley, 618 
Catholicism in Nationalist India, 

Prospect for. G. B. Lai, . . 751 
Chatterbox, A Jacobean. Joseph J. 

Reilly, Ph.D 452 

Christ, The Extra-Evangelican. 

Edward Roberts Moore, M.A., . 289 
Citizen, The Duties of the. John A. 

Ryan, D.D 459 

Civil Law, The Moral Obligation of. 

John A. Ryan, D.D 73 

Commerce and Finance, A Jesuit 
Higher School of. J. Theyskens, 

S.J 532 

Council of Trent, Under Pius IV., 

The. Bertrand L. Conway, C.S.P., 589 
Crusade, The Last. A. J. du P. 

Coleman, 160 

Dobson, Austin. F. Moynihan, . 232 
Duties of the Citizen, The. John 

A. Ryan, D.D 455) 

Extra-Evangelican Christ, The. 

Edward Roberts Moore, M.A., . 289 
Failure of the Russian Church, The. 

A. Palmieri, O.S.A., D.D., Ph.D., 199 
Father Tahb, Of. Katherine Bregy, 

Litt.D., 308 

Father Zahm. John Cavanaugh, 

C.S.C 577 

Fighting Pacifist, A. Charles Phil- 
lips 484 

Galsworthy, John. May Bateman, 732 
God Became Man, Why. Leslie J. 

Walker, S.J., M.A., . . .42, 171 
Holy Scripture, The Inspiration of. 

Cuthbert Lattey, S.J., ... 14 
Holy Scripture, The Text of. 

Cuthbert Lattey, S.J 356 

Holy Scripture, The Vulgate Trans- 
lation of. Cuthbert Lattey, S.J., 641 
Human Race, The; Its Unity of 

Origin. J. Arthur M. Richey, . 433 
India, Prospect for Catholicism in 

Nationalist. G. B. Lai, . . 751 
Inspiration of Holy Scripture, The. 

Cuthbert Lattey, S.J. ... 14 
Ireland and the Sea. James F. Cas- 

sidy 774 

Irish Books, Some Recent. Henry 

A. Lappin, Litt.D., . . . 498 
Italy, A Prophet in. Charles Phil- 

lil>fi, M.A 210 

Italy, The Rise of the People's 

Party in. Giuseppe Quirico, S.J., 506 
Jacobean Chatterbox, A. Joseph J. 

Reillu, Ph.D 452 

Jesuit Higher School of Commerce 



and Finance, A. /. Theyskens, 

S.J 532 

Jugo-Slavia: A Modern Kingdom. 

Herbert F. Wright, Ph.D., . . 667 
Last Crusade, The. A. L du P. 

Coleman, 160 

Lily Lore. Harriette Wilbur, . 815 
"Manning," Shane Leslie's. Henry 

A. Lappin, Litt.D 25 

Mid-Western Experiment in Cath- 
olic Community Life, A. James 

Louis Small, 793 

Mithras and Mithraism. Sir Ber- 
tram C. A. Windle, LL.D., . . 759 
Modern Crusader, A. P. W. Browne, 

D.D 370 

Moral Obligation of Civil Law, The. 

John A. Ryan, D.D 73 

Near East Since the War, The. 

Joseph Gorayeb, S.J., . . . 319 
New York, A Papal Curiosity in. 

James J. Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., . 221 
Novelist, The Beginnings of a. 

Albert B. Purdie, O.B.E., B.A., 787 
Of Father Tabb. Katherine Bregy, 

Litt.D., 308 

Pacifist, A Fighting. Charles Phil- 
lips 484 

Papal Curiosity in New York, A. 

James J. Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., . 221 
Pius IV., The Council of Trent 
Under. Bertrand L. Conway, 

C.S.P., .589 

Preaching the Gospel by Wireless. 

Thomas F. Coakley, D.D., . . 516 
Prophet in Italy, A. Charles Phil- 
lips, M.A 210 

Recent Events, 

125, 269, 412, 558, 701, 845 
Rights of the Citizen, The. John 

A. Ryan, D.D., . . . .781 
Rise of the People's Party in Italy, 

The. Giuseppe Quirico, S.J., . 506 
Romance. H. E. G. Rope, M.A., . 386 
Russian Church, The Failure of the. 

A. Palmieri, O.S.A., D.D., . . 199 
Serbian Orthodox Church, The: Its 
Relations with Rome and Con- 
stantinople. F.- Aurelio Palmieri, 

O.S.A., D.D., Ph.D 803 

Shane Leslie's "Manning." Henry 

A. Lappin, Litt.D 25 

Social Organization of Italian Cath- 
olics. J. P. Conry, ... 35 
Social Worker, The Catholic in an 

Italian Dictrict. Daisy H. Moseley, 618 
Socialism or Democracy. Father 

Cuthbert, O.S.F.C 145 

Some Recent Irish Books. Henry 

A. Lappin, Litt.D., . . . 498 
Text of Holy Scripture, The. 

Cuthbert Lattey, S.J., . . .356 
Third Order of St. Francis Today, 

The. Michael Williams, . . 89 
Trappist Tryst, A. Hugh Anthony 

Allen, M.A 607 

Verlaine After Quarter of a Cen- 
tury. William H. Scheifley, Ph.D., 189 
Vulgate Translation of Holy Scrip- 
ture, The. Cuthbert Lattey, S.J., 641 
War, The Near East Since the. 

Joseph Gorayeb, S.J., . . . 319 
Wireless, Preaching the Gospel by. 

Thomas F. Coakley, D.D., . 516 
Why God Became Man. Leslie J. 

Walker, S.J., M.A 42, 171 



CONTENTS 



in 



STORIES. 



A Loaf and a Fish. Laura Sim- 
mons 381 

Dedication. Marie Antoinette de 

Roulet, 822 

My Little Black Book. Charles C. 
Conaty, ...... 55 



The Coming of the Danes. Brian 

P. O'Shasnain, .... 655 

Thicker Than Water. Catalina Pdez, 237 

Virginia, Aged Ten Years. Mabel 

Farnnm 520 

When the Gods Died. C. M. Waage, 333 



POEMS. 



A Silver Jubilee. E. H. F., . . 617 

Ballade. Eleanore Myers Jewett, . 34 

Bartimeus. Laura Simmons, . . 159 
Behind the Bars. Brian Padraic 

O'Shasnain 474 

Confessional Prayer. Francis Carlin 666 
Disarmament and Arlington. 

Katharyn White Ryan, . . .355 

Enshrined. Patrick Coleman, . 220 

God. Francis Carlin, . . . 198 

Gold. Sister M. Monica, . . 86 

My Mother. Charles J. Quirk, S.J., 209 

Nativity. Gertrude Robison Ross, 318 

Ruysbroeck. Anna McClure Sholl, 483 



St. John of the Cross. Anna Mc- 
Clure Sholl 

The Lovers. Charles J. Quirk, S.J., 
The Story of Jacopone da Todi. 

M. 1 

The Unknown Soldier. Martin 
Francis, ...... 

To a Young Lady on Her Eighteenth 

Birthday. /. Corson Miller, 
Unseen! Charles J. Quirk, S.J., 
Vision. Brian Padraic O'Shasnain 
Waste. Frances Maddock, 
Wintry Winds. Harry Lee, 



72 
385 

748 
519 

41 
628 
786 
654 
792 



WITH OUR READERS. 



"American Catholics in the War," 431 

American Church in Rome, . . 712 

Armistice Day, ..... 424 

Benedict XV., 857 

Birth Control, 570 

Books for Prisons, .... 719 
Catholic Boys' Brigade, . . .863 
Catholic Charities Seventh National 

Conference, ..... 863 

Catholic Room Registry, . . . 575 
Catholic Students in non-Catholic 

Universities, 427 

Centenaries, ..... 136 

Citizenship The Ethical Ideal of, 139 

Dante, 136 

Dante Secretary Hughes' Tribute, 287 
Development, ..... 424 
Eugenics Second International Con- 
gress, 283 

Housing for Girls, . . . .575 
Indifference The Virtue and Folly 

of, 714 

International Eucharistic Congress, 862 
Irish Free State, . . . .568 

Lay Organizations Catholic, . . 279 

Missionary Ventures, . . . 142 



N. C. W. C. Directory of Catholic 

Colleges and Schools . . 427, 575 
National Churches in Rome, . . 712 
National Council of Catholic Men, 279 
National Council of Catholic 

Women, 279 

Newman Clubs, .... 429 
New York Apostolate Silver Jubi- 
lee of, 718 

Parochial Schools, . . . .572 

Pius XL, 860 

Post-Impressionism, . . . . 141 
Preaching by Wireless, . . . 430 
"Projects of Christian Union: A 

Catholic View," . . . .717 
Religious Education, . . .572 

St. Dominic, 136 

St. Francis, 136 

S,t. Jerome, 136 

Santa Susanna, 712 

Social Service School for Women- 
National Catholic, . . .282 
"The Christian Mind," . . .861 
The Lecture Guild, . . . .431 
"The Problem of Reunion," . . 430 
The Unknown Soldier, . . . 424 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



Abandonment to Divine Providence, 691 
Adventures in the Arts, . . . 542 
A Commentary on Canon Law, . 250 
A Dictionary of English Church 

History, 117 

A Flower of Monterey, . . . 555 
A General Introduction to the Bible, 546 
A Gift from Jesus, . . . .266 
A History of England, . . .255 
A Hundred Voices, and Other Poems, 258 
A Joyful Herald of the King of 

Kings, 123 

A Marine, Sir! 410 

A Mediaeval Hun, .... 697 
A Mill Town Pastor, . . . 120 
A Modern Book of Criticism, . . 121 
A Plea for Old Cap Collier, . . 697 
A Practical Guide for Servers at 

High Mass and for Holy Week, . 266 
A Practical Philosophy of Life, . 123 
A Salem Shipmaster and Merchant, 110 
A Short History of the Papacy, . 689 
A Son of the Hidalgos, . . .106 
A Week-End Retreat, . . .557 
An Enthusiast, 404 



An Epitome of the Priestly Life, . 553 

An Ocean Tramp, .... 260 

Anthropos, 843 

Apologetica quam in usum Audi- 

toruin suorum concinnavit, . . 539 

Archeology Series, .... 696 

Ariosto, Shakespeare, Corneille, . 121 

At Greenacres, 409 

Autumn, ...... 556 

Babette Bomerling's Bridegrooms, 408 
Beatrice Nell' Allegoria Estetica 

della Divina Commedia, . . 408 

Biochemistry, 831 

Bird-a-Lea, 264 

Bobby in Movieland, . . .698 

Bunch-Grass and Blue Joint, . . 265 

Carmen Cavanagh, .... 555 

Carrots, 410 

Catholic Home Annual, . . . 266 
Catholic Problems in Western Can- 
ada, 122 

Civic Science in the Home, . . 833 
Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, . 108 
Daisy, or the Flower of the Tene- 
ments of Little Old New York, 265 



iv 



CONTENTS 



Dante 402 

Dante's Mystic- Love, . . . 540 

!)< 1'ia-ceptis Dei et Kccleshe, . . 699 
Dynastic- America and Those Who 

Own It 107 

Epitome Theologize Moralis, . . SI.'! 
Essays and Addresses on the Phil- 
osophy of Religion, . . . 544 
Essays on Critical Realism, . . 828 
Everyday Good Manners for Boys 

and Girls 841 

Exceptional Children and Public 

School Policy, .... 265 
Excursions in Thought, . . . 541 
Familiar Astronomy, . . . 266 
Famous Chemists, .... 538 
Field Afar Stories, . . . .696 
Firearms in American History, . 124 
French Civilization, .... 103 
From the Unconscious to the Con- 
scious, 699 

Gray Wolf Stories, . . . .697 

Gold, 555 

Greek Tragedy, 109 

Greeks and Barbarians, . . . Ill 
Handbook of Social Resources of 

the United States, .... 556 

Happy Hour Stories, . . . 697 

Helpful Thoughts for Boys, . . 842 

Herman Melville, Mariner & Mystic, 686 
High School Catechism, . . .545 
Hints to Pilgrims, . . . .102 

Historical Records and Studies, . 397 

His Reverence His Day's Work, . 692 
How and Why Stories, . . .416 

How France Built Her Cathedrals, 99 

How Lotys Had Tea with a Lion, 410 

Human Heredity, .... 407 

Institutions Theologise Naturalis, . 395 

In the Land of the Kikuyus, . . 404 
Ireland Unfreed, . . . .556 

John Martineau, .... 829 
John Patrick, Third Marquess of 

Bute, K.T., 687 

Laramie Holds the Range, . . 407 
La Darwinisme au Point de vue 

de L'Orthodoxie Catholique, . 550 
Life in a Mediaeval City, . . .406 

Life of St. Francis of Assisi, . 552 

Life's Lessons, ..... 700 
Lost Ships and Lonely Seas, . .691 

Louise Imogen Guiney, . . . 826 

Man and His Past, . . . . 112 

Manual of Christian Perfection, . 695 

Marcus Aurelius, .... 105 

Maria Chapdelaine, .... 837 

Matters of Moment, .... 698 
Meditations on the Litany of the 

Holy Name, ..... 265 

McLoughlin and Old Oregon, . . 837 

Men and Steel, 121 

Moral Principles and Medical Prac- 
tice, 251 

Mostly Mary, 410 

Music Appreciation, .... 120 

My Master's Business, . . . 844 

Notes on Life and Letters, . . 100 

On the Trail of the Pigmies, . . 688 

Originality, and Other Essays, . 405 

Ortus Christi, 840 

Our Hellenic Heritage . . . 832 

Our Lord's Discourses, . . . 403 
Our Lord's Own Words, . . .264 

Out of Their Own Mouths, . . 398 

Paul Verlaine, 248 

Playtime Stories, .... 699 

Peeps at Many Lands, . . . 408 

Poe, How to Know Him, . . 115 

Post-Biblical Hebrew Literature, . 252 

Poppy's Pluck, . . . 409 



Practical Method of Reading the 

Breviary, ..... 123 

Prehistory, 399 

Prize Stories of 1920, . . . .259 

Quiet Interior, 698 

Heading for the Workers, . . 557 

Heal Democracy in Operation, . 120 

Rebuilding a Lost Faith, . . 406 

Reviews and Critical Papers, . . 551 
Heynm-d the Fox, . . . .551 

Roving East and Roving West, . 544 

Saint John Berchmans, . . . 827 

St. Paul: His Life, Work and Spirit, 259 

Singing Beads, 264 

Social Organization in Parishes, . 114 

Some Modern French Writers, . 830 

Songs for Christmas, . . . 266 
Songs of Adoration, . . . .122 
Spiritual Teaching of Father Se- 
bastian Bowden of the London 

Oratory, 693 

Star Dust, 119 

Supernatural Mysticism, . . 247 

Teaching the Drama and the Essay, 841 

The Age of the Reformation, . . 253 

The Alternative, .... 122 

The Anncs, 410 

The Blessed Sacrament Guide Book, 266 

The Case of Korea, .... 405 
The Catholic Citizen, . . .830 

The Celestial Circus, . . . 123 
The Christmas Ideal To Make 

God Known and Loved, . . 266 

The Church and Her Members, . 696 
The Church and the Problems of 

Today, 114 

The Coral Islands, .... 410 
The Cuckoo Clock, . . . .410 

The Custard Cup, .... 699 

The Defence of Philosophic Doubt, 694 

The Desert and the Rose, . . 119 

The Direction of Human Evolution, 839 
The Divine Motherhood, . . .700 
The Economic History of Ireland 

from the Union to the Famine, 536 
The Essentials of Mysticism, . . 101 
The Exercises of St. Gertrude, . 841 
The Fiery Soliloquy of God, . . 695 
The Formation of Character, . . 842 
The Founding of a Northern Uni- 
versity, 843 

The Garden of the Soul, . . 266 

The Girl in Fancy Dress, . . 118 

The Girls of Highland Hall, . . 410 

The Glories of Mary in Boston, . 554 
The Golden Goat, . . . .257 
The Great Schoolmen of the Middle 

Ages, 685 

The Greater Love, .... 123 

The Grinding, 261 

The Groping Giant: Revolutionary 

Russia, 253 

The Hare, Ill 

The Irish Rebellion of 1641, . . 116 

The King of the Golden City, . 409 
The Knights of Columbus in Peace 

and in War, ..... 833 
The Labor Movement, . . .401 
The Labor Problem and the Social 

Catholic Movement in France, . 547 
The Life and Letters of George A. 

Lefroy, D.D., 256 

The Life of Jean Henri Fabre, . 684 
The Lone Scout, . . . .410 
The McCarthy's in Early American 

History, 118 

The Morality of the Strike, . . 248 
The Mother of Divine Grace, . . 121 
The New Church Law on Matri- 
mony, 104 



CONTENTS 



The New Stone Age in Northern 

Europe, 543 

The New Testament, . . . 546 

The Next War, 110 

The Norman and Earlier Medieval 

Period, 840 

The Paradise of the Soul, . . 842 
The Parish School, . . . .263 
The Passing of the Third Floor 

Back, 697 

The Path of Vision, . . . .263 

The Philippines, Past and Present, 690 
The Philosophy of Faith and the 

Fourth Gospel, . . . .109 
The Print-Collector's Quarterly, . 410 
The Problems of Psychical Re- 
search, 262 

The Psalms, 537 

The Religion of the Scriptures, . 400 

The Salvaging of Christianity, . 254 

The Saviour's Fountains, . . 410 

The Silver Age of Latin Literature, 102 

The Social Mission of Charity, . 391 



The Story Book of the Farm, . . 251 
The Story of Lourdes, . . . 403 
The Story of Mankind, . . . 843 
The Story of the Irish Race, . . 683 
The Tree of Light, . . . .410 
The Victory at Sea, .... 835 
The Visible Church, . . . .113 
The Windy Hill, . . . .410 
The Word of God, . . . .838 
The Works of Satan, . . .262 
The Writer's Art, . . . .261 
Their Friendly Enemy, . . . 698 
Thought and Expression in the 

Sixteenth Century^ . . . 102 

Treasury of Indulgences, . . 699 

Turns About Town, .... 692 
Vade Mecum Theologise Moralis, . 553 

Vigils, 402 

Water Colors, 554 

What Is Science? . . . .693 
Will-Power and Work, . . .257 
With Star and Grass, . . . 839 
You and Yours, .... 537 



PAMPHLET PUBLICATIONS. 

After All, What Is the State, . . 267 Pascal's "Provincial Letters," . . 267 

Report of Catholic Reading Guild, 267 

Scholastic Philosophy Explained, . 267 

Sodalities for Catholic Girls, . . 844 
St. John Berchmans, . . .557 
The Anglo-Japanese Alliance and 

America, ...... 844 

The Art of Making Altar Laces, . 844 

The Beginning and End of Man, . 267 
The Bishop and the Three Poor 

Men, 844 

The Church and Eugenics, . . 267 
The Disarmament Conference at 

Washington Will Be a Failure, . 844 

The Foundations of Modern Ireland, 267 
The Institute of the Good Shepherd, 

Its Origin and Object, . . .557 
The International Conciliation, . 844 
The Laoor Question, . . . 844 
The Loving Adorer of Jesus, . . 557 
The Precious Blood, . . . 267 
The Rosary, Its History and Use, . 557 
The Terror in Action, . . .267 
Thoughts for a Child of Mary, . 844 
Washington Conference on the Lim- 
itation of Armaments, . . . 844 
What the Protestant Bible Says" 

About the Catholic Church, . . 557 

\Vhy I Came In, .... 267 

Why Separate Schools, . . . 267 



An Irish Pilgrim Priest, . . . 267 
A Selection from a Child's Prayers 

to Jesus, 844 

Blessed Peter Canisius, . . . 267 
Buddhism in Europe, . . . 267 
Catechism for First Communion, 557 
Catholics and the Bible, . . . 844 
Catholics and the League of Na- 
tions, 844 

Columbus and the Sons of Our 

Lady of Mercy, .... 557 
Dante's Attitude Towards the 
Church and the Clergy of His 

Times, 844 

Divine Faith, 267 

Family Life, 557 

Guide to the Student of Dante, . 267 

History of the English Dominicans, 267 

How Catholics Get Married, . . 557 
I Am a Catholic Because I Am a 

Jew, 267 

Ireland and the Presidents of the 
United States, . . . .267 

Kahalekat, 844 

Latin Hymns, ..... 844 
Leading Features of the Practical 
Plan of the Catholic Instruction 

League, 557 

Papal Infallibility, . . . .844 



FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS. 



A Manual of Canon Law, . . 124 

Capitalisme et Communisme, . . 700 
Catechisme Des Convenances Re- 

ligieuses, 124 

Cours Superieur de Religion, . . 700 

De Sacramentis, .... 124 

El Libro de la Mujer Espanola, . 411 

Enfant, Que Feras-Tu Plus Tard, 124 
Etudes de Critique et de Philologie 

du Nouveau Testament, . . 124 
Grandeurs et Devoirs de la Vie 

Religieuse, ..... 124 

Histoire Populaire de L'Eglise, . 124 

Institutiones Juris Canonici, . . 124 

Jesus and the Family, . . . 124 

Jesus Vivant Dans Le Pretre, . 411 

L'Ame de Saint Augustin, . . 700 

Le Catholicisme de St. Augustin, 124 

L'Egoisme Humain, .... 124 
La Bienheureuse Marguerite de 

Lorraine, . . . . .411 

La Linguistique, .... 124 

La Spiritualite Chretienne, . . 700 



La Philosophic Moderne Depuis 

Bacon Jusqu'a Leibniz, . . 411 

Le Mystere de L'Incarnation, . . 124 
Le Mystere de la Tres Sainte 

Trinite, 124 

Les Charismes du Saint-Esprit, . 700 

Marcellin Champagnat, . . . 700 

Maurice de Gueriii, .... 124 

Monsignor d'Hulst, Apologiste, . 411 

Pensees Choisies de Pascal, . . 411 
Pheniciens Essai de Contribution a 

PHistoire antique de la Medi- 

terrane, 411 

Plans de Sermons Pour les Fetes 

de PAmiee, 411 

Quinze Annees de Separation, . 700 

Sanctiflons Le Moment Present, . 411 
Sermons et Conferences Pour 1'annee 

Liturgique, 124 

Tentations et Taches de Femmes, . 700 

Une Gloire de L'Eglise du Canada, 844 
Un Precurseur de Bolchevisme, 

Francisco Ferrer, .... 124 




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THE 




VOL. CXIV. 



OCTOBER, 1921 



No. 679 



THE AMERICAN SPIRIT. 




BY GEORGE N. SHUSTER. 
I. 

VERY once in a while there arises in us as a nation 
the praiseworthy desire to find out what we are 
really like "inside." People have been talking 
and talking; at intervals, no longer leisurely, a 
journalist appears in New York harbor, takes a 
taxicab to the Biltmore, the Twentieth Century Limited to 
Chicago, and a special train to the District of Columbia. 
Shortly afterward, we are regaled with variations on several 
standard themes: the impressiveness of our grain-elevators, 
the sky-line of Toledo, Ohio, Chicago poets, and college foot- 
ball. Our idealism is admired with a smile; our lack of ar- 
tistic sensibility is deplored, and our natural resources (of 
which the great journalist receives a comfortable sample) are 
declared magnificent. Occasionally, some less popular guest 
stays long enough to venture successfully a bit of illuminative 
criticism, but it is only a bit after all. Again, some of our more 
radical compatriots indite books in which the chaos of Amer- 
ican life is duly contrasted with the superb, though isolated, 
symmetry of the author's philosophy. And the upshot of the 
whole business is that laudable question : "What are we really 
like?" Some of us are growing a little impatient for the 
answer. Nobody seems able to discover behind the vague for- 
mula of "Americanism" anything like a formative spirit. 

COPYRIGHT. 1921. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE 

IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 
VOL. cxiv. 1 



2 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT [Oct., 

There is no obvious tradition, no apparent collective effort. 
We resemble some rather turbulent ocean, in constant up- 
heaval, but never "getting anywhere." 

Nevertheless, there are discernible in our life as a nation 
certain definite spiritual forces, not all of which have been 
eminently desirable, but which, generally, have been suf- 
ficiently self-conscious for expression. It is the melee resultant 
from their interaction which makes us what we are: and a 
tentative effort to disentangle this is all that we shall try to do 
here. The scope of American life has been regal, involving 
so complex and thrilling a migration of souls, so evident, and 
yet so disguised, a shifting of moral course, that one feels 
constantly in the presence of tremendous drama. It is true 
that we have given these things no adequate expression. Liter- 
ature, always the log-book of the national soul, is with us only 
vague reading. Still, for all its brusqueness and incoherence, 
the tale has been written with some attempt, even, at art. 

One naturally begins the story where it began. Among the 
numerous vessels of discovery, the Mayflower is almost the 
only one popularly remembered by name. The reason for this 
rather peculiar fact is that the Puritan stepped from its deck. 
He is a strange figure, not altogether attractive, but it is he 
who made America and whose character explains so largely 
the product. It must be borne in mind that he came to estab- 
lish not freedom, but the Puritan, and that he succeeded rather 
well. Of equal importance is the fact that living in primitive 
America he was free from the volatile influence of the past, and 
could be serious to his heart's content. As one reads the 
sober, Hebraic accounts of that straight-jacketed Colonial life, 
one cannot help agreeing with Cotton Mather that "the devil 
was exceedingly surprised when he perceived such a people 
here." And they allowed the Evil One no respite. The fu- 
rious persecution of witches, a harrowing affair not altogether 
bottomless, was, like modern Spiritism, the product of a gen- 
eration that looked steadily at hell, but quite forgot the exist- 
ence of heaven. Never has a people dwelt more intimately 
with thoughts of perdition than the Puritans: they made a 
veritable atlas of the netherworld, building, with remorseless 
fervor, ghastly cities for the damned. Yet, despite this fear- 
ful intellectual energy, the Puritan was really weak. He was 
a fighter like Cromwell, but not so great and grim; he was a 



1921.] THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 3 

poet like Milton, but not nearly so great and grim. It is sig- 
nificant that there came out of his ranks no supreme warrior 
like Grant or Lee, no master-poet like Lanier, Poe or Tabb, 
and no towering statesman like Jefferson or Lincoln. He did 
do something for education and even for Democracy, but his 
most enduring achievement was putting the seal of reticence 
upon America's lips. It has not yet been broken. 

This odd and rigorous reserve of speech was entirely the 
result, not of conscience which everybody has, but of the habit 
of suspending a microscope over that conscience. As the 
Puritan neared hell, he seemed to congeal, to freeze with fear. 
The sexual reticence which hangs over American art is not 
Victorian drapery, but frost, and the sad trouble is that when 
it thaws there are ugly streaks. One must admit, however, 
that there was a praiseworthy nobleness about all this Spartan- 
ism; an intense hardness of intellect and will that stood and 
struck like steel. When Thanksgiving Day was celebrated 
in the shadow of Indian massacres, when the fighting farmers 
stayed put at Lexington, when the knell of slavery was 
sounded, the Puritans sang their way to death with hymns that 
roll with the ominous stolidity of stones. Such firmness can 
fashion heroic pioneers. And if the American woman, like 
Lot's wife, did turn (very nearly) into a pillar of salt, she at 
least averted corrosion. It is to be regretted that she has not 
been able to figure either in realism or romance; but the 
average American is secretly glad that she was his mother. 

Puritanism never truly entered literature until it had com- 
promised, but it did color subsequent writing with its abste- 
mious gray, or rather it acted like a control-lever on the na- 
tional heart. Its own productions are scarcely worth pre- 
serving even as history, consisting as they do of insipid hymns 
and boresome tracts, which attain occasionally to a sombre 
dignity, as in Jonathan Edwards' treatise, On the Will, 
or Julia Ward Howe's "Battle-hymn." In general, this liter- 
ature was mere twaddling on raucous strings, and its atmos- 
phere was as humorless as a death chamber. For a long 
while novels and drama were kept in subjection as mere un- 
godliness, but finally the greatest artist of American Puritan- 
ism sat down to write the story of sin. Nathaniel Hawthorne 
was haunted by beauty which, however, never conquered him, 
but shadowed his mind as something intangible and lonely, 



4 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT [Oct., 

something that reaked of a splendid witchery and was just 
as unfathomable. This shy and inflexible artist dwelt with 
the problem of evil, and in The Scarlet Letter looked deeper 
into the human heart than any other American of his time. 
About all his work there is a delicate, vibrant imagination that 
pierces life like a rapier, but with almost the same objective- 
ness. Primarily his tales and novels are statuesque fairy 
stories, Red Riding Hoods made of luminous granite. It is 
worthy of note that when he finally came in touch with the 
older, symbolic art of Europe, he was bewildered and almost 
hurt. The Marble Faun uncovers the incorrigible Puritanism 
of its author. 

The man who looks best inside the elusive Hawthorne is 
the blunt farmer-poet, Whittier. Nobody would look to him 
for melody, religious experience or dreams; but in his rise 
from the soil Whittier brought along not only the ruggedness 
of the landscape, but also the vigor of the field. No other poet, 
even in New England, has said "Right" so emphatically and 
"Wrong" so fanatically. He put the Puritan conscience into 
angular quatrains and nailed the lids. And yet, because he 
was really a fervent Quaker, his harshness is saved every- 
where from cruelty. Having seen slavery and other matters 
that wounded his heart, he cried out fiercely; but his primal 
interest was peace. Love of nature and of the simple domestic 
joys of farm life cast a cheerful glow over Snowbound, his 
masterpiece. No other strictly Puritan poet attained such 
stature. Only in the twentieth century, in the figure of Robert 
Frost, has there appeared a singer to tell the farmhouse story 
in an equally autochthonous way. 

II. 

It was inevitable that Puritanism, always an exclusive 
cult, should degenerate into a caste. For the doors of the 
American world were gradually thrown open: cargoes of 
people came in, and cargoes of books. Neither had been se- 
lected with discrimination, but they did a world of good. The 
nice provincialism of early days was gradually ground to bits 
and blown like fine sand over cornfields and mining towns, 
mushroom cities, and extremely serious colleges. As Thomas 
More, in his far-off day, had looked eastward to the Athenian 
dawn, so the best of the Americans opened their windows to 



1921.] THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 5 

Europe and began also to construct Utopias on a land they 
scarcely knew. This business of retrospection was sporadic, 
but finally successful. Our trouble to this day is not that we 
have looked to Europe, but that Europe is not altogether a 
good thing to look at. In two overlapping streams the Prot- 
estant culture and the modern philosophy rolled in upon us, 
and for a while bade fair to bowl us over. The Puritan 
struggled in the waters but did not drown; indeed, his share in 
establishing the first great political ideal of America, inde- 
pendence, was great and commendable. However, that finer, 
broader dream, Democracy, really sprang up in the South, 
where Rousseau found a disciple in Jefferson and thereby 
wrote the first Contrat Social. The Virginian was a pacific 
deist without the brilliant wit of Voltaire; nevertheless, he is 
a greater man, for he was really a Democrat. Others may 
deserve more credit for the actual structure of American gov- 
ernment, but it was Jefferson who laid the immutable founda- 
tion, which is liberty. 

Although the Declaration was signed and the Constitution 
written before the opening of the nineteenth century, the intel- 
lectual independence of America really began later on. We 
had escaped from the shell, but it took time to learn how to 
stand on two feet. The first successful efforts for the liberation 
of the national spirit were made by Irving and Cooper, pur- 
veyors of romance. Neither became quite satisfactorily a man 
of the world, but they left globe-trotting children: Rip Van 
Winkle, Leatherstocking and Tom Coffin. Moreover, though 
both were aristocrats, they wrote for America that folklore 
which is so indispensable a part of popular civilization. 
Meanwhile, however, two great poets began the battle for 
Democracy in the very stronghold of the Puritan. To place 
Longfellow and Whitman on the same intellectual story may 
be a critic's sin, but it is historical common sense. The virtues 
of both have been challenged, and justly; the faults of both 
have been forgotten, charitably. But between them was fought 
out a very exciting contest for the common people, and the 
victory is still in doubt. Longfellow saw, attenuated with dis- 
tance and dim with twilight, the shining towers of mediaeval 
Christendom; Whitman, with a certain raucous egoism, beheld 
the ancient horn of Triton in the hands of a German professor. 
This was the real issue between them, despite the extraneous 



6 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT [Oct., 

quarrels about Longfellow's hexameters and Whitman's lack 
of them. Both strung their lyres to greet Democracy, and both 
failed to meet with the expected response. Longfellow was 
too weak and outnumbered a man to bring into America the 
Christian saints; Whitman was too much of an egoist to keep 
them out permanently. But when all has been said, the people 
preferred Longfellow; his simple songs fitted into their homes 
with a touch of beautiful friendliness that went to their hearts. 
They knew the Blacksmith and Paul Revere; even Evangeline 
was one of them. And despite the attempt of intellectuals to 
appeal to foreign judgment for a deification of Whitman, it 
needs no great learning to realize that the people of England 
and the Continent have never heard of him, though they de- 
light in Longfellow. 

Here the rift in Puritanism was already wide enough to 
admit the breath of the Middle Ages and of the Greek heyday, 
but the battle for freedom was fought out even more bluntly 
in prose. The most exclusive families of Boston supplied two 
men, the witty and urbane Doctor Holmes and the broad, inter- 
esting man of letters, James Russell Lowell. The latter, an 
optimistic Matthew Arnold, read many books and criticized 
them well, but he did even better things: he put before the 
world a New England "Courtin," a Yankee politician, and the 
quiet grandeur of Lincoln. Lowell not only understood De- 
mocracy, but he had hopes for it, splendid hopes that honor 
the man, though they have never been realized. 

Meanwhile, Ralph Waldo Emerson, a sharp, ascetic, young 
clergyman, had preached an heretical sermon in the Boston 
house of prayer. By nature, he was a Puritan, but he had 
become intoxicated with things beyond the pale. Not only had 
the time come when the world would throw off the trance of 
hell, but eager minds were full of the weird, incoherent mysti- 
cism of Swedenborg and the unbalanced idealism of the earlier 
Teutons. From these to the scientific pantheism of a later 
time was only a step, which Emerson made and yet did not 
make, like a boy learning to walk on stilts. He never really 
took his own advice about hitching the wagon to a star; he 
tried to skip from one to another vaguely, erratically, confident 
that the brightest orb was his own soul. In general, Emerson 
resembles a man forever fumbling with his glasses, yet always 
boasting of his vision. However, though not a philosopher, he 



1921.] THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 7 

saw something clearly for the reason that he was a poet. He 
knew that it was time to stop being a Puritan, that a Democ- 
racy needs ideals and, most of all, individuals. With a smile 
(Emerson never laughed) he tossed Jonathan Edwards' devils 
into the fire; but he preached with emphasis the freedom of 
the will. More than this he did not accomplish, and the world, 
fond of a few sparkling sentences, will not pause to decipher 
the dreamy messages that he thought were his. 

Emerson had during his life a very skilled antagonist. 
Whatever was inconsistent in the Transcendental doctrine, 
whatever vagaries had come to America with the new philos- 
ophy, were gruffly handled by another great, though nearly 
forgotten, Puritan, Orestes A. Brownson, who was converted 
to the Church at a time when that step was distinctly unpop- 
ular. He was a man with the intransigeant soul of Veuillot; 
a giant, tireless mind with no gift for poetry, but instead a scin- 
tillant sweep of intellect. He pounced upon amorphous state- 
ments and spineless syllogisms with the regularity and energy 
of a machine. One who skims over the vast fields of his solid 
journalism cannot understand how he managed to rout so 
many weeds. Brownson was a hard man who should not be 
forgotten, but who cannot be loved. He had nothing within 
him that is timeless or can stand apart from the matters of his 
day. We regard him now as the first belligerent champion of 
American Catholicism, long despised, but gradually grown 
strong with the coming of devoted Irish and Southern Ger- 
mans. The American Newman, when he comes, will be a half 
Emerson, half Brownson. He is sorely needed. 

Nevertheless, the Christian tradition for which Columbus 
had originally risked his life, which the heroic Jesuits of 
Canada had carried on foot, with so much glory, to the inmost 
wilds, and which was spread out very thinly over the whole 
land, did have its protagonists. On the fringes of the Louis- 
iana canebreaks there had gathered a motley neighborhood 
of Spaniards, French, Indians and, later, negroes; they lived 
out a semi-feudal existence, with all the grace and faults of a 
declining Christian age. The individuality and charm of this 
people is preserved to the indefinable word, "Creole," which 
George W. Cable and Grace King have since endeavored to 
explain in romance that has a flavor all its own. Moreover, the 
South of Lee and Jackson, which recognized the abyss of 



8 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT [Oct., 

slavery and strove honestly to bridge it, was the nearest ap- 
proximation to the ideal of chivalry that America has known. 
The life of General Lee is our finest national poem; he was a 
man whose love and battle were as mystically exalted as those 
of Arthur, and his greatest victory was also dark, pathetic 
defeat. There blew through all that vital time of the Southern 
rebellion a muffled wind of romanticism, that walked in the 
awful shadow of slavery with some of the fervor and gayety of 
the Christian days. Men did not know what beauty had risen 
from the American ground until that ground was soaked with 
blood and the novelists surveyed it, sympathetically, from a 
more callous and more worthless era. Moreover, in one of 
our greatest poets, another aspect of medisevalism manifested 
itself: the terror of Poe and his use of gruesome symbolism. 
This visionary, who led his life absolutely alone except for a 
brief, tragic love, had somehow imbibed that morbid intro- 
spection which later seized upon the French decadents. In- 
explicably, this ghostly ghastliness is bound up with the roots 
of Christendom, perhaps because the faith was born in tombs; 
at least, it was along this route that Baudelaire, Villiers and 
Huysmans later came into the light of Catholic faith. 

In general, however, the era of which the Civil War was 
the nucleus pined in an atmosphere of sentimentality and 
mental debility. Religion had become, even with Daniel Web- 
ster, a mere matter of "kindness, justice and brotherly love." 
Architecture was abominable, journalism worse, and informa- 
tion very second-rate. Literature was limited to charming 
vers de societe, and a pocketful of sober thinking. Neverthe- 
less, the idealistic energy which threw the nation into the Civil 
War was stupendous. As a period this war was dominated 
clearly in the North by Lincoln, whose speeches combine the 
geometry of Euclid with the homely art of splitting rails. His 
great, sad face illumines the first page of that bloody book 
like an etching of Consecration by a Flemish master. Men 
lived faith, then, and if they had not wearied at the game and 
turned completely to economics the story of their descendants 
would, perhaps, have been different. It was out of the South, 
loyal to the older beliefs of America, that the finest spiritual 
results came. There was born out of anguish and chaos the 
most artistic body of verse that we have produced. Most of it 
was signed by four men : Sidney Lanier, Irwin Russell, Father 



1921.] THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 9 

Ryan and Father Tabb. Lanier was a broken Confederate 
soldier with a broken lyre, but he is the only American poet 
who saw, magnificently, things beyond the horizon; everyone 
who would realize how close we came* to having a brother to 
Francis Thompson should read the "Symphony," where the 
conception and style have not a little intense Gothic quality. 
Irwin Russell, first of the negro interpreters, sang in a group of 
spirited dialect ballads of that tragic black man whose blood is 
on our hands and whom we have left in the ditch where we 
have "emancipated" him. Of Father Ryan and Father Tabb it 
is enough to say that they strung the beautiful loves of the 
priest, which Lacordaire has described so intimately, on a 
rosary of winged lyrics that are as small and complex as 
microcosms. The South was full of glaring faults, especially 
aristocratic pride, but the people of the Virginian country 
stood for the shreds of the Christian standard amid the ruins 
of their own tradition; this in itself is sufficient evidence for 
the bravery, the nobleness, of that tradition. 

The Puritans of the North gradually bleached their skins 
with artistic realism and the thin paste of intellectualism. 
Society round about them gorged itself with a primitive nat- 
uralism that was quite ostensibly silver-plated. Thoreau, a 
keen-faced, flinty-minded, insect-hunting individualist, saw 
clearly the increasing barrenness of the American world and 
fled it as instinctively as an anchorite. He was a genuinely 
original man with a strange composite passion for Walden 
pond and Greek. The trouble is that for all his clarity of 
vision, he was too blind to go farther than himself. There is 
no force in him because there is no movement, and the poor 
fellow will eventually become a curio in an intellectual 
museum, whose atmosphere he would have despised. The 
rest of the Northerners went a-hunting, and brought back Ger- 
mans, Russians and pessimistic Frenchmen. Mr. Henry James 
studied them all from Turgenieff to "Gyp," observed a great 
deal, and, finally, adopted a cosmopolitan sestheticism which 
ought to be called the Higher Mathematics of Psychology. Mr. 
William Dean Howells, a genius cursed with refinement, a 
writer whose books keep, nevertheless, the Puritan chastity 
and a powerful individual charm, studied Heine first and Tol- 
stoi afterward, and successfully ironed out of his soul any 
feeling that was belligerently vital. No sane person will suffer 



10 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT [Oct., 

insomnia from reading these books, and despite their admir- 
able purpose and workmanship they are traveling with the 
irresistible force of gravity to anemic libraries. Various 
artists, particularly of the short-story, acquired not a little of 
the cruelty of Maupassant and the skepticism of Anatqle 
France; in general, however, we owe a larger and sadder debt 
to the more ruthless Parisian naturalists and their English 
disciples, not, indeed, for their genuine art, but for their dismal 
science. 

However, we must not forget that the American who had 
wandered over the mountains and deserts to the forests of the 
Middle West and thence farther to the gold fields of California, 
began to tell stories about himself. Generally, he started with 
a laugh, and kept it up heartily. Out in the great clearings 
was born that terrible reputation for humor that has so inces- 
santly dogged us. One of the first to gain such fame was 
Artemus Ward, a gentleman, almost a rough, uncut Thack- 
eray, who made fun of everybody's foibles with misspelled 
English, and did it so good-naturedly that he ought really 
not to be forgotten. Bret Harte proved an exception, for his 
whole-hearted love for Dickens led him to shed tears copiously 
whenever occasion demanded. The distance from tears to 
laughter is never very great, and there was much to laugh at; 
it was an era of cheap art and of perfervid eloquence over 
things not understood. The expedition of tourists to Europe 
had begun, doubtless, to the delight of Continentals with a 
little imagination and a taste for money. A journalist, whose 
name was Mark Twain, kept a log of a very decorously con- 
ducted tour; this was published with riotous success, and the 
era of sham-breaking had begun. Everything in the world is 
more or less imperfect and, therefore, a fit subject for a joke, 
especially if one is somewhat ignorant but quick-witted. 
Clemens, the iconoclast, was nothing more than a Puritan 
dressed up a plainsman and skeptical of hell, a droller Puritan, 
indeed, than Calvin, but not necessarily a more discerning one. 
He did have a clear eye for local color and a firm conviction 
that nineteenth century Democracy was the ultimate in human 
achievement. But he lacked the stern, old fibre of the New 
England Puritan; his attempt to joke with life ended with his 
own collapse, in his discovery that he himself was a sham. 
And the last word about Mark Twain is his tragedy. 



1921.1 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 11 



III. 

The upshot of this later, non-traditional enthusiasm for 
Democracy was cynicism. America investigated her house, 
and found a great many shoddy places which nobody knew 
how to fix. The narrow, old fire of Puritanism sank and 
smoldered in its ashes, but there was nothing to take its place. 
So the nation staggered on like a drunken man trying to keep 
his legs and distraught with hallucinations. Institutions began 
to sag; the intellectualism which we had so carefully absorbed 
and with which we strove to supplant what vestiges of the 
Christian tradition remained with us, corroded the vessels 
of our thought. Journalism, heaven knows, has wrought havoc 
enough everywhere, but in America its chief crime has been 
uselessness. In general, it has had almost no understanding 
of the old ideals of Democracy, for which America was 
created: our highest political telos was apparently the Pro- 
tective Tariff. More than that, the popular press became ulti- 
mately the property of the commercial classes who used it 
relentlessly to further the dreams and pleasure of the "tired 
business man." Soporific phrase! The resulting naturalistic 
languor, the absolute indifference of the general public to art 
in any form, the drab treacle of aestheticism, and the sprawling 
subservience to various fleshy gods, gave to Doctor Johnson's 
definition of patriotism a terrible aptness. Under the guidance 
of Poor Richard's Almanac, a race of pioneers and homely 
philosophers was slowly being remade into a tribe of clerks! 
From end to end of America, the time-gods hung out their 
bunting and shot their clanking adages at the passerby. The 
universities, harboring quite largely a colony of mildly skep- 
tical savants who imported the latest things from Germany 
and England, mingled the turmoil of football games with a 
few Darwinian dicta. Artist after artist, gently bewildered, 
professed his inability to understand the new era, or else 
understood it only too well and wrote accordingly. Those in 
whom Puritanism lingered, took refuge in an older time and 
wrote romance from nowhere. Hence, the uncanny profes- 
sionalism, the absolute insincerity, and the amazing atechnie 
of most American fiction. 

Against all of this, there appeared a great many rebels. 



12 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT [Oct., 

The peculiar condescension with which the Catholic Church 
has been treated in America has forced it to do most of its 
good work in silence, which we shall not attempt to uncover. 
Most of the other enemies of the time-spirit were journalists 
or critics with well-thumbed Ibsens in their pockets. We 
began to hear a great deal about the proletariat and a Future, 
in fact, about all the final decadence of Europe. The majority 
of these rebels were quaint, interesting egoists who added to 
the general melee hectic statements about Democracy, which 
they believed in only when it believed in them. Others were 
aristocrats of their own making, who gazed scornfully upon 
the madding crowd and proclaimed the all-importance of the 
last thing they had happened to imagine. Sex, too, was dis- 
covered and given a salacious prominence that it had never 
enjoyed in wildest Bohemia. Endless was (and is) the number 
of up-to-the-minute poets with crooked rhythms and philos- 
ophies of life, but hiding a saving bit of dynamite somewhere 
in their hearts. Novelists galore rescued their heroes from 
surrounding society by some system or other : the "chemistry 
of life," Socialism, Spiritism, free-love and artistic ennui were 
tied in the race for popular favor. Indeed, the distintegration 
of intelligence could scarcely have been carried further. Our 
break with the central traditions of history had resulted in the 
setting-up of a thousand interrogation points deemed unan- 
swerable, in a gradual, certain weakening of social ties and, 
worst of all, in the attempt of the rationalistic professor to 
substitute sociological experiments for the spiritualization of 
Democracy. 

Then, suddenly, a great and composite people, a large 
share of whom were not even in possession of the full rights 
of citizenship, were summoned to battle for a principle about 
which they knew nothing tangible. Their vigorous answer is 
known to all the world. Half unconsciously, the Mayflower, 
which had fled from Christian tradition, was wrought into a 
numberless fleet whose dim goal was the rescue of that tradi- 
tion ! It is true that the memory of this great struggle is now 
something we forget with pleasure or recall with contempt. 
Every purpose we had officially proclaimed was dropped 
somehow into the discard; and the one clear truth that im- 
pressed itself upon the majority of us was bitter experience of 
the carefully veneered illiberality, the spurious glitter, of the 



1921.] THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 13 

civilization for which the great Americans had died in vain. 
Almost symbolically, the men who had seemed the fairest 
torches of our national vision were snuffed out. Roosevelt, the 
only smith-like energy felt in our politics since Lincoln, died 
unflinchingly, though the blow was cruel. Joyce Kilmer, whose 
brave glad heart seemed the fountain of new and manly song, 
lay suddenly still, like a broken flower at a shrine. 

All that has passed, forever. We are too near the new 
life to understand it fully, but, evidently, the great struggle 
now is between disillusionment and hope, between reaction 
that is too gray and revolution that is too red. Men realize 
that some rule must be found to believe in and go by. Thought 
is critical, brilliant with journalistic satire, uproariously 
egoistic. As for ourselves, we feel that never has the oppor- 
tunity or the need of the Catholic spirit been so very great. 
After all, the tradition of Christendom has long been disil- 
lusioned from the makeshifts of modern culture: for four 
hundred years it has been a mute sermon on the subject of 
Return. After all, too, it has long been magnificently hopeful. 
When, in the darkest days of Amiens, Marshal Fayolle heard 
whispers of despair, he said with splendid firmness : "We shall 
sing Alleluia in the Cathedral." And, from the beginning, the 
pledge of Catholic belief to the despondent individual or the 
broken society has been ultimate rejoicing in the eternal edi- 
fice of God. 

May the words ring loud! Our task here and now is to 
engraft upon the expression of American life, as we have heard 
it, the words that are the timeless testament of Christendom. 
Ruild up the best that our fathers have said with the wisdom 
of Augustine, Bernard, Thomas and Dante, to make a living 
tree of guidance that shall bring forth the fruit of peace. 
Steer the Mayflower into better seas, having resolved that 
Democracy shall be more than even "normalcy;" that it must 
be, not a sign-post, but a maker of signs. 




THE INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 

j 

BY CUTHBERT LATTEY, S.J. 
II. 

T the outset of an essay upon this subject justice 
demands that the writer should acknowledge a 
heavy debt to Father Christian Pesch's work, De 
Inspirations Sacrss Scripturse, 1 at once a monu- 
mental study of the subject, and a model of right 
method. The first part of this work deals with the history of 
the doctrine, and contains copious extracts; the second, or 
dogmatic part, is built upon the first, and contains frequent 
references to it. This seems to be the one safe and scientific 
way of handling any dogma; the first function of theology is 
to analyze the deposit of faith, to discover what are the truths 
contained in Scripture and Tradition, and for this purpose 
nothing can be more useful than to lay before the student the 
relevant texts in chronological order. Some points he will 
find clear and explicit from the outset, others become so at a 
definite point of history, such as the Council of Trent, others 
again are still being discussed, and the Church is still develop- 
ing their full significance. A good example of a teaching 
manual constructed upon this method is to be seen in Pere 
BainveFs De Scriptura Sacra. 2 

In a short article, however, it is evident that such a treat- 
ment cannot be attempted, and it must suffice, for the justifica- 
tion of much that is said, to refer to the work of Father Pesch 
just cited. Our own brief consideration of the subject had best 
make beginning from the fundamental fact of Divine author- 
ship. The Vatican Council, after rejecting certain errors, 
declares emphatically that the Church holds the books of the 
Old and New Testament for sacred and canonical "because, 
having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, 
they have God for author, and have been delivered to the 
Church herself as bearing this character" (ut tales). 

1 St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co. 1906. a Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne. 1910. 



1921.] INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 15 

How is God author? He appropriates, as it were, the 
faculties of the human writer, working upon intellect and will 
to produce a definite piece of writing, and so arranging matters 
by His external Providence that the human writer's inspired 
desire to commit to writing his inspired thought is successfully 
carried out. "By His supernatural power He so excited and 
moved them to write, He so assisted them while they wrote, 
as that all those things, and only those things, which He Him- 
self ordered, they should both rightly conceive with their mind, 
and should wish to write down faithfully, and should express 
fitly with infallible truth; otherwise He would not Himself be 
the author of the whole of sacred Scripture." These are the 
words wherein Pope Leo, in the Providentissimus Deus (No- 
vember 18, 1893), analyzes the process of inspiration. But it 
may be well to go on at once to translate Father Pesch's set 
definition: "Biblical inspiration is a charismatic enlightening 
of the intellect and motion of the will and Divine assistance 
bestowed upon the sacred writer, to the end that he may write 
all those things and only those things which God wishes to be 
written in His name and delivered to the Church." 3 

This definition it will now be our purpose to examine. 
The enlightening of the intellect and the motion of the will 
are said to be "charismatic," because their primary object is 
not the sanctification of the person concerned, nor have they 
a place in the ordinary course of God's supernatural dealings 
with the individual soul. When, for example, the author of 
the second book of Machabees was engaged in abridging the 
five books of Jason of Gyrene, 4 the fact that his mind was 
working under Divine influence, that his abridgment was 
taking just the form which God wished it to take, did not of 
necessity mean that he was any the holier for it, and in any 
case it was not that particular form of Divine influence that 
made him the holier. In this sense God's action upon him was 
"charismatic," a convenient term taken from the "charismata" 
or "gifts" of a like nature which form the subject of First 
Corinthians, chapter twelve. 

As the term "charismatic" is much abused in certain 
modern theories of the early Christian ministry, it may be 
wise to refer the reader to Father Keogh's excellent appendix 
on the subject of this latter in First Corinthians (Westminster 

8 Page 437, section 428. *2 Machabees ii. 24 (23). 



16 INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE [Oct., 

Version), and especially to his remarks about "charismata" 
on page fifty-five. Here it must suffice to point out that such 
"gifts" as those of tongues and prophecy resembled that of 
inspiration in being given primarily for the benefit of the com- 
munity, rather than for that of the individual receiving them; 
and so the word "charismatic" has been formed from these 
"charismata." 

The human writer puts down "those things, which God 
wishes to be written in His name;" these words signify the 
Divine authorship already spoken of. "Delivered to the 
Church;" Father Pesch, as will be seen, is here echoing the 
words of the Vatican Council, quoted previously, and we may 
now examine their significance. To inspiration, they add the 
note of canonicity. Supposing someone were to maintain that the 
Imitation of Christ, let us say, or the Spiritual Exercises of St. 
Ignatius, were inspired, there would be nothing contrary to 
the Catholic faith in that. Such a view might be held as a 
pious opinion, neither accepted nor rejected by the Church. 
But with Holy Writ it is different; the inspiration of the books 
of Scripture is part of the deposit of faith, and is taught by the 
Church as such. As in the case of some other dogmas, the 
final fixing of the canon of the Scriptures took many centuries; 
it was the Council of Trent that closed all discussion by its 
solemn definition, and that because of Protestant errors. 

On the other hand, in the case of this, as of all other 
dogmas, the deposit of faith must be held to have been closed 
at the end of the apostolic age; all that followed was only the 
better realization of the deposit already made. Now it is the 
very fact that the inspiration of a book is itself part of the 
deposit of faith and of the official teaching of the Church, that 
makes that book, not merely inspired, but canonical Scripture; 
it has been "delivered to the Church" as inspired, the Church 
is the official guardian both of the book and of the very truth 
that it is inspired, which latter must be believed by the faith- 
ful, not as a pious opinion, but as an article of faith. The book 
plays a public and official part in the Church, as a recognized 
channel of revelation; the theologian and the exegete examine 
what Almighty God may have revealed therein to the Church 
on the subject of faith and morals; it plays a part in the liturgy, 
and in other ways is honored and esteemed as the word of God. 
We have no certain ground for saying that everything inspired 



1921.] INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 17 

is in the canon of Scripture, but all canonical Scripture is 
inspired. 

The term "canonical" may now be held sufficiently ex- 
plained, but certain other words may be examined, in order 
to a still clearer notion of inspiration. Revelation is a direct 
communication from God, delivered externally by vision or by 
words alone, or internally by action upon imagination or intel- 
lect. The phenomena of Christian experience, such, for ex- 
ample, as those discussed by Father Thurston, S.J., in 
the Month, 5 or recounted in the Life of Gemma Galgani by 
Father Germanus, C.P., 6 indicate the possibility that sound or 
sight may have had noihing physical corresponding to them 
outside the recipient of the revelation, even while ruling out of 
court the hypothesis of sheer delusion. Almighty God can 
work directly upon the inner sense no less than upon the 
outer; or He may communicate directly with the intellect 
itself. To examine the various possibilities at length, however, 
belongs rather to a study of prophecy or mysticism; those who 
wish to do so will find it useful to study the late Pere Poulain's 
The Graces of Interior Prayer, 7 especially chapter twenty. 
Revelation was essential to a prophet, who also received a mis- 
sion to deliver to some person or persons the truth revealed 
to him; but it is not an essential feature in inspiration. The 
author of Second Machabees, for example, may have acquired 
his knowledge of what he came to write simply from the study 
of Jason of Gyrene; when he was actually writing his own 
work, the Divine action was upon his intellect and will, but by 
way of inspiration, guiding his intellect, but not of necessity 
revealing any truth directly to it. 

Indeed, it does not seem necessary to suppose that the 
writer was even conscious of inspiration; there seems no good 
reason to deny that God could act unperceived on intellect and 
will, as He seems frequently to do in the case of actual grace. 
Yet what is actually written under inspiration, and all of it, 
is truly called revelation, because it has God for author; and 
that even though we could have known, or do know, the truths 
in question from other sources. Revelation, then, is not es- 
sential to the process of inspiration, to the appropriating of the 
writer's faculties by God, to the making an instrument, albeit 

5 August-December, 1920 : "Limpias and the Problem of Collective Hallucination." 
"London: Sands & Co., 1914, pp. 115-117. 
7 English translation. London : Kcgan Paul. 1912. 
VOL. cxiv. 2 



18 INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE [Oct., 

a human instrument, of him; but everything that is inspired 
is in virtue of that very fact also revealed, precisely because 
the writer has been an instrument whereby God has spoken 
His mind. The result is revelation, though the process of 
revelation need not, of course, take written shape; it is no way 
essential to revelation that it should be written. Every word 
that Our Lord spoke, for example, was true revelation, the 
utterance of God. 

Another term that it will be useful to bring into com- 
parison at this stage is "infallibility." Infallibility in a person 
or persons may be described as the impossibility of their 
judging or asserting what is false; but in so far as we apply the 
term in a technical sense to Church and Pope, it signifies an 
impossibility limited by certain conditions. The Church is 
infallible, that is to say, the ecclesia docens, the Church teach- 
ing, the body of bishops as a moral whole, with the Holy 
Father at their head; and these are infallible, either when they 
are defining articles of faith in a general council, or when, in 
the ordinary exercise of their pastoral office, they are regularly 
teaching certain doctrines as articles of faith, to be held by all 
the faithful. And "the Roman Pontiff," according to the 
Vatican definition, "when he speaks ex cathedra, that is to 
say, when in discharge of his office of pastor and teacher of 
all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he 
defines a doctrine touching faith or morals as to be held by the 
whole Church (then), through the Divine assistance promised 
him in Blessed Peter, he enjoys that infallibility wherewith the 
Divine Redeemer wishes His Church to be equipped in defining 
doctrine touching faith or morals; and, therefore, the defini- 
tions of the aforesaid Roman pontiff are in themselves, and 
not by reason of the consent of the Church, irrevocable." 

Infallibility is primarily a negative prerogative; it guar- 
antees that something will not happen. It does not imply that 
an answer will at once be forthcoming to every difficulty, or 
that an answer, if given, will always be opportune, or couched 
in the best possible terms; only this is sure, that if a doctrine 
is taught under definite conditions, then there will be no error 
of faith or morals in the doctrine. And this, needless to say, 
means on the positive side the certainty of truth. The "Divine 
assistance" might take various forms; Almighty God, so far 
as we can judge, can prevent any such error by the ordinary 



1921.] INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 19 

exercise of His supernatural Providence, without any par- 
ticular revelation or anything of that kind. Again, infallibility 
as explained above is a permanent prerogative; Church and 
Pope are infallible continuously, and to the end of time, and 
the infallibility is operative wherever the conditions are ful- 
filled. In a certain sense, indeed, we may even say that it is 
always in operation. 

Now, neither inspiration nor revelation can well be called 
either negative or permanent. In both, God's action is pos- 
itive; in revelation He is directly imparting information, while 
in inspiration the human mind is acting as His instrument. 
Inspiration and revelation are also alike transitory in their 
mode of action, in fact, if we confine our attention to the 
deposit of faith and to Biblical inspiration, they came to a 
definite end with the close of the apostolic age. We possess the 
results, the contents of a revelation and inspiration given long 
ago, but the process is not repeated, at least, not in any shape 
which demands our assent as Catholics. 

The intellect of the sacred writer, then, is enlightened in 
order that he may attain the truth which God intends him to 
commit to writing; not necessarily enlightened by way of a 
direct revelation (though what is written is revelation), but 
always and necessarily in this sense, that God has appro- 
priated his intellect for the purpose in hand, using it as His 
instrument, guiding it by His illuminations, in order to the 
right conception of what is to be written. There is a similar 
"charismatic" motion of God upon the will. That, too, He 
appropriates; He stirs up desires therein in a way that He 
knows will be effective, so that the sacred writer, His human 
instrument, will actually desire to write what God designs he 
should write. In the enkindling of the will, no less than in 
the enlightening of the understanding, we naturally suppose a 
process closely akin to the movements of actual grace, which 
Catholic theology has investigated more closely; but the es- 
sential purpose of these charismatic motions is not the sancti- 
fication of the individual, but the signifying of the mind of 
God through the written document. 

Yet the Divine appropriation of intellect and will would 
not suffice without a certain "assistance," a special working 
of God's supernatural Providence, supplementing that appro- 
priation, and itself also directed to the production of the 



20 INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE [Oct., 

written document. It may be divided into external and in- 
ternal assistance. If the human instrument chosen by God to 
write is to accomplish that Divine purpose, the means to do so 
must be at his disposal, writing materials and the power to 
use them, leisure, and other such things which we may reckon 
in the main external. A special supernatural Providence at- 
tends to all these things, so that the work actually eventuates. 
It is also required to control to some extent the inward work- 
ing of the sacred writer's mind. Thus, as Father Pesch points 
out, 8 there is no reason in the nature of things why a sacred 
writer should not, upon occasion, have inserted matter of his 
own into a book otherwise inspired, and thus have mixed up 
matter which had God as the principal author, with matter 
which had not, in short, why he should not have written part 
of his work without any charismatic motion of intellect and 
will to influence him. We know from the tradition of the 
Church that this has not happened, and it is due to this Divine 
assistance that it has not happened. 

It is a question now debated, however, where precisely 
the charismatic motion of intellect and will ends, and where 
the mere assistance begins. The discussion seems to have 
begun about the time of the Council of Trent, and to have 
owed its origin to the exaggerations of the Protestants. We 
may distinguish roughly three schools. The first, which may 
be considered obsolete, may be called that of "mechanical" in- 
spiration : even the choice of words is in no way due to the co- 
operation of the intellect and will of the sacred writer with the 
charismatic influx, and if his style has an individuality of its 
own, that is a mere coincidence, and in no way due to his own 
personality. The words come to .him from the Holy Ghost 
ready-made, as it were, and all he does is to put them down. 
He has not contributed in any true sense to the production of 
them. This is the theory stated at its baldest, yet Father 
Pesch 9 quotes passages from earlier Catholic theologians 
which at least come dangerously near to this. The second 
hypothesis is that of "verbal" inspiration, sometimes called 
"neo-verbal," in contrast to the older and exaggerated theory 
of verbal inspiration just mentioned. The whole internal pro- 
cess in the writer's mind, up to the very choice of words, is 
subject to the charismatic action, so that the work produced is 

8 De Inspiration, p. 486. Sections 278-282. 



1921.] INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 21 

totus a Deo et totus ab homine, all of it from God and all of it 
from man. If, for example, a rough and uncultivated writer 
use a rough and uncultivated style, it is not merely because 
the Holy Ghost has selected such a style for him, so as to make 
it a mere coincidence, but because the writer's own natural 
powers, upbringing and the like produce their natural effect, 
even while under the action of the charismatic motion. The 
Holy Ghost is working through him as a truly human instru- 
ment, not, if such an expression may be used, with reverence, 
for clearness' sake, as a kind of glorified pen. In our own 
century this view has been put forward in two little books, one 
by Cardinal (then Father) Billot, De Inspirations S. Scrip- 
tiirae, the other by Pere Bainvel, De Scriptura Sacra. 11 

The champions of "non-verbal" inspiration, sometimes 
dubbed in Loisy's phrase, approved by Cardinal Billot, 12 "vivi- 
sectionists," distinguish the idea, verbum mentis, modus con- 
cipiendi sententia, from the word used to express it, verbum 
imaginations, modus loquendi, verbum, and restrict the essen- 
tial function of inspiration to the former. The essential func- 
tion, be it noticed; for nobody denies that God can, if He will, 
carry the inspiration further. The question is, can it rightly be 
called inspiration at all, or at all events Biblical inspiration, 
if it be supposed non-verbal. That Biblical inspiration is not 
in all cases merely non-verbal is highly probable, from the 
way in which it seems at times to be implied that the very 
words have been selected by God; the question is, once more, 
must we suppose that it is never merely non-verbal. Let us 
also notice here that there can be little serious doubt about 
the psychological possibility of this "vivisection," since expe- 
rience shows that we can have an idea in our minds without a 
word to represent it, or, at least, to represent it adequately. 
Those, for example, to whom it falls to write or speak much, 
are, at times, only too conscious of a difficulty in finding words 
which will give satisfactory expression to their thought; self- 
expression is an art often acquired at a great price. In the 
same way, those who are speaking in a language wherein they 
have only a moderate facility, may find themselves brought 
to a halt by their inability to find a word for something; no 
word of any language may be in their thought, but there can 
be no doubt as to what the idea is that awaits expression. 

10 Romss, ex typographia polyglotta S. C. de Propaganda Fide, 1903. 
n Pauls: Gabriel Beauchesne. 1910. 12 De Inspiration S. Scriptures, p. 56. 



22 INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE [Oct., 

The Divine action, then, that peculiar and particular char- 
ismatic working upon intellect and will which constitutes the 
essence of inspiration, might on this hypothesis be confined, 
so far as what is necessary and essential to it is concerned, 
to the formation of ideas and the desire to express them, and 
it would belong to God's ordinary supernatural Providence to 
see to it that they found fitting expression. He could not, of 
course, in any case remain indifferent to that. This view will 
be found explained and defended in Father Pesch's massive 
work, and in Vigouroux's Manuel Biblique, the wide use of 
which in the French seminaries has led to the sale of many 
thousands of copies. 

Is there, then, any peculiar advantage in the view that 
inspiration need be no more than non-verbal? The matter 
cannot be discussed in full here, but it may be enough to point 
out what seems at once the chief advantage of this view, and 
the chief guarantee that it is sound. The Biblical Commission, 
under date of June 27, 1906, while defending in general the 
Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, expressly answered in 
the affirmative the question whether "the hypothesis of those 
can be allowed, who think that he (Moses) committed the work, 
itself conceived by him under the afflatus of Divine inspiration, 
to another or to others to write, in such a way, however, that 
they should faithfully express his meaning, write nothing con- 
trary to his will, and leave out nothing; so that eventually the 
work, composed in this way, and approved by Moses, the chief 
and inspired author, would be published in his name." Moses 
is here distinguished from the scribe or scribes who may have 
written for him, not merely as the chief, but as the inspired 
author (principe inspiratoque auctore), and it, therefore, 
seems clear that in this hypothesis which the Biblical Com- 
mission goes out of its way to permit, we have Moses on the 
one hand, inspired and supplying the ideas, and the scribe or 
scribes on the other, not inspired, but supplying the words. 
In other words, it would be a case of non-verbal inspiration, 
and not open to the objection of psychological "vivisection," 
since ideas and words would come from different persons. 

Perhaps it is hardly putting it strongly enough to say, as 
above, that the Biblical Commission "goes out of its way" to 
permit this hypothesis; an examination of its answers seems 

u Paris : Roger et Chernoviz. 1913. 



1921.] INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 23 

to show that sometimes, after laying down a general principle, 
it goes on to give a question and answer which is apparently 
intended as a suggestion towards meeting some of the chief 
and obvious difficulties, such as, in this case, would be the 
alleged difference in style between the documentary sources of 
the Pentateuch usually propounded by the critics. That is to 
say, it appears safe to infer that the Biblical Commission 
means to hold out the possibility that any differences in style 
may be due to scribes or secretaries. And this inference is 
confirmed by an answer given under date of June 24, 1914, 
in regard to the Epistle to the Hebrews. The question is: 
"Whether Paul, the Apostle, is to be considered in such a way 
the author of this epistle, that it must necessarily be affirmed 
that he not only conceived and gave forth the whole of it 
under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, but that he also gave 
it that form in which it is extant." And the answer is in the 
negative, "saving the further judgment of the Church." Here 
again the difficulty raised is largely that of style, and the 
solution is suggested that the style, as such, need not be due 
to the author. If, then, as seems tolerably clear, it is a legiti- 
mate interpretation of the action of the Biblical Commission 
to say that twice over it meets an important objection 6y sug- 
gesting a solution which involves merely non-verbal inspira- 
tion, it can no longer be urged, in the face of such authority, 
that such a doctrine whittles down inspiration unduly or 
abandons anything that is essential. 

From inspiration, we pass naturally to inerrancy. We 
cannot begin better than by resorting once more to the Provi- 
dentissimus Dens, in a passage near the close: "So far is it 
from being possible, that any error should underlie Divine 
inspiration, that this latter by its very nature (per se ipsa) not 
merely excludes all error, but as necessarily excludes and 
rejects it, as it is necessary that God, the supreme Truth, 
should be the author of absolutely no error." This entire 
freedom from error, therefore, is to be held as a necessary 
consequence of the Divine authorship; and yet not simply as 
that, but as a truth revealed in itself, and evidently contained 
alike in Scripture and Tradition. The constant teaching of 
the Fathers and of the Church in all ages puts it beyond doubt 
that we must treat this truth as an article of faith. 

And now we may hark back to infallibility, in order to 



24 INSPIRATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE [Oct., 

compare with it this same inerrancy. Infallibility, then, as has 
been explained, is primarily a negative prerogative; Almighty 
God has so arranged that in the teaching of Pope and Church, 
mistake, under certain conditions, shall be impossible. We can 
surmise that, speaking relatively and in a human way, very 
little Divine action is needed to secure such a result, though 
we cannot be sure that God always confines Himself to that 
little to the bare essential. Biblical inerrancy for it is more 
practical to confine ourselves to the case of Holy Writ is also 
something negative, a freedom from error; but the Divine 
action which it accompanies is something primarily positive. 
It cannot be considered as a mere exercise of supernatural 
Providence, such as might suffice for infallibility, but God Him- 
self is the author of what is being written, and the human 
writer is but His instrument, and it is precisely because God 
is author that there can be no error, and is none. In this 
sense, while inerrancy, in the strictest sense, remains some- 
thing negative, it is inextricably bound up with a very positive 
Divine action, the Divine writing. 

Again, infallibility, as has also been explained, is some- 
thing permanent, continuing in Pope and Church till the end 
of time; but Biblical inerrancy, like the inspiration which 
it accompanied, is, in a certain sense, over and done with. 
Biblical inspiration, that is to say, came to an end with the 
close of the apostolic age; as we have se"en, it could not outlast 
the giving of the deposit of faith, since it is essential to a book 
of Holy Scripture that the fact of its inspiration should form 
part of that deposit. And Biblical inerrancy, in the strictest 
sense, means this, that God, writing those books as He was 
through His human instrument, necessarily wrote them free 
from error. The results of that inspiration and that inerrancy 
will always remain in the Church; there will always be with 
her faithful copies of those books inspired long ago, and, in so 
far as they are faithful copies, they will always enjoy that 
freedom from error of which Biblical inerrancy is the 
guarantee. 




SHANE LESLIE'S "MANNING." 

BY HENRY A. LAPPIN, LITT.D. 

R. SHANE LESLIE'S remarkable book 1 is the 
most important contribution to the history of the 
Church in England since the late Wilfrid Ward's 
Newman appeared in 1912. And, indeed, this 
brilliant and confident narrative, this portrait so 
full, vivid, and complete, goes far to convince us that the new 
editor of the Dublin Review possesses no small share of his 
distinguished predecessor's talent in the art of ecclesiastical 
biography. It is a pleasure to record our sense of the devotion 
and skill which characterize every chapter of Mr. Leslie's 
work. The author modestly puts it forth as "a supplement 
rather than a supplanter to PurcelFs grandiose Life of Cardinal 
Manning." Because of the letters and documents therein sup- 
plied, Purcell's amazing volumes will always be indispensable 
to the student of the Catholic Revival in England, but hence- 
forth readers who seek a truthful and unbiased account of the 
great Cardinal's life and labors will be well advised to begin 
with the later biography, using Purcell's Life for the illus- 
trative material so copiously provided, and scrutinizing with 
jealous eye the sinister conclusions Purcell so frequently drew 
therefrom. 

For Purcell's Life of Cardinal Manning is one of the cur- 
iosities of biographical literature. Out of a generosity nothing 
less than heroic, the Cardinal gave Purcell access to a selection 
from his private papers and diaries, so that by writing the 
official Life Purcell might recoup himself for severe financial 
losses sustained many years before when he was editor of a 
Catholic newspaper, the Westminster Gazette. Purcell made 
the basest of returns by publishing a misleading and defam- 
atory biography which presented a figure utterly unrecogniz- 
able by Manning's most intimate friends : the figure of an un- 
scrupulous careerist, devoid of loyalty to his friends and 
knowing no generosity towards his foes. A year later, Father 
H. I. D. Ryder, Newman's Oratorian friend and colleague, 

1 Henry Edward Manning. His Life and Labors. By Shane Leslie. New York: 
P. J. Kenedy & Sons. 



26 SHANE LESLIE'S "MANNING" [Oct., 

wrote a masterly vindication of Manning from the aspersions 
of Purcell; a vindication which, however, remained unpub- 
lished until 1911. 2 M. Thureau-Dangin in one of the footnotes 
to the second volume of his classical chronicle of the English 
Catholic Revival, reproached Purcell for having judged Man- 
ning "a sa propre mesure, c'est-a-dire a une mesure etroite et 
mesquine," and recommended a biography by M. PAbbe Hem- 
mer based upon Purcell, "mats en Vallegeant et en le corri- 
geant." There is also an interesting refutation of Purcell by 
the Protestant, Francis De Pressense, reprinted from the pages 
of the Revue des Deux Mondesi 

But none of these rehabilitations of Manning can have 
reached more than an inconsiderable number of the readers 
of Purcell, and so far as the general public is concerned, the 
mischief wrought by Purcell has remained unrepaired until 
now. Indeed, a new lease of life was recently given to the 
popular caricature of Manning, in the lengthy account which 
formed more than one-third of the contents of the clever Mr. 
Strachey's Eminent Victorians (1918). Mr. Strachey out-Pur- 
cells Purcell, and his study of Manning is the most Voltairean 
composition in the whole range of modern English letters. 
Clearly, there was need of a candid, detailed and thoroughly- 
documented biography which should be written without parti- 
pris or malice prepense. To supply this need there was no 
living man better qualified than Mr. Shane Leslie. In the 
course of his exacting task he has had access to the eccle- 
siastical archives of England, Ireland and America, and 
has studied all the documentary "evidence in the case." No 
praise can be too high for the sympathetic understanding he 
reveals of political and ecclesiastical issues, his sobriety of 
temper and judgment, and the grace, distinction and impres- 
siveness of his writing. 

* * * * 

One of the two most important events in the history of 
post-Tridentine English Catholicism occurred on the ninth of 
October, 1845, when on the morrow of a night wild with equi- 
noctial wind and pouring rain, John Henry Newman, the 
flower of Anglican devotion and learning, made his profession 
of Faith into the toil-worn hands of Father Dominic the 

2 Essays. By H. I. D. Ryder. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. 1911. 
* Life of Cardinal Manning. By Francis De Pressens6. Translated by Francis T. 
Furey, M.A. Philadelphia: John Joseph McVey. 1897. 



1921.] SHANE LESLIE'S "MANNING" 27 

Italian Passionist who as a boy had sought his wandered sheep 
on the lonely slopes of the Apennines and now, at length, 
drawn thither by a mysterious attraction that had endured 
throughout thirty years, had come over into England to bring 
back her strayed souls to the Fold of Faith. The other took 
place on Passion Sunday, 1851, when Henry Edward Manning, 
ex-Archdeacon of Chichester, sacrificing his ambitions and 
friendships and the certainty of ultimate promotion to the 
most exalted dignities the Church of England had in gift, 
knelt beside his friend, James Hope-Scott, at the feet of an 
obscure Jesuit, and entered the Catholic Church. To his com- 
panion in conversion Manning declared: "I feel as if I had no 
desire unfulfilled but to persevere in what God has given me 
for His Son's sake." "After this," he wrote to Robert Wilber- 
force, "I shall sink to the bottom and disappear." 

In 1850, the then reigning Pontiff restored the Catholic 
hierarchy in England. Nicholas Cardinal Wiseman, the first 
Archbishop of Westminster, died fifteen years later; Rome ap- 
pointed the ex-Archdeacon of Chichester to be his successor, 
and the great reign began. Newman, meanwhile, was living in 
comparative obscurity at the Birmingham Oratory. The for- 
tunes of the Church in England were to be largely intertwined 
with the lives of these two great converts. Wilfred Ward has 
most illuminatingly noted 4 the contrasts between Manning and 
Newman. To him "they, to some extent, embody two distinct 
types of mental character which we now see widely repre- 
sented in the Catholic Church. Each man was fascinated by 
a type in conformity with his own earlier life. The Rector of 
Lavington and the Archdeacon was drawn to the Church of 
St. Francis of Sales and St. Charles Borromeo of the pastor 
of souls, and the guide of consciences, and of the saintly of- 
ficial ruler. The study of such historical characters brought 
out in Manning a special affinity for the post-Reformation 
Church, of which they were representatives; that is for the 
Church in action, and in controversy with those who had re- 
belled from her authority. 

"Consideration of deeper intellectual problems, wide and 
penetrating thought among churchmen, was not the charac- 
teristic of the period immediately succeeding the Reformation. 
True, these qualities are to be found a little later in the writ- 

*Ten Personal Studies, pp. 292, 293. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. 1908. 



28 SHANE LESLIE'S "MANNING" [Oct., 

ings of such divines as Suarez and de Lugo; while the works 
of Petavius will ever stand high as specimens of frank treat- 
ment of the history of theology. But the success of the Coun- 
ter-Reformation was due to other gifts in which the Jesuits 
specially excelled ascetic life, ready and persuasive speech, 
controversial rather than philosophical ability. The whole 
seminary system then introduced was on these lines. The old 
mediaeval disputations once symbols of almost unbridled free- 
dom of speech and speculation, were reorganized and mar- 
shaled to defend fixed propositions affirmed by the Catholic, 
denied by the Protestant. Authority and devotion enjoyed 
paramount influence; intellect was but the servant whose busi- 
ness it was to defend their claims. Manning with his high 
ascetic ideals, his enthusiasm for the priestly caste, his ready 
but not deep intellect, found in this atmosphere an entirely 
congenial home. 

"To Newman it was, before all things, the Church of the 
Fathers which typified the genius of the Catholic Church. 
The days when Christian thought was building up theology as 
the expression of Christ's faith best suited to educated men 
in view of the controversies of the hour, persuasive to the in- 
tellect of Alexandria or Athens, were the days congenial to 
the man who had lived his life among thinkers and scholars 
in Oxford. On the patristic era of Church history, he tells us, 
his imagination loved to dwell as 'in a paradise of delight.' 
Theology occupied primarily, not in refuting 'heretical rebels,' 
but in intellectually interpreting and applying the genius of 
Christianity, satisfying the deeper thought of its own cham- 
pions rather than merely scoring immediate successes in argu- 
ment, was his ideal." 

It was almost inevitable that two such widely different 
temperaments should, at times, find themselves in opposition. 
Much has been written about the differences and antagonisms 
that arose between them. Commentators like Purcell and 
Strachey have (lacrymis coactis!) mourned over Newman in 
the role of the dove in the eagle's nest. Not the least valuable 
part of Mr. Leslie's book is his sixteenth chapter : "The Case 
of Dr. Newman." "Their differences," remarks Mr. Leslie with 
perfect truth, "were exaggerated by a horde of Protestant 
journalists, Catholic busybodies, and excitable converts." 
From a letter written by Manning to Lady Herbert (January 



1921.] SHANE LESLIE'S "MANNING" 29 

15, 1866), he quotes: "It is strange what efforts they make to 
believe that we are divided above all, Dr. Newman and my- 
self. I should be ready to let him write down my faith and I 
would sign it without reading it. So would he." 5 Surely, this 
is a sufficient answer to the extraordinary statement in Mr. 
J. E. C. Bodley's reprinted lecture 6 that "Manning seriously 
believed that Newman was not an orthodox Catholic." 

In meditating upon the relations between Newman and 
Manning, it is unwise to leave out of account the extraor- 
dinary, even feminine, sensitiveness of Newman, and one must 
always keep in mind the fact that Manning was the chief of- 
ficial custodian of the Catholic and Roman Faith in England, 
and that it was Newman's delight to exercise, throughout prac- 
tically the whole course of his Catholic life, the self-imposed 
function of an apologetical pioneer. It was not unnatural that 
the Archbishop of Westminster, the man at the helm, so to 
speak, should have his reserves and dubieties concerning one 
whose printed utterances, even his hero-worshipping biog- 
rapher, Wilfrid Ward, admits, perplexed at times "the simple 
and literal reader," who had, in a moment of excitement, 
described the Infallibilist party at the Council as "an insolent 
and aggressive faction," and had then completely forgotten 
having done so! Nor did Newman ever fully realize to what 
extent Manning had refrained in his regard, and how fre- 
quently he had, unknown to Newman, interfered in the latter's 
favor. He had held back W. G. Ward's hand from smiting 
Newman, although the article Ward had prepared for the 
Dublin Review "had been examined and was considered to be 
calm and moderate and to contain nothing which ought not to 
be published ... I am most anxious [wrote Manning] that 
Dr. Newman should be spared all pain." Manning even went 
the heroic length of suppressing his book on the Blessed Virgin 
"for fear of collision with Newman." 

There is the pathos of frustrated magnanimity in these 
sentences from a letter of Manning's to Gladstone: "I have in 
many ways through all these years endeavored to see him 
where he ought to be. My constant effort, unknown to him, 
has been to draw him from the obscurity to which influences 
not good and an over sensitive mind, not unnaturally pained 

5 Italics are the reviewer's. 

6 Cardinal Manning and Other Essays, p. 15. By J. E. C. Bodley. New York: 
Longmans, Green & Co. 1912. 



30 SHANE LESLIE'S "MANNING" [Oct., 

by events I know, have induced him to withdraw." And when 
a pamphlet by the illustrious Oratorian in reply to Gladstone's 
attack on "Vaticanism" failed to meet with the approval of 
Rome, Manning, feeling that there was danger of his being 
unjustly censured, assured Cardinal Franchi that "the heart 
of Father Newman is as straight and Catholic as ever it was." 
Later on, Manning impressed upon the authorities his convic- 
tion that "in the rise and revival of Catholic Faith in England 
there is no one whose name will stand out in history with so 
great a prominence." And when, three weeks after this, the 
Holy Father, besought by the Duke of Norfolk to raise New- 
man to the purple, asked for Manning's endorsement, it was 
unhesitatingly forthcoming. 

Long before this, the Archbishop had written to the 
Duchess of Buccleuch (in 1869) : "As to Dr. Newman, I believe 
if you knew the truth you would exactly reverse your present 
thoughts. I am supposed to have crossed him. I have done 
all in my power for nine or ten years to set right many things 
caused by himself or his friends which have stood in his way. 
Finally, I have his letter binding me to desist from the en- 
deavor I was making that he should be consecrated a Bishop. 
All this cannot be stated. Meanwhile, the direct reverse of the 
truth is put about." But, before the end, Newman was made a 
Prince of the Church. With the evening came the light. There 
is sadness in Mr. Leslie's reflection that "Newman passed to 
his grave without suspecting the cause that turned the Papal 
sunlight on his path." Their differences, as Father Ryder 
acutely noted, in the essay already referred to, were psycho- 
logical, not theological. "That two wills so strong, two minds 
so choice, and yet so diverse, should have united on the one 
Creed," Mr. Leslie finely says, "remains a matter of pride 
rather than distress to Catholics." Mr. Leslie's sixteenth chap- 
ter justifies the existence of his book, if justification were 
needed. 

In his treatment of the Errington case, Mr. Leslie, with the 
aid of the now newly-added Talbot letters, finally and tri- 
umphantly vindicates Manning from the charge (which 
emerges by implication from PurcelPs pages) that he sought 
to mount the steps of the Archiepiscopal throne of Westminster 
by blackening the names of all the other suggested candidates. 
This "The Wars of Westminster" is the most exciting chap- 



1921.] SHANE LESLIE'S "MANNING" 31 

ter in the new biography. (Mr. Leslie has a genius for chapter- 
headings!) Hardly less thrilling is the account of the struggle 
between Gladstone's Government and the Irish Episcopate 
over the appointment to the vacant Dublin Archbishopric in 
1885, Dr. (afterwards Cardinal) Moran, being the Government 
candidate, and Dr. Walsh of Maynooth (for whose recent 
loss the Irish Church mourns), the choice of the Bishops. 
During these anxious months, Manning kept in close touch 
with the Vatican, as well as with the Government and the 
Irish Bishops; and was trusted by them all. From the "Persico 
and Parnell" chapter, Manning emerges as a wise and faithful 
friend to Ireland. Archbishop Walsh's continuously increas- 
ing esteem for his brother of Westminster, is sufficient attesta- 
tion to Manning's political integrity. Had Manning chosen the 
State instead of the Church, no dignity, short of the highest, 
would have fallen to his lot. 

But it is not the political chapters of this biography that 
will make the deepest impression upon readers. The most 
moving and edifying pages are those which reproduce a por- 
tion of the diary of the newly-appointed Archbishop while on 
retreat just before his consecration. It was a saintly priest of 
the Congregation of the Passion who received Newman into 
the Church; and when the other protagonist of the Catholic 
revival set about to make his soul in preparation for the Archi- 
episcopal office, it was to the monastery of the Sons of St. Paul 
of the Cross in London that he repaired. There, for eight 
days, the Archbishop-elect searched his heart and strength- 
ened his soul against the days of care and trial that were 
awaiting it. 

The selections from his written self-communings during 
this time is the best part of Mr. Leslie's gift to us. How strange 
these words will sound to those who have accustomed them- 
selves to think of Manning as the suave, crafty diplomat- 
churchman ever lusting after influence and power and popu- 
larity : "I don't think any pleasure or society or worldly honor 
have hold over me. I have been so long unpopular and dis- 
liked and misrepresented that I hope I have expiated the flood 
of popularity I had before I was in the truth and healed of the 
temptation for the future. But I must watch over this, and if 
at any time I cease to find pleasure in the lowest and hardest 
works of the Pastoral care, or if I ever soften down the truth 



32 SHANE LESLIE'S "MANNING" [Oct., 

or am silent when I ought to speak out, I shall have a sign that 
the world is still in me." This is the authentic voice of saint- 
hood. 

On the seventh day of his Retreat, June 4, 1865, Manning 
looked down over London from the heights of the monastery 
garden, even as his Master once if we may reverently draw 
the comparison looked out over Jerusalem, and the heart of 
the great Democrat-Pastor that was Manning's most essential 
self, throbs through these solemn and beautiful sentences: 

When I look down upon London from this garden and 
know that there are before me nearly three millions of men 
of whom only two hundred thousand are nominally in the 
Faith; that hundreds of thousands are living and dying 
without baptism, in all the sins of the flesh and spirit, in 
all that Nineveh and the Cities of the Plain and Imperial 
Rome ever committed; that it is the capital of the most 
anti-Christian power of the nominally Christian world and 
the head of its anti-Christian spirit; that in a moment it 
might be set afire with fury against the Catholic and Roman 
Church, I confess I feel that we are walking on the waters 
and that nothing but the word and the presence of Jesus 
makes this great calm . . . They will be my chalice more 
than ever. To labor and suffer for souls who will not be 
redeemed. To go down into fire and into the water to save 
souls and to be wounded by them all this I look for. And 
I look to be chiefly wounded, as Jesus was, by my own 
brethren. All these osannas are but for a time, a sort of 
holiday of the kind hearts here and there. The great deep 
remains ready to lift itself up when the time comes. As 
soon as I begin, the wind will shift and blow shrill and 
sharp another way ... I propose to keep always before 
me St. Charles' devotion to the Burial of Jesus. I suppose 
he loved it because it was the most perfect humiliation of 
God Incarnate, to be taken down from the Cross, wound 
in linen, and hid out of sight in the earth which He had 
made. I cannot escape many things which will demand of 
me a heroic patience and self-control. In this end I will try 
to remember the Winding-Sheet and the Sepulchre. 

And as he left his Retreat his gaze fell upon St. Paul's and 
Westminster bathed golden in the rays of the declining sun 
". . . all this seemed to cry to me : 'Come over and help us.' " 



1921.] SHANE LESLIE'S "MANNING" 33 

He went over and helped them. There was not a major 
work of mercy or philanthropy in his diocese in which he did 
not nobly share. He was the Cardinal-Archbishop of the chil- 
dren no less than of the workingmen, halting the building of 
his great cathedral so that he might direct all his efforts to 
their education. (He gave the poor children of the neighbor- 
hood the right to play in the enclosure intended for the cathe- 
dral site.) He built and arranged for the support of orphan 
asylums, industrial and reformatory schools, and splendidly- 
equipped parochial schools. He declared that "a child's tear 
not wiped away cries to God as loudly as blood spilt upon the 
ground." 

He aided and abetted that modern journalist knight- 
errant, W. T. Stead, in his campaign against criminal sensual- 
ity. The Irish members, headed by poor Parnell, went in a 
body to congratulate him on his silver jubilee. He had a 
handclasp for Henry George, Ben Tillett and John Burns. 
He settled the London Dock Strike. He was an honored mem- 
ber of that mausoleum of English exclusiveness, the Athe- 
nsean Club. Bryce, Gladstone, Ruskin were proud to be 
known as his friends. (And Ruskin, indeed, described the 
Cardinal's literary style as "the purest and simplest speech of 
modern times.") 

And when they buried him at Brompton Oratory on 
January 21, 1890, "behind the Bishops of the Church and the 
Peers of the Realm marched solid lines of the laboring men." 
The poor and those that labor were the Cardinal-Archbishop's 
chief mourners. 

"Pastoris Boni opus Co us um mat um Deo obtulit." 



VOL. CXIV. 3 



BALLADE. 

BY ELEANORE MYERS JEWETT. 

"She appeared to me clothed in most noble hue, a subdued and 
modest crimson, cinctured and adorned after the fashion that was 
becoming to her most tender age." Vita Nuova. 

WHEN Dante lived in Italy, 

A dreamy-eyed young Florentine, 
How oft the huddled homes would be 

Blood stained by Guelf and Ghibelline! 

What cruelties there must have been! 
What wrongs closed thick about his head ! 

But Dante's eyes could only see 
A little maiden clothed in red. 

When Dante wandered, musingly, 

The gossipy, grim streets between, 
Folk drew their children to the knee 

And whispered, "There goes one who's seen 

Both heaven and hell and walks serene 
Among the living and the dead!" 

But, vision-wrapt, his heart would see 
A little maiden clothed in red. 

And when in lonely exile, he 

Brooded, o'er some lone foreign scene, 
On shattered hopes and enmity, 

His sad eyes cold and clear and keen 

Over his austere face and mien, 
Often a softer light would spread 

As Dante watched in memory 
A little maiden clothed in red. 

ENVOI. 

Beatrice, down many a century 

This radiant dream of you has sped 

Heaven holds no fairer rose than she, 
The little maiden clothed in red! 




SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF ITALIAN CATHOLICS. 



BY J. P. CONRY. 

ROBABLY it is not an exaggeration to say that in 
no European country is the social organization of 
Catholics going forward in a more thorough or 
more comprehensive fashion than it is in Italy. 
If the Catholics of Italy in past decades lost any 
time in gathering their forces and consolidating their ranks 
for the regeneration of their country, they are certainly now 
making up for it. Their methods are interesting and business- 
like. Let us take a survey of them. The degree of success 
already obtained among the 40,000,000 people that cover this 
land of fruit and flowers merits inspection. 

Catholic activity in Italy is carried on in three distinct 
fields. First, the Catholic Movement strictly so-called; second, 
the Economic Social Action; and third, the Political Action. 
We shall enter each in turn. 

The Movimento Cattolico or Catholic Movement strictly 
so-called is made up of the following organizations : 

(1) The Popular Union among the Catholics of Italy; 

(2) The Society of the Catholic Youth of Italy; 

(3) The Union of the Catholic Women of Italy. 

The first of these was instituted by Pius X. in June, 1905, 
by the Encyclical, // Fermo Proposito, in which the Pontiff, 
ever alive to the needs of the hour, traced out the nature, the 
necessity and the ends of Catholic organization in this penin- 
sula. The result of the Encyclical was the foundation of the 
Catholic Union, the mother organization of the Catholic Move- 
ment in Italy, from which all other associations depend. It 
coordinates all other Catholic associations and prescribes their 
several programmes "for combating by every just and legit- 
imate means the godless and the anti-Christian civilization of 
our day, for repairing in every way the grave evils that come 
from this civilization, and for bringing back Jesus Christ into 
the family, into the school, into society." 1 

1 Pius X., II Fermo Proposito, 



36 ORGANIZATION OF ITALIAN CATHOLICS [Oct., 

The Popular Union embraces not only diverse Catholic 
associations, but also individuals who belong to no associa- 
tion. In each parish the members constitute the parochial 
society, which is dependent upon the parish priest. All the 
parochial societies depend upon the diocesan committee. 
This committee depends upon the Bishop of the diocese. And 
all these diocesan committees in Italy, to the number of two 
hundred and fifty (there are about two hundred and fifty 
dioceses in Italy), depend upon the Central Directive Corn- 
mi I Lee of the Catholic Movement, which has its seat in Rome 
and whose President is nominated by the Holy See. This 
Central Directive Council in Rome functions by means of three 
secretariates: The Secretariate for Propaganda; The Secre- 
tariate of Culture (or formation of the social conscience) ; 
The Secretariate for Liberty of Schools. 

The duty of The Secretariate of Propaganda is to extend 
the membership of the Popular Union and keep in touch with 
the Diocesan Committees and the parochial groups. On it 
devolves the task of developing the power and influence of 
the Union throughout the country. Though a few lines suffice 
to describe its onera, its responsibility is far-reaching. 

The purpose of The Secretariate of Culture is to spread 
broadcast the knowledge necessary for the people to compre- 
hend and to solve, according to the principles of Catholic doc- 
trine, all new social problems. It has instituted at the head 
office, Rome, a Bureau of Information which collects and fur- 
nishes to the members of the Unione Popolare scientific direc- 
tions on Catholic teaching, indications as to books worthy of 
being consulted on the social problems that come up for solu- 
tion and, moreover, it keeps them an courant with conferences, 
lectures, etc., on social questions of the day. It publishes and 
circulates books, pamphlets and leaflets on such questions. 

Every year it holds a "Social Week," to which are invited, 
also, members of analogous foreign societies. Here live ques- 
tions that have presented themselves during the past year, 
are discussed with a view to giving sure directions to members 
who may feel doubtful as to the proper line of action to 
pursue. 

By the organization, in different parts of Italy, of courses 
of social study, it prepares young captains of the Catholic 
Movement who will carry the organization far afield. About 



1921.] ORGANIZATION OF ITALIAN CATHOLICS 37 

one hundred intelligent Catholic youths are gathered in one 
of Italy's beauty spots where lectures are given after the 
manner of the Summer School in America. For example, last 
year the celebrated monastery of Monte Cassino, the shores of 
Lago Maggiore in North Italy, the island of Sardegna, and the 
beautiful little city of Siena, with its wealth of religious asso- 
ciations, were chosen as the scenes of these Summer Schools, 
and the disciples (young priests and young laymen ready to 
devote part of their spare time to the work of propaganda), 
who followed the fifteen day course, aggregated five hundred. 
These courses are intended to perfect in a technical way the 
minds of the students and presuppose a certain amount of 
culture. 

The Secretariate for Liberty of Schools directs the struggle 
for the liberty of the schools, that liberty which, little by little, 
the Freemasons and the "Liberals" (Bless the mark!) of the 
peninsula have so curtailed these past thirty years. To 
achieve its end, the Secretariate has adopted the following 
means : It has awakened the conscience of the members of the 
Popular Union to the importance and the necessity of having 
full freedom of action, within reasonable bounds, in the 
schools. It has organized leagues of Catholic fathers to defend 
the Catholic schools in every municipality in Italy. It pro- 
motes meetings to bring the school question strongly before 
the public eye. 

In this struggle for the schools the Catholics demand: 
First, liberty in all grades of education, so that each person 
be free to open a school without any control on the part of the 
State except inasmuch as hygiene, morality and public order 
are concerned; second, that every school be authorized to 
confer academic degrees; third, that to the State be reserved 
only the conferring of professional degrees by virtue of which 
the holder may exercise his profession as lawyer, physician, 
etc. In order that citizens may have a guarantee of the com- 
petency of students of Catholic schools for the exercise of the 
liberal professions, the Catholics demand that a State examina- 
tion be held indifferently for all students, whether coming 
from State or private schools. For obvious reasons, they also 
demand that the examining board be composed of teachers 
belonging to both State and Catholic schools. I may add here, 
by way of parenthesis, among scholastic associations worthy 



38 ORGANIZATION OF ITALIAN CATHOLICS [Oct., 

of special mention are : L'Associazione Nazionale Nicolo Tom- 
maseo and La Federazione degli Instituti Scolastici Privati. 
Both defend the moral and economic rights of their members 
and uphold education on Christian principles. 

La Societd Delia Gioventii Cattolica Italiana, or Society 
of the Catholic Youth of Italy, is an organization for the moral 
and intellectual formation of Italian youths according to 
Christian principles, to habituate them to profess openly the 
Catholic religion, and to educate them for the defence of the 
rights of the Church and of religious liberty. It is composed 
of clubs and associations scattered over all the dioceses of the 
country, and it is directed by diocesan councils, all under a 
President-General in Rome. At this moment the clubs of 
Italy's Catholic boys number 2,300 with a membership of 
70,000. 

Among the societies established among the young men of 
Italy, the following are worthy of note : "La Federazione Uni- 
versitaria Cattolica Italiana" founded in 1896, the end of 
which is to bind together Catholic students in defence of their 
religious and moral interests, and to aid the apostolate which 
these fearless young fellows uphold in the university ambients. 

When we reflect that the university in Italy is usually 
ground hostile to Catholic ideas, we realize how much the 
Catholic student needs such a federation. "La Federazione 
degli Associazioni Sportivi Cattolici Italiani," has for its aim 
the physical education of the youth, side by side with his 
religious life. "L'Associazione Scoutistica Cattolica" develops 
the strength of the Catholic Boy Scouts, which corps is kept 
completely separated from what, for want of a better name, 
we must call "lay" scouts. Count de Carpegna, one of the 
Noble Guards of the Holy Father, is President of this body. 

"L'Unione Femminile Cattolica Italiana" is the third great 
organization. It has for its purpose the education of the Cath- 
olic woman of Italy for the full observance of her duties, re- 
ligious, civil and social, and the unification of all Italy's Cath- 
olic women in confessing and defending Catholic principles. 
This great body is divided into two sections: "The Union of 
the Catholic Women of Italy," which comprises both married 
and unmarried over thirty-five years of age. Its members 
total 150,000. Besides its general purpose it endeavors to aid 
its members from an educational and social standpoint; to 



1921.] ORGANIZATION OF ITALIAN CATHOLICS 39 

keep in touch with school mistresses in order to watch over 
Christ's interests in the schools; to promote the Christian 
spirit in the family and in social life, and to cultivate love and 
obedience in the home. "The Association of Catholic Young 
Women of Italy" comprises unmarried women of every con- 
dition of life up to the age of thirty-five years. This has for 
its aim the religious, intellectual and moral formation of its 
members; preparation for their maternal mission; the open 
profession and defence of the Catholic Faith; obedience to the 
Holy See and filial affection for the Vicar of Christ. 

The "Azione Economico-Sociale" comprises the "Movi- 
mento Sindacale Cristiano" and the "Movimento Cooperative 
Cristiano." The first of these movements is promoted by the 
Italian Confederation of Workingmen, which includes all 
organizations of factory hands, farmers, men given to 
commerce, and guilds of masons, bakers, railway employees, 
cloth makers, post office officials and others. Every category 
has its seat in every municipal town. They now comprise 
over thirty national federations, and are continually on the 
increase. They form the great Italian Confederation of Work- 
ingmen with a membership of 1,500,000. This is the great- 
est organization of its kind in Europe, excepting that in 
Germany. 

The "Movimento Cooperativo Cristiano" is the largest 
and most important of the Italian Catholic organizations. In 
numbers and importance it far outstrips a similar movement 
run by the Socialists, and in no other country is it conducted 
on so vast a scale. It began in 1874 under Pope Pius IX. and 
is promoted by the "Federazione Cooperativa Italiana," which 
comprises the following organizations : 

(1) The National Confederation of Cooperative Stores in 
which grain, wines, etc., are sold. This has 3,500 affiliated 
stores. Its head office is at Genoa. 

(2) Italian Federation of Loan Banks founded to save 
farmers, traders, etc., from the clutches of usurers. It has 
3,000 branch offices. Its head office is in Rome. 

(3) National Federation of Farmers' Societies with 800 
affiliated branches. It sells seeds, manures, farm implements 
to farmers. Its head office is in Milan. 

(4) Italian Federation of Banks having 51 branch offices. 
Its head office is the Banco di Roma in Rome. On June 30, 



40 ORGANIZATION OF ITALIAN CATHOLICS [Oct., 

1920, its capital and deposits were 1,006,000,000 lire. They are 
now much more. 

(5) "Unione Nazionale delle Cooperative di Produzione 
e Lavoro," which is of recent date. Its end is to promote the 
welfare of mills, building societies, etc. 

(6) The Italian Fishermen's Cooperative Society. This 
has organized thousands and thousands of the fisher folk on 
the shores of the Mediterranean and the Adriatic to save them 
(and the public as well) from the maws of the middleman. 
The Society receives the takes fresh from the fishing boats, 
sells them and divides the profits among the fishermen. It is 
a joy to the hardy sons of the sea, while it is anathema to the 
biped Italian sharks who heretofore exploited the toils and 
dangers of the fisherman, as well as the public at large. 

(7) "// Banco di Lavoro." This gives financial accom- 
modation to any of the industrial organizations above men- 
tioned. 

(8) Finally comes the "Consorzio Nazionale di Appro- 
vigionamento delle Cooperative di Consume." This buys 
goods wholesale and sells to its retail societies. 

These organizations constitute about 7,000 societies scat- 
tered all over Italy. 

In latter years the political situation of Catholics in Italy 
has undergone a great change. Up to 1904 the 'Won Expedit" 
of Pius IX. prohibited Italian Catholics from presenting them- 
selves as candidates for the Chamber of Deputies, nor might 
Catholics cast their votes at the political elections. But Pius 
X. made exceptions in individual cases so that, in time, there 
came to be about thirty Catholic deputies in the Chamber. 
These, however, constituted neither a party nor a group. 

A big change came in 1919 when, with the tacit consent 
of the Holy See, the Popular Party of Italy (which is not Cath- 
olic in the professional sense of the word, since non-Catholics 
may enter its ranks if they follow a programme inspired by 
Christian principles) was elected one hundred strong. This 
party took as its programme the defence of religion, justice 
and the Christian spirit, and though it counted only one hun- 
dred out of five hundred and eight deputies in Monte Citorio, 
it soon became what the German Centre Party was in the 
Reichstag in Bismarck's day, or the Irish Parliamentary Party 
in the English House of Commons in ParnelFs day, the arbiter 



1921. 



ON HER EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY 



41 



of the situation. As the Socialist Party refused to collaborate 
with any party, no side could govern without the Popular 
Party. 

At the elections held in May, 1921, the Popular Party 
returned from the urns numbering one hundred and nine 
deputies, strong, picked men. Not only to the example of 
France, but to the strength of the Popular Party is due the 
attitude which the Italian press, as a whole, has adopted in 
favor of a permanent reconciliation between the Holy See and 
Italy. 



TO A YOUNG LADY ON HER EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY. 



BY J. CORSON MILLER. 

I MAKE a birthday-song for you, lady, 
A shy, little twist of rhyme; 
Woven of silver leaves of friendship, 
And mellowed by suns of time. 
Take it 'tis tied with the ribbon of faith, 
And sprayed with the honey of youth, 
And every blossom and baby-bud 
Was plucked in the garden of truth. 

May life for you be a house of laughter, 

Where the lamp of love hangs high; 

Hidden away from the winds of sorrow, 

And clean as a star-brimmed sky. 

I give you the jewels of maidenly virtue, 

To wear with an innocent art; 

May Conscience be ever the key that shall open 

And close the hushed gates of your heart. 

For the days crowd down, like an army with banners, 

To plunder, to kill, and to maim; 

May you keep your soul as a lily-white fortress, 

Against the shrewd enemy, Shame. 

Then Heaven will smile, and Beauty shall bless you, 

And Joy shall remain with you long; 

And you shall be wrapped in the mantle of angels, 

When Death comes by like a song. 




WHY GOD BECAME MAN.* 

BY LESLIE J. WALKER, S.J., M.A. 
IV. 

TRUTH INCARNATE. 

HERE was an immense amount of truth in the 
world in the pre-Christian period of man's his- 
tory. Man, as he developed, had drawn many 
valid inferences from the facts with which he 
was confronted, had projected many ideas into 
the objective world, the reality of which experience bore out. 
He knew that he belonged to a sinful race, and that all were 
involved in this sin, even the dead, who in another world still 
lived, and were still interested in and affected by his doings. 
He felt acutely the need of redemption, and sought to attain it 
by ritual observance and sacrifice, which were essentially 
social actions. But he was aware, too, and was becoming in- 
creasingly aware, that religion is also a personal affair, a 
matter of conscience, involving a right relation between him- 
self and God, between society and God, and between himself 
and society. Ever prone to anthropomorphize, ever credulous 
of myths, ever ready to worship the manifestation in place of 
what it presupposed, man was at any rate firmly convinced 
that God was a real Being Who could become known to man- 
kind, and that only thus could mankind rightly solve its 
problems. 

The philosopher, also, was intensely desirous of knowing 
God, and had made much advance in purifying the concept 
of God and in raising man's ideal of morality. He was, in 
general, agreed that there could only be one God; that God 
was also Providence; that evil was opposed to Providence; and 
could be overcome, if man only knew God and would act in 
accordance with this knowledge. But his ideas were un- 
systematized, and, hence, tended to exaggeration, to conflict, 

*A series of articles dealing with fundamental Christian dogmas from the point 
of view of their value, intellectual and practical, psychological and social, by the 
author of Theories of Knowledge and of The Problem of Reunion, etc.; lecturer in 
Theology in the University of Oxford. 



1921.] 



WHY GOD BECAME MAN 



43 



and so ultimately to disappearance. Was God immanent or 
transcendent? Was His nature in any way diverse? Was evil 
an independent reality? Was God identical with the universe, 
or identical with man's soul, or was He merely the animating 
principle of the universe, or did He live in a world apart, wrapt 
up in self-contemplation? 

Each thesis was maintained, yet without sure foundation. 
Hence criticism, and the tendency of each to go over into its 
opposite. If God were wholly one, whence plurality? If 
many, whence security ? If identical with the universe or with 
fate, what need is there of God at all? If God be unknowable, 
He is useless; if known wrongly, evil results and immorality 
gains a sanction; if He can be conceived rightly only in the 
abstract, practical religion disappears. Knowledge is of im- 
mense value, if only we can be sure that we know. But the 
philosophers were not sure. The cornerstone was missing. 
All was uncertain, wavering, ever giving place to decadence or 
issuing in despair. The truths were there, almost all the truths 
that Christianity herself preaches. What was wanting was 
something that should put each in its true perspective, and at 
the same time give life to it, bringing it back from the realm of 
the abstract into the sphere of concrete experience. 

Could God do this? Could God solve the problems which 
puzzled the philosophers? There was no one in those days, 
either philosopher or plain man, who would have denied God's 
power in this matter. God might inspire a prophet, had done 
so many times; though only with partial knowledge, and 
though the prophets were by no means agreed. He might also 
Himself become incarnate; was supposed to have done so quite 
frequently; though in a crude kind of way, and without any 
striking benefit resulting in the matter either of morality or 
truth. God's problem, if I may so put it, was not how to 
manifest Himself, but how to convince man that this mani- 
festation of Himself was genuine; not how to save the world, 
but how to convince the world that in reality its salvation had 
been wrought. If He came by way of inspiration, He must 
secure that inspiration should be recognized, must guard 
against illusion and false prophets, must convince men that the 
chosen prophet was preaching what he knew, and not mingling 
with it fancy and speculation. If by incarnation, He must 
secure that this incarnation should not be treated as one 



44 WHY GOD BECAME MAN [Oct., 

amongst many, or as the incarnation of some subordinate and 
imaginary deity. He must also secure, whichever plan He 
chose, that this manifestation of Himself should endure. 

Christians claim that God chose to manifest Himself by 
way of incarnation, in accordance with an eternal plan which 
the universe had been progressively realizing, and amongst a 
people whom, for centuries, He had been preparing for this 
event. We have traced the development of this plan amongst 
the Gentiles. Before studying its culmination in the coming 
of Christ, we must look for a moment at its development 
amongst the Jews. For the best way to answer the question, 
has a revelation been made, is to study how it was made to 
watch it being made. 

The concept of God as "I am Who am" was far in advance 
of the age in which it first appeared, so much so that its sig- 
nificance was for a long time but dimly appreciated even by 
the people to whom this name was made known. They did 
not understand it, but they believed that God had spoken, and 
clung to the letter of His word. Therefore, it grew amongst 
them, their notion of God on this account becoming progres- 
sively more pure and more spiritual. 

Evolution, here as elsewhere, was largely due to the efforts 
of individual men, notably to the prophets. But the endurance 
of this seminal notion, amid disaster and infidelity, the absence 
of reversal, its steady development as the keynote of Jewish 
theology, the note that bespoke not merely monotheism, but a 
monotheism of transcendent purity and depth, indicates some- 
thing more than the mere inspiration of prophets. God was 
with this people, as He said. 

Jahweh was the God of Israel, the Father of the people 
whom He had selected for a special purpose in the economy 
of His Providence over man. Vaguely, this purpose was recog- 
nized by the people themselves: in them all nations were 
somehow to be blessed. How, they knew not. But gradually, 
as prophetic insight grew, it became clear that a Messias, a 
King, a Redeemer, was to come, Who should establish a new 
order of things. There was to be a new Kingdom of Israel in 
which the Gentiles also should be embraced. 

The fundamental fact was plain, though as to the manner 
of its realization views were diverse and discordant. A tem- 
poral kingdom was at first expected, a kingdom won by con- 



1921.] 



WHY GOD BECAME MAN 



45 



quest. Even when the Jews became a subject race, the hope of 
a conquering Messias still lived on. Slowly, however, the tem- 
poral expectation was transformed into one more spiritual, as 
the concept of God grew more clear. The new order was to be 
a Divine order, a kingdom of justice and of God. It was to 
bring about an intensification of Israel's sonship. And He 
Who was to effect this was to be a supernatural Being, Who 
was to come on the clouds of heaven, was to be called Em- 
manuel, God-with-us, or God-sent, was to be the manifestation 
of Jahweh Himself, come now in justice and in power. 

It has been thought that in the Jewish Scriptures there are 
traces even of the doctrine of the Trinity. Wisdom is person- 
ified as something other than God; as something which He 
knows, and which finds favor with Hun and gives life; and, 
again, as the emanation of Divine glory, the splendor of 
eternal light, the mirror of God's activity, and the image of His 
goodness. Memra, or the Word, is conceived as something 
which goes forth from God, and has a mission or function; 
as that by which God creates and in which the universe sub- 
sists. The Spirit is spoken of as a Divine force or energy with- 
out which life fails and with which it develops; as that which 
gives power to the saints, martyrs, prophets, and servants of 
Jahweh; as something which is to be poured forth in abun- 
dance, when the Messias shall come, both upon Him and upon 
His posterity. 

That there is something more here than the mere person- 
ification of Divine powers or activities is possible. But if there 
be Wisdom, a Word, and a Spirit, as well as Jahweh, there is 
plainly no Trinity. The most one can say is that the idea of 
some diversity in God is suggested, though without any clear 
indication whether it be personal or not; or whether it really 
be in God, or between God and some Divine emanation, such 
as the Alexandrian Logos, which was neither personal nor 
strictly Divine, but rather an idea-force operating as a Divine 
intermediary. In regard to the Trinity, and more especially 
in respect to the Messias, the truth was already adumbrated, 
but before its threads could be woven together and their sig- 
nificance rightly discerned, it was necessary that the reality 
should appear. 

The reality did appear in Christ. 

The Synoptic Gospels give us an account of the Christ as 



46 WHY GOD BECAME MAN [Oct., 

He was known to those who were most intimate with Him 
during His life. They present us with a plain, ungarnished 
record of His life, and of some of His parables and sayings. 
They have stood the test of a criticism, far longer and more 
detailed and more acute than has been given to any other 
documents in the world. And they remain unassailable today, 
except on the a priori ground that the facts they contain are 
impossible. The Evangelists draw no inference from their 
facts. But to accept them is to accept the fact that God has 
become manifest in the world. 

He, Whose life the Evangelists record, certainly gave 
evidence of wonderful power, alike over diseases, over nature, 
over death, and over those whom evil spirits possessed. All 
recognized this, enemies as well as friends; and all attributed 
it to a supernatural agency. If it was due to special knowl- 
edge, then it was due to knowledge which even yet the human 
race does not possess. If it was due to the devil, then the 
devil, as Christ Himself argued, must be divided against 
himself. 

It was mainly the works of Jesus that at length convinced 
His disciples that He must be the Christ. But, also, He ap- 
pealed to prophecy. He was the One for Whom Israel had 
been looking so long. The visions of the prophets admitted 
of many interpretations. Now He to Whom they pointed had 
come, and in Him their true interpretation was made plain. 
This is His message to John the Baptist, 1 to the synagogue, 2 
and to His own followers. 3 It is also the message which the 
Apostles were to preach later on to the House of Israel, and 
to which the Evangelists call our attention in the course of 
their narrative. 

Christ also impressed His own generation by the manner 
in which He spoke. Of the Father He speaks as One having an 
intimate experience, an experience that is peculiar to Himself. 
"No one knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither doth anyone 
know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please 
the Son to reveal Him." 4 He frequently reminds his hearers 
that they are children of God, but never confuses His own 
Sonship with theirs. 5 He is in a unique sense Son of God, 6 

1 Matthew xi. 2-6. 2 Luke xvii. 21. Luke x. 23, 24. 

* Matthew xi. 27; Luke x. 22. 

8 Compare Matthew x. 29 with x. 33 ; Luke xi. 13, xii. 39 with xxii. 29, xxiv. 49. 
"Matthew xxi. 37, 38; Mark xii. 6, 7; Luke xx. 13, 14. 



1921.] WHY GOD BECAME MAN 47 

and as such is recognized by God at His Baptism and Trans- 
figuration. He insists that in the absolute sense there is only 
one Master, only One Who is good; 7 yet Himself claims to be 
Master 8 and does not refuse the title, "good," though He in- 
quires on what ground it is used of Him. He comes as God's 
messenger, yet speaks in His own name, contrasting what the 
Law says with His own teaching. 9 He announces God's king- 
dom, but Himself claims to be King, 10 is charged with this, 
mocked on account of it, and crucified under this title. 

The attitude of man towards God should, the Christ 
teaches, be one of humility, penitence, confidence. Towards 
Himself he encourages precisely the same attitude. "Come to 
Me . . . and I will refresh you; take My yoke upon you . . . 
and you shall find rest for your souls." 11 He, like God, is 
present wherever His disciples are gathered together. 12 What 
is done to His brethren is done to Him, and shall gain for the 
doer admission to His eternal Kingdom. 13 Those who confess 
Him, He will confess before His Father. 1 * Like God, He can 
read hearts, forgive sins, foretell the future, and will come as 
the Judge of the world. 

In the Synoptic Gospels Christ's claim to a unique Sonship, 
in virtue of which He has power, co-equal with that of the 
Father, is manifest alike from His actions and words. He 
vindicates His claim by the exercise of this power, the evidence 
for which the Gospels record. But, though the conclusion is 
implied in the evidence, the Synoptists do not draw it forth. 
Their aim is to depict Christ as He was known to His contem- 
poraries, to set forth the evidence as it grew. During His life- 
time the full significance of His claim was not recognized by 
His disciples. It was His enemies who saw the more clearly 
the purport of His words, and for the blasphemy implied by 
them, if His claim were not true, put Him to death. To the 
disciples the passion and death came as a staggering blow, in 
spite of the fact that Christ had foreseen and foretold it. 
Their growing faith was shattered. They still retained their 
love for the Master, but they gave up all hope that He might 
prove to be the Messias. Consequently, they were no less stag- 
gered By the report that the tomb had been found empty than 

'Matthew xix. 17, xxiii. 8; Mark x. 17. "Matthew xxiii. 10; Mark xiv. 14. 

Matthew v. 21, etc. 10 Luke xix. 38-40. " Matthew xi. 28-30. 

12 Matthew xviii. 20. " Matthew xxv. 34-40. 

"Matthew x. 32; Mark viii. 38; Luke xii. 8. 



48 WHY GOD BECAME MAN [Oct., 

they had been by the spectacle of His death; and were re- 
luctant to believe it, till they themselves had investigated the 
matter. The inference that He had risen, as He promised, 
backed by the report of some who had seen Him, was for the 
rest an idle tale, till they had seen Him for themselves. 

Such is the essence of the narrative as given by the Synop- 
tists. They describe Christ from the point of view of a con- 
temporary who witnesses the facts, and beholds the faith of 
the disciples increasing or waning as the prima facie evidence 
demands. Those facts are recorded which were common 
knowledge and with which all were struck at the time. 

The Fourth Gospel presents Christ from a different point 
of view, namely, from the point of view of one who, already 
having accepted His claim to divinity, in the light of this faith 
looks back upon the facts of His life. During His lifetime He 
was not understood, John says. 15 Now, we do understand Him : 
He was the Word made Flesh. 16 Facts which at the time had 
created no great impression on the minds of the disciples, 
and had rapidly sunk into their unconscious memory, from 
the new viewpoint become important, and so are recalled. 
John tells the same story as the other Evangelists, but with 
many additional incidents and sayings, which at the time had 
appeared incomprehensible. There is still no public preach- 
ing o "the mysteries of the kingdom," which were to be re- 
vealed only after Jesus' death. But there is frequent refer- 
ence to them, especially in private conversation; and both to 
the representatives of the Old Church, the "Jews," and to His 
Apostles, the nucleus of the New, Jesus declares plainly Who 
He is. 

John also, unlike the other Evangelists, summarizes in a 
preface the doctrine for which he is about to adduce evidence, 
and throughout his narrative introduces comments with a view 
to showing that the doctrine then preached in the Church is 
the same as that taught by the Lord. He still presents to us 
the historical Jesus, but presents Him now, not as He appeared 
to unappreciative and half-converted disciples, but as He was 
in reality, God become manifest in the flesh. 

John the Baptist confessed that he was not the Christ, 
but had come to prepare the way for the Christ, Who was 
really "before him," and so was "preferred." What does this 

"John J. 10, 11; ji. 22; xii. 16. "John i. 14. 



1921.] 



WHY GOD BECAME MAN 



49 



mean? It means, says John, that "no man hath seen the 
Father at any time," but that "the Only-begotten Son, Who is 
in the bosom of the Father, hath declared Him," of Whose 
"fullness we have all received." 17 It means that the Word 
Who was in the beginning with God, and Who was God, hath 
now become Flesh, and is dwelling amongst us. 18 John the 
Baptist said: "He must increase and I must decrease," be- 
cause "He that cometh from above is above all." He that 
cometh from above testifieth "what He hath seen and heard." 
Therefore, "he that hath received the testimony, hath set to 
his seal that God is true. For He Whom God hath sent, 
speaketh the words of God; since God doth not give the spirit 
by measure, but loveth the Son and hath given all things into 
His hand." 19 

This is what Jesus Himself declared to Nicodemus. 
"Truly, truly, do I say to thee that We speak what We know, 
and testify what We have seen. No man hath ascended into 
heaven, except He descended from heaven, Who is in heaven, 
namely the Son of man. And as the serpent was lifted up in 
the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever 
believeth in Him may have life everlasting. For God hath so 
loved the world as to give His Only-begotten Son, that who- 
soever believeth in Him may not perish." 20 

In like manner He attested His Divine origin and Son- 
ship to the Pharisees, in whose presence He had forgiven the 
woman taken in adultery. "I am not alone, but am one with 
the Father that sent Me. Therefore, in giving testimony of 
Myself, the Father also giveth testimony of Me. If you believe 
not that I am He, you shall die in your sin, for what I speak in 
the world are the things that I have heard of Him that sent 
Me." 21 And again to the Jews : "If you continue in My words, 
you shall know Truth, and the Truth shall make you free. 
For, as sinners, you are the slaves of sin, but if the Son, Who 
abideth for ever, make you free, you shall indeed be free." 22 
"I speak what I have seen and heard with My Father. This 
Abraham did not. For from God I proceeded and came, and 
before Abraham was, I am." 23 

"Chacune de ces sentences a I'autorite d'un temoignage 
irrefragable, et la sereine assurance d'une science eternelle," 

"John i. 15, etc. *John i. 1-14. "John iii. 30-35. 20 John iii. 11-16. 

81 John vili. 12-16, John vilL 31-36. John viii. 38-42, 58. 

VOL. CXIV. 4 



50 WHY GOD BECAME MAN [Oct., 

says Pere Lebreton, 24 and so clearly was their purport 
grasped by the theologians of the day that they took up stones 
to stone Him for blasphemy. 

John, on the other hand, is not a theologian. He has out- 
grown the crude realism of Philip, who, at the Last Supper, 
could exclaim: show us the Father, and it is enough for us. 
He knows now that He Who seeth the Christ, seeth the Father 
also. His Gospel, none the less, is a historical narrative, not 
a theological dissertation. Had it been otherwise he would 
have realized at once the outstanding difficulty that his nar- 
rative presents. Not only are the works of Jesus given Him by 
the Father, 25 His power to do judgment, 26 His life in God, 27 
His dominion over all flesh, 28 in a word, all that He has; 29 
but He prays to the Father, 30 obeys the Father, 31 and acknowl- 
edges that the Father is greater than Himself. 32 How, then, 
does He "make Himself God." 33 

John sees no difficulty here, though his words later on 
were to give rise to bitter controversy in the Church. And the 
reason is precisely that John's sole aim is to depict Jesus as 
He was. He claimed to be "the Only-begotten Son of God;" 
to be "in the Father and the Father in Him;" to "have all that 
the Father hath, as the Father hath all that is His;" to "have 
come forth from the Father," yet to have been existent "in 
the beginning;" to be "able to do nothing of Himself," yet to be 
capable of "whatsoever He seeth the Father doing;" to "give 
life as the Father gives life;" and to "have worked, as the 
Father works, even until now." Therefore, John records this 
claim, as he records Christ's statement that He was less than 
the Father, "to Whom He would return," and the fact of His 
obedience and His prayer. 

If we distinguish between the sense in which Christ is 
inferior to God and the sense in which He is God's equal, we 
can doubtless resolve the apparent contradiction between the 
statements which imply subordination and diversity and the 
statements which affirm equality and immanence. But John 
does not make this distinction. He does not bear witness at 
one time to the Humanity of Christ and at another time to His 
Divinity. He envisages just the one living Person, God's Only- 
begotten Son Who in the flesh manifests the Father because 

**Les Origines du dogme de la Trinite, p. 399. 25 John v. 36. 

M John v. 22, 27. John v. 26. = John xvii. 2. John iii. 35 ; xiii. 3. 
89 John xvii. 1, 2. John xiv. 31; xv. 10. "John xiv. 28. John x, 33. 



1921.] WHY GOD BECAME MAN 51 

He was one with the Father, and Who also is obedient to the 
Father. The emphasis is not on the two natures, nor yet on 
the personality as such, but on the living Reality which is 
Christ. Recognizing that Christ is God, John would re-tell, from 
the point of view of faith, the story which the other Evangelists 
have already told from the point of view of a mere human 
eyewitness. But the story is still of real life. The Humanity 
is there, no less than the Divinity, and is discernible from it, 
but John would have us see them functioning together in the 
concrete. And for this very reason, he solves, though uncon- 
sciously, both the problems which were to crop up later on and 
the problems which had been puzzling the world for so long. 

How bring together the ultimate Reality and humanity, 
which seems so far removed from it? Some had placed then- 
trust in sacrifice and ceremony. Others, more thoughtful, had 
insisted that knowledge must be the prime factor, knowledge 
which should permeate a man, and so bring him into union 
with the Known. Some had sought this union through obe- 
dience to the laws of the universe, which God was thought to 
animate. Others, conceiving God as transcendent, had re- 
moved Him so far from the universe that a later age had to 
invent all manner of intermediaries in the endeavor to unite 
them again. Man had displayed an immense ingenuity in de- 
vising means of bringing God to earth. But in vain. The 
truth was in fragments; nowhere was there certainty; nowhere 
had the fragments endurance or vitalizing power. Now Truth 
has come into the world. You wish to believe in it? Then 
behold it in Christ, says John. His works, His words, His 
authority, His power, His intimacy with the Father, His love 
for mankind, His meekness, His pity, His zeal, His obedience, 
His patience, His suffering, His triumph over all things, even 
death, testify Who He is. He is no mere man, but Truth In- 
carnate. He speaks not of Himself, but what He hath heard 
and seen. He was what He claimed to be. He, and He alone, 
hath had experience of God. 

Salvation comes through knowledge of the Truth declare 
one and all the philosophers. Christ is Truth. 34 In this is 
eternal life that they may know Thee, the only true God, and 
Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent. 35 In Him we know the 
true God, for He is in the Father, and the Father is in Him. 

34 John xiv. 6. John xvii. 3. 



52 WHY GOD BECAME MAN [Oct., 

His words are the words of the Father, and His actions be- 
speak the love of the Father. 30 He is the Light which came 
into the world, 37 the true Light. 38 He that liveth in the Light, 
liveth also in the Truth. 39 And those that believe in the Light, 
shall become children of Light, and shall walk without stum- 
bling. 40 

Therefore, He is also the Life. 41 You seek water? I will 
give you living water, which shall become in you a fountain 
of water, springing up into life eternal, and of which whoso- 
ever drinketh, shall never thirst again. 42 If any man thirst, 
let him come to Me and drink. 43 Your fathers did eat manna, 
and are dead? Behold, My Father giveth you the true bread 
which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life to the world. 
I am that Bread. 44 Yes, even sacramental Bread. For My flesh 
is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth 
My flesh and drinketh My blood, abideth in Me and I in Him. 
As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father, so 
he that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me. 45 As the 
branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, 
so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. 46 That you may be 
one together in Me, as I and the Father are one, you in Me and 
I in Him. 47 

The yearning which the Brahmin had for union with God 
is here satisfied by no abstract Absolute, but by union with the 
living Christ, Who is God. The true way which Zoroaster 
sought, and knew could come only through the Truth, is here 
made manifest in Truth, which has now become Incarnate in 
the world. That identity with the World-spirit which the 
Stoic hoped to attain through obedience to the natural law, 
is here promised through obedience to Christ, Who will accom- 
plish it in us, as the Father accomplisheth it eternally in Him. 
The transcendent God of Aristotle has come down to the 
earth : the eternal Thought of thought has expressed Itself now 
in human fashion, thereby becoming intelligible, even as are 
the thoughts of man. 

Nothing is lost, neither of goodness, nor of truth. Be- 
ligion is still to be a matter of conscience; but we shall walk 
without stumbling only if we become children of light through 

88 John xiv. 10, 12. John viil. 12; ix. 5; xil. 46. John i. 9. 

1 John i. 7, 8; ii. 4. "John vii. 12; xii. 36, 46; cf. 1 John i. 7; ii. 10. 

41 John xiv. 6. John iv. 10-14. John vii. 37. John vi. 32-51. 

John vi. 52-59. John xv. 4. John xvii< 11> 2 0-23. 



1921.] WHY GOD BECAME MAN 53 

belief in the Light that reveals. There is still to be sacrifice, 
for the Christ is lifted up; and contact with God is still to be 
established in sacramental ways, which shall centre round a 
sacramental food. But the sacrifice we offer will no longer be 
merely a figure, nor our sacraments merely symbols. We shall 
offer to the Father His Only-begotten Son, and shall partake of 
the Body and Blood of the Lord. 

The problem of evil also is solved, not by a denial of its 
existence, but by the advent of a power in which evil can be 
surely overcome. In the process to which all created being is 
subject, God, by becoming man, now shares. He has abolished 
neither suffering nor sin; but has borne in His own Person 
the consequences of sin, and over suffering has triumphed, 
from death has arisen. The allurements of the world and the 
flesh remain; but if we believe in Him, trust Him, abide in 
Him, against Whom they had no power, we shall no longer fall 
a prey to their false charm. Suffering, disease, disaster will 
still be evil to those who seek their happiness in the creature; 
but to those who in His way seek God, they will become but a 
means to this end. God has gained the victory, therefore 
victory is assured through the Son, with Whom we may be- 
come one, as He is one with the Father. 

John's vision of God-become-man has been compared with 
Philo's concept of the Logos. Possibly, the author of the 
Fourth Gospel had some knowledge of Alexandrine thought. 
Possibly, it is for this reason he introduces the term "Logos" 
into his preface. But he uses it only in the preface, and there 
only twice. Moreover, the striking parallelism between this 
preface and the opening paragraphs of Genesis suggests that 
John has chiefly in mind the "spoken word" of God. In any 
case the vision of John as developed in his Gospel and the 
Alexandrine doctrine are radically different. Philo's Logos 
is an intermediary being, which expresses imperfectly the 
thought of God, and is used by Him as instrument and model 
in the creation and sustentation of the universe. It is a kind 
of "concrete universal," expressed in phenomena and serving 
as their unifying principle. It is, therefore, essentially cos- 
mological in character. John's Logos is not. It is essentially 
spiritual. The beings which it unifies are human beings, and 
the life in which it unifies them is both spiritual and divine. 
There is no reference to the cosmological functions of the 



54 WHY GOD BECAME MAN [Oct., 

Christ-/o<7os except in the one passage which says that by Him 
all things were made. Philo's Logos is imperfect and imper- 
sonal; John's is both perfect and personal. Philo's Logos is 
the shadow, image, or imprint of God on the world, in knowing 
which we know God only with that imperfect knowledge 
which may be derived by arguing from effect to cause: is 
"Son of God" only in the metaphorical sense, in the same sense 
that the world is described as the "second Son of God." John's 
Logos is the perfect image of God expressed in a human being, 
to behold Whom is to behold God Himself, because with Him 
God is one, and in Him, incarnate in the flesh, is the eternal 
Father's Only-begotten Son. The one is a "mediator," half 
cosmical, half Divine, linking together God and the world. 
The other is wholly Divine, and becomes a Mediator only by 
identifying Himself with an already created race, which He 
would redeem from sin, and elevate to union with the Father. 

John is not philosophizing, still less seeking to harmonize 
religious with philosophical belief. And it is precisely because 
he is not seeking this, but to depict for us the Jesus Whom he 
knew, that in the Reality thus presented the half-truths of the 
philosophers find at once synthesis, vitality, and perfection. 
In philosophy we start with a problem, which is solved, if at 
all, only after a tedious and uncertain process of reasoning 
from premise to conclusion. In Christianity we start, as in 
history, with the concrete fact, in which, when we have grasped 
it, we find that the solution of our problems is already con- 
tained. Philosophy starts with a question, of which it seeks 
the true answer. Christianity starts with Truth Incarnate; 
then finds the questions which are answered. 

John's message and that of the Synoptists is the same : the 
Messias has come; God has become manifest; the Word is 
made flesh. Truth is no longer abstract, It dwelleth amongst 
us. Knowledge is no longer divorced from experience, for of 
the Christ man has experience, and in Him of the Father, 
whence all knowledge and all reality proceed. Then, He Who 
has linked truth with reality, knowledge with experience, 
returns to His Father, and the root of man's certainty is gone. 

[TO BE CONTINUED.] 




MY LITTLE BLACK BOOK. 

BY CHARLES C. CONATY. 

(Concluded.) 

BEFORE THE ARGONNE. 

N all the hundreds of years during which these 
church bells had summoned the inhabitants of 
the little village to Mass, or had sounded the 
Angelus, or proclaimed the death of some faith- 
ful soul, they had never rung out with such peals 
of joy as they did this glorious September afternoon. For it 
was the day we learned of the San Mihiel drive, and the good 
Cure of the village in which we were billeted (his name is on 
the page before me) insisted that the victory should be cele- 
brated by the ringing of the bells. And the celebration ceased 
only when we were no longer able to pull the ropes, so ex- 
hausted were we. Then the parish priest who (as I learned 
during my short stay with him) was a sort of book merchant 
for all the priests of that district, showed us about the old 
church, explaining its history. Still attesting the power of the 
"grand family" of the town was a half-obliterated black line, 
painted around on the outside wall of the church about ten 
feet from the ground. In the olden days, the death of a mem- 
ber of this family was made known by a stripe of mourning 
painted around the church walls! 

Though our kitchens had not yet arrived, our lot was 
fairly comfortable, and we were anticipating a much needed 
rest after our long period in action from the Marne to the 
Aisne. But anticipation was all we had, for after two days in 
this village, we were ordered to be ready to march at nightfall. 
Just as we were ready to leave, a column of about four hundred 
replacements arrived. Poor lads, how tired they looked! 
When they learned that they must start out almost imme- 
diately their comments were stifling. The pack carried by 
some of them reached actually to their heels. Our old men re- 
lieved them of much surplus equipment, but, untrained and 
soft from lack of preparation, many of them fell by the way 
during the march of that and subsequent nights. These men 



56 MY LITTLE BLACK BOOK [Oct., 

(most of them, at least) had not had a moment's training, 
either in America or France. Now they were going into the 
line. They were of no help to us, rather a hindrance. Though 
we were only about forty per cent, strength, we could have 
fought better and had fewer casualties with just our old men 
than we did in our filled-up state. These new men were in 
action four weeks from the time they had left their homes for 
camp. They lacked a knowledge even of how to load and fire 
their rifles. Above all, they lacked the habitual obedience of a 
trained soldier, and, as a result they drove our officers to des- 
peration. They seemed unable to realize that obedience meant 
safety, and so would flock together even in the very front line. 
Not only were many of them killed as a result of their lack of 
training, but they were the cause, unwittingly, of the death of 
many of our officers, both commissioned and non-commis- 
sioned. The fault was not theirs; it lay rather in a system, or 
rather a lack of system, which permitted untrained men to be 
in action. It was simply criminal. 

Night after night we marched, resting during the day-time, 
and finally we camped in the Argonne forest, a few kilometres 
behind the four-year-old line. Our few days here were spent 
in a feverish attempt to get the green men into some sort of 
shape, for we knew that a drive was in preparation. 

It was a busy time for me, making the rounds of my own 
battalion and reaching out to attend to the Catholic boys in 
the "outfits" nearby which had no priest. Ordinarily, my altar 
was the medical cart. On Sunday, however, we removed the 
tail-board and placed it on top of a few boxes of ammunition, 
covering the whole "edifice" with an O. D. blanket. This altar 
had been put up under a large tree in a location which seemed 
the most suitable for a large gathering, though we were fairly 
well concealed from aerial observation by the trees. About 
gospel time in the Mass, it commenced to rain and by Com- 
munion time we were all of us drenched. But, of course, no 
one even thought of leaving. I turned around and gave the 
boys General Absolution, and then gave them all Holy Com- 
munion. 

I shall never forget that morning and those boys as they 
knelt there on the wet ground, the rain falling on their bared 
heads, as they received the Body and Blood of their Lord. 
How near we were to the Heart of the Master! Two of the 




1921.] MY LITTLE BLACK BOOK 57 



boys improvised a covering out of a shelter-half supported by 
two sticks, which they held over my head. The intention was 
good, but the result disheartening. Instead of receiving the 
rain drop by drop, I received it in streams. But as I see pro- 
cessions of the Blessed Sacrament, in which a magnificent 
canopy is carried over Our Lord, I always think of that day 
when Our Lord's canopy was a shelter-half. Giving Com- 
munion that morning was very difficult as the particles kept 
sticking to my wet fingers. After Mass, I distributed all the 
rosaries and prayer books and medals which I had fortunately 
received a few days before from the Chaplains' Aid Society. 
But a few days later I was taking some of those prayer books 
and rosaries from the pockets of those same boys. They had 
met the Master. 

An hour or so after Mass I gave a talk to the boys who 
were not Catholics, trying to prepare them for what I knew 
was in store for them, for all of us. Before long, many of 
them would be before the judgment seat of God. My expe- 
rience with non-Catholics (or Protestants if you will) led me 
to pity them from the bottom of my heart. Of religion, as 
such, they know nothing (I am speaking now of the vast 
majority of those with whom I came in contact). At most, 
they have but a hazy belief in God, a vague confidence of 
heaven, and a dim, very dim, conception of hell. Of Christ 
and His teaching they are sadly ignorant. Protestantism has 
taken faith and hope and love of God from their hearts. In 
return it has given them nothing. In this time of trial, they 
found themselves without any support of a religious nature. 
And bitter was their realization of their spiritual poverty. The 
presence of Christ meant nothing, and they wondered un- 
ceasingly at the courage and strength which the Catholic boys 
derived from attendance at Mass and the reception of Holy 
Communion. 

After all, Protestantism, beginning with negation, has 
reached its logical conclusion in the negation, or at least dis- 
regard, of everything Christian. Some, of course, had a sort 
of faith; many were naturally good; many learned to pray 
with shells and bullets as instructors. Not that they were 
cowards, but, for the first time in their lives, they felt the need 
of a God. I yearned, indeed, to help them, to share with them 
the faith which meant so much in our trials, but there was no 



58 MY LITTLE BLACK BOOK [Oct., 

foundation on which to build. Their cry for food had been 
answered by a book being thrust into their hands. Holy, yes, 
the Book of God, but how were they to understand it even if 
they had time to read it? Their spiritual condition is a simple 
and logical result of the principle of Protestantism. It has 
produced a spiritual blight. Its ministers have nothing to 
minister, no authority to teach. They realized it and the boys 
did. 

To many the War was a revelation from a religious view- 
point; wherever one went, one found always a priest with a 
definite work. His work was not to talk in vague terms of 
God and morality. When he talked it was generally definitely 
and briefly. His chief work was the administration of the 
Sacraments, and, to the Catholic, it made no difference who 
or what the priest was, he was always a priest one who 
could offer Mass, and one from whom he (the Catholic) could 
receive the Sacraments. By the American tests of efficiency 
and "workability" and results, the Catholic Religion proved 
itself. 

These days granted us before the start of the drive were 
too few to permit me to learn our new men as I would have 
liked. However, I spoke at least once to each of the com- 
panies, and between hearing confessions, giving Communion 
and doing all manner of commissions for the boys, my days 
and nights were filled up. From experience, our boys had 
learned that the chances of receiving the last Sacraments were 
very slight. There must be no waiting no chances must be 
taken on that score, at least. Death was always close, one must 
be ready. So, during the summer my boys had received Com- 
munion about once a week, sometimes oftener. It was our 
great source of strength. More than ever we realized that the 
Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament is the very 
heart of our Faith. It is at the base of the priesthood. With- 
out it we would have no Mass. It is the full realization of 
Christ's love for men. And love, after all, not fear, is the 
essence of Christianity. Much valuable time and many words 
have been wasted in the attempt to inspire men with a fear 
of death and a dread of hell. Men are not afraid to die, nor 
is the knowledge and fear of hell a very powerful deterrent 
from evil doing. It was the love of Christ which appealed 
most strongly to men, the love which He showed by His suf- 



1921.] MY LITTLE BLACK BOOK 59 

ferings and His Sacrifice; the love He gives so abundantly in 
the Mass and in Holy Communion. To us He was always 
"Gentle Jesus." 

TRENCH MORTARS. 

"Chaplain, this is going to be 'some' drive, believe me," 
said the Lieutenant as he stretched himself full-length on the 
ground under the little shelter which we had constructed by 
stretching our united shelter-halves from tree to tree. "I saw 
the maps this morning, showing the various objectives of the 
different divisions, and if the drive works, it will mean the end 
of the War." 

"The end of the War?" I replied in wonder, "then God be 
with us. But when does it start?" 

All conversation the last few days ended with the query 
as to when this much-prepared-for drive would commence. 
But my companion had no definite information on this point. 
It was evident, however, from the completeness of the prepar- 
ations, that the start would be soon. And not long after our 
conversation the Major stuck his head under our home and 
informed us, in all secrecy of course, that the "show" was 
to start this very night. Our battalion was to be the Divisional 
reserve force, to be under the direct orders of the Divisional 
Chief-of-Staff. Hence, we would not take part in the initial 
attack following the all-night barrage, but would be used for 
any emergency which might arise during the progress of the 
advance. Which all sounded very well to us, though the after- 
math proved that being Division reserve was far from a 
desirable honor. For it meant being shifted continually 
from one part of the line to another, filling up "holes" in the 
line, bolstering up the weak places, a sort of general utility 
outfit. 

Darkness that night found us all ready for the march 
towards a point where we were to remain awaiting further 
orders. Marching along the road to the front, we met the 
French soldiers, relieved by our troops, hurrying back to the 
rear. They did not seem very sad at being deprived of a part 
in the drive. Which was only natural, considering what those 
brave, blue-clad men had already done. There was little to 
distinguish this marching from previous marches until our 
barrage started at eleven o'clock. The number of guns firing, 



60 MY LITTLE BLACK BOOK [Oct., 

the quantity of shells fired during that all-night bombardment 
of the enemy positions, is beyond my knowledge. But I do 
know this, it was the worst experience I ever had. The noise 
was like the roaring of a thousand Niagaras, the earth shook 
with the concussion of the guns; the shells filled the air with 
their whistling. Compared with this, the artillery I had expe- 
rienced in the past three months was as nothing. Though 
scarcely a shell came from the enemy, I confess I was thor- 
oughly frightened by the noise of our own guns. It was un- 
canny, horrifying; and the noise beat against the ears till it 
seemed as though they must burst. Some of the new men, 
never having heard the guns fired before, were literally shell- 
shocked. The immense howitzers belched forth their shells 
with a flaming mouth, and the force of the concussion lifted 
us off the ground. We passed the 155 rifles; and, finally, the 
75's hub to hub, barking so rapidly as to seem like machine 
guns. And so for miles and miles along the front the roar 
arose as if from some deep-throated infernal monster. The 
ensemble was awful; striking fear into one's very soul. 

As we neared the front, the road became rougher and 
rougher; soon it could no longer be distinguished from the 
shell-torn ground about it. Four years of bombardment had 
obliterated the least sign of it. We followed some wheel-ruts 
made by the artillery, and, turning off to the right, soon located 
a corduroy road, leading through some woods behind a hill. 
To walk on the round surfaces of the timbers in such a road is, 
at best, a difficult task; but to have to walk single file, forced 
continually to step off into the brush and mud to avoid being 
smashed beneath a snorting stream of baby tanks, such as 
made our progress a slow and dangerous one that night, is 
simply beyond description. 

We laid on the hillside awaiting our orders till about 
three o'clock that afternoon. Of how the drive was progress- 
ing, we knew nothing, but the absence of any shelling from the 
German lines seemed to point to a retirement on their part. 
Orders came, finally, that we should start at once and affect 
liaison between the left of our divisional line and the line of 
the division on our right; if necessary, to fill in the line. 
Rounding the hill, we came upon a battery preparing to move 
their guns forward. The Germans had retreated till they were 
out of range, so these artillery men told us. We found out 



1921.] MY LITTLE BLACK BOOK 61 

later that this was far from true, but the mistake had been 
made, and we could get no artillery support when we needed 
it badly, to help us overcome the resistance we met with a few 
miles further on at a point well within the range of these 
guns. 

Soon we had our first glimpse of a real "No Man's Land." 
It was as if a blight had hit this mighty forest and left in its 
wake a swath about four miles wide in which nothing re- 
mained save the churned earth, an occasional charred tree- 
stump, but no living thing, not even a blade of grass. Four 
years of continual shellfire had wiped out almost every vestige 
of vegetation, turning a once beautiful forest into a pock- 
marked desert, which oppressed one more than death. 
Through it ran systems of trenches, shellholes of varying sizes, 
all manner of barb-wire entanglements. Only this morning, 
our men had crossed this desolate, ill-omened ground in their 
charge; nor could they ever explain how they managed to get 
through the wire. Overhead two planes were fighting; there 
in front of us lay the woods which we must enter, following 
the little white markers which the engineers had used to note 
the course of a road they would construct across this wilder- 
ness of death. Crawling around shellholes, jumping across 
trenches, we finally reached the beginning of the wooded coun- 
try and located the tracks of a narrow-gauge railroad, which 
we followed into the heart of the woods. 

Darkness falling but added to our difficulty. Our progress 
was necessarily wary and slow, depending on the scouts out in 
front of the column. But, at length, the line was located and 
the ordered liaison accomplished. The line was solid now. 
After outposts had been stationed, the remainder of the bat- 
talion found protection and shelter in an old German trench. 
It had been covered with boughs and branches of trees to 
camouflage it, and as it was not very deep, we had to crawl 
along almost doubled up; for it had but one or two points of 
entry and we feared to disturb the covering lest the noise be 
detected by the enemy. Here we spent what remained of the 
night, unable to stand erect, unable to lie down, so crowded 
were our quarters. The rain came through the covering, and, 
though we sat against one side of the trench and stuck our 
feet into the opposite side, we could not keep from slipping 
now and then into the water which was about six inches deep 



62 MY LITTLE BLACK BOOK [Oct., 

in the bottom of the trench. If we could smoke ! But we were 
too close to risk it. 

Orders came that at half-past six the line was to attack. 
At the break of dawn, before it was yet bright enough to be 
seen by the enemy, we crawled from our places, stiff and sore, 
our bodies cramped, to form for the attack. While the com- 
panies were forming, we must have been seen, for, of a sudden, 
we were shelled by trench-mortars. The explosion of these 
shells was terrific, and the destruction they wrought was ap- 
palling. In less time than it takes to tell, the bombardment 
was over (though it seemed to have lasted for ages). But a 
few feet from where I was, an entire platoon was wiped out. 
Twenty men were killed outright; thirty wounded. The shells 
fell so rapidly there was no escape, nor any possibility of 
help. Some of the dead bore not a trace of a wound; the con- 
cussion had killed them. While I was trying to bind up the 
wounds of the injured, and get them into the trench where 
they might have what protection it afforded, the line attacked. 
The doctor was wounded before he had dressed a single man, 
and went to the rear with those of the wounded who were able 
to walk. As soon as we dressed the wounds of those who could 
not walk, we picked out the serious cases, and sent them back 
as rapidly as we could get men to carry them, on the rude 
stretchers made from blankets stretched over poles cut from 
trees. The work was slow, and it took wonderful courage and 
patience on the part of the wounded to lie there for hours till 
men could be found to carry them back. It meant a carriage 
of several miles, for, at that time, the ambulances could not 
get across the "No Man's Land." 

So many Americans were wounded in that drive that those 
who were at all able to walk, in most cases walked all the way 
back to the hospitals. In addition to those hit in the barrage, 
many others were wounded in the attack and during the day, 
but, somehow or other, we got them all back. During the night 
orders came that at the coming of daylight we should proceed 
up a certain road and await orders at a little town. It would 
have been easy to obey save that that "certain road" was so 
well covered by machine guns that a shadow could not get by. 

When the companies left, I kept a few of the boys with 
me to bury the dead. All told, we buried twenty-five of our 
comrades in that trench, a little cross at the head of each one's 






1921.] MY LITTLE BLACK BOOK 63 

grave, a large cross marking the location of our little cemetery. 
Some of those I buried had never fired a rifle in their lives 
yet they had been killed at the front. These poor, mangled 
bodies housed souls but a few hours ago! We all of us cried 
more than once during that day of sad duty. We never be- 
came accustomed to death. Some of the dead were in such 
shape that the boys told me they could not bring them to the 
trench, so I had to bite my lips, and, collecting the torn bodies 
with a shovel, tie them up in a blanket. And so we laid them 
to rest, these boys whose names fill these pages of my Little 
Black Book. We knew that God had already rewarded them. 

ADAM. 

The duties of a Chaplain, as outlined in Army Regulations, 
are, to say the least, rather vague. In a sense, a Chaplain 
is an anomaly, a free-lance in an organization in which there 
is no freedom, the nature and scope of whose work depends, 
to a very large extent, upon his own conception of it. To my 
status as a Chaplain I transferred my conception of my calling 
as a priest, that I should, as far as in me lay, try to be "all 
things to all men." Primarily, I was a Chaplain to care for the 
spiritual interests of the Catholic soldiers; secondarily, for 
those of the boys not of my faith. But man is composed of 
body and soul and his spiritual and physical needs are dis- 
sociated only in theory; in practice they are interlinked and 
interdependent. And so my work as a Chaplain was a mix- 
ture of spiritual ministrations with a variety of occupations 
extending from referee of boxing matches, doctor, interpreter, 
conciliator, to banker. And I was a never failing source of 
writing paper and cigarettes. 

It must not be wondered at, therefore, if my Little Black 
Book shows me in the role of a banker, for here are the names 
of many boys, and, opposite the names, the amount of money 
I held for each. In spite of the fact that I accompanied them 
wherever they went and was just as liable to be hit as any one 
of them, the boys seemed to think that their money was safer 
in my keeping than in their own pockets. My remonstrances 
at taking money were invariably laughed at, for the boys had 
it that I couldn't be hit! I had the same belief for a while! 

Among the names on this page is that of Adam. I never 



64 MY LITTLE BLACK BOOK [Oct., 

could pronounce his last name properly, and I never attempted 
to spell it. Like most Polish names, it is composed almost 
exclusively of consonants from the latter part of the alphabet. 
I have come to the conclusion, from my experience with Slavic 
names, that the children of those races must start with "Z 
Y X" instead of "A B C." 

From the land of his birth, Adam had gone to America 
in search of freedom and fortune. Freedom he found; a for- 
tune was not given him though he was a coal miner. He had 
never married, and when his adopted country called its sons 
to arms, he was among the first to offer himself in the cause of 
justice, ready to show his love for the land which had given 
him liberty, by fighting, and dying if need be, that that 
liberty might be preserved. He was a big hulk of a man, well 
over thirty-five years of age. His reddish hair and bristling 
mustache gave him a rather forbidding appearance. I doubt 
not that today he would be taken for a Bolshevist on sight. 
He was fierce only in appearance, for I found him one of the 
gentlest and kindest of men, with a mind so clean and a heart 
so pure that everyone loved him. He was a big brother to the 
other Polish boys in our battalion. His knowledge of English 
enabled him to help in many ways those who knew scarcely a 
word of it. He was invaluable to the officers and men alike. 
But, above all, he was anxious about the religious welfare of 
his boys, and he saw to it always that they attended Mass and 
received the Sacraments, for, of course, they were all Cath- 
olics. I can never forget how helpful he was to me, for he 
acted as a "go-between" for me with the Polish Catholics. 
How often did I call on him to make in Polish the announce- 
ments I had just made in English! I can see him yet, standing 
up in the congregation, explaining in his language (and with 
more gestures than I had used) what I had said about confes- 
sion or Communion. My boys could be divided into three 
groups: those who spoke English, Italian, or Polish. I might 
add a fourth (to which they all belonged) those who swore. 
Adam's command of Polish, added to my knowledge of Eng- 
lish and Italian, solved all lingual difficulties. 

As regularly as pay-day came (which, in truth, was not at 
all regular), Adam would come to me with a handful of 
French money, generally about twenty-five dollars' worth, 
"given" to him by his Polish boys to be sent to some poor 



, 



1921.] MY LITTLE BLACK BOOK 65 

Polish parish in America. I sometimes thought Adam must 
have used a good bit of moral suasion to get his boys to the 
"giving" point. "I told them, Father, that it would be better 
for them to do good with their money, rather than spending it 
foolishly or losing it shooting crap. And I told them, too, that 
God wouldn't forget them for helping some poor church." 
Then, giving me a piece of paper with the name of the priest 
to whom the money was to be sent carefully written out, he 
would ask me to write him a letter and tell him to pray for the 
American soldiers who sent the money. Truly, Adam, was a 
veritable directory of poor Polish parishes in America. 

We were camped in the forest some few miles behind the 
line in the Argonne, waiting for the drive to begin. As I lay 
in my little tent one day, I saw Adam's ruddy face looking in 
at me. 

"Well, Adam," I said, as I crawled out, "how are you 
anyway?" 

"Oh, I'm all right, Father. I just thought this was a good 
chance to see you and give you some money." 

"Money?" I replied. "What do you want done with it? 
Want another Polish church built in Pennsylvania or Ohio?" 

"This money," he said, handing me two one hundred franc 
bills, "is my own. I want you to keep it, and, after I get killed, 
you send it to some priest in America for his church and ask 
him to pray for me." 

I looked up astonished, thinking he must be joking. I was 
so surprised by his remark about "after he had been killed" 
that I scarcely noticed his failure to give me a definite place to 
send the money. He was smiling at me as if he had said 
nothing at all unusual. 

"What do you mean, Adam, 'after you get killed?' What 
makes you think that they're going to get you this time?" I 
asked him. 

And, smiling all the while, he answered that he couldn't 
explain just why he felt that way, but still he felt sure that this 
would be his last time. He "knew they would get him this 
time," and so he wanted this matter arranged beforehand. 

Here it was again, that premonition of which so many 
boys had told me. Nothing tangible, just a presentiment that 
they would "get their's the next time." I had seen it come true 
so often that, though I wondered at it, I had no doubts at all 

VOL. CXIV. 5 



66 MY LITTLE BLACK BOOK [Oct., 

about the outcome. It was as if I was talking to a condemned 
man. What the explanation of these premonitions 
"hunches" the boys called them may be, I cannot say. It may 
be that, feeling that they were due, that they were going to 
"get it," these boys, unconsciously, were less prudent than 
usual, exposed themselves recklessly. It may be so, though 
I confess that neither that explanation nor any other I have 
ever heard, satisfies me. 

"Well, Adam, you don't seem to be very much excited 
about it. Doesn't it worry you any?" I asked him. 

"Why should I be worried, Father," he replied, still smil- 
ing. "I'm all ready now. Better ready than I ever have been. 
Since we came to France we haven't had a chance to do any- 
thing wrong. We've been living all right. We get to Mass and 
Communion so often that I guess we'll never be any better 
than we are now. No, I guess God will take care of me. I'm 
ready to meet Him." 

"God bless you, Adam, and His Blessed Mother be with 
you," I said to him reverently as he left me. I felt I was in the 
presence of a saint. 

A few days later, during an attack, Adam was hit by a 
machine gun bullet. He died before they had carried him 
back to the dressing station. I did not see him. But I feel 
that he died with that same whimsical smile on his face, that 
same beautiful faith in his heart. And I know that "God took 
care of him." 

In a little church in one of our Western States, where a 
struggling Polish settlement is trying to worship God accord- 
ing to the faith which that race has suffered so much to pre- 
serve, there is an altar furnished "in memory of an American 
soldier who gave his life in the Argonne for the land of his 
adoption and the land of his birth America and Poland." 

THE QUARRY. 

Time touches with a healing hand the wounds of mind, 
as well as those of body. Thus is the horror and bitterness 
of actuality tempered in memory's pictures, which, though 
clear and distinct in every least detail, are yet free from clash- 
ing contrasts. The unpleasant things form a soft background, 
against which memory paints the things which were pleasant. 



1921.] MY LITTLE BLACK BOOK 67 

Already our recollections of the War are losing the sharp 
edges of pain. Yet are we doomed to live in the past, never 
quite adjusted to normal conditions of life. For those of us 
who saw hard fighting, life holds little to stir our interest, 
nothing to arouse our enthusiasm. The climax of our lives 
has been reached; we are on the long down-grade, our hearts 
and minds still on the heights we have passed. Children, in 
years to come, will listen to our tales of the Great War with 
that mingled respect and pity and doubt which was ours when 
we, as children, listened to the stories of the Boys in Blue. 
And some young soldier, fresh from fields of fame, will laugh 
at the mention of the World War, and scornfully remark 
(as I heard remarked not so long ago about the Civil War) : 
"Why that World War was a joke! Those fellows don't know 
what 'real' war is. Anyone who was wounded in that war 
ought to have been court-martialed for carelessness. They 
could see the shells and bullets coming in plenty of time to get 
out of the way." 

But we shall always have our memories, for the most part 
sweet; all very precious. And but a slight impulse is needed 
to start this motion picture machine, which we call memory. 
Once started, it unfolds its pictures in swift succession on the 
screen of imagination. And mine is started by the sight of 
the names of three boys who were killed on the seventeenth 
of October, 1918, and whom I buried that same day. 

After seemingly endless ages we were relieved from the 
Argonne and found ourselves back, out of "range," in a little 
village which we filled to overflowing. It had little of beauty 
or comfort to commend it, but it was safe. Most of the officers 
were quartered in a hospice managed by some Sisters of St. 
Charles. Great, indeed, was the joy of these nuns when I told 
them that I was a priest. Now they could have daily Mass once 
again; a joy denied them since the outbreak of the War had 
deprived this village (as it had so many others) of its priest. 
Ah, yes! they would cure the cough of Monsieur L'Aumonier. 
They would brew him some herbs which would give him back 
his voice. For, in truth, the Chaplain could scarcely talk 
above a whisper as a result of having become too intimately 
acquainted with some gas. But one draught of the home- 
brew was sufficient to convince the Chaplain that the cough 
was preferable to the cure. The taste still lingers. 



68 MY LITTLE BLACK BOOK [Oct., 

To fill up our depleted ranks, about four hundred new 
troops were sent to us the day after our arrival in this village. 
I met them as they marched into town, and was talking with 
some of them when the town crier appeared, beating loudly on 
his tom-tom, and then told his news to the natives who had 
answered the tocsin. 

"Whaddyuh call that guy?" someone asked me. 

"Oh, he's the town crier," I answered, "a sort of village 
newspaper. You see, these little towns don't get any papers 
and the only news they receive is from him." 

"Whaddidhe say that time?" 

For all I knew he might have said that the War was over. 
My little knowledge of French was helpless in the torrent of 
words which swirled from his lips after rushing madly be- 
tween his two teeth. But the question had to be answered. 

"He's just telling the natives," I answered, "that they can 
sell wine to the soldiers who came yesterday, but they must not 
sell any to these soldiers who have just arrived. They have 
just come from America and are not used to it," 

What a storm of indignant protests my translation 
aroused! But in the excitement and indignation the boys 
forgot, for a few moments, their fatigue and hunger. A little 
"kidding" was the only medicine we had for "tired, aching 
and swollen feet." 

Before we had finished our third day in this little town, 
we were ordered back into the line. At nightfall, we rolled 
our packs and were ready for the trucks, choking the main 
street of the little town. The trucks came and went! The 
commanding officer of the truck-train had orders to pick us up 
at the next town. So, in order that obedience might triumph, 
we had to walk three miles in the rain to the next town. 
Then, after several very uncomfortable hours in the trucks, 
we were put out of the trucks and had to walk back about four 
miles because the trucks had carried us too far! I refused to 
hear what the boys had to say about the whole affair. 

Then came the march up to the front, along a road which 
followed a small stream running through a valley. For the 
most part we shuffled along in silence too tired even to talk. 
Up ahead, an occasional Very light or starshell cast its weird 
light over the horizon; then, as we rounded a hill, we could 
hear the shrill shriek of shells and see the flash as they ex- 



1921.] MY LITTLE BLACK BOOK 69 

ploded in the city through which we must pass. There may 
have been a man among us who wanted to go through that 
town, but I doubt it. No, if we followed our desires, we would 
have started for home right then. We old-timers had been 
through enough to have a wholesome dread of anything 
which exploded; and the new men were having their first 
attack of "quivers," a disease which produces a sudden weak- 
ness in the region of the knees and the pit of the stomach. And 
yet, single file, five paces between men, we went through the 
town and crossed a bridge which was under constant fire. 
And that is precisely what bravery and heroism mean to me: 
the will-power which makes men go where they don't want 
to go; go, when every fibre of their being cries out against 
going. It is the triumph of the spirit over the body; a victory 
of the will aided by prayer. For we all prayed, perhaps but 
a word or a thought, but yet a prayer. Atheism doesn't thrive 
on shellfire. 

Daybreak found us in a valley, in which the Germans, 
during their occupation of it, had constructed a number of 
barracks and some very pleasing little cottages. The valley, 
because of its depth and narrowness, seemed to be a perfectly 
safe position. But within an hour we were being shelled, 
and three of our boys were killed outright and several others 
wounded. As soon as the wounded had been cared for, we 
buried the dead in a little green plot of grass, round which 
flowed a little stream, singing the requiem of these departed 
lads as it journeyed towards its own grave in the far-away 
ocean. And there, as its waters mingled with the waves, it 
whispered of the brave lads who were buried by its banks. 
And the waves took up the story, and lisped to the shores of 
America the tale they had heard of America's brave dead. 

Taking over the front line positions that same day, we 
occupied, as battalion headquarters, a cave in a hillside over- 
looking a little town in the valley. This cave, formed orig- 
inally, I presume, by the action of the river, had been used for 
centuries as a quarry. The Germans were quick to take ad- 
vantage of its safety, for it had a roof of many feet of solid 
rock. They had blocked up the entrance, all save a small 
trench, and had shored up the roof with heavy timbers. It 
was, by far, the safest place we ever had, and could easily 
shelter a battalion. Here "Spike," the Major's orderly, made a 



70 MY LITTLE BLACK BOOK [Oct., 

reputation as a cook. His specialty was griddle-cakes; his 
griddle, a flattened out tin can; his fire, a can of solidified 
alcohol. And as he worked, he sang. He told in his sweet 
tenor of the doughboy's sweetheart, "Pretty K-K-K-Katie, 
whom he would meet by the g-g-g-garden gate." And he 
lilted another doggerel, which ran : 

The rain rains on the flowers and makes them beautiful, 
Why doesn't a cloud burst on the Ghap-e-lain? 

Though this sector was known as a "quiet" one, and was, 
in fact, inactive in the sense that there was no driving, yet 
there was noise enough both from shelling and bombing. The 
village below us was shelled regularly. In this village, away 
underground in the subcellar of a ruined palace, we had our 
dressing-station. It was so far down that no shell could reach 
it. By the light of a candle one of the ambulance drivers was 
writing home. Suddenly the thought struck him that the 
folks at home might like to know what a "cootie" really looked 
like, so he put a drop of candle grease on the piece of writing 
paper, and, capturing without much difficulty one of his own 
brand, he "interned" it in the candle grease. But, I suppose, 
the censor removed it as likely to give dangerous information 
or comfort to the enemy. 

In spite of the shellfire to which the village was subjected, 
our boys were continually prowling about it looking for souve- 
nirs. The palace was the especial object of their curiosity. 
They were continually "salvaging" things, for our men had no 
more respect for property rights than any other soldiers. Any- 
thing which did not have its owner sitting on it could be, nay, 
should be, salvaged. In our cave, one day, I discovered a stack 
of French magazines, evidently salvaged from the village. 
Some were being devoured when I entered, and it seemed as if 
everyone who came in got immediately interested in French 
literature. But it was not till some remarked on the badness 
of the French people, their looseness and general immorality, 
that it occurred to me to find out what the magazines were. 
And then I told these "clean-minded" Americans what I 
thought of them! I noticed that they hadn't missed a page; 
and one regretted his ignorance of French ! Too many of our 
soldiers brought back from France the same impressions 
of France and its people which they carried over. France, to 



1921.] MV LITTLE BLACK BOOK 71 

them, was "Gay Paree," and they did their best to justify their 
preconceptions. Handicapped by a lack of knowledge of lan- 
guage and customs, our men had practically no chance to meet 
or know the decent class of French people. The vast majority 
of the members of the A. E. F. never got even close to a large 
French city. 

There came to us one day an aviator, sent up for observa- 
tion with the infantry from the ground. A splendid chap, 
who took in good part our abuse. After being bombed a few 
times and witnessing the way we were harassed by enemy 
planes (having no help from any planes of our own) he under- 
stood our viewpoint. Nothing destroys morale quicker than 
aerial activity on the part of the enemy. There are many 
things, even in war, far more pleasant than being bombed, or 
fired upon by the machine gun of an aeroplane. Besides gain- 
ing experience, he gained his first cootie, which, he main- 
tained, would make him the envy of the entire squadron. One 
would think he had been decorated, he was so proud. 

All the occupants of the cave were asleep in various keys 
and pitches save the Adjutant (on duty) and myself. We sat 
at the table drinking our K. of C. bouillon by the flickering 
light of a candle. I had just finished a letter home, and one 
to the mother of my orderly, to tell her that her boy was well 
and to let her know what help he had given me during the 
past few weeks. 

"Joe," I said, "this little War can stop anytime, as far 
as I'm concerned. I've had more than enough." 

"Chaplain," he answered, putting down his tin cup, 
"them's my sentiments exactly. I'm forced to agree with you 
in spite of the fact that I'm a Methodist. I'm ready to demo- 
bilize right this minute." 

"This morning," I continued, "I went up and buried a boy 
near G Company's P. C. Then I took a stroll around the line. 
Believe me, it gave me the blues. The old crowd is practically 
gone. Of course, there are some left, but not many. I ran 
into 'Slim,' and he was crabbing because when he asked the 
Doctor what to do for a sore on his leg, he was told 'not to 
sleep on the wet ground and not to carry any sidearms.' The 
line is just a series of strong points; no continuous trench. I 
stopped at each group of riflemen or automatic gun team. 
Some took me for a waterboy; one crowd thought I was a run- 



72 ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS [Oct., 

ner. All I could think of was the old crowd. They knew me, 
and I knew them. I heard one chap ask his neighbor, 'who's 
the gink?' He was told that the 'gink' might be a Chaplain. 
Which brought the query, 'What in blazes (I'm using 
synonyms) is a Chaplain?' I felt like a stranger in my own 
home. When we started, this outfit was over sixty per cent. 
Catholic; now its practically Mormon except you." 

"No sir, Chaplain, I'm no Mormon! I sure do wish I was 
back with the little wife now. Someone was saying today that 
only three of our original officers haven't been hit or gassed." 

"Yes, and you three are like the rest of us, half crazy," 
I answered. 

"Chaplain, you better go lie down. I'm the only sane man 
around here, and now I'm going to write home and tell the 
wife about our crazy priest." 

"All right," I answered, making for my bunk, "but don't 
forget to tell her I went crazy trying to keep you straight." 



ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS. 

BY ANNA MCCLURE SHOLL. 

WHERE Sierra Morena's crags soar high 

Through cloudless air, no sharper to his gaze 
Than Carmel's steep he passed the soundless days 

In Pegnuela; shaping towards the sky 

His sacred pilgrimage. Obscure nights lie 
Upon that path where scarcely he can raise 
Tired eyes to God; though yet his heart will praise 

Love's mystery the willingness to die. 

The sun shines gold upon the convent floor 
There is a greater Sun the night descends 

Blacker the soul's night on her endless quest! 
The Spanish Spring sweeps through an open door 
All blossom-perfumed; but no solace lends. 

Time is no more where his strong heart would rest. 




THE MORAL OBLIGATION OF CIVIL LAW. 

BY JOHN A. RYAN, D.D. 

HE State performs its functions by means of law. 
Through the direct or indirect authorization of 
law, taxes are collected, public money is ex- 
pended, public services, such as the post office, 
the public schools, the department of justice, the 
fire department, the police department, are administered, and 
the various regulatory measures affecting individuals and as- 
sociations are ordained and enforced. It is law that warrants 
and supports every civil act performed by any official in any 
of the three great departments of government, the executive, 
the legislative and the judiciary. When a public official pro- 
ceeds without the authorization of law or exceeds the scope of 
the law, his action has no civil validity. 

The authority of the State to make laws is derived from 
God. 1 He has endowed men with such qualities and needs that 
they cannot live reasonable lives without the State. Therefore, 
He wishes the State to exist and to function in such a way as to 
attain this end, to promote man's temporal welfare. It does so 
by means of law. Hence, civil law is genuine moral law, not 
merely a kind of legal or physical coercion. It binds in con- 
science. Herein it differs from the rules of a social club. The 
latter do not produce moral obligation. Even though they 
should be disregarded to such an extent as to destroy the club, 
its members would suffer no vital injury. On the other hand, 
men are deprived of a necessary means to human life and 
development when there is general disobedience of the laws 
of the State. The moral law which binds men to live reason- 
able lives, obliges them to adopt one of the essential means 
to this end, that is, to maintain the State and to obey its laws. 
Such is the rational basis of the doctrine laid down in Holy 
Scripture, and taught without variation by the Catholic 
Church. According to this doctrine, the civil law binds in 
conscience, as such; not because it includes, nor only in so far 
as it includes, natural, or supernatural, or ecclesiastical law. 2 

1 Cf. Pope Leo XIII., The Christian Constitution of Slates. 
*Cf. Bouquillon, Theologia Moralis Fundamentalis, no. 223. 



74 MORAL OBLIGATION OF CIVIL LAW [Oct., 

No declaration of any Church authority can be cited in favor 
of the contrary opinion. A few individual writers have held 
it, but the overwhelming majority of theologians teach that 
the civil law is morally binding on its own account, because 
of the moral authority possessed by the State. 3 

Of course, all ethically valid civil laws must be in har- 
mony with the moral law of nature. A statute which is con- 
trary to a precept of the natural law, has no moral force, how- 
ever solemnly it may have been enacted, or formidably sanc- 
tioned, or vigorously enforced. Such an enactment is not 
law at all, but, as St. Thomas calls it, "a species of violence." 

Indeed, all civil law may properly be regarded as either a 
reaffirmation of the natural law, or as an application of its 
precepts, principles or derived conclusions. 4 Of the former 
kind are the statutes forbidding theft, assault and adultery. 
To the latter class belong the laws which determine individual 
property rights and prescribe the imposition and collection of 
taxes, and ordinances for the regulation of traffic on streets 
and roads. The natural law dictates that men should acquire 
and use external goods with a just regard to the rights of their 
fellows, but it does not inform them just how this requirement 
is to be observed and applied in particular cases. In virtue of 
the natural law, men are obliged to maintain the Government, 
but there is no specific precept requiring this end to be at- 
tained through a certain form of taxation. We are enjoined 
by the natural law to refrain from inflicting physical injury 
upon the neighbor in our common use of the public streets, 
as well as in other relations, but we are not told whether the 
speed limit should be ten miles an hour or twenty. In all 
such cases, the general provisions and precepts of the natural 
law stand in need of specific and precise determination by the 
positive law. Civil statutes for this purpose derive their im- 
mediate moral authority and validity from the State itself. 
Their binding force cannot come directly from the natural 
law, since the latter is so general in its provisions that other 
specific determinations, for example, other property regula- 

8 The greatest authority on law among Catholic theologians, Francisco Suarez, 
S.J., declares that this is the "common opinion of Catholics." His own defence of the 
proposition is summed up In three declarations : the civil legislator makes laws as the 
minister of God; the legislator is required by the Divine and natural law to pass 
laws; this power and its exercise are necessary for the common good. De Legibus, 
lib. iii., cap. 21. 

* Cf. Cronln, The Science of Ethics, II., pp. 599, GOO. 



1921.] MORAL OBLIGATION OF CIVIL LAW 75 

tions and traffic regulations, might be equally in harmony 
with these general provisions. Natural law cannot oblige men 
to comply with its general provisions in a particular way, 
when another way would be equally efficacious. The func- 
tion of prescribing one method rather than another belongs 
to the State. Its right to make such a prescription, flows from 
the fact that it is the authorized and the only competent 
agency to determine and enforce necessary and uniform 
methods of carrying into effect the general principles of the 
natural law in all such matters. The obligation of the citizen 
to observe these methods and regulations, is based ultimately 
on the natural law, but its immediate and formal basis is the 
State. 5 

The objection might be raised that all the foregoing in- 
stances and the reasoning that they are intended to illustrate, 
refer only to civil ordinances which are necessary. The moral 
obligation to obey such statutes is as clear as the obligation 
to maintain an effective political organization. In both cases 
we can trace the compelling and obligatory influence of the 
natural law. Its precepts require men to deal justly and char- 
itably with one another, and to make and obey whatever civil 
regulations are necessary to attain this end. But the case 
seems to be different with civil statutes, which prescribe and 
administer things that are merely useful. Government regu- 
lation of street traffic is necessary, but government ownership 
of railroads is not necessary. Whence comes the moral obli- 
gation upon the citizens to obey the law which forbids them to 
own a railroad? 

The answer is that the obligation is derived ultimately 
from the natural law, precisely as in the case of the traffic 
ordinance. Just as the State has the authority to prescribe one 
maximum rate of speed rather than another, so it has the 
right to determine that goods and passengers shall be carried 
by the Government rather than by private corporations. In 

8 It is in this sense that St. Thomas speaks of civil law as a "participation in 
the eternal and natural law." Suarez draws the distinction clearly beween a civil 
law conceived as obligatory because and when it contains or applies a specific pre- 
cept of the natural law, or a necessary conclusion therefrom, and a civil law, or 
the whole body of civil law, conceived as obligatory because it is based on the 
general principle of the natural law which requires civil ordinances to be obeyed. He 
declares that if those who deny that the civil law binds in conscience, hold to the 
latter instead of the former conception, the dispute is perhaps merely one of lan- 
guage. They agree with him in principle. Idem., loc. cit. 



76 MORAL OBLIGATION OF CIVIL LAW [Oct., 

both cases the end is the common welfare. In both cases the 
State must adopt some means to attain this end. In each case 
more than one means would be adequate. Some speed limit 
must be prescribed, but it need not be fifteen miles per hour 
rather than twenty. As compared with the latter, the former 
is merely useful, and vice versa. The case of the railroads is 
exactly parallel. They are necessary for the common welfare. 
They can attain this end substantially under either private or 
public ownership. The issue between the two methods is 
merely one of utility, and the State is not clearly obliged to 
choose one rather than the other. But it must authorize some 
one of the two. When it adopts Government ownership, its 
action is morally binding on the citizens for the same reason 
that makes its traffic regulations morally binding. That is, it is 
determining a method of promoting the common good, in 
virtue of its authority as the only competent determinant of 
such matters. The obligation of the citizens to accept the 
determination actually made, i. e. t Government ownership, 
comes immediately from the authority of the State, but ulti- 
mately from that principle of the natural law which dictates 
that men should maintain an effectively functioning political 
organization. 

Individual citizens may think, and their opinion may be 
correct, that Government ownership of railroads is less useful, 
less conducive to the common good, than private ownership. 
Nevertheless, they are morally obliged to accept the former for 
the sake of that same common good. Their refusal to do so 
would cause greater injury to the community than the con- 
tinuation of and their acquiescence in the duly established 
arrangement. It would imply that a group of individuals may 
at any time reject any civil ordinance with which they do not 
agree. The contradiction is obvious between this position and 
the requirements of right reason, of the natural law, of the 
common good, and of individual welfare. 

The sum of the matter is that every law enacted by a legit- 
imate government, and not contrary to any provision of the 
natural law, whether its prescriptions are evidently necessary 
or merely useful, is in some degree morally binding on the 
citizens. The fundamental reason is the necessity, according 
to the Divine plan, of an effectively functioning State for 
human welfare. 



1921.] MORAL OBLIGATION OF CIVIL LAW 77 

It has just been said that every genuine civil enactment is 
morally binding "in some degree." This phrase brings up for 
consideration certain modifications, or qualifications, of the 
general principle. It suggests these questions: Do civil laws 
bind under pain of mortal sin? Does their obligatory char- 
acter depend upon the will of the legislator? Are some civil 
statutes "purely penal?" Does the validity of civil laws de- 
pend upon their acceptance by the people? 

To the first of these questions the answer of the great 
majority of Catholic writers is in the affirmative. The reason 
is tersely stated by Suarez: "Inasmuch as civil law binds in 
conscience, it necessarily produces a degree of obligation pro- 
portionate to its subject matter; if the latter is of grave im- 
portance, the obligation of obeying the law will likewise be 
grave." 6 Generally speaking, the person who violates a civil 
statute which prescribes some action of great importance for 
the commonwealth, is guilty of mortal sin. This proposition 
can be logically rejected only on the assumption that no civil 
law can be of great importance. 

Such is the obligatory force of a momentous law, con- 
sidered in itself. But we are confronted with the second ques- 
tion raised above. Does the obligation depend upon the will 
of the legislator? It is the unanimous, or practically unan- 
imous, teaching of Catholic authorities that the intention of 
creating a moral obligation is of the essence of law; so that, a 
prescription by legislators who positively and explicitly in- 
tended that it should not bind in conscience, would not be a 
true law. It would be merely a direction, a counsel, or an ex- 
pression of legislative preference. If the existence of moral 
obligation depends upon the will of the legislator, the same 
dependence must logically be predicated of the degree of obli- 
gation. Hence, the general opinion among Catholic moral 
theologians is that the legislator has the authority to render 
grave laws only slightly obligatory. 7 That is, a law which of 
itself would bind under pain of mortal sin, brings upon the 
transgressor merely venial guilt when this is the desire and 
intention of the legislator. 

In order that a civil law should become obligatory to a 
grave degree two conditions are, therefore, necessary: first, 
that the subject matter be of great importance; second, that the 

8 Op cit., lib. III., cap. 24, no. 2. T Cf. Suarez, op. cit., lib. ill., cap. 27. 



78 MORAL OBLIGATION OF CIVIL LAW [Oct., 

legislator should intend the law to have this effect in the forum 
of conscience. Either of these conditions lacking, the law 
binds only under pain of venial sin. If the subject matter is 
of slight importance, the legislator cannot perform the inher- 
ently contradictory feat of making the obligation grave; if the 
legislator does not wish a gravely important law to bind under 
pain of mortal sin, it will not be obligatory in this degree. 

A very important question arises here concerning the form 
which the legislator's intention must take in order to make an 
obligation slight which, from the nature of the subject matter, 
would be grave. Suppose he does not think about moral ob- 
ligation at all, but merely has in mind the enactment of a law. 
In that case the law will bind in conscience, and the degree of 
the obligation will be determined by the importance of the sub- 
ject matter. This is the normal effect of a true law, and it is 
always produced, so long as it is not positively excluded by the 
intention of the legislator. Suppose that the legislator ex- 
plicitly desires that the law should be obligatory, but does not 
think about the degree of obligation. As in the former case, 
the obligation will be determined by the subject matter. If 
the latter is gravely important, the law will be gravely oblig- 
atory. Therefore, a civil law of great importance always 
binds under pain of mortal sin, unless the legislator forms a 
positive intention to the contrary. A merely negative attitude 
toward the obligation will have no effect upon the obligation. 8 

The opponents of the doctrine that the legislator can 
render slight the obligation of a grave law, contend that the 
degree of binding force carried by a civil law depends exclus- 
ively upon the subject matter. The legislator's power is 
merely that of making or not making the statute. 9 This argu- 
ment would lead logically to the conclusion that the existence 
of any obligation at all is entirely independent of the will of 
the legislator. Should the members of a legislative body ex- 
plicitly will that their enactments should not be binding in 
conscience, this reservation would be without effect. Suarez 
declares that such an enactment is not a true law; but this 
seems to be mostly a question of language. 

Consider an ordinance which is clearly necessary for the 
common good, as that which regulates the speed of vehicles. 
Does not the very necessity of this measure make it binding 

8 O/. Suarez, loc. cit. Cf. Suarez, ibidem. 



1921.] MORAL OBLIGATION OF CIVIL LAW 79 

in conscience? It is true that a different law might be equally 
adapted to meet this necessity; and the inference might be 
drawn that the citizens who observed the provisions of this 
alternative and hypothetical rule would be under no obligation 
to obey the existing law. The reply is that the common good 
requires the enactment and the observance of one ordinance. 
Human welfare is not safeguarded through a kind of private 
interpretation by the citizens themselves of what constitutes a 
reasonable rule or standard. Now it is the proper and neces- 
sary function of the legislators to enact this uniform regula- 
tion. Once it has been chosen out of several possible ordi- 
nances, it becomes morally binding because of its necessity 
for the common good, no matter what the legislators may 
think of obligation. It is reasonable and necessary that they 
determine the provisions of the law, but it is neither reason- 
able nor necessary that they have power to determine the 
question of its moral obligation. 

Even laws which are not necessary for the common wel- 
fare may conceivably be obligatory, against the desires of the 
legislators. For the common good may require that a law of 
this sort, even though no more useful than the alternative ar- 
rangement, be obeyed for the sake of social order. Violations 
of it might be detrimental to the public good merely because 
they were violations of duly enacted law. In such a situation, 
why should the unwillingness of the legislator to impose moral 
obligation have any moral effect or significance? 

Whatever may be thought of the foregoing argument, the 
question whether the legislator has power to render a grave 
law only slightly obligatory, has no practical importance if* 
modern communities. No legislative body ever thinks of exer- 
cising such power. Therefore, modern civil laws dealing with 
gravely important matters always produce their normal effect 
of binding under pain of mortal sin. 10 

The doctrine that the moral obligation of civil law de- 
pends to some extent upon the intention of the legislator, is 
sometimes made the basis of an extraordinary view of modern 
civil legislation. It is nothing less than the conclusion that the 
ordinances of practically all modern legislative bodies have 
no binding force in conscience. Laws do not bind in con- 
science unless the legislator intends them so to bind; now 

10 Cf. Meyer, Institutiones Juris Naturalis, II., p. 569. 



80 MORAL OBLIGATION OF CIVIL LAW [Oct., 

contemporary lawmakers cannot have such an intention since 
they do not believe in the existence of genuine moral obliga- 
tion. Such is the argument. Tanquerey rejects it on the 
ground that, whatever may be their general and theoretical 
attitude toward the reality of moral obligation, modern legis- 
lators do desire their enactments to have the utmost possible 
force and authority; hence, they implicitly intend them to be 
morally binding. 11 Bouquillon takes a similar position, de- 
claring that the legislator need not expressly intend to impose 
an obligation in conscience, that it is sufficient for him to 
have the intention of issuing a genuine command. 12 Lehmkuhl 
holds the same view as Tanquerey and Bouquillon, and points 
out that if explicit intention to bind the conscience were indis- 
pensable, the laws enacted by pagan rulers would be without 
obligatory force, which is surely contrary to the teaching of 
Holy Scripture. 13 Suarez declares that the design of the legis- 
lator to make a true law suffices, and that the formal intention 
to bind in conscience is not necessary. He notes that legis- 
lators, particularly unbelievers, rarely advert to the question 
of moral obligation. 14 Indeed, it seems to be the general 
opinion of the moral theologians that an implicit intention 
suffices; that is, the intention that the enactment should have 
all the moral authority which attaches to a genuine law. 

This conclusion seems to be entirely consistent with the 
"necessity of intention" doctrine, as regards two classes of 
lawmakers who have no explicit desire to bind in conscience; 
namely, those who believe that civil law is morally obligatory, 
but do not advert to this fact at the moment of legislating, and 
those who theoretically disbelieve in genuine moral obliga- 
tion, but who are willing that, if perchance it does exist, it 
should attach to their ordinances. In the minds of both these 
classes, there is inherent a true implicit intention to make the 
law binding in conscience. 

As regards those lawmakers who are firmly persuaded 
that civil laws are not obligatory in the proper sense, for ex- 
ample, those who, with the English jurist, John Austin, reduce 
the moral obligation of legal statutes to the evil chance of in- 
curring the penalty for violation it is not clear that there 

11 Theologia Moralis Fundamentalis, no. 343. 

12 Theologia Moralis Fundamentalis, no. 223. 

13 Theologia Moralis, I., no. 211. 

14 Op. cit., lib. iii., cap. 27, no. 1. 






1921.] MORAL OBLIGATION OF CIVIL LAW 81 

exists even an implicit intention to produce moral obligation. 15 
Tanquerey contends for the reality of such an intention on 
the ground that the legislator desires his laws to exercise all 
possible compelling force upon the will of the citizens, and, 
therefore, is quite willing that the latter should feel bound in 
conscience. Nevertheless, this is not an implicit intention to 
impose objective moral obligation. It does not recognize the 
objective bond which is the essence of genuine obligation, the 
bond between the will of the lawgiver and the will of the law 
receiver. The only thing covered by such an intention is the 
state of mind of the citizen. That this should be affected by a 
persuasion of obligation, the lawmaker is perfectly willing; 
that the objective moral bond constituting obligation should 
extend from his will to the will of the citizen, the lawmaker 
has not even an implicit intention, for he totally rejects the 
possibility of such a bond. His intention comprises only a 
subjective condition, not an objective relation. It is hard to 
see how such legislators can have even an implicit intention, 
either to make a true law, or to impose moral obligation. 

As a matter of fact, it is very doubtful that many contem- 
porary legislators deny to civil laws the possibility of moral 
obligation in the absolute and comprehensive manner sup- 
posed in the preceding paragraph. Probably, the great major- 
ity of them accept, at least in some vague way, the existence, or 
at any rate the possibility, of a juristic moral bond between 
law giver and law receiver. This is a sufficient basis for an 
implicit intention to bind in conscience. Therefore, the gen- 
eral opinion of moral theologians that modern civil laws bind 
in conscience, is consistent with their teaching that this moral 
force is in some degree dependent upon the will of the legis- 
lator. To be sure, the case for the moral obligation of contem- 
porary laws becomes clearer and simpler if we accept the 
theory that their obligatory character is independent of the 
legislator's will, and is inherent in the laws themselves. 

The third question raised above concerns those laws which 
jurists and theologians call "purely penal," or "merely penal," 
or "disjunctive." They are defined as laws which oblige the 
citizen either to obey them or to accept the penalty appointed 
for their violation. The obligation is not absolute, but con- 
ditional. If the citizen is ready to submit to the penalty, he 

16 Cf. Sia^e?, Questions of Moral Theology, pp. 279-288. 
voju cxiv, 6 



82 MORAL OBLIGATION OF CIVIL LAW [Oct., 

can licitly disobey the provisions of the law. Generally speak- 
ing, however, he is not bound in conscience to undergo the 
penalty until it has been formally imposed by the court. He 
is not obliged to give himself up, nor to forego his civil right 
of legal defence. 

The great majority of moral theologians hold that the 
legislator has authority to enact laws of this sort. In the first 
place, it is contended that the object of the law and the com- 
mon good may sometimes be more effectively promoted by a 
statute which leaves the citizen free to disobey the law and 
become morally liable to the penalty, than by one which gives 
no such choice, but entails moral guilt every time it is violated. 
Such are laws which men transgress with uncommon fre- 
quency, but whose object can be adequately attained through 
the infliction of penalties upon their violators. A purely penal 
law is in some sense a concession to human weakness. The 
second reason given by the theologians to support the proposi- 
tion under consideration, is the legislator's power over the 
obligatory character of his enactments. Just as he can deter- 
mine that a gravely important law shall bind only under pain 
of venial sin, so he can make the obligation of certain laws dis- 
junctive. That is, he may attach the obligation either to the 
observance of the law or to the acceptance of the penalty, so 
that the citizen has the option of being bound to the latter 
instead of the former. 

It is to be observed that a purely penal law must carry 
some obligation. The legislator cannot enact a statute which 
would bind the citizen neither to obey its provisions nor to 
accept its penalties. 16 Such an enactment would not be a true 
law, inasmuch as it would lack an essential element, namely, 
moral binding force. Hence, the legislator must have at least 
the implicit intention of morally obliging the citizen to accept 
the penalty in case of violation. 

It seems, however, that the practical obligation of a purely 
penal law is attenuated almost to the vanishing point. If the 
violator of the law is not obliged to make known his trans- 
gression, nor to waive his legal right of defence, his duty of 
"accepting the penalty" is merely that of submitting to the 
sentence of the court. That is, he must not break jail nor 
evade payment of a fine. When the offender evades appre- 

16 Cf. Suarez, op. cit., lib. iii., cap. 27, no. 3. 



1921.] MORAL OBLIGATION OF CIVIL LAW 83 

hension, he escapes all moral obligation; when he successfully 
contests prosecution, he likewise remains free from moral ac- 
countability; when he is convicted, his moral obligation is 
merely that of omitting actions from which, in most cases, he 
is physically restrained by the sheriff or the policeman. In a 
word, the moral obligation of a purely penal law is next to 
nothing, its moral sanction, z'. e. t the effectiveness of the moral 
element in preventing violations, is practically nothing. 

These facts create a strong presumption that the field of 
purely penal law is extremely limited. The objective reason 
why civil law carries moral obligation is found ultimately in 
human welfare. If the law be deprived, or all but deprived, of 
its moral element, its efficacy for the promotion of human wel- 
fare is greatly, even fatally, weakened. Nevertheless, the as- 
sertion is sometimes made that, in our day, all civil laws are 
merely penal. Some who use this language, do not mean what 
they seem to mean. They wish to assert the theory, sufficiently 
discussed above, that modern laws do not bind in conscience, 
inasmuch as modern legislators have not the proper intention. 
If this contention were sound, civil legislation would not even 
rise to the dignity of purely penal enactments; for the latter 
do entail some moral obligation. Those who, using the phrase 
in its proper sense, declare that all modern civil legislation is 
purely penal, are happily neither numerous nor authoritative. 
According to the common opinion of moral theologians, the 
presumption is always in favor of complete obligation. 17 Like 
all other presumptions, this one can be overcome only by posi- 
tive facts and arguments. With regard to any particular law, 
the burden of proof rests upon him who contends that it is 
purely penal. 

As commonly given by theologians, there are three tests 
by which a civil law may be adjudged purely penal: first, the 
declaration of the legislator; second, the attitude of popular 
tradition and custom; third, the enactment of a penalty so 
severe that it is out of all proportion to the law's importance. 
However, the second and third of these criteria are not valid 
universally; for the custom may be socially injurious, and the 
heavy penalty may be designed to prevent unusual frequency 
of violation, not to indicate that the law is to be regarded as 
purely penal. 

" Cf. Tanquerey, op. cit., no. 347. 



84 MORAL OBLIGATION OF CIVIL LAW [Oct., 

Bouquillon adds another restriction which seems to be 
fundamental. It is that no law can be reasonably regarded as 
purely penal unless the burden or penalty attached to its vio- 
lation is specifically adapted to attain the end of the law. 18 
The penalty must be such as to compensate for the failure of 
the law; it may not be merely coercive. Thus, heavy fines 
may offset the loss to the public treasury through the non- 
observance of tax laws. In such a case, the law might fairly 
be interpreted as purely penal. But the imposition of fines 
and imprisonment would not adequately achieve the end of a 
traffic ordinance, z. e., safeguarding life and property. It is 
not easy to controvert this argument. 

The final question concerning the degree of obligation at- 
taching to civil laws is whether their binding force depends 
upon popular acceptance or ratification. At first sight, an 
affirmative answer would seem to contradict the general doc- 
trine of the foregoing pages, namely, that civil legislation binds 
in conscience. However, there is no necessary contradiction; 
for civil ordinances might conceivably not attain the complete 
character of laws until they had been ratified by the people. 
In that supposition, the people would constitute an essential 
part of the legislative authority. The obligation of individual 
citizens to obey a statute, would begin when the latter had been 
formally accepted by the people as a whole. Only then would 
"the will of the legislator" have become fully manifest and 
formally effective. 

Suarez informs us that in his time this was the commonly 
held opinion of the jurists. 19 He cites eight or ten important 
names, and admits that their view seems to have been antic- 
ipated by Aristotle. Their argument was briefly as follows: 
In order to make binding laws, the legislator must have both 
the authority and the will. In fact, he has neither. That he 
lacks moral power to legislate validly without the people's 
consent, is shown by the fact that his authority to govern and 
to make any laws at all is derived from the people; and they 
have given him legislative authority, on condition that his ordi- 
nances shall become binding only when accepted by the people. 
That this condition is attached to the grant of authority, is 
evident from the "most ancient usage of the Roman people," 
and from the fact that popular acceptation is the best indica- 

18 Op. cit., p. 353. " Op. cit., lib. ill., cap. 19, no. 7. 



1921.] MORAL OBLIGATION OF CIVIL LAW 85 

tion that a law really promotes the common good, just as the 
contrary attitude of the people proves the law to be socially 
harmful and thus without validity. The will to make binding 
laws without the consent of the people is wanting to the legis- 
lator because he cannot have a genuine intention of doing 
something for which he lacks authority. 

In passing, it is worthy of note that these ultra-democratic 
jurists all wrote before the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. This is the period when Catholic teaching supported 
political absolutism and political oppression generally, accord- 
ing to the perverted notions that still pass in many quarters 
as history. When Major, who is one of the writers cited by 
Suarez, declared that the community is superior to the prince 
in all things that pertain to sovereignty, he enunciated a doc- 
trine that even now gives many of us a disagreeable shock 
when it falls upon our ears in such a modernized version as 
"the people are the masters, the public official is their servant." 
It is likewise noteworthy that in support of their theory of 
popular acceptance of laws, these writers appealed to a prin- 
ciple which no one disputed in their day, namely, that rulers 
and legislators derive their authority from the people. The 
inference drawn from this principle by the jurists, was not ad- 
mitted by the moral theologians, but the principle itself was 
universally received. 

Generally and per se, popular acceptance is not necessary 
for the validity of a civil law. Such is the unanimous teaching 
of the moral theologians. As stated by Suarez, the following 
are the main reasons which support this principle: 20 In every 
State that is not a pure democracy, the people have trans- 
ferred supreme political power to the rulers and legislators, 
and have not retained the right of accepting or rejecting legis- 
lation. Secondly, the authority to legislate would be plainly 
futile if the people were morally free to obey or not to obey. 
Thirdly, usage shows that laws are held to be binding as soon 
as they have been regularly enacted and promulgated. In 
short, civil laws are obligatory without popular ratification, 
on account of the original grant of power to the rulers, on ac- 
count of universal custom, and because this is necessary for the 
common good. It is not possible to overthrow this argument. 

The general principle is subject, however, to certain qual- 

2 Op. cit., lib. ill., cap. 19, no. 7. 



86 MORAL OBLIGATION OF CIVIL LAW [Oct., 

ifications and exceptions. Suarez notes that popular accept- 
ance of the law is essential to its binding force when the 
people have attached that condition to the grant of legislative 
power. In the kingdom of Aragonia (a part of mediaeval and 
benighted Spain, be it noted!), he says the laws of the mon- 
arch do not become binding until they are ratified in public 
assemblies. On the same principle, certain enactments of 
legislative bodies in Switzerland, the United States and Aus- 
tralasia obtain the full force of law only when they have been 
approved by a popular referendum. Even in these States, the 
great majority of laws are recognized as valid as soon as they 
have been promulgated by the supreme legislative authority. 

In the second place, Suarez points out that when a law is 
very frequently disregarded by the greater part of the people, 
the legislator may, through tacit consent, permit the law to be 
deprived of binding force. However, this is not an instance 
of direct popular authority over the law, but rather of revoca- 
tion by the legislator. His tacit repeal of the law is, indeed, 
occasioned by popular refusal to accept. In the third place, 
the law does not bind if it is not just, for an unjust law is no 
law at all. Fourthly, a law which is unreasonably burden- 
some to the people may sometimes lack obligatory force at 
least when it is so harsh that it is tantamount to an unjust en- 
actment. Finally, when the majority of the people disregard 
the law to such an extent and in such a way that its observance 
by a minority becomes detrimental to the State, it ceases to 
bind the individual citizen. 

To sum up : The Catholic Church as well as natural rea- 
son teach that civil law binds in conscience. The ultimate 
basis of this obligation is the natural law; the immediate basis 
is the authority of the State. Civil laws of grave importance 
are gravely obligatory, unless the legislator formally intends 
their binding force to be slight. The general teaching of 
moral theologians is that a law is not binding without at least 
the implicit intention of the legislator. Some civil laws may 
be purely penal, but their number is probably small. In gen- 
eral, civil laws are binding without popular ratification. 



GOLD. 

BY SISTER M. MONICA. 
CONQUISTADORES, 

Say, are ye men, or gorgeous trailing shadows? 
Riding gaily past in your creaking leathern saddles 
Following the lure, the lure of El Dorado? 

Crouching here, I heard your bold joyous jesting, 

Heard your rich, sweet voices, the languid Spanish cadence, 

Caught the dark eye flashing glints of future gold 

Of El Dorado. 

Then I raised my head, stood straight, looking and laughing 
Daughter of the Chibchas, with blood of the proud caciques; 
I, leaning at the pool, with the sleek water-skins on my shoulders, 
Here in the amber sunset, laughed, and clapped my hands. 

O Conquistadores that ride for El Dorado, 

O it was I that missed not the glance you threw as you passed me, 

The sudden spasm of thirst that cut across your vision, 

The old, old call of beauty that brings a man back to the heart- 
smoke. 

Throbbed an instant between us the old primeval message 

From ye to me whose accents are mute to one another. 

Swift and light as the rainbow, when morning strikes the cataract, 

Throbbed it, and was gone. 

One turned his head and looked back as his horse galloped 
forw r ard, 

Down the wind broke his voice. Now falls the night and silence. 

Come back, O come back, with your clanking spurs, O Adelan- 

tados, 

There is no gold. 

Believe not the tales the subtle old cacique told ye. 
There is no El Dorado out in the tangled selvas; 
Only the slime and the ooze and bleaching bones in the darkness, 
And wandering wraiths of your forefathers long disappointed 

before you. 
Noon blazes out in the splendid heat and over the abyss curl the 

waters ; 

Into the mist the cockatoos plunge, like living arrows, shrieking, 
And death's grim talons await you. 



88 GOLD [Oct., 

Last night ye chaffed and drank by the dying embers in moonlight. 
O it was I that stole out in the long, green dark of the cedars. 
You think the Chibcha girl knows naught but the tongue of her 

mother; 

But the speech of pale bronzed faces softly aglow in the firelight 
Sings, sings to the heart. 

At dawn, when rose splashed the east, and all the world was 

expectant, 
Crouching figures I watched, that knelt on the grass where the 

dew dripped, 

Tall and lustrous stood one with arms high upraised before you, 
Lifting a little white disk shot through by a ray of sunlight, 
Lifting a shining cup to the infinite blue above you. 
Murmuring followed of voices. 

And, oh, it was then that I quivered beneath the touch of the 

Spirit 
The Spirit that cries to me all day long from the dumb lips of 

mountains, 
And breathes with the tender fragrance of earth looking up after 

rain, 

And beckons me out of the distance of indeterminate llanos 
Spirit Whose echo the world is, spoke to me, and I answered. 

O Conquistadores, yourselves have El Dorado. 

Yours is the land that is paved with gold and threaded with pearl- 
disks. 

Here ye find neither the gold ye can give nor the gold that ye 
covet. 

Come back on your trail, on your trail of defeat, O Adelantados, 
Glowing and mettled with hope, O joyous Conquistadores, 
Give to us of your gold, give to the Chibcha cacique, 
Give of the gold that I saw gleaming there around your disk and 
your chalice. 

Still ye ride on and on, and the pale, thin distance enfolds you, 
Night and the jaguar, hyena-hunger, thrust of the javelin, 
Lure you on to the golden mirage, the mirage of your dreams. 
Ah, are ye men, or gorgeous trailing shadows, 
Conquistadores? 




THE THIRD ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS: TODAY. 

BY MICHAEL WILLIAMS. 

HIS year of Our Lord 1921 has been remarkable 
for important meetings and conferences of men 
and women throughout Christendom to consider, 
and seek the solution of, vast and tremendously 
important problems affecting the welfare of 
humanity. Without attempting to catalogue these confer- 
ences, their scope may be indicated by recalling the assem- 
bling of the League of Nations, the many meetings of the 
Supreme Council of the Entente Premiers, the Anglo-Irish 
Conference, the signing of the American-German Treaty of 
Peace, the Russian-American Famine Relief Agreement, and 
the limitation of armaments Conference, which is to be held in 
Washington next month. Yet it may be doubted whether any 
of these momentous events will prove to be more truly im- 
portant or more thoroughly practical than the world-wide con- 
ventions of the Third Order of St. Francis, marking the seventh 
hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Third Order of 
Penance. These conventions have been held throughout this 
year, the American convention, meeting this month in Chi- 
cago, being the first national Tertiary Convention ever held in 
the United States. 

The late William T. Stead, that eccentric, yet sincere 
social reformer whose work in London gained the approbation 
of Cardinal Manning, created a somewhat violent though eva- 
nescent sensation during his lifetime by writing a book en- 
titled, // Christ Came to Chicago. Against the swirling back- 
ground of Chicago's incredibly strenuous industrialism and 
commercialism, its shrieking uproar and crowded millions of 
hurrying and contending men and women, the English pub- 
licist placed his picture of Our Lord the Redeemer of Man- 
kind. He sought to prove to Christ's followers the necessity of 
exciting themselves more earnestly and efficiently to follow 
the example of their Master, Who went about doing good. 
Stead's literary device had the perfervid and exaggerated em- 
phasis that apparently is inseparable from the attempts of 



90 THIRD ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS: TODAY [Oct., 

our Protestant brothers (self-isolated as they are from the 
consolations and the assurances of the sacramental view of 
life) to apply the teachings and example of Our Lord to the 
solution of modern day problems; but it is withal a genuine 
cry from the heart and from the soul, a cry that means : "Help, 
Lord, or we perish." 

If Stead could have lived to be present in Chicago this 
month when the followers of that most devoted follower of 
Christ meet in the great inland city of the New World, he 
would know that not only the example and the spirit of St. 
Francis of Assisi, but the example and spirit, yes, and the 
actual Presence, of Jesus Christ are there, doing the same 
work that He came to do among men in Galilee. For in Chi- 
cago, as in Rome, in London, in Quebec and wherever the Ter- 
tiaries have met, the convention of the Third Order of St. 
Francis means a vast, immediate and enduring application of 
the one, true, essential, and permanent reform of the evils 
now so grievously afflicting the world : a reform referred to in 
the following wonderful passage of the Pastoral Letter issued 
by the Hierarchy of the United States two years ago: 

One true reform the world has known. It was effected, 
not by force, agitation or theory, but by a Life in which the 
perfect ideal was visibly realized, becoming the "light of 
men.'* That light has not grown dim with the passing of 
time. Men have turned their eyes away from it; even His 
followers have strayed from its pathway; but the truth and 
the life of Jesus Christ are real and clear today for all who 
are willing to see. There is no other name under heaven 
whereby the world can be saved. 

Through the Gospel of Jesus and His living example, 
mankind learned the meaning, and received the blessing, of 
liberty. In His person was shown the excellence and true 
dignity of human nature, wherein human rights have their 
centre. In His dealings with them, justice and mercy, sym- 
pathy and courage, pity for weakness and rebuke for hollow 
pretence, were perfectly blended. Having fulfilled the law, 
He gave to His followers a new commandment. Having 
loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the 
end. And since He came that they might have life and have 
it more abundantly, He gave it to them through His death. 

The essential mission of the Third Order of St. Francis 
is to carry out, under Christ, this work of reform instituted 



1921.] THIRD ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS: TODAY 91 

by Christ: and to carry it out, so far as the ability is given 
them to do so, in His own way: by living it: by doing the 
work not merely writing and talking about it, theorizing or 
dreaming about it, still less, by leaving it to others to do. 

There are today, it is estimated, about two and a half mil- 
lion members of the Third Order of St. Francis spread all over 
the world. There exist in almost all civilized languages nu- 
merous Franciscan periodicals, widely circulated, even beyond 
the membership of the Order. This estimate of membership 
was made some years before the War, and before the impetus 
given the Franciscan movement by the preparations for and 
carrying on of the world-wide celebrations of the seven hun- 
dredth anniversary of the Order. While, no doubt, the War 
made inroads upon the membership in many countries, on the 
other hand, it is probable that the new enthusiasm and interest 
created by this year's manifestation of the vitality and practi- 
cability of the Franciscan spirit, will result in its vast increase. 

The prophetic cry of St. Francis, fulfilled throughout seven 
centuries, is probably destined to an even greater realization : 

I hear in my ears the sound of the tongues of all the 
nations who shall come unto us: Frenchmen, Spaniards, 
Germans, Englishmen. The Lord will make of us a great 
people, even unto the ends of the earth. 

The United States of America were undreamed of, even by 
the prophets, when St. Francis spake these words, but from 
the blood of Frenchmen, Spaniards, Germans, Englishmen, 
and most of the other races and nations of the earth we of 
the United States have sprung, and, from that very fact, the 
Franciscan movement with us possesses a most Franciscan, 
because universal and truly Catholic, character which must 
delight "the little poor man" today in Paradise. 

Historical evidence seems to deny the popular and prev- 
alent view that the Third Order of St. Francis was the oldest 
of all third orders for "there were somewhat similar institu- 
tions in certain monastic orders in the twelfth century, and a 
third order properly so-called among the Humiliati, confirmed, 
together with its rule, by Innocent III. in 1201. 5>1 Yet, un- 
doubtedly, it has been, and still is, the best known, the most 
widely distributed of all third orders, and the one with the 
greatest influence. While one school of Franciscan students 

1 Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XIV., p. 641. 



92 THIRD ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS: TODAY [Oct., 

claim that the secular third order is a survival of the original 
ideal of St. Francis, a lay-confraternity of penitents; and while, 
according to others, the name of St. Francis became attached 
to pre-existing penitential lay-confraternities without having 
any special connection with or influence on them, the more 
authoritative Catholic teachers on the subject describe the 
origin of the Order as directly and consciously due to the 
Seraphic Father. 

That origin was the living example of St. Francis, as he 
tramped the hills and vales of Umbria, during those crowded 
years after that epochal year, 1207, when Messer Pietro di 
Bernardone stood with his naked son, so recently the coxcomb 
and most sprightly gallant of the prodigals of Assisi, before 
the Bishop and received back the clothes of scarlet and fine 
linen and the money with which he had gladly supported that 
son's frivolities, until, in 1230, Francis, stricken in hands and 
feet and side with the sacred wounds of Christ, died singing 
the Psalm of David. His preaching, and the example and 
preaching of his first disciples, exercised such a powerful at- 
traction on the people that many married men and women de- 
sired to join the First Order of Friars or the Second Order of 
Nuns that had gathered around the incomparable Lady Clare. 
This being incompatible with their state of life, St. Francis 
devised a middle way, and, assisted by his friend and pro- 
tector, Cardinal Ugolino, later Pope Gregory IX., he com- 
posed and gave these men and women of the world a rule ani- 
mated by the Franciscan spirit. 

It was probably at Florence that the Third Order was first 
introduced, and 1221 was most probably the earliest date of 
the institution of the Tertiaries. The original rule prescribed 
simplicity in dress, a good deal of fasting and abstinence, the 
recitation of the canonical office of the Church or other prayers 
instead, confession and Communion thrice a year; it forbid 
the carrying of arms or the taking of solemn oaths without 
necessity a commandment which accomplished wonderful 
things in toppling over the more tyrannical powers of feudal- 
ism, particularly its obligatory military service, which led to 
interminable wars. The brothers and sisters were instructed 
to assemble in churches, designated by the ministers of the 
Order, to receive religious instruction; they were also to exer- 
cise works of charity; all members were to make their last 






1921.] THIRD ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS: TODAY 93 

wills three months after their reception; when a member died 
the whole confraternity was to be present at the funeral and 
to pray for the soul of the dead; while other provisions forbid 
the reception of heretics or those suspected of heresy in the 
Order, and provided disciplinary measures. Pope Nicholas 
IV. approved the rule of the Third Order in 1289, which rule, 
with the exception of a few points bearing especially on fasts 
and abstinence, mitigated by Clement VII. in 1526 and Paul 
III. in 1547, remained in vigor till 1883, when Pope Leo XIII., 
himself proud of being a Tertiary, modified the text, adapting 
it to the modern state and needs of the Order. 

In his History of St. Francis, the Abbe Le Monnier declares 
that: "The Third Order may be said to be one of the greatest 
efforts ever attempted for introducing more justice among 
men. . . . They (the Tertiaries) changed the then existing 
order in favor of the weak and humble." The chief source and 
instrument of the social power possessed by the feudal nobles 
of the early thirteenth century was the exaction of the oath 
of fealty and military service from those who sought their 
protection or became their clients, or who were in any way 
dependent upon them. "In this manner," says Father Cuth- 
bert, 2 "the greater part of the people became mere tools of the 
nobles, and it is easily understood how such a system could 
lend itself to the most crying tyranny and injustice. The noble 
could demand the service of his vassal in pursuit of some feud, 
however unjust; and, according to the recognized system, the 
vassal had no right to refuse. St. Francis, by laying upon his 
Tertiaries the precept never to take an oath except in certain 
specified cases, and never to bear arms except in defence of the 
Church, struck a fatal blow at the entire system. How the 
petty tyrants of Italy, where the Order originated, strove at 
first to prevent the spreading of the Order, and how, when they 
could not succeed in this, they tried to neutralize its effects, 
is well told by Le Monnier. They failed, because the con- 
science of the people was now against them. The question 
was not now one of politics, but of religion. The Rule of the 
Order, however, was framed not merely against the feuds and 
civic rivalries of the time, but also against the excessive luxury 
which characterized the rise of the merchant class, the pro- 
genitor of modern industrialism. The Tertiaries lived fru- 

2 Catholic Ideals, p. 201. 



94 THIRD ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS: TODAY [Oct., 

gaily, and were forbidden to dress beyond what was becoming 
to their station in society; and the money thus saved from 
luxury was given to the poor. One can but faintly imagine the 
difference wrought in society by the widespreading of an 
Order founded upon such principles; and we listen without 
surprise to the remark of a contemporary writer that it seemed 
in many places as though the days of primitive Christianity 
had returned." 

Not only did the prohibition against carrying arms, as the 
Third Order movement extended through Italy, deal a death 
blow to the feudal system and to the ever-fighting factions of 
Italian municipalities; it resulted also in bringing together on 
equal terms as Christian men and women, animated by the 
same fraternal spirit, the rich and the poor, nobles and com- 
mon people, learned and unlearned, and thus the social classes 
were drawn nearer each other, and the ideal of Christian 
democracy was advanced. Popes, Bishops, and ecclesiastical 
potentates, down through seven centuries, with kings and poets 
and peasants, princes and paupers, statesmen and scientists, 
soldiers, merchants, artists, authors and teachers, soldiers and 
discoverers, men and women of all sorts and conditions have 
donned the humble garb of St. Francis and followed him as 
he followed Christ. 

How far the religious ideal of St. Francis was carried out 
by the secular Third Order may be judged by the fact that not 
less than a hundred Tertiaries, both men and women, have 
been raised to the altars of the Church. Such great names as 
those of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and St. Louis, King of 
France, St. Ferdinand, King of Castile, St. Margaret of Cortona, 
and Blessed Angela of Foligno, that marvelous mystic, head 
the list which is continued to our own day with the name of 
Blessed Jean-Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars; while the 
names celebrated in history for literature, arts, politics, in- 
ventions, great discoveries, are well-nigh interminable. 

The Franciscan movement when it was launched was, and 
has always continued to be, in those times and places where it 
has been active and not passive, a positive social reformation. 
Its great mission was, and still is, to work the way of God 
among men through human instrumentalities by clutching 
and dealing with the actual, burning problems of living men 
and women; and to do this by leading "men forward to heaven 



1921.] THIRD ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS: TODAY 95 

by making the way on earth straighter and more like unto 
heaven," as Father Cuthbert writes in the essay quoted above. 

It was the adaptation of the rule by Leo XIII. and his vital 
interest and belief in the Third Order which gave the first great 
impetus to the modern revival of the Tertiaries movement. 
Pope Pius X., and after him our Holy Father, Benedict XV., 
maintained the interest and the faith shown by the great Leo, 
until the present year brought to a climax the long con- 
tinued and widespread efforts to revive the fine flame of Fraii- 
ciscanism. Even outside the Church voices have been heard 
invoking the name of Francis as though it still had a magic 
power over men's minds. His life and his work through the 
Third Order have been held up as models in the official liter- 
ature of the Salvation Army, the Anglican and Protestant Epis- 
copal Churches, and by other religious bodies. A French Cal- 
vinist clergyman became a foremost protagonist of Francis- 
canism, so that the name of Sabatier is stamped permanently 
upon the literature of the movement. And he is but one among 
many non-Catholic authors who have glorified the name and 
invoked the spirit of St. Francis. In the book issued by the 
Salvation Army in England there is the following passage: 
"I wish God would let St. Francis come back to us. He is 
badly wanted. What a difference one good man makes in a 
naughty world! What a lot of us poor, wandering, pleasure- 
loving, paltry, proud sinners he is worth! What a leader he 
would make ! And wouldn't I like to be the lowest private in 
his Salvation Army?" 

The present Franciscan movement is a response to the call 
of the three last Popes that the Third Order become once again 
a great social influence. The same hope is expressed by scores 
of the most eminent leaders in the Church throughout the 
world, as is evidenced by the great mass of letters and other 
messages elicited by the many national congresses that have 
been held. At the Limoges Congress, in 1894 the first of the 
national congresses of the Third Order the Tertiaries pledged 
themselves "to work for the reign of social justice," and reso- 
lutions were passed seeking as their object to bring the Third 
Order into touch with the actual needs of today. More prac- 
tical organization as a means of achieving this object, is in- 
sisted upon by those most competent to speak on the subject 
of modern Franciscanism. 



96 THIRD ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS: TODAY [Oct., 

"Granted that the Third Order as an institution has within 
itself the power to save society," says an editorial writer in the 
Franciscan Herald, "the question may be not impertinent: 
Is the Third Order in this country fitted for the task? We give 
it as our measured opinion that it is not at all equipped to 
undertake any kind of national work; because it lacks the one 
requisite for such work organization. So far as we are able 
to judge and we shall be glad to be convicted of error the 
influence of the Third Order on national, or even local, condi- 
tions is nil. There is not a single reform movement of any 
dimensions with which the Third Order, as such, has identified 
itself; neither has it launched any undertaking of its own for 
the betterment of social or moral conditions in any section of 
the country. We are aware that this is an extremely humiliat- 
ing, though we hope not damaging, admission. We have made 
it merely to impress those whom it may concern with the 
paramount importance of organization. If the Order till now 
has shown no signs of life, it is because it is as yet a rudis 
indigestaque moles a rude and shapless mass. The soul, in- 
deed is there the spirit of its Founder; but it cannot function 
through the body for lack of the proper organs. 

"It is one of the avowed purposes of the coming national 
Tertiary convention to give the Order some sort of organiza- 
tion. We are glad that those in charge of convention affairs 
are alive to the necessity and the opportunity of gathering and 
grouping the scattered Tertiary forces; and we hope that they 
will be able to impress the assembled delegates with the urgent 
need of organization and federation." 

That well considered and practical methods of organiza- 
tion are required by the Third Order in the United States to 
enable it to carry on the great social service mission which 
the Holy Father has called upon it to do, is made clear by 
another writer for the Franciscan press, who, in referring to a 
paper read by Father Cuthbert at the Tertiary Congress at 
Manchester, England, in June, writes as follows: "They will 
find therein (in Father Cuthbert's address) a confirmation of 
what the Franciscan Herald has preached in and out of season 
from its very first issue down to the present; to wit, that the 
Third Franciscan Order has a twofold purpose, which is com- 
prised in the words the Church applies to St. Francis: Non 



1921.] THIRD ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS: TODAY 97 

sibi soli vivere, sed aliis proficere vult He wished not to live 
for himself alone, but to benefit others. 

"In some altogether unaccountable way the opinion has 
gained ground in these parts that the Third Order exists only 
for the personal sanctification of its members, and that it has 
no right corporately to engage in social or charitable work. 
We have all along contended that the Third Order has not only 
the right, but the duty, to work for the spiritual and material 
welfare of society, and that it cannot neglect this solemn obli- 
gation without forfeiting the esteem and support of its friends 
and challenging the criticism and contempt of its enemies. 
We will go even further and say that, unless a Third Order 
fraternity as a society engages in some sort of charitable ac- 
tivity, it has no right to exist. For then, having lost its virtue 
and savor, like the salt in the Gospel 'it is neither profitable 
for the land nor for the dunghill. It is good for nothing any 
more but to cast out and to be trodden on by men.' 

"As Father Cuthbert very pointedly says: 'The Third 
Order as originally instituted was not merely for individual 
sanctification it was meant to assist the Church in the pur- 
ification and uplifting of the Christian world. It was an apos- 
tolate as well as a personal profession. . . . Anyone with a 
knowledge of the political and social conditions of the thir- 
teenth century will recognize how much the Tertiaries of those 
days had to set themselves against the prejudices and common 
opinion of the social world of their day. But they did so set 
themselves against the world, not only individually, but as a 
body; and so contributed to make the world a little more 
Christian in practice than it had been.' " 

In this address, Father Cuthbert further said: 

"If the Third Order is to regain its corporate influence as 
a means of social reform if it is to help the world at large to 
become more Christian Tertiaries individually and corpor- 
ately must again concentrate upon those two fundamental 
principles which give their Order its specific character in the 
Church : they must again stand forth as apostles of peace and 
goodwill amongst men, and again give a clear example of un- 
worldliness and austerity against the sensual paganism which 
is everywhere in evidence. . . . 

"Today, as in the thirteenth century, many are crying 
'Peace,' yet the world is a pandemonium of discord; in place 

VOL. CXIV. 7 



98 THIRD ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS: TODAY [Oct., 

of the individual feuds we have national and industrial strife, 
as bitter and un-Christian as any individual party warfare. 
In this conflict of peoples and parties which is threatening the 
stability of all political and social life in Europe, religion, 
generally speaking, is absent, and the teaching of Christianity 
is silently ignored or openly flouted, and, as in the thirteenth 
century, so today, this un-Christian conflict of peoples and 
classes is largely supported and abetted by people who, in 
private life, are more or less practical Christians. The weak- 
ness of practical religion today, as in most periods of Chris- 
tian history, is that men who, in private life, have a Christian 
conscience, in public life i. e., in political, social, and indus- 
trial life shed their Christian conscience and fall in with the 
practical paganism of the world round about them. 

"In this imperfect world of ours there must needs be 
national rivalries, industrial conflicts, and social differences of 
opinion; but these rivalries and conflicts need not be carried 
on in defiance of Christian moral and religious principles: it 
is the absence of Christian principles and the Christian spirit 
in public life which both foments the evil and adds the sting of 
bitterness to the conflict when it does break out. 

"We have heard a great deal in recent years of what Ter- 
tiaries might do in the world; but here is the work Tertiaries 
did in the past and it is a work badly needed today the 
Tertiary apostolate of fraternal charity and of an austere 
Christian simplicity of life. 

"And, in saying this, I am but echoing the words of one 
whose authority to speak is greater than mine none other 
than the Sovereign Pontiff, Benedict XV. For in his recent 
Encyclical Letter on the Third Order, the Holy Father sol- 
emnly admonishes Tertiaries to take upon themselves, in the 
spirit of St. Francis and their former brethren, the apostolate 
of peace and goodwill in the face of the dissensions which are 
rending the civilized world, and to set an example of Christian 
modesty and simplicity, so that some healing may be brought 
to a world smitten with hatred and sensuous luxury. It is a 
call to Tertiaries to take up their original apostolate and to 
concentrate upon their original vocation." 



Uew Boohs. 

HOW FRANCE BUILT HER CATHEDRALS. By Elizabeth Boyle 

O'Reilly. New York: Harper & Brothers. $6.00. 

The daughter of that eminent journalist and poet, John Boyle 
O'Reilly of Boston, tells in these graphic pages the life history of 
the Gothic Cathedrals of France. After an introductory chapter, 
"What Is Gothic Architecture," in which she discusses its essence, 
origin and development, answering at the same time those critics 
who consider it the layman's expression of revolt against the 
Romanesque art of the monks, she describes in detail the Gothic 
cathedrals of France. 

She first tells us of the original work of the Abbot Suger of 
St. Denis, who made Paris the centre of Gothic art. He was the 
first to wed definitely the pointed arch and the intersecting ribs. 
He dared to make piers so slender that the beholders were aston- 
ished they could carry the weight of a stone roof; he dared open 
his walls by windows so large that his choir was called by the 
people the lantern of St. Denis. At the dedication of St. Denis in 
1144 the daring Abbot proved to the assembled prelates the 
superior beauty of the Gothic vault, and sent them back to their 
dioceses its ardent apostles. A chapter on the primary Gothic 
cathedrals treats of Noyon, Senlis, Sens, Laon and Soissons. The 
era of the great cathedrals was inaugurated by Notre Dame of 
Paris. With Chartres, Rheims and Amiens, all dedicated to our 
Blessed Lady, it ranks among the master cathedrals of France. 
Here St. Louis prayed before he went to his crusades, and here 
his body rested in death. Here the Duke of Bedford had Henry 
VI. crowned King of France, and here a Te Deum was sung when 
the news of the capture of St. Jeanne d'Arc before Compiegne 
reached the English. In this cathedral ruled Bishop Maurice de 
Sully, the peasant, and his successor, Eudes de Sully, the feudal 
baron, descended from Louis VII. Guillaume d'Auvergne, who 
finished the northwest tower, was the prime minister of St. Louis 
in things ecclesiastical at once theologian, philosopher, mathe- 
matician and linguist. 

Illuminating appreciations of Chartres, Rheims and Amiens 
are followed by other chapters describing the lesser great cathe- 
drals of Bourges, Beauvais, Troyes, Tours, Lyons and LeMans; the 
Plantagenet Gothic of Perigieux, Angers, Saumur and Poitiers; 
the Midi Gothic of Clermont-Ferrand, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Nar- 
bonne, Aries and Montpellier; the Burgundy and the Normandy 
Gothic. 



100 NEW BOOKS [Oct., 

"Architecture," as the author says in her introduction, "is 
the living voice of the past. Architecture is history written on 
great stone pages of perennial beauty for us to read if only we 
would.'' 

NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS. By Joseph Conrad. Garden 

City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Co. $1.90. 

This volume, by the celebrated Anglo-Polish novelist, is made 
up of various essays which have appeared in magazines and jour- 
nals during the past twenty odd years. The first quarter of the 
volume includes essays on Henry James, Daudet, Maupassant, 
Anatole France, Stephen Crane, and Turgenev. The greater part 
of the book is given over to essays on various subjects, chief of 
which are "Autocracy and War," written after Russia's defeat by 
Japan, the "Crime of Partition" (referring to Poland) and "Poland 
Revisited." Conrad's critical subtlety, his imagination, and his 
powers of appreciation are admirably shown in his treatment 
of Daudet, Maupassant and Henry James. Of the latter, he says : 
"His books end as an episode in life ends. You remain with the 
sense of life still going on; and even the subtle presence of the 
dead is felt in that silence that comes upon the artist-creation 
when the last word has been said." 

It took the eyes of a student and a thinker (Mr. Conrad is 
both) to point out that the Russia, whose debacle in the Japanese 
conflict startled the world, has owed her power to a myth. Un- 
accountably persistent, he says, is the "decrepit old spectre of 
Russia's might, which still faces Europe from across the teeming 
graves of Russian people." 

The most impressive thing about this impressive criticism is 
the ringing tones of its prophecy. Russia suffers from the "polit- 
ical immaturity of the enlightened classes and the political bar- 
barism of the populace," and Russian autocracy, having no his- 
torical past, cannot hope to have an historical future. The word 
"revolution" in Russia is a word "of dread as much as of hope." 
He continues, with an insight truly amazing in the light of today's 
events: "In whatever form of upheaval autocratic Russia is to 
find her end, it can never be a revolution fruitful of moral con- 
sequences to mankind. The coming events of her internal 
changes, however appalling they may be in their magnitude, will 
be nothing more impressive than the convulsions of a colossal 
body." 

Like the late Professor Sumner of Yale, Mr. Conrad points 
out that "never before had war received so much homage at the 
lips of men or reigned with less disputed sway in their minds." 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 101 

He was right and the world has paid the awful price of its mad 
homage. 

In this volume, Mr. Conrad appears in another light than as 
the writer of unique tales, and the admirers of the latter will find 
here plenty of cause for further admiration. 

THE ESSENTIALS OF MYSTICISM. By Evelyn Underbill. New 

York: E. P. Button & Co. $3.00. 

A correct criticism and proper appreciation of this condensed 
volume is difficult to present. Viewed from some angles, it com- 
pels admiration for the author's marvelous familiarity with mysti- 
cal literature, her acute sense of spiritual values, rare power of 
subtle analysis, and her delightfully graphic and richly poetic 
delineations. Its careful perusal affords the reader an unusual 
pleasure at once literary and religious. Yet, from another angle, 
there is a feeling of dissatisfaction. The author seems to lack the 
dogmatic standard of objective religious values by which even 
mysticism must be measured, unless it be allowed to run riot and 
degenerate into extravagant folly. That Miss Underbill is 
not unmindful of the need of such normal restraints as are sup- 
plied by theological faith and doctrinal authority, is evidenced 
by the chapters, "The Mystic and the Corporate Life" and "The 
Place of Will, Intellect and Feeling in Prayer." Yet the Catholic 
critic cannot resist the impression that the writer is tainted with 
the spirit of Modernism, which reduces religion to a subjective 
sentiment, or a sense of the Divine experienced in the soul. In- 
fluenced by this tendency, the author's studies might be designated 
the psychology of mysticism: for she treats with a like respect 
mystical manifestations of pagan or Christian times, of Catholic 
or non-Catholic religions. 

That for the most part Miss Underbill's analysis of the essen- 
tials of mysticism is correct and admirable, is due to her intimate 
acquaintance and warm appreciation of the classical mystics of 
the Catholic Church, such as St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa and 
others, from whose writings she has assimilated the Orthodox 
safeguards of the mystical life. Compressed within the brief scope 
of two hundred and fifty pages, an excellent survey of the subject 
of mysticism or of the loftier reaches of the spiritual life as made 
manifest in hagiography, is set forth in a most attractive style by a 
most intimate student of mysticism. As an expert psychologist 
of the religious phenomena within the soul, Miss Underbill might 
be accorded a place midway between the Orthodox dissertations 
on the spiritual life by Father Maturin and the rationalistic dis- 
quisitions of William James' Religious Experiences. 



102 NEW BOOKS [Oct., 

HINTS TO PILGRIMS. By Charles S. Brooks. With pictures by 
Florence Minard. New Haven : Yale University Press. .$2.50. 
Mr. Brooks is a very pleasant and genial essayist. He is the 
kind of man who can discuss trifles with a wealth of humor, 
interesting allusion, whimsicalness, and good feeling, that make 
him a most delightful companion in an hour of slippered ease. 
In the present volume of seventeen essays, his care-free fancy 
lights, like a frolicsome fly, on anything in sight from a lawn- 
mower to the bald pate of Jeremy Bentham. It is a bright-hued 
fancy, of swift, erratic dartings and a most engaging buzz. 

THE SILVER AGE OF LATIN LITERATURE. By Walter Coven- 
* try Summers. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. $3.00. 

The Professor of Latin in the University of Sheffield is favor- 
ably known to scholars for his editions of Sallust, Ovid, Tacitus, 
and the Letters of Seneca, and for his fine chapter on Silver 
Poetry in the Cambridge Companion to Latin Studies. In this 
volume, he deals with the earlier post-Augustan literature of 
Rome, and keeps steadily in view the needs of the general and 
(alas!) usually Latinless reader of today. His book is on the 
whole the best treatment in English of the prose literature under 
survey, although Professor Butler's distinguished work on the 
poetry of the period from Seneca to Juvenal still remains undis- 
lodged from its commanding place as a study of the post-Augustan 
writers in verse. Professor Summers equips his work with schol- 
arly footnotes, a splendid chronological table, a useful appendix 
on translations of the authors discussed, and a full and well-made 
index. His versions of illustrative passages from the poets are, 
for the most part, exquisitely done. A sound and attractive piece 
of work. 

THOUGHT AND EXPRESSION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 

By H. O. Taylor. Two volumes. New York: The Macmillan 

Co. $9.00. 

In these two volumes, Mr. Henry Osborn Taylor continues 
his survey of the civilizations of the past, dealing now with the 
intellectual life of the sixteenth century. It is a vast enterprise 
that he essays, and it can scarcely be said that the attempt has 
been even as moderately successful as was his treatment of the 
culture of the Middle Ages in The Mediaeval Mind. In his work on 
Ancient Ideals, which was "a study of intellectual and spiritual 
growth from early times to the establishment of Christianity," 
and in the mediaeval volumes, he was dealing with comparatively 
compact and organized periods of culture. Now he enters upon a 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 103 

period in which several cultural and spiritual ideals were in con- 
flict and, as he wisely remarks in his preface: "The mind must 
fetch a far compass if it would see the sixteenth century truly." 
There is nothing that will appeal to Catholic readers in his treat- 
ment of the "English Reformation;" much, indeed, that they must 
perforce regard as at once unsound and distasteful. And readers 
of another faith will not thank him for his chapter on the Anglican 
Via Media. But when he expounds the artistic culture of Eliza- 
bethan England he is on surer ground, and his pages on Raleigh, 
Sidney, Spenser and, above all, Shakespeare are full of wisdom, 
illumination and eloquence. It is strange to find in these chapters 
such extravagant admiration of Calvin: "this side idolatry" only 
faintly describes Mr. Taylor's attitude towards the tyrant of 
Geneva. One envies the comprehensiveness of admiration which 
can include in its scope Calvin and Rabelais, Raleigh and Luther! 

FRENCH CIVILIZATION. From its Origins to the Close of the 

Middle Ages. By Albert Leon Guerard. Boston: Houghton 

Mifflin Co. $5.00. 

Professor Guerard's work is a remarkably full synthesis of 
the history of French civilization. It is the author's highest title 
to commendation that he takes a broad and searching view of his- 
tory, conceiving it as a dynamic resultant of many forces. This 
complexity of determinants, woven into the scheme of life in 
mediaeval France, are brought into sharp focus and caught at one 
glance in Professor Guerard's book. 

Integral history is the aim of the author, for he eschews the 
attempt to illustrate history with a single idea. Going as far back 
into origins as an historian dare go and he goes further Profes- 
sor Guerard's historic vision sweeps Gaul from pre-historic ages 
through pre-Roman and Roman times down to the Middle Ages, 
where, through the second half of the book, it rests on Feudal and 
Gothic France, which, in Glaeber's phrase, "clothed itself anew in 
a white cloak of churches." In bold and vivid strokes he delin- 
eates the action and interaction of racial, psychological, economic 
and geographical influences, and gives dominant place to the be- 
neficent power of the Church and the arts of peace which it 
brought in its train. Professor Guerard is endowed with a keen 
sense of drama of history. There is life and vigor in his style, 
which gives his ideas color and an impressive clarity. 

Professor Guerard's footing is by no means sure when stray- 
ing on the heights of philosophy and speculation. He assumes, for 
instance, without discussion, the evolution of the Pithecanthropus 
to the state of the Homo Sapiens, as an essential fact in the growth 



104 NEW BOOKS [Oct., 

of mankind; and yet evolutionists themselves tell us that this 
Ape-man is one of nature's experimental failures. And now that 
the Andrews Expedition is actually busied in Central Asia, hunt- 
ing for traces of humanity's ancestors, the anthropological theory 
of Professor Guerard hangs on a link that is still missing. His 
opinion that "after nineteen centuries Christianity is still on trial" 
and that "so far as national and economic life is concerned, it still 
has to be tried" makes the student of history gape with wonder; 
and when the author observes that "it opens an attractive field of 
speculation to wonder in what way the difference w r ould have 
manifested itself if, instead of Christ, the Western world might be 
worshipping Mithra today," we need hesitate no longer in pro- 
nouncing Professor Guerard's conception of Christ and Christian- 
ity as exceedingly imperfect. 

THE NEW CHURCH LAW ON MATRIMONY. By Rev. Joseph 

J. C. Petrovits, J.C.D. Philadelphia: John Joseph McVey. 

$4.50 net. 

The subject of matrimony has, in the New Code of Canon 
Law, undergone many changes. Some of the one hundred and 
thirty-three canons, within whose compass the main discipline 
of the Church on this subject (exclusive of some specific dispen- 
sations and matrimonial trials) is comprised, embody a discipline 
entirely new, others implicitly or explicitly modify or abrogate the 
former law. To explain these canons, the only available sources on 
which the author could draw were limited to the former discipline 
of the Church as reflected in the Corpus Juris, in the numerous 
decisions of the various Sacred Congregations, in the writings of 
authors formerly accepted and approved, and to the exact wording 
of the matrimonial legislation. The author is most modest in his 
advocacy of certain opinions of his own concerning the interpre- 
tations of those canons w r hich embody a new law entirely or a 
modification of the former discipline. 

The fourteen chapters of this important volume treat of the 
preliminary notions of marriage, espousals, transactions preceding 
the celebration of marriage, matrimonial impediments, matri- 
monial consent, the form of marriage, the marriage of conscience, 
the time and place of marriage, the effects of marriage, the separa- 
tion of consorts, the validation of marriage and second nuptials. 

The writer of this treatise has done his work well. He always 
states clearly the changes in the New Code, as in the imped- 
iments of disparity of worship (p. 154) and affinity (p. 260) ; he 
contrasts the old discipline with the new, as in the cautiones 
required by the Catholic party (p. 117) ; he gives a brief historical 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 105 

sketch of the law in Church and State, he shows the relation be- 
tween the old Roman Law and the Canon Law, and in cases of 
doubtful interpretation, he gives the reader the choice between the 
different views of the canonists. 

MARCUS AURELIUS. By Henry Dwight Sedgwick. New Haven: 

Yale University Press. $2.75. 

In a long sub-title, the author describes the nature of this 
book as "a biography told as much as may be by letters, together 
with some account of the Stoic religion and an exposition of the 
Roman Government's attempt to suppress Christianity during 
Marcus' reign." 

There are two reasons why a Catholic finds a book of this 
kind a rather sad bore, no matter how much intelligence and fine 
writing have been expended upon it. The first reason is that it is 
hard to view with patience modern efforts to revamp and make 
suitable for practical spiritual purposes ancient pagan creeds, 
which their authors would probably have been the first to reject 
in favor of the Christian code, had it been disclosed to them. 
Merely as a plain matter of taste and judgment, the preference of 
Mr. Sedgwick for the husks of an inferior civilization cannot help 
offending us. 

The second reason is that Mr. Sedgwick, like so many of his 
class, does not seem to be able to grasp the importance of specific 
and generic differences. These admirers of pagan thought note, 
for instance, that the Stoic religion was in many respects similar 
to Christianity. They conclude that there is not much to choose 
between them. They hastily slur over differences, when, as a 
matter of fact, the differences are greater than the similarities. 
As Newman points out, Basil and Julian were fellow-students at 
the schools of Athens. They were both very much alike, no 
doubt, in their practical principles. But we should like to know 
what precisely was the difference w 7 hich made one a Saint and 
Doctor of the Church, and the other her scoffing and relentless foe. 

Mr. Sedgwick illustrates what we have been saying when he 
pretends to think that there was not much difference between the 
offering of incense to dead Roman Emperors, as gods, and Chris- 
tian prayers to the souls of the dead. As there happens to be all 
the difference between idolatry and monotheism between the two 
actions, one can see how unsatisfactory a book like this can be. 

Of course, the author attempts to soften the harsh reality that 
Marcus Aurelius was a persecutor of Christians. His apology is 
hardly necessary. We are quite sure that, if Marcus Aurelius 
had been better acquainted with the Christian religion, he might 



106 NEW BOOKS [Oct., 

have adopted it, and certainly would not have had innocent men 
and women and children slaughtered for holding it. But men 
like Marcus Aurelius, to whom religion is a matter of self-respect 
and taste, and not a matter of conscience, experience reluctance 
in investigating the claims of Christianity. They do not love a 
creed which teaches humility and fear of God and dependence 
upon Him. We recommend Mr. Sedgwick to read over again 
thoughtfully the eighth Discourse of Newman's "Idea of a Uni- 
versity." It is entitled, "Liberal Knowledge Viewed in Relation 
to Religion;" it ought to help the author to straighten out some of 
his ideas on the comparative merits of religion as a philosophic 
theory and religion as an affair of conscience enlightened by 
Divine revelation. 

A SON OF THE HIDALGOS. By Ricardo Leon. Translated by 

Catalina Paez (Mrs. Seumas Macmanus). Garden City, New 

York: Doubleday, Page & Co. $1.75 net. 

Ricardo Leon is one of the most popular and distinguished 
writers of present-day Spain. He was born in 1877 at Malaga, 
one of the most beautiful cities of Andalusia. His literary career 
did not begin until he was thirty-one, when one day he suddenly 
awoke to find himself famous by the publication of this volume, 
Casta de Hidalgos. Don Pedro de Ceballos, the hero of this tale, is 
a modern Gil Bias a dreamer, a rebel, a poet and a lover who 
leaves the old manor house of his fathers in Santillana del Mar, to 
seek his fortune in the wide world. He travels about Spain with 
a troupe of strolling players, gives up the faith of his ancestors, 
and becomes a radical of the radicals. After many years of idle 
dreaming and gross debauchery, he comes back to his father's 
house disillusioned, dejected and homesick. 

There are many carefully painted character studies in this 
unique volume, which images forth on every page the ideals, loves, 
poetry, and religious earnestness of the Spanish people. The stern 
Don Juan Manuel, lover of the classics of ancient Spain, the proud 
and scholarly antiquarian, Don Rodrigo, the perfect priest, Father 
Elias, the good angel of the house, Pedro's sister, Casilda, and the 
crude, matter-of-fact sexton, Leli. 

There is one remarkable chapter in which Father Time 
carries Don Pedro in a wild flight through the skies, and shows 
him Spain stretched out before him not only present-day Spain, 
but the Spain of every age from the beginning. This whole 
description is Dantesque in its imagery. 

The translation is excellent as one might expect from the 
granddaughter of General Jose Antonio Paez, first President of 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 107 

Venezuela. Her father, Don Ramon Paez, himself a man of letters, 
initiated his daughter into the secrets of the Spanish language and 
literature. 

DYNASTIC AMERICA AND THOSE WHO OWN IT. By Henry H. 

Klein. Published by the Author, New York, 158 East 93d 

Street. $2.00. 

Mr. Klein has assembled innumerable statistics to prove that 
the great mass of wealth in the country is concentrated in the 
hands of a very few men, who, as oil or copper kings, railroad, 
steel or coal barons, or controllers of other necessities of life, rule 
the destinies of the people to an extent far beyond that exercised 
by the discredited monarchies of Europe, hence the War, which 
was to make the world safe for democracy, has but replaced a 
politically dynastic Europe by an economically dynastic Amer- 
ica. Nor is the influence of this new dynasty of wealth confined 
to the citizens of the United States. Mr. Klein shows how Amer- 
ican bankers finance foreign countries and how American monop- 
olies extend their operations abroad. He analyzes the wealth of 
John D. Rockefeller and the finances of the Rockefeller Founda- 
tions, examines the holdings in the leading monopolistic corpora- 
tions, listing the owners of the largest shares of securities in 
mines, railroads, banks and public utilities. He estimates the 
wealth of four hundred and fifty richest families, giving detailed 
data for over one hundred. More than forty families hold over 
$100,000,000 each; one hundred others more than $50,000,000 
each; three hundred others more than $20,000,000 each. Rocke- 
feller's taxable income is given as about $40,000,000; two others 
have over $10,000,000; fifteen have over $5,000,000, and twenty 
over $2,500,000. And the gross income of these estates often far 
surpasses the taxable income, non-taxable securities being held in 
vast amounts by all of them. 

The thesis on which all this statistical data bears, is a pro- 
posal to bring about a constitutional amendment for the limitation 
of excessive private fortunes, so that the surplus or excess, over a 
certain amount, say $10,000,000, goes to the government. 

Authoritative Catholic economic thought has anticipated Mr. 
Klein in outlining the conditions he deplores and in language as 
vigorous. Father Husslein, S.J., in The World Problem, 1918, 
has written: "Shortly before the War it was calculated that four 
per cent, of the population of England held ninety per cent, of all 
the wealth of the country. In the United States sixty per cent, of 
the wealth was owned by two per cent, of the people, while sixty 
per cent, of the population, representing labor or the producing 



108 NEW BOOKS [Oct., 

class, held but five per cent, of the total wealth. There is no pos- 
sible defence of a system which permits the accumulation of 
mountainous fortunes by a few clever, and often highly unscrup- 
ulous, financiers who hold in their hands the fate of millions of 
their fellowmen." And, as far back as 1891, Pope Leo XIII., in 
the famous Encyclical on the condition of the working classes, the 
Rerum Novarum, that locus classicus for correct Catholic eco- 
nomic doctrine, said: "By degrees, it has come to pass that work- 
ingmen have been surrendered to the greed of unchecked compe- 
tition. Many branches of trade have been concentrated in the 
hands of a few individuals so that a small number of very rich 
men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring 
poor a yoke little better than that of slavery." 

Mr. Klein invites discussion on his proposed amendment, sug- 
gesting that prizes be offered for the best essays in answer to the 
question, "What is the limit of a man's value to society?" Thus 
new thought along economic lines might be provoked and aid 
found in the solution of our economic problems. To secure the 
proper orientation for such discussion, we suggest that the words 
of Pope Leo XIIL, in his Encyclical on Christian Democracy be 
kept in mind: "It is the opinion of some, and the error is already 
very common, that social questions are nothing more than eco- 
nomic, whereas they are, in fact, first of all, matters of morality 
and religion, and must be settled according to moral and religious 
principles." 

COLERIDGE'S BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA. Edited by George 
Sampson. New York: The Macmillan Co. $4.00. 
This is the ideal edition of Biographia Literaria, "the greatest 
book of criticism on English and one of the most annoying books 
in any language," Arthur Symons wrote in his preface to the 
Everyman edition. Mr. Sampson, however, has so arranged his 
text by judicious omission of what he amusingly calls "the mass 
of imported metaphysic that Coleridge proudly dumped into the 
middle" that the element of annoyance is entirely removed. He 
gives us also the famous Wordsworth preface and the Wordsworth 
essays on poetry "out of which the book arose and without which 
it might never have been written." And he supplies some far 
from needless notes, abounding in comment that is extraordinarily 
fresh and vital. From every standpoint, the work deserves the 
highest commendation. Mr. Sampson's arrangement of Bio- 
graphia is the best introduction to Coleridge's prose that we 
have. 

The great attraction of this edition, however, is the noble and 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 109 

joyous Introduction of forty pages from the pen of the King 
Edward VII. Professor of English at Cambridge. "Q" has never 
written a finer piece of criticism than this which is saying a great 
deal. Full of wit, wisdom, learning, tenderness and happy grace of 
phrase, it will be the more admired by students of Coleridge the 
more they re-read it. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH AND THE FOURTH GOSPEL. By 

H. S. Holland. Edited by Wilfrid Richmond. New York: 

E. P. Button & Co. $5.00. 

This posthumous work by the late Regius Professor of Divin- 
ity at Oxford is divided into two main parts. The first, "The 
Philosophy of Faith," is designed to embody as a coherent whole 
Scott Holland's thought and teaching. The second consists of his 
contributions to the study of the Fourth Gospel. Holland was one 
of the most delightful and inspiring personalities in the Anglican 
Church of the last half-century. He was a great preacher in 
London and an influential teacher at Oxford. His admirers will 
be glad to have in this convenient form a summary of his philos- 
ophy of religion. There is an introductory section, "Reminis- 
cences of Oxford Fifty Years Ago," which is not less interesting 
than informative. 

GREEK TRAGEDY. By Gilbert Norwood. Boston: John W. Luce 

& Co. $4.00. 

In this interesting and valuable work, Professor Norwood's 
attempt is to provide for readers with Greek and without a 
survey of the whole range of Greek Tragedy. It covers the ground 
of Arthur Haigh's two famous treatises, The Attic Theatre and 
The Tragic Drama of the Greeks, giving summaries and criticisms 
of the surviving plays of ^Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides. To 
Euripides he devotes more space than to ^Eschylus and Sophocles 
conjointly. And there is a chapter on Greek metres and rhythms 
which will probably be read by the general reader less carefully 
than the rest of the book. His chapter on Sophocles is full of 
learning and imagination, but in dealing with Euripides he is 
excessively influenced by the brilliant, captivating, but not seldom 
perverse speculations and conclusions of the late K. W. Verrall. 
Verrall's theories about the Agamemnon of ^Eschylus, too, have 
been disturbingly brought to the fore again by Professor Norwood. 
But it is the chapter on Sophocles which will remain with the 
reader whose classics are not utterly forgotten. Memorably beau- 
tiful are the author's words on the close of the CEdipus Cotoneus: 
"... a passage which in breathless loveliness, pathos, and re- 
ligious profundity is beyond telling flawless and without peer." 



110 NEW BOOKS [Oct., 

THE NEXT WAR. By Will Irwin. New York : E. P. Button & 

Co. $1.50 net. 

This is a striking volume containing a stirring appeal against 
further wars. The author states that it is possibly to prophesy 
the nature of "the next war" and, from his experience as war 
correspondent, he shows that any new conflict would be fought 
to a short, but decisive, conclusion by the most ruthless and de- 
structive methods ever known. He points out that the perfection 
of the instruments of war has progressed to such a degree as to 
insure the death of not only the active combatants, but also of the 
inhabitants of towns and cities. He shows that in times of war, 
the agreements of nations as to its conduct are always violated, and 
that in "the next war" the ruthlessness resulting therefrom will be 
almost beyond imagination. 

Having proved his lesson as to the terrible methods that will 
be invoked, he goes on to show the cost of the recent wars. From 
this he points out the ruin that must follow upon any further 
conflict. He declares that today is the dramatic moment, and 
states that "two great tasks lie before humanity in the rest of the 
twentieth century. One is to put under control of true morals 
and of democracy the great power of human production which 
came in the nineteenth century. The other is to check, to limit 
and, finally, to eliminate the institution of war." 

The conclusions reached by the author are unanswerable 
and should carry great weight with those responsible for making 
and shaping the policies of the nations. His appeal is one that 
must be heeded if our civilization is to be saved. 

A SALEM SHIPMASTER AND MERCHANT. The Autobiography 

of George Nichols. Edited by his granddaughter, Martha 

Nichols. Boston : The Four Seas Co. $2.50. 

This absorbing autobiography is said to have been one of the 
hundred odd works drawn upon by Joseph Hergesheimer in his 
much discussed Java Head, and we may well believe that he 
gained much from it in the way of atmosphere and setting. The 
hero of the sketch was a hard-headed, but kindly, Yankee who 
represented very worthily the best traditions of the New England 
of his time. The portrait presented to us is of one who retained 
the undeniably solid virtues of the Puritan, modified by a Unitar- 
ianism which, if somewhat nebulous in a theological manner of 
speaking, was, nevertheless, of a most alluring social cast! 

Those were the days when sailing vessels of two hundred 
tons burden brought wealth to their owners; when masters of 
Salem ships were to be encountered in every corner of the globe; 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 111 

and when a man with $40,000 to his credit was accounted wealthy. 
To one who has prowled along the wharves of Salem, looked out 
upon its quaint old gardens or roamed about the Peabody Museum, 
this life story of George Nichols, with its tales of hair-breadth 
escapes and with the smell of the sea in its pages, will prove a 
treasure house. 

THE HARE. By Earnest P. Oldmeadow. New York: The Century 

Co. $2.00. 

This is the second novel of Mr. Oldmeadow dealing with the 
life history of Henry Coggin, the genius son of the rag-and-bone- 
man of the sordid English village of Bulford. The first part of the 
story describes Coggin's bitter fight against the malice of his 
enemies, who did their utmost to ruin his business and his repu- 
tation. He is delivered from their hands in a most spectacular 
and improbable manner by Teddie Redding, the son of his old 
benefactor, the Vicar of Bulford, who has become a Catholic in 
the interval. His honor is vindicated, and the village, despite 
itself, subscribes a most substantial testimonial to its most famous 
genius, composer and organist. The second part pictures our 
hero's wanderings on the Continent in Holland, Germany and 
the Austrian Tyrol. His artistic soul instinctively loved the beauty 
of the Catholic Church imaged forth in its music, architecture and 
ritual, and rejected the cold puritanic gospel of his childhood. 
A scholarly Benedictine monk finally initiates him into the real 
spirit of Catholicism, pointing out to him, however, the real 
reasons that ought to prompt his conversion to the Faith : 

The Church [he says] is a city set on a hill, a city fair to 
behold. Her gates, her walls, her towers make a brave show. 
Music murmurs and resounds in her streets like rushing water 
brooks. Her fountains run wine. But while you are thankful 
for these delights, while they refresh you and strengthen you, it 
is not for these pleasures that you must climb the path to her 
gateway. You must knock humbly at her portals, simply because 
Almighty God has appointed this City for your soul's habitation. 
Even if her mansions were mud-hovels, if her streets were 
choked with nettles and thorns, if her fountains poured forth 
bitter waters, her true citizens would abide just as trustfully, just 
as thankfully within her walls. 

GREEKS AND BARBARIANS. By J. A. K, Thomson. New York: 

The Macmillan Co. $3.00. 

No one who has read Mr. Thomson's delightful group of 
studies in The Greek Tradition or his enjoyable Studies in the 
Odyssey will need any urging to buy and read and re-read and, in 



112 NEW BOOKS [Oct., 

Hilaire Belloc's phrase, "preserve among their chiefest treasures" 
this golden latest fruit of his scholarship, imagination and inter- 
pretative genius. A book like Greeks and Barbarians helps the 
cause of the ancient classics more than a dozen pedagogical con- 
ferences assembled to determine solemnly what can be done to 
arrest the decay of interest in the Greek and Latin disciplines. 
Mr. Thomson has no passion for antiquity merely because it is old; 
nothing could be more remote from him than a prejudiced con- 
servatism. In his hands the humanities become really human, and 
he possesses an enthusiasm, a sanity, and a freshness of outlook 
such as are not found combined in one man more than twice or 
thrice in a generation. His object in these chapters is to show how 
Hellenism was born of the conflict between the Greeks and the 
Barbarians. He confines himself to the centuries before Alex- 
ander, the centuries in which Hellenism rose into its most char- 
acteristic form. "We lovers of Greece," he says, "are put very 
much on our defence nowadays, and no doubt we sometimes 
claim too much for her. She sinned deeply and often and some- 
times against the light. Things of incalculable value have come 
to us not from her . . . but when all is said, we owe it to Greece 
that we think as we do, and not as Semites and Mongols." One- 
third of the book is given to three remarkable chapters on an 
ancient theme, "Classical and Romantic." The case for the 
classical could not be more cogently urged, or set forth with more 
convincing urbanity ancj lucidity. These chapters themselves are 
like to become a locus classicus. How the late W. J. Courthope 
would have loved them! 

MAN AND HIS PAST. By O. G. S. Crawford. New York: Oxford 

University Press. $4.75. 

The title of this book, which would indicate that it is a 
manual of Prehistoric Archaeology, is somewhat misleading, since 
it is in fact partly a plea for the better recognition of the impor- 
tance, both scientific and national, of anthropology and partly a 
description of some of the recent methods employed in field work, 
methods largely based on those of a pioneer in this matter, the late 
General Pitt-Rivers. 

It is a little difficult to form an opinion as to the kind of 
clientele to which this book is expected to appeal. If it be intended 
for the unscientific general reader, we must confess that we feel 
some doubts as to whether it is likely to make any great appeal to 
him, though there can be no doubt as to the valuable information 
which he would derive from its perusal. If for the professed 
anthropologist, the defence of his subject must appear a mere 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 113 

preaching to the converted, who likewise, if he is not, ought to be 
familiar with the methods described in the latter part of the book. 
These are quite sound and the descriptions given may well be 
commended to the young anthropologist, though, as in other sub- 
jects, he can learn more in a couple of days in the field with an 
experienced worker than by a year's study of the most excellent 
books. We perfectly agree with the author as to the many futil- 
ities of history as commonly taught, amongst which stand pre- 
eminent the trivial and inaccurate information given as to almost 
everything which occurred in England before the Norman In- 
vasion, and still more before the coming of Julius Caesar. But the 
careful anthropologist should abstain from misleading the his- 
torian and the student by fairy tales as to the origin of man, such, 
for example, as are to be found in the early chapters of this book. 
If set down as surmise, such statements may do no harm, but to 
talk of our "far-sighted ancestor" in the Tertiary Period and 
describe his doings as in the following passage, is simply to mis- 
lead the innocent and ignorant reader who cannot be supposed to 
be able to evaluate the information given and sift the true from 
the false. 

He did not, like so many, spoil his chances by giving way to 
fear on every possible occasion, he did not run away from 
danger on principle, and so have to adapt his limbs for swift 
flight; nor yet did he yield to the temptation to clothe himself 
in protective armor. Nor did he cut himself off from the world 
by adopting nocturnal habits. On the other hand, he was not 
possessed by a devil of pugnacity; he preferred vegetarianism 
to the horrors of carnivorous diet. Moderate in all things, he 
led a life of meditative aloofness in the forest, waiting for some- 
thing to turn up. His patience was rewarded; what turned up 
was not any kind of external goods, but the key to all such an 
intelligent mind. 

When we reflect that no one knows, however much he may 
surmise, whether man had an ancestor in Tertiary times and, con- 
sequently, cannot have any sort of idea of what he or his ways 
may have been like, it is not too much to say that greater scien- 
tific nonsense than this never was put on paper. 

THE VISIBLE CHURCH. Her Government, Ceremonies, Sacra- 
mentals, Festivals and Devotions. By Rev. John F. Sullivan. 
New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons. $1.00. 

This textbook of the ceremonial and practices of the Catholic 
Church is intended for use in the advanced classes of our parish 
and Sunday Schools. It meets a pressing need. The ignorance 
of the great body of Catholics concerning all that pertains to the 

VOL. CXIV. 8 



114 NEW BOOKS [Oct., 

externals of the Church astonishes us, until we remember that 
the large majority of our Catholics of today left school at an early 
age, and their departure from school marked the end of any study 
of their religion. Even now many children leave school 
between fourteen and sixteen years of age, more or less instructed 
in the dogmatic side of their religion, but knowing very little of 
its ceremonies and practices. Father Sullivan's book will be wel- 
comed by the teachers in our schools, who have been handicapped 
by the lack of a suitable textbook. The value of this work would 
be enhanced by a list of reference books which could be recom- 
mended for more thorough study. 

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION IN PARISHES. By Rev. Edward F. 

Garesche", S.J. New York : Benziger Brothers. $2.75 net. 

The vigor of youth still throbs in the old principle, which 
says: "Quidquid agunt homines, intentio judicat illos." Social 
Organization in Parishes proposes a practical plan whereby social 
service can be vitalized by a pure intention. To sanctify the 
server, and at the same time to ennoble those who are being 
served, is the generic aim of all genuine Christian charity of a 
corporal character. Priest and layman alike may almost use this 
volume as an examination of conscience with reference to the 
needs and advisabilities of a progressive Catholic neighborhood. 

Briefly, the plan offered is to have all social work radiate 
from the Sodality as the spokes extend from the hub of a wheel. 
Perhaps an informational campaign is first needed to break down 
certain misunderstandings of what a Sodality really is, and to 
keep people from looking upon it as a devotional society insti- 
tuted solely for young women. The book contains historical data 
aimed at this disillusionment. The Sodality is for all Catholics, 
its main purposes being personal sanctification, the defence of 
the Church, and the help of neighbor all through special devo- 
tion to the Blessed Virgin Mary truly a vigorous undertaking 
for mature men and women, as well as for those in whose young 
years the poetry of life is still tingling. 

To have correct thinking and pure intention and solid devo- 
tion serve as the core and centre of social action is truly an ideal. 
But we must struggle daily towards ideals. To secularize the cor- 
poral works of mercy to such an extent as to have them sur- 
rounded merely with a shell of Catholicism may be, at times, an 
expedient surely it is not an ideal. God, self and neighbor, with 
particular emphasis upon God as our First Cause and our Last 
End, should serve as the Triumvirate of Catholic social work. 

The explanations show that the Sodality aims fundamentally 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 115 

at cooperation with whatever worthy societies already exist in the 
parish, and not at their destruction. The chapters on organiza- 
tion, and the treatment of the work to be intrusted to what are 
called Sodality Sections and Sodality Unions, which allow respec- 
tively for subdivision and unification of effort, clearly lead the 
reader to find vast potencies for moral, mental and physical de- 
velopment in the proper employment of the plan outlined. 

The complexities of modern life are so pronounced that 
organization is quite imperative for the thoughtful handling of 
social distress and community improvement. The author, forti- 
fied by definite and extensive experience, presents his proposals 
with an encouraging surety. His plan is flexible enough to lend 
itself most admirably to carrying out the country-wide pro- 
grammes of the National Catholic Welfare Council, and for ful- 
filling the special desires of the individual Bishop of a diocese, 
without in any way prescinding from the localized needs of the 
parish. The method put forth for taking, and for keeping alive, 
a practical parish census, so that it may serve as a perpetual in- 
ventory of local social resources and liabilities, is very valuable in 
itself. The work is not written in an inspirational style, and 
difficulties, as well as hopes, are plainly pictured. Even for those 
who are not inclined to endorse the Sodality plan of parish organ- 
ization, this book will prove to be of exceptional worth as a source 
of suggestion. 

POE. HOW TO KNOW HIM. By C. Alphonso Smith. Indian- 
apolis : The Bobbs-Merrill Co. $2.00. 

Professor Smith, Head of the Department of English at the 
United States Naval Academy, has written a sympathetic, though 
over-enthusiastic, study of Edgar Allen Poe -the World Author, 
the Man, the Critic, the Poet, and the Short Story Writer. An 
ardent lover of Poe, he greatly resents what he styles the popular 
caricature of his hero which "regards him as a manufacturer of 
cold creeps and a maker of shivers, a wizened, self-centred exotic, 
un-American and semi-insane, who, between sprees or in them, 
wrote his autobiography in The Raven and a few haunting detec- 
tive stories." 

Among the American critics of his day, Poe ranked second 
only to Lowell. Most of his book reviews for The Messenger, 
Burton's and Graham's was mere hack work, journalistic in style, 
and forgotten the moment they were read. On the other hand, 
some of his book reviews are still quoted as the best critical work 
of the time, viz., Longfellow's Ballads, Hawthorne's Twice Told 
Tales and Dicken's Barnaby Rudge. No one can neglect his well- 



116 NEW BOOKS [Oct., 

known utterances on the meaning, province and aims of poetry. 
Poetry he held was the "rhythmical creation of beauty," whose 
immediate object was "not truth, but pleasure." Humor "was 
antagonistical to that which is the soul of the muse proper." "A 
long poem was a contradiction in terms." 

Most European critics (as Mr. Smith points out in his opening 
chapter) have accorded Poe first place among American poets. 
But he fails to state that most American critics do not agree with 
them. It is true that he is strikingly original, a poet of beauty, 
and a master craftsman of melody in a score of extraordinary 
poems, such as The Raven, The Conqueror Worm, The Haunted 
Palace, Annabel Lee, The Bells, etc., but a great deal of his work 
is imitative and commonplace, narrow both in range and in ideas. 

His tales also are most unequal. They range from inane 
stories like "Lionizing" and "The Sphinx" to masterpieces like 
"The Gold Bug," "The Descent Into the Maelstrom," "The Fall of 
the House of Usher," and "The Masque of the Red Death." There 
is no question, however, that as a romancer he has wielded a 
larger influence than any English writer since Scott. 

THE CHURCH AND THE PROBLEMS OF TODAY. By Rev. 

George T. Schmidt. New York : Benziger Brothers. $1.50. 

This book contains a series of short essays on topics of faith 
and morals. They should be interesting and helpful to the general 
body of Catholic readers. The volume is neatly bound in dark 
green cloth and contains one hundred and sixty-five pages of 
reading matter. We are inclined to consider the title somewhat 
pretentious for the matter contained. 

THE IRISH REBELLION OF 1641. By Lord Ernest Hamilton. 

New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. $8.00 net. 

The author in this volume attempts, in the name of truth, 
to justify events beyond all justifications. His purpose, he tells 
us, is "to present the bald truth, as far as it is ascertainable from 
existing records, without any white-washing of either British or 
Irish excesses," during that period which he describes as the 
"Irish Rebellion of 1641." This is the keynote of his preface: 
that he would see justice done and tell the truth regardless of the 
consequences. Yet when one reads the pages that follow, it is 
clearly apparent that it is not his purpose to speak the truth, but 
to brand the Irish of that period with the stigma of having com- 
mitted the most atrocious crimes and to justify the plantation of 
Ulster and the atrocities committed in Ireland by Cromwell. 

The whole book is filled with misstatements and unwarranted 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 117 

conclusions based upon sources of themselves necessarily preju- 
diced. The whole volume shows the workings of a mind warped 
by bigotry. The limitations of a review do not permit examples of 
this. However, a citation from chapter fifteen may suffice to 
show the mental attitude of the writer : "The Christmas massacres 
at Kinard, and the Ballinrosse and Carrickmacross massacres at 
the New Year, were all conducted by priests, whom we may con- 
fidently assume to have been of the fanatical firebrand pattern. 
. . . The Irish were told that it was as lawful to kill a heretic as 
it was to kill a dog or a pig, and, as practically all the seventeenth 
century colonists were heretics, this was only another way of 
saying that it was as lawful to kill the English and the Scotch as 
it was to kill dogs. . . . The doctrine of murder in the name of 
God, when once seized upon by the popular imagination, is not 
easily extinguished; nor is Ireland a country where unpopular 
doctrines are ever very ardently preached by those in authority, 
whether lay or clerical. The motto of the nation is rather to go 
with the tide, and if possible in advance of it, no matter in what 
direction it may be setting." 

It is hard to believe that a person of Lord Hamilton's stand- 
ing could be charged with statements such as this (and there are 
numerous others) especially as he states in his preface that he 
purposes speaking the truth. This excerpt is so characteristic 
of the whole book that it becomes at once a base libel on the Irish 
people and the Catholic Church. 

A DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY. Edited by 
Canon Ollard and Gordon Crosse. London: A. R. Mowbray 
&Co. 155. 

This is the new and revised edition of Canon Ollard's great 
Dictionary, a work that since its original publication in 1912 has 
been the indispensable companion of all students of English 
Church History. It is written from the familiar "Anglo-Catholic" 
standpoint, and Catholic readers must, of course, take for granted 
that standpoint in using the book. But all serious students of 
history will find the work of immense value. No praise can be 
too high for the editorial skill displayed in the arrangement of 
material and in the mechanical details of the enterprise. Canon 
Ollard's own contributions to the volume deserve special com- 
mendation; his brief biographies are masterpieces of their kind; 
one singles out for particular praise his accounts of the Oxford 
Movement, of the Nonjurors, and of Dean Church. The Canon is, 
of course, the greatest living authority among Anglican scholars, 
upon the Oxford Movement and the Anglo-Catholic Revival. His 



118 NEW BOOKS [Oct., 

Short History of the Oxford Movement is the best brief handbook 
on the subject known to the present reviewer a model of lucidity 
and thoroughness. The late G. W. E. Russell whom an English 
reviewer has recently and most unjustly described as "a connois- 
seur of sacristy gossip" contributes several fine, brief biog- 
raphies, among them a charming account of Gladstone as an Eng- 
lish churchman. Other contributors whose work seems to call for 
special mention are Dean Hutton, who is admirable on the Caroline 
divines, and on Jeremy Taylor; the late James Gardner, whose 
articles deal mainly with the era of the English Reformation ; and 
Mr. Gordon Crosse, the assistant editor, who writes chiefly upon 
ecclesiastical law. The two articles dealing with Abbeys and 
Architecture, by Mr. W. M. Wright, deserve warm appreciation. 
We looked in vain, however, for any notice of Deans Lake, Mansel, 
Gregory; of Acland Troyte and T. T. Carter; of Edwin Hatch, 
Allies, Oakley, Lord Blachford and Aubrey Moore to group to- 
gether a very miscellaneous lot of omitted names. There is a full 
account of the Gorham case, but nothing of the Affaire Voysey. 
And, in view of the space given to Essays and Reviews, one might 
expect a brief account of the birth and fate of Lux Mundi. But it 
is ungenerous to complain of a few omissions in a work that is on 
the whole so fine and thorough. 

THE GIRL IN FANCY DRESS. By J. E. Buckrose. New York: 

George H. Doran Co. $1.90. 

Reading the title of this book or glancing at its highly colored 
"jacket," one would fancy that it was an extremely light novel, 
frivolous and frothy. It is, indeed, light in the sense that it is not 
tragic or melodramatic, but it is never frivolous, and it is far 
from frothy. The author has a delicate touch in perfect conso- 
nance with her theme, and in addition a knowledge of human 
nature that never fails. The chapter, entitled "See-Saw," in which 
is described the first meeting of the lovers after her disguise has 
been cast off, contains one of the most subtly managed situations 
in contemporary fiction. 

THE MCCARTHYS IN EARLY AMERICAN HISTORY. By 

Michael J. O'Brien. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. 

The historiographer of the American Historical Society, 
Michael J. O'Brien, whose recent volume, A Hidden Phase of 
American History, did so much to call public attention to the very 
extensive part taken in the preparation for, and the winning of, 
the American Revolution by Colonists of Irish descent, or of Irish 
birth, has in this book paid special attention to a single branch of 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 119 

Irish colonization in America, namely, that supplied by the great 
McCarthy family. Mr. O'Brien points out the fact that the Irish 
in the United States have been singularly, deplorably and 
blamably negligent in gathering and recording the part played by 
their race in the history of their chosen country. 

It is greatly to be desired that this interesting, valuable, path- 
breaking book may achieve the principal purpose of its author, 
namely, to stimulate further scientific research on the part of 
Irish-Americans who should be justly proud of the part played by 
their forefathers in the founding and upbuilding of this Republic. 

THE DESERT AND THE ROSE. By Edith Nicholl Ellison. Bos- 
ton: The Cornhill Co. $1.75. 

This book is an account of the experiences of a woman who 
came to New Mexico in search of health and bought a ranch in the 
Mesilla Valley, forty miles north of El Paso. Although inexpe- 
rienced, she made a business success of her venture through intel- 
ligent common sense and through kindly tact in her management 
of the Mexican laborers. For the latter she has an earnest word 
to say; she has found them, almost without exception, to be faith- 
ful, loyal and honest. She regrets the spirit of intolerance towards 
the peon, and the general assumption that he is "no good," and 
feels that the superficial and overcrowded instruction thrust on 
him by the public schools has injured rather than aided his 
development. 

The author has caught the spirit of the desert country, and 
has a real appreciation for its beauty, its mystery and its historic 
past. She pays a beautiful tribute to the work of the Franciscan 
Fathers, although she shows the usual prejudice against the 
Jesuits. Her expressions are not always clearly worded, and the 
rambling, disconnected style of her narrative makes the book 
rather mediocre. 

STAR DUST. By Fannie Hurst. New York: Harper & Brothers. 

$2.00 net. 

This novel, the first from the pen of a well-known writer of 
short stories, will interest most the readers who have already 
become a part of Miss Hurst's public. Anyone approaching the 
book without some previous experience of the writer's peculiar ex- 
cellences and limitations, may find himself so much aware of the 
latter, as they manifest themselves within the generous scope of 
the novel, that he gives the former less praise than they deserve. 
Miss Hurst's gift of integrating the "domestic* 7 atmosphere stroke 
by stroke with remorseless poignancy, is seen to very great ad- 



120 NEW BOOKS [Oct., 

vantage in this story. Miss Hurst excels here, as elsewhere, in her 
ability to perceive and to depict the concrete. She is liable, here, 
as elsewhere, to a turgidity and ungainliness of style in her efforts 
after individual expression. The story suffers, moreover, from 
the writer's earnestly propagandist motives. The feministic thesis 
is ladled out to the reader in every chapter with a heavy-handed 
humorlessness, which inevitably impairs the art of the telling. 

MUSIC APPRECIATION and Typical Piano Pieces and Songs for 
Students of Music Appreciation, by Clarence G. Hamilton, A.M. 
(Boston: Oliver Ditson Co.) Each of the arts stands, so to speak, on 
two feet, the one practical, the other aesthetic. To this fact all the 
methods of instruction must conform and must, also, vary over a wide 
range if they are to meet the necessities of the multitudinous temper- 
aments exhibited by the genus irritabile of students of art. Mr. Hamil- 
ton has recognized these facts and given to the musical world a well 
thought out and logically developed idea which should prove of great 
advantage to modern musicians. The object of the book is to teach 
students to appreciate music by enabling them to analyze the form of 
any composition through an accurate technical and aesthetic compre- 
hension of the subject. Due regard being given to its size, the range of 
subjects treated in it is quite remarkable. All the principal musical 
forms are completely covered from the simple dance to the most com- 
plex symphony. In supplement to the text will be found lists of books 
of reference and other works, which will enable the student to extend 
his knowledge and amplify the subjects which he has been engaged 
upon. The student will find most useful the separate volume containing 
piano pieces and songs used as illustrations in the text. 

A MILL TOWN PASTOR, by Rev. Joseph P. Conroy, S.J. (New 
York: Benziger Brothers. $1.75 net.) If you had told Father 
Dan Coffey an old college chum of the reviewer's that one day his 
biography would be written for the edification of his fellow priests, 
he would have answered with an unbelieving smile: "Nonsense. You 
are certainly talking through your hat." Father Conroy has, neverthe- 
less, written a most absorbing story of the life and labors of Father Dan, 
the pastor of a little mill town, Mingo Junction, in the diocese of 
Columbus. He was pastor of a polyglot parish of some twenty different 
nationalities, and in ten years' time he succeeded in making a happy 
and a holy family out of these scattered and often hostile units. 

REAL DEMOCRACY IN OPERATION (By Felix Bonjour. New York: 
Frederick A. Stokes Co.), according to this book, is found in 
Switzerland. The author gives an account of the initiative, referendum, 
and proportional representation in Switzerland. He also explains how 
the Swiss democracy is built upon local democracy. His account of 
how democracy operates in Switzerland is very interesting, and is a 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 121 

worth-while contribution to the library of political government. In the 
appendix, he raises the question of whether the Swiss form of govern- 
ment will continue to satisfy the industrial elements in the Swiss popu- 
lation, and whether some further organization of the industrial popu- 
lation is not necessary for real democracy similar to the organization 
of agricultural and pastoral peoples in their villages. 

ARIOSTO, SHAKESPEARE, CORNEILLE, by Benedetto Croce (New 
York: Henry Holt & Co. $2.50), is the first of Signer Groce's liter- 
ary criticisms to be translated into English. The translator, Mr. Douglas 
Ainslie, points out that Croce's criticism is based upon his theory "of 
the independence and autonomy of the aesthetic fact, which is intuition- 
expression, and of the essentially lyrical character of all art." Quite 
apart from the merits of this theory, it is clear that Signer Croce has 
presented in this volume three stimulating studies. 

T^HE MOTHER OF DIVINE GRACE, by Father Stanislaus M. Hogan, 
1 O.P. (New York: Benziger Brothers. $2.00) based for the most 
part on the La Mere de Grace of the Abbe Hugon, O.P., gives the theo- 
logical reasons for Catholic devotion to Our Lady. It expressly ex- 
plains the meaning of the invocation in the Litany of Loretto, Mother 
of Divine Grace. In a dozen chapters, Father Hogan treats of the 
nature and effects of grace, showing exactly what the term "full of 
grace" implies; of the grace conferred on Our Lady in preparation for 
her office; of the consequences of her initial perfection; of the graces 
conferred upon her when she became the Mother of God; of the grace 
of glory and of queen; of Mary the almoner of Divine grace. 

A MODERN BOOK OF CRITICISM, by Ludwig Lewisohn (New York: 
*\ Boni & Liveright. 95 cents), contains selections from present-day 
critical writers representing France, Germany, England and America. 
It is wide in range, touching Anatole France on the one hand with his 
belief in criticism as "a personal adventure with books," and, on the 
other hand, such critical metaphysics as those of the German Dilthey 
with his discussion of the creative imagination. One is struck by three 
facts: first, the variety of points of view; secondly, the dictatorial 
narrowness of most of these critics in their protests against what they 
consider as the dictatorial narrowness of the believers in objective 
standards of criticism; and third, the nebulous style of most of these 
excerpts, particularly those of English and American writers, reflecting 
as it does an equal fogginess of thought. The book makes us appreciate 
more than ever the sanity, the insight, and the clear thinking of Cole- 
ridge, Hazlitt, Lamb and Matthew Arnold. 

i 

MEN AND STEEL, by Mary Heaton Vorse (New York: Boni & Live- 
right). With Foster's personal account and the Interchurch 
World Movement's detached report of the Steel Strike, there now stands 
this third volume to make up a trilogy of steel in 1919. This volume 



122 NEW BOOKS [Oct., 

is the work of one who spent months in the Pittsburgh district during 
the great strike, and went down into the homes of the steel strikers and 
talked with them. It is filled with incidents of the strike that reveal 
the effect of the strike and the attitude of the strikers. It is an impres- 
sionistic book written with deep sympathy and intense feeling. Father 
Kazinci appears often in its pages, for he served frequently as the 
author's guide and interpreter in Braddock. Two facts push their way 
from these pages: first, the isolation of the strikers, and second, the 
fact that it was considered by many around Pittsburgh as a strike of 
"hunkies." The book is well worth reading, at least, for the purpose of 
grasping the attitude of the many of foreign birth in industrial com- 
munities in this country. 

THE ALTERNATIVE, by M. Morgan Gibbon (Garden City, New York: 
Doubleday, Page & Co. $1.75 net). Not often does a new writer's 
second book please as much as the first, but we find The Alternative a 
decided advance on Jan profounder in theme, and going deeper into 
life, while sustaining ever-deepening interest. Helen, who remains a 
child through more than half the book, is more lovable and delightful 
in immaturity than when grown up but so are most of us. The 
psychology of childhood and adolescence is well handled, and the 
somewhat trite truth of the thesis, that choice involves renunciation, 
is made to strike us with new and potent force. Somehow, we find the 
happy ending, usually to be welcomed, a misfit for such a character as 
Helen. Another point to which we take exception is the disposal of the 
Rector in Chapter VI. The device employed is unworthy of so good a 
writer as the creator of Jan, and Helen of The Alternative. 

SONGS OF ADORATION, by Gustav Davidson (New York: The 
Madrigal Press. $1.30). This first publication from the Madrigal 
Press is physically a thing of rare beauty, choicely printed on hand 
wove paper in the fashion of the more exotic Mosher booklets. Spirit- 
ually, it is still exotic, although less satisfying. Mr. Davidson's songs 
are meditations upon human and divine love, in rhythmical prose 
which owes something to the Psalms, but more to Dr. Rabindranath 
Tagore. 

CATHOLIC PROBLEMS IN WESTERN CANADA, by Rev. George T. 
V^x Daly, C.SS.R. (Toronto, Canada: The Macmillan Co. $2.50.) 
In these interesting pages, Father Daly calls the attention of Canadian 
Catholics to the problems religious, educational and social which 
face the Catholic Church in Western Canada. He treats of the prin- 
ciples and policy of the Catholic Church Extension Society in Canada, 
the apostolate to non-Catholics, the Ruthenian question, the necessity 
of separate schools, the need of a Western Catholic University, the 
value of the Catholic press, and the importance of expert immigration 
work. Father Daly knows the Canadian West country intimately 
through many years of missionary activity. 



1921.1 NEW BOOKS 123 

THE GREATER LOVE, by Chaplain George T. McCarthy, U. S. Army 
(Chicago: Extension Press. $1.50 postpaid). While hesitant 
about subscribing to the publisher's enthusiastic statement that this 
book contains "the most gripping, inspiring and soul influencing pages 
that have come out of the War," we are quite prepared to say that it is 
undoubtedly the heartfelt record of an earnest, manly priest, who saw 
in each soldier boy a soul committed to his care and whose face once 
turned to duty never looked backward. Moreover, the story, even 
if a bit flowery as to style, is excellently told. We hold our breath as 
the Leviathan swings out into the deep; we enjoy, with the Chaplain 
and his "buddies," the piano that had come all the way from Paris to 
answer to the touch of Mademoiselle Annette; and we storm with them, 
in spirit, the hill at Rembercourt. 

PRACTICAL METHOD OF READING THE BREVIARY, by Rev. John 
1 J. Murphy (New York: Blase Benziger & Co., Inc.), simply, yet 
effectively, explains and instructs the student of the Breviary as to 
how that seemingly complicated book is to be read. Father Murphy 
covers every major question that presents itself to the beginner and 
leads him safely through puzzling turnings and bypaths. We heartily 
recommend the volume not only to students for the priesthood, but to 
those of the laity who are interested in reading the Breviary* 

HPHE CORNHILL CO. of Boston publish The Celestial Circus, by 
1 Cornelia Walter McCleary. A volame of pleasing and entertaining 
verse, it will be of particular interest to children. The book is taste- 
fully illustrated. It sells for $1.50 a copy. 

A PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, by Ernest R. Hull, S.J. 
/IL (Bombay: Examiner Press). "Thanks to the effects of the War," 
as the author explains, this pamphlet is published in a flimsy, unat- 
tractive form that contrasts almost grotesquely with the interest and 
value of the content. It is a collection of articles which appeared in 
The Examiner during 1920. The philosophy is divided into three parts, 
as applied to Facts, Principles and Actions; and in whichever part we 
elect to read, we find the comprehensive title fully justified. 

A JOYFUL HERALD OF THE KING OF KINGS, by the Rev. F. M. 
Dreves, of St. Joseph's Foreign Missionary Society (St. Louis: 
B. Herder Book Co. $1.25 net). Whatever criticism one may have to 
offer of this collection of short stories, deals not with the excellent 
subject matter, but with the manner of its handling, which is a trifle 
too formal and "preachy." One cannot but feel that it will find its 
auditors among those already called to the Missions rather than those 
in whom it hopes to arouse and foster vocations. It lacks the verve 
and spirit that such a writer, for example, as Wilmot-Buxton would 
have imparted to it. The "Joyful Herald" is an attractive Saint of our 
own age, Blessed Theophane Venard. The succeeding chapters are 
mosaic-like fragments of missionary anecdote. 



124 NEW BOOKS [Oct., 

THE third volume in the series of Firearms in American History 
deals with the history of American rifles from 1800 to 1920. 
(Boston : The Cornhill Co. $4.50.) The book has a wealth of illustra- 
tion and of technical description which will make it most interesting to 
those versed, or wishing to be versed, in the subject of which it treats. 

FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS. 

Wonderfully lucid and methodic, and written in language which 
is clearness itself, is Le Mystere de L' Incarnation, by Pere Hugon 
(Paris: P. Tequi). It should be interesting not only to priests, but to 
laymen. Another book by the same author, Le Mystere de la Tres 
Sainte Trinite, is a beautiful treatise on the Trinity, written in his at- 
tractive style, at once elegant and eloquent. Issued by the same 
publisher are Abbe Cocart's Enfant, Que Feras-Tu Plus Tard, containing 
five conferences on the Priestly Vocation; A Manual of Canon Law 
for the Clergy, based on the New Code, by Canon Laurent, Director of 
the Seminary of Verdun, treating of the Sacraments, the Pastoral Min- 
istry, and the laws of Ecclesiastical Discipline; and Grandeurs et 
Devoirs de la Vie Religieuse, by Monseigneur Plautier, containing four 
Pastoral Letters on the religious life. 

From the Press of P. Lethielleux, Paris, we have Histoire Populaire 
de L'Eglise, by Abbe E. Barbier, a popular history of the Church, dealing 
with the first six centuries, and Catechisme Des Convenances Reli- 
gieuses, by Canon Pracht, a brief manual of the ceremonies of the 
Church in catechetical form. 

Dr. J. Marouzeau has written La Linguistique (Paris : Paul Geuth- 
ner), an excellent treatise on the Science of Language. A work on the 
Sacraments according to the New Code (Turin: Pietro Marietti) is 
De Sacramentis, by Felix Cappello, S.J., of the Gregorian University, 
Rome. This, the first volume of his treatise, relates to the Sacraments 
in general, Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist. 

Etudes de Critique et de Philologie du Nouveau Testament (J. 
Gabalda), by Abbe Jacquier, is a summary of the present-day status of 
New Testament problems, and answers non-Catholic critics. A third 
edition of Rev. Philip Moroto's Institutiones Juris Canonici (Pomes. 
Apud Commentarium pro Religiosis), has just been issued, the first 
volume treats of Nor mas Generates and De Personis. A two volume 
history of the Life of St. Augustine, Le Catholicisme de St. Augustin, by 
Monsiegneur Pierre Batiffol, brings out clearly the Saint's idea of the 
Church and his loyalty to the Apostolic See. 

From the pen of Abbe A. Lugan, we have a thoughtful article on 
"Jesus and the Family," in the magazine, Evangile et Vie, and in Les 
Cahiers Catholiques, an interesting article on Maurice de Guerin. Pere 
Lugan has also written Sermons et Conferences Pour I'annee Liturgique, 
(Paris: Bloud et Gay), containing an eloquent Lenten Course on the 
individual, the family and society without God, and sermons for the 
principal feasts of the year, from Easter to All Souls' Day; L'Egoisme 
Humain (Paris: A. Tralin), show the evils of egoism, and Un Pre- 
curseur du Bolchevisme, Francisco Ferrer (Paris: Procure General), 
is a critical study of the life and activities of the Spanish Socialist, 
showing the immorality of his private life and the anarchism of his 
school, and proving by the documents in the case, the justice of his con- 
demnation. 



IRecent Events, 



For the last two months, Russia has been 

Russia. in the throes of one of the worst famines 

on record, due to prolonged drought and a 

general failure of crops. The region chiefly affected is the Volga 
district, embracing ten governments of a total area of 600,000 
square versts and a population of over fifteen million people. 
Since its first outbreak in July, however, the famine has spread, 
so that from twenty-five to thirty-five million people are now re- 
ported as battling against starvation and disease. Besides a short- 
age of a million tons of food for the inhabitants and cattle, an 
immense quantity of seed is also needed for spring and winter 
sowing if a similar disaster is to be averted next year. Especially 
pressing is the necessity for seed for winter sowing upwards of 
250,000 tons being needed. 

After trying for the first three weeks to cope with the situa- 
tion, the Soviet authorities were finally obliged to appeal for out- 
side aid, chiefly from America. In reply, Secretary Hoover prom- 
ised supplies, but only on condition that all Americans imprisoned 
in Russia be immediately released, and also that the American 
Relief Administration be allowed full liberty of movement and 
given control over food distribution. The Soviet authorities at 
once agreed to the first condition, and released all American pris- 
oners, but several weeks were consumed in wrangling over the 
matter of food control and liberty of movement for the relief 
agents. At last, owing to the firm attitude of the American author- 
ities, the Soviet signed the required agreement at Riga on August 
16th, and since then both men and supplies have gone forward 
from the United States. 

The Russian Government in its negotiations with Secretary 
Hoover took the general stand that while it would gladly welcome 
all purely humanitarian aid that might be offered, it would tolerate 
no interference whatever in the internal affairs of Russia. In the 
same general spirit, it has declined to permit the International 
Russian Relief Commission, appointed by the Allied Supreme 
Council, to make a preliminary survey of famine conditions, on the 
ground that the proposed survey is intended to spy at Russia's 
weakness rather than bring aid to the sufferers. 

To prevent friction, the American relief force is not working 
under the United States flag. Besides the American, other relief 



126 RECENT EVENTS [Oct., 

agencies are at work, including the International Red Cross So- 
ciety. Food supplies, under private auspices, have been sent 
from all parts of the world. 

Latest reports indicate that the famine has been somewhat 
relieved temporarily as a result partly of outside aid and largely 
because of the recent harvest. The situation in many places, 
however, is more difficult than it was two months ago, and it will 
soon be far worse because the miserably insufficient harvest in 
these places is only enough to tide the people over some two or 
three weeks. 

An aggravating feature of the situation has been the complete 
breakdown of the Russian railroads. Even before the outbreak 
of the famine, Russia's transportation difficulties had reached an 
acute stage because of the general deterioration of the railroads 
under the Bolshevik regime. Railroad service between Moscow 
and Kiev, for instance, had been reduced to an average of one train 
a week for freight and passengers, and the traffic situation all 
over central Russia was reported to be particularly serious. Now, 
of course, it is worse than ever. 

Probably as a direct result of the famine, Premier Lenine has 
abandoned complete State ownership as a Soviet policy. The new 
economic policy, made public on August 9th, is embodied in a 
decree adopted by unanimous vote by the Council of Commissars 
of the People, after a long discussion in which the views of the 
chief Russian political and labor union organizations were ex- 
pressed at length. The decree abandons State ownership with 
the exception of a "definite number of great industries of national 
importance" such as were controlled by the State in France, 
England and Germany during the War and reestablishes pay- 
ment by individuals for railroads, postal and other public services, 
which formerly had been free. There is also to be a gradual 
return to the monetary system in place of the exchange of goods. 
Outside of the great industries specified in the decree, all other 
industries and enterprises are to be leased to individuals, co- 
operative bodies and labor organizations. 

Sixty-one persons were shot in Petrograd on August 24th 
after being sentenced to death by the Cheka, or Bolshevik inquis- 
itorial board, for active participation in a plot against the Soviet 
Government. Among those executed are believed to have been 
several persons accused by the Cheka of being Russian agents of 
the American Intelligence Service, who crossed the border into 
Russia from Finland. 

The Moscow Government has addressed to the American Gov- 
ernment a note of protest against the failure of the latter to extend 



1921.] RECENT EVENTS 127 

to Russia an invitation to the Washington conference on the lim- 
itation of armaments and on Far Eastern questions. The note 
declares that the Soviet Government will not recognize any deci- 
sions reached at the conference at which it is not represented, and 
states that it reserves complete .freedom of action. The note 
protests also against the lack of an invitation for the Far Eastern 
Republic. 

Late in July, a conference was held at Helsingfors among the 
Foreign Ministers of the Baltic States of Latvia, Esthonia, Finland 
and Poland, following an earlier conference at Riga of representa- 
tives of Esthonia, Latvia and Lithuania, when a full alliance was 
signed between the two former and a close economic accord be- 
tween the two latter. The general purpose of these conferences, 
however, is to bring into being a Baltic league, towards which the 
States mentioned have been aiming for the past two years. 
Shortly after the Riga conference, the Soviet Government imposed 
a veto of an alliance between the Esthonian-Latvian combination 
and Finland or Poland, and even announced that it would regard 
such an alliance as a casus belli. 

On several occasions towards the end of July various partisan 
bands inside and outside Vladivostok endeavored to overthrow the 
Provisional Government there, but without success. M. Murkuloff, 
head of the Provisional Government, which is anti-Bolshevik, and 
is said to have at least the tacit support of Japan, attributes the 
revolts to Communist sources. There were numerous casualties in 
street fights, and the uprising was followed by the declaration of 
a general strike, which is supported by the radical elements. 

The Vladivostok Government issued an announcement on 
August 6th declaring null and void all concessions in Kamchatka 
granted by the Soviet Government. This repudiation would in- 
clude certain concessions supposed to have been granted in that 
district by Lenine to Washington B. Vanderlip, an American pro- 
moter, who has attracted attention in the last year by his state- 
ments that he had obtained various large Russian concessions 
from the Soviet authorities at Moscow. 

On September 4th, it was reported that the Government of 
Afghanistan had ratified the Russo-Afghan Treaty. 

It is understood that the Treaty gives Russia a large measure 
of preferred rights in Afghanistan, considered the gate to India, 
over which Russian and English diplomacy have been contesting 
for a long time. The Afghan Treaty forms the final link in a 
chain giving Soviet Russia a favored position with all her Moham- 
medan neighbors Nationalist Turkey and Persia being the other 
two and leaves her at peace with all other neighboring countries 



128 RECENT EVENTS [Oct., 

except Japan and Rumania. A few days previous to the ratifica- 
tion of the Afghan Treaty a Russo-Norwegian commercial Treaty, 
closely paralleling the Anglo-Russian agreement, was signed at 
Christiania. 

The Silesian question has continued to 
France. occupy a large share ol Allied attention 

during the last two months, but still with- 
out settlement. In July, the situation had been at least tempo- 
rarily arranged by the withdrawal to their respective borders of 
the German irregular troops and the Polish insurgents, when the 
whole question was unexpectedly revived by a note of the French 
Government to the British at the end of the month. The note 
declared that France would not agree to an Allied conference at 
that time to settle the boundary between Germany and Poland, 
and that France wished to send more troops into Silesia. 

To this the British strongly objected and, after many delays, 
eventually succeeded in inducing the French to refer the matter 
to the Allied Supreme Council, which met in Paris on August 8th. 
Here, too, however, the British and French failed to come to an 
agreement, and though the British position in the dispute was 
backed by Italy and Japan, it was finally decided to refer the whole 
question to the Executive Council of the League of Nations, by 
whose findings the Allied Premiers pledged themselves to abide. 

In accordance with this decision, the Council of the League, 
on September 1st, appointed a commission of four members to 
settle the Silesian imbroglio. The commission is composed of the 
representatives of four neutral nations, China, Brazil, Spain and 
Belgium, and it is expected to be able to make its report to the full 
Council some time before the end of the month. This move not 
only extricates Great Britain and France from the impasse which 
they had reached in the Supreme Council, but also averts the 
danger of a quarrel that, for a time, threatened the very existence 
of the Entente. 

The other chief topic of Allied discussion has been the pro- 
posal of President Harding for an international conference on the 
limitation of armaments. Invitations were sent in July to Great 
Britain, France, Italy and Japan, and later to China, and it was 
proposed that the conference should discuss not only armaments, 
but also all matters pertaining to the Pacific and Far Eastern 
problems. It was the inclusion of these last that delayed the 
acceptance of Japan, which desired to exclude discussion of Yap, 
Shantung and Siberia, on the ground that they were closed issues. 
Subsequently, Japan added, to those of the other Powers, her 



1921.] RECENT EVENTS 129 

assent to share fully in the conference. Another cause of much 
correspondence was the desire of Great Britain for preliminary 
parleys before the real conference began, but this matter also was 
decided in accordance with the President's plans, which opposed 
such parleys. 

The first meeting of the conference, which is to be held at 
Washington, will occur on November llth, the anniversary of the 
armistice. Official announcement has been made that the main 
American delegation will consist of only four members Secretary 
of State Hughes, Senator Lodge, former Secretary of State Root 
and Senator Underwood, the Democratic minority leader. The 
main delegation from each of the other countries will also com- 
prise four members, although each delegation will be assisted by 
an advisory group of indefinite number, to be known as "advisory 
delegates." 

The second plenary session of the Assembly of the League of 
Nations opened at Geneva on September 5th. Thirty-nine coun- 
tries were represented, the absentees, to the number of nine, con- 
sisting of Central and South American countries. As compensa- 
tion for this absence, five new members were seated Austria, 
Bulgaria, Albania, Finland and Luxembourg. Jonkeer H. A. van 
Karnebeck, Foreign Minister of Holland, was chosen President of 
the Assembly in succession to Paul Hymans of Belgium. 

On the second day of its session the Assembly gave prelim- 
inary consideration to a matter which has since developed into a 
situation of considerable difficulty, namely, the Tacna-Arica dis- 
pute between Bolivia and Chile. Bolivia had forwarded a request 
that this territorial controversy be brought before the Assembly, 
and the request being held in conformity with the covenant of the 
League, the question was placed on the agenda of the Assembly. 
Since then, Chile has notified the Assembly that the League of 
Nations has no competency or jurisdiction in matters of purely 
American concern. In view of the fact that nine Latin-American 
nations are already abstaining from participation in the Assembly 
meeting, and that Chile will probably withdraw if Bolivia's plea is 
upheld, the affair strikes at the heart of the League, and is re- 
garded as more than a simple quarrel between two Latin-Amer- 
ican countries. 

During the last two months, the Secretariat of the League of 
Nations has announced the receipt of three more than the neces- 
sary twenty-four ratifications of the International Court of Justice 
to be established at The Hague. Spain, Siam and Uruguay were 
the last three countries to ratify the protocol and statutes. Ninety- 
one names have been placed on the nomination list for judgeships 

VOL. CXIV. 9 



130 RECENT EVENTS [Oct., 

of the Court. Of these eleven will be chosen to be Judges and four 
Deputy Judges by the Assembly during its present session. Each 
member of the League has the privilege of nominating four candi- 
dates two of its own nationals and two foreigners. Elihu Root 
has been nominated by five countries, but has declined to stand 
for election because of advanced age. 

Early in September the Reparations Commission announced 
that Germany had made, by the prescribed date of August 31st, 
the full payment of the first one billion gold marks due the 
Allies. Before the final payment had been made, the Allied Min- 
isters of Finance held a meeting at which it was decided to give 
550,000,000 marks of this sum to Belgium, on the basis of Bel- 
gium's priority rights, and 450,000,000 marks to Great Britain 
against the cost of Great Britain's army of occupation in the 
Rhineland. France, which was to receive no part of the payment, 
was supposed to make up the cost of her army of occupation from 
the products of the Saar mines. The French Finance Minister 
signed this agreement only provisionally, however, subject to 
approval by his Government, and now the latter has declined to 
ratify. The agreement assumed that France should be credited 
with the value of the Saar coal mines to the total extent of what 
she would get in the next fifteen years that she will hold them, 
and to this the French Government objects as inequitable. Con- 
versations are now being held looking towards a revision of this 
clause. 

Late in August representatives of the French and German 
Governments met at Wiesbaden and signed a separate treaty regu- 
lating the payment of reparations. The agreement enters into 
effect when ratified by the two Governments, of \vhich there is 
every prospect. This is the first War settlement made with Ger- 
many in which France has acted independently of her Allies, and 
is important because of its practical significance in providing for 
reparations in kind rather than in cash. Among other things, the 
Treaty provides for the delivery to France by Germany of seven 
billion gold marks worth of building material within the next three 
years. 

A treaty of peace between the United States 
Germany. and Germany, which had been in process 

of negotiation for several weeks, was signed 

in Berlin on August 25th by Ellis Loring Dresel, the American 
Commissioner in Berlin, and Dr. Friedrich Rosen, the German 
Foreign Minister. The compact assures to the United States all 
the rights accruing to it under the Treaty of Versailles, but pro- 
vides specifically that the United States shall not, be bound by the 



1921.] RECENT EVENTS 131 

clauses of the Versailles Treaty relating to the League of Nations. 
Before going into effect the Treaty still requires ratification by 
the United States and the German Reichstag, after which diplo- 
matic relations will be resumed. 

The signing of a separate treaty with Germany has raised 
considerable discussion among the Allies, especially the French, 
as to whether a third international treaty is needed, since the 
German-American Treaty is considered to leave certain Allied 
rights unguarded. For instance, the Berlin compact does not 
recognize that Alsace and Lorraine now belong to France. In 
Germany itself the Treaty is looked on with considerable satis- 
faction, especially as preliminary to renewed commercial relations 
on a wide scale. 

On August 26th, Matthias Erzberger, former German Vice- 
Ghancellor and Minister of Finance and leader of the Centre 
Party, was assassinated at Baden. Erzberger was principally re- 
sponsible for swinging the Centre Party in favor of accepting the 
Allied ultimatum and making Herr Wirth Chancellor on a plat- 
form of "reparation fulfillment." For this and other policies, he 
was particularly obnoxious to the Pan-German and Monarchist 
sections, and it was feared that his death would be the occasion 
of anti-republican demonstrations. The Government immediately 
issued drastic decrees against seditious acts, and this, together 
with organized demonstrations of loyalty throughout the country 
especially at Berlin, where over 200,000 people proclaimed alle- 
giance to the Republic intimidated the forces of reaction. The 
general opinion is that whatever consequences the forthcoming 
taxation struggle holds, the German Republic today stands more 
firmly than at any time since the Kaiser's abdication. 

One of the results of the Government's decrees was a dispute 
between Berlin and Bavaria, which for a time threatened a revolt, 
but which is now in process of composition. The trouble arose fol- 
lowing the issuance of a decree by President Ebert conferring ex- 
ceptional powers upon the German Cabinet. The Chancellor em- 
ployed this decree for suppressing newspapers, forbidding the 
wearing of uniforms, and raising the state of siege in Bavaria, 
all of which aroused much resentment in that State. 

Previous to this difficulty, on July 23d, the Inter-Allied Mili- 
tary Control Commission announced that the Bavarian Einwoh- 
nerwehr, or citizens' guard, whose disbandment the Allies had 
been demanding for some months, had turned in 120,000 of the 
250,000 rifles they possessed. 

A commercial Treaty between Germany and Italy went into 
force on September 1st. Under this instrument the two Govern- 



132 RECENT EVENTS [Oct., 

ments will undertake to facilitate imports and exports of specified 
categories. The Treaty will be operative for nine months, and 
after this period will be automatically renewable unless denounced 
by a month's notice of either of the contracting parties. 

A widespread revolt against Spanish rule 

Spain. in Morocco came to a disastrous climax in 

the middle of July, and since then Spanish 

troops have suffered at the hands of Moorish tribesmen a series of 
defeats that, for a time, threatened the loss of the entire country. 
In the opening engagement of the war the defeat of the army of 
General Silvestre the Spaniards lost 3,000 men, while the booty 
captured by the enemy in this battle was valued at more than 
20,000,000 pesetas. In the fighting around Melilla, a commercial 
port on the north coast and the main Spanish stronghold, the 
Spanish losses are placed at 14,712 killed, without counting the 
missing. The loss in material here, also, has been enormous, the 
tribesmen capturing nearly 30,000 rifles, 139 cannons and 392 
machine guns, with a large amount of ammunition. 

The Spaniards have recently claimed several successes 
against the Moors, but these have been so slight or so vaguely 
reported as to give no definite notion of the engagements referred 
to. Meanwhile, extensive preparations for carrying the war for- 
ward have been initiated in Spain, and on September 1st the 
Minister of War summoned to the colors men of the class of 1920, 
who previously had been exempt, under the operation of the ballot, 
except in the event of war at home. The class aggregates about 
50,000 men. 

The general situation precedent to the Moroccan uprising was 
as follows: the Spanish protectorate in Morocco is a zone extend- 
ing along the northern coast opposite Spain, from the Atlantic 
east to the frontier of Algeria, and, on the average, fifty miles 
broad. South of it is a similar zone under French protection. 

During the World War little attempt was made to administer 
either zone, but in January, 1920, it was decided, both in Madrid 
and Paris, to make military demonstrations with the idea of in- 
troducing civil government. By September, 1920, the French zone 
was practically pacified, and, at first, the Spanish expedition 
under General Silvestre, which was more militant, was similarly 
successful. General Silvestre had marched on, leaving detach- 
ments at various points and holding a line of communication with 
Melilla. 

In the recent fighting all these interior points have been cap- 
tured by the tribesmen, who are reported to be from 10,000 to 



1921.] RECENT EVENTS 133 

20,000 strong, and several generals, including General Silvestre, 
have been either killed or taken prisoner. For several weeks now 
the Moors have closely invested Melilla despite various attempts 
to disperse them. 

The most serious aspect of the situation is the repercussion 
in Spain itself, where a wave of military mutinies, combined with 
strikes and riots, has swept the country. The desire of the Gov- 
ernment to send reinforcements to Morocco has stirred not only 
civic and industrial disturbances, but uprisings among the troops 
as well. The situation in Bilboa, one of Spain's most important 
industrial areas, is especially serious. There is also the greatest 
apprehension in Barcelona, always a hotbed of radicalism, that 
the Bolshevik and Socialist elements will cooperate with mutinous 
military units. 

On August llth, Premier Allendesalazar resigned, and a few 
days later was succeeded by former Premier Maura, who has 
formed a new Cabinet. 

The Greek campaign against the Turkish 

Greece. Nationalists has been for the last two 

months almost unfailingly successful, till 

quite recently when their advance was checked. Beginning with the 
capture on July 16th of Kutaia, an important point on the southern 
branch of the Bagdad Railroad, about seventy-five miles southeast 
of Brusa, the Greeks developed their offensive in several direc- 
tions, forcing the Turks to fall back along the entire front. In 
the battle around Kutaia more than 15,000 Turkish prisoners were 
taken, as well as 168 guns and 2,000 camels. 

The next point of attack was Eski-Shehr, an important rail- 
way junction, connected with Scutari, Angora and Konieh, about 
twenty-seven miles northeast of Kutaia. This place was cap- 
tured by the Greeks on July 20th, the Turks retreating towards 
Angora, their capital. By means of a turning movement, the 
Greeks increased their captured to 30,000 prisoners. As a result 
of the Greek advance, the Nationalists were obliged to transfer the 
seat of government from Angora to Sivas, a point further in the 
interior. 

Later successes of the Greeks have been their advance on 
Ismid, ninety miles north of Eski-Shehr and fifty-six miles south- 
east of Constantinople, and their attack in the direction of Ada- 
bazar, at the base of the peninsula, thus threatening the capture 
of the entire Ismid Peninsula, which lies to the east of Constanti- 
nople between the Sea of Marmora and the Black Sea. 

The most recent action has been an eight-day battle along a 



134 RECENT EVENTS [Oct., 

forty-mile line between the Sakaria River and Angora, in which 
the Turks were finally compelled to fall back. The losses in this 
battle have been particularly heavy on both sides, the Turkish 
casualties in killed and wounded being estimated at 12,000, while 
the Greek losses are placed at 10,000. This, so far, has been the 
hardest and most evenly contested battle to date. 

Basing their opinions on this engagement, military experts 
believe that the Greek offensive towards Angora has received a 
definite check. This is attributed not only to transportation dif- 
ficulties, but also to faulty generalship and inefficient artillery. 

Latest reports state that a revolt has broken out among the 
Nationalist forces. According to the dispatch, the Turks have 
abandoned the Heights of Kongiojak, thirty-five miles from An- 
gora. The retreat of the Turkish forces on the Greek right is 
being covered by a rear guard, which is holding up the advance of 
the Greeks. Several Turkish divisions are strongly intrenched 
before the Greek centre. 

King Constantine has had the active direction of the Greek 
offensive, and after the victory at Eski-Shehr a Greek advance on 
Constantinople was discussed as a possible development of Con- 
stantine's military ambitions. The Allies, however, warned 
Greece that such an advance would not be tolerated. Beyond this 
warning, the Allies have not interfered in any way in the Greek- 
Turkish conflict, thus preserving their declared attitude of abso- 
lute neutrality. 

Up to the end of July sanguinary conflicts 

Italy. continued to occur at various points 

throughout Italy between the Fascisti and 

the Communists. The most severe fighting took place at Sarzana, 
Province of Genoa, where twenty-seven persons were killed, and 
at the village of Roccostrada, near Grosseto, where twelve Com- 
munists and one Fascisti were slain. 

The situation after the tragedy at Sarzana became so grave 
as to make the people fear civil war, as the Fascisti were aided by 
the Nationalists throughout Italy, while the greater part of the 
Socialists defended the violence of the Communists, who had 
formed for the purpose a body called the "People's Arditi." 
These last, though declared to comprise all the lowest elements of 
the population, were organized in military groups, fully officered 
and trained. 

Finally, as a result of the dangerous situation, the Italian 
Government in the person of Signer Denicola, president of the 
Chamber of Deputies, made arrangements for bringing about a 



1921.] RECENT EVENTS 135 

peace between the warring factions. The agreement, in the form 
of a treaty, was signed early in August by representatives of the 
Fascisti and the Socialists. It stipulated that both sides assume 
responsibility for keeping the peace, and each side must return the 
trophies, emblems and banners captured from the other. The 
Socialist provincial governments, which had been forced by vio- 
lence to resign, have since been reinstated. The Socialists, in the 
agreement, repudiated the militant radical organization, the 
People's Arditi. 

The chief credit for the peace belongs to the new Premier, 
Signer Bonomi, who took a firm stand and threatened military 
intervention by the Government unless the disorders ceased. On 
being challenged, the Premier put the question to the Chamber 
of Deputies for a vote of confidence, and succeeded in obtaining 
the largest majority since the armistice was concluded. 

The new Premier has expressed his intentions of devoting 
himself chiefly to the reconstruction of Italy, but one of the most 
serious problems he has to face is the foreign policy to be adopted, 
particularly with the reference to the Porto Barros complications 
at Fiume. It was on this issue that the previous Cabinet fell, the 
former Foreign Minister, Count Sforza, having practically given 
the place up to Jugo-Slavia. What is now demanded by Fiume 
and the majority of Italians, is that Porto Barros, although nom- 
inally belonging to Jugo-Slavia, shall form a commercial unit with 
Fiume. To this, of course, Jugo-Slavia is opposed. 

With regard to the local situation in Fiume, early in Septem- 
ber the legionaries of d'Annunzio withdrew from the city, and the 
military command was assumed by General Amantea. The Italian 
Legation has been closed, and all powers have been taken over by 
a special Italian Commissioner. Efforts are being made to estab- 
lish a constitutional government, but the bitterness engendered 
between the parties during the various phases of the Fiume ques- 
tion make an early solution improbable. 

September It, 1921. 



With Our Readers. 

"T ET the dead past bury its dead" is the sentence which is often 
L< hurled at one who dares unearth any lesson from former 
days. "We are living in the present: we face the future. The 
present and the future are our concern, not the past." Perhaps 
such an attitude of mind is not altogether unwarranted for, 
indeed, there are many who see no good in our own days and in 
our own doings and, on the contrary, idealize the conditions that 
prevailed in other centuries. While our sympathies are not with 
those who laud only the things that have been, nevertheless, our 
sane judgment recognizes that there is a living past, a past that 
has not died and cannot die. So living is that past that, in the 
continuity of the human race and in the relationship of all human 
doings, it may be considered to have passed into the eternal, the 
ever-present, of value now as when it sprang into being. 



NOT unseemly and not unprofitable is the custom of com- 
memorating past events, when those events are of such im- 
portance that they still throw the brightness of their light into 
the shadowy places. It is not strange then that one of the char- 
acteristic features of four great centenaries celebrated this year, 
has been their application, through the personalities and works 
that have been honored, to the conditions and problems of our 
day. St. Jerome, St. Francis, St. Dominic, Dante are all figures 
that stand out in undying prominence, not only surveying the 
world of their own day, but on the everlasting hills, standing as 
beacon lights to the travelers of all time. 

* * * * 

N all his Encyclical Letters upon these great men, our Holy 
Father, Benedict XV., doing honor to their memory, has also 
sought to impress upon our day the living lessons that the deeds 
and thoughts of these heroic personalities have bequeathed to 
humanity. And other writers, not all, by any means, members of 
the Catholic Church, have likewise dwelt largely upon the appro- 
priateness of drawing lessons for the present from the lives of 
these men. Many go as far as to outline the similarity of our 
own time, first with that period illuminated by Jerome, between 
the era of paganism and Christianity, and then with that period 
graced by Francis, Dominic and Dante between the Middle Ages 
and the Renaissance. Each is honored by some great achieve- 



1921.] WITH OUR READERS 137 

ment; but each is honored likewise for his personal influence, an 
influence which even flows into our own day. Jerome immortally 
stands as the man who accomplished the tremendous task of the 
translation of the Scriptures, but he was no less, through his 
priestly life, an exceptional guide and a saintly spiritual director 
of human souls. Francis impressed upon a world of luxury the 
meaning and beauty of poverty, but he also exerted a personal 
influence in drawing others to his standards and in raising them 
to spiritual ambition. Dominic stayed the flow of an unseemly 
heresy, but he likewise inspired others to choose the same path 
he had chosen and brought innumerable souls to the light and the 
following of Christ. Dante sang the greatest song of time, but in 
that singing he likewise impressed upon humanity what was of 
greatest individual value, the highest ethical standards of life. In 
a word, if they shine as the doers of great works, they also shine 
as personalities of the highest type and character, influencing not 
only their own, but every age that follows. 

* * * * 

AS in the study of any human being, so in the study of these, 
the paramount search is into their innermost souls, to find, 
if possible, that which was the motive power behind their lives. 
In that search and in the answer that we shall necessarily find, 
we shall also discover the reason why each of this quartet of 
giants has a message to the world today. For whether we dwell 
upon the intellectual glory of the saintly Hermit, or the cherubic 
light that illumined the preaching of the Friar Preacher, or the 
seraphic ardor of the Poor Man, or the heavenly vision of the 
supreme Poet, we shall find that the inspiring, indwelling, force 
that expressed itself in the truth and goodness and beauty that 
they manifested, was Catholic Faith. Each of these men was a 
follower of Christ within the Church of God, His Kingdom on 
Earth. The intellectual standards they set, the ethical principles 
they maintained, the remedies for social ills they put forward, 
the truths they preached, in sermon or in poem, were all Catholic 
in the purest and fullest sense. The Church has had no more 
devoted children than these. If the world would pay them no 
empty honor, then must that world, suffering and ill as it is, look, 
for cure and remedy, even beyond the men that it honors to that 
which made them great. 



WHEN St. Jerome is mentioned there comes before the mind, 
first the intellectual marvel who because of his superhuman 
learning could achieve the tremendous task of the translation of 



138 WITH OUR READERS [Oct, 

the Scriptures into Latin, in such a successful way as to obtain for 
his version the official recognition of the Church. 

Then, as we look a little into his personal characteristics, we 
are, no doubt, next impressed with the sternness and strictness of 
this ascetic and hermit. We look upon a man most mortified in 
his own life and demanding from others like mortification if they 
would be true disciples of Christ. As such, his denunciations of 
the evils of his day, especially in the city of Rome where he dwelt 
some years, his stern characterizations of those who opposed his 
views, his uncompromising attitude even in regard to things 
lawful but not highest, all these stamp him as an unbending, un- 
yielding and determined man that would repel did we not look 
further. 

* * * * 

IF we do look further we find not only the unquestioned saintli- 
ness of his own life, but we find that, in the interest which he 
took in others, he displayed qualities which offset the more severe 
ones, and serve to endear him to those who have at heart the wel- 
fare of humanity. Anyone who studies the years of his life in 
Rome, after his experiences in the desert and before his retirement 
to Palestine, will find him to be not only a man of ascetic life and 
stern language, but also a priest who was a most tender, solicitous, 
painstaking and sympathetic director of souls. Many a soul he 
formed in the mold of Christ. With gentle and untiring care, he 
led them on those paths where alone true peace is found. The 
man who could call forth the affectionate adherence and the 
devoted service of such women as Marcella and Paula and Eusto- 
chium and Blesilla and a host of others, who formed a wonderful 
company, could not be merely stern and severe. 

Nor was his interest limited only to those who, in some 
measure, had already tasted of the spiritual springs. He sought 
also, often by sarcasm, often by invective, but often too by plead- 
ing to win the thoughtless and the sinful to the standards of 
Christ. He was fully alive to the evils of his time, and he scored 
them. He was burning with zeal for souls, and he sought to gain 
them. 



WITH few changes some of the things St. Jerome said of 
Roman Society in the fourth century, would find application 
today. For example, he inveighs against Christian women "who 
smear their face and eyes with every kind of powder, and who, 
like idols, make for themselves faces of plaster, whiter than 
nature, upon which, if they happen to shed a tear, a furrow would 






1921.] WITH OUR READERS 139 

at once appear on their cheek:" or against those "to whom, though 
years have come, they cannot understand that they are old: who 
raise edifices of false hair on their heads, and conceal their 
wrinkles under a lying semblance of youth: who, trembling with 
age, give themselves the airs of young girls in the midst of their 
own grandchildren." 

When, too, for example, he was trying to gain the soul of the 
young w r idow, Blesilla, to the service of Christ, he said, "she re- 
sembled too much those pagan widows who covered their faces 
with powder, dressed themselves in silk, shone with gold and 
precious stones, and wept for their lost husbands far less seriously 
than thev looked out for new ones." 



PR greater evils he had still more severe terms and never did 
he hesitate, no matter where evil was found, to throw light 
upon it and rebuke it. Yet in these things of human interest, he 
could be gentle, too. How beautiful are the words he addresses to 
the widow, Salvina, who had sought his advice as to the rearing 
of her two little children. After giving much in the way of direc- 
tion and speaking of her boy he says "that in the child's little 
body a great heart must dwell, to judge from the noble spirit his 
features reveal." And he compares the boy's sister to a "basket 
of lilies and roses, to ivory mingled with purple. She resembles 
her father, but with a more gracious beauty than his, and she so 
much resembles her mother, too, that both father and mother are 
recalled by the child's features. She is so charming, so sweet, that 
all the family is proud of her. The Emperor himself takes her in 
his arms, and the Empress loves to press her against her bosom. 
All compete for the possession of the child. She plays and frisks 
about with all. She can as yet only lisp and stammer, which 
renders her all the more charming." 

* * * * 

THHE Saint was a man in whom there was much of the milk of 
* human kindness, as well as much of the indignation of virtue 
before the face of vice. May it not be that we of the twentieth 
century can find a great deal to imitate in the stern and yet kind, 
the intellectual and yet spiritual, the uncompromising and yet 
sympathetic Saint of the fourth century? 



IF ever there were a day when the citizens of our country should 
be thoroughly alive to the need of informing themselves upon 
the civic and political conditions of the times it is the present. 



140 WITH OUR READERS [Oct., 

Important, and even essential, matters in the life of the nation are 
being decided. The first condition for the foundation of a sane 
judgment is knowledge of the facts that have a bearing upon the 
vital questions of the day. To keep informed, we must read, we 
must think, we must discriminate and digest, but we must, above 
all, have a standard by which we can judge, and that standard 
must be ethical. 



OERHAPS it is in the lack of such a standard that many of the 
1 so-called civic teachers and many of our recognized political 
students, as well as leaders, offend. In many of the recent con- 
tributions in magazines and largely, also, in pretentious volumes 
of biography, history and civic principles, there is a tendency to 
dissociate politics from morality. Divorce is so common now- 
adays that there are many who seek to divorce everything from 
everything else. They divorce religion and morality; they divorce 
economics and morality, and they do all they can to divorce 
politics and morality. But the Scriptural dictum in regard to 
another institution applies here: "What God hath joined together 
let no man put asunder." And God has, by His eternal mandate, 
joined morality to every activity of life. 



NO matter into what sphere a man enters, he never ceases to be 
a moral agent, never ceases to be accountable to the Supreme 
Court of all peoples. Whatever our freedom, we are not free 
from God. Whether, through the inheritance of citizenship, a 
man is called to fill an office or simply to exercise the right of the 
ballot, there is ever a tribunal before which he must give answer 
for his actions, the court of conscience. A traitor to the best inter- 
ests of his country is a traitor to conscience. The question is not 
whether his deeds square with the bare requirements of social 
and civil laws : the question is not whether his actions are such as 
to render him safe from the indignity of prison bars, but the 
question is whether his actions as a citizen square with God-given 
moral principles, the principles of eternal justice. 

The great American, Abraham Lincoln, put the ethical ideal 
of citizenship in these words: "I am not bound to win, but I am 
bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to 
live up to what light I have. I must stand with anybody that 
stands right, stand with him while he is right, and part with him 
when he goes wrong." A sense of this individual responsibility 
is the best safeguard of a country. The nation that disregards it, 



1921.] WITH OUR READERS 141 

will find its government carried on by weaklings and its voting 
done by cowards. 

* * * * 

AT the present time policies are being formed, questions are 
being decided, which have an important bearing upon the 
future of the world. Our own country has its share in the forma- 
tion of such policies and the decision of such questions. What- 
ever compromises are made, whatever diplomacy is used, what- 
ever conclusions are reached, these should all be in conformity 
with right moral principles and the demands of justice. If, in 
these proceedings, citizens seek to advance the good of the com- 
munity as a whole, rather than the interests of an individual or a 
class of individuals; if they so respect the rights of the individual 
as to allow him the fullest extent of liberty consistent with the 
laws of the land; if they maintain the constitutions and laws of 
municipality, State and Country, not merely in the letter, but 
also in the spirit: if they secure these things by using their pre- 
rogative of the ballot conscientiously for the right, against the 
wrong; if, in other words, instead of dissociating political and 
civil life from moral principles, they make these very principles 
the basis of their political and civil acts, then will there result the 
peace and happiness, which are the best evidences of national 
good health. 



A RECENT controversy over the becomingness of an exhibition 
** of post-impressionistic pictures at the Metropolitan Museum 
of Art in New York, deserves our attention because it has been the 
occasion of a revived manifestation of moral health. A circular 
issued against the exhibition speaks of it as "having a destructive 
influence in both art and life." A number of paintings are men- 
tioned specifically, that show either "mental or moral eclipse." 
A sane artist of no mean reputation has this to say of the ex- 
hibition: "Three-quarters of the walls where the loan exhibition 
is hung furnish many good pieces of work, notably those of the 
impressionists, but the mistake that has been made is in assuming 
that the post-impressionists are a development of the impression- 
ists. Post-impressionism is not an outgrowth of impressionism 
at all, but is pure degeneracy, the same form of degeneracy that 
brought on the War : and, with peace, it has been abandoned even 
in Germany, where it came from." 

* * * * 

DEGENERACY in any art is a sign of degeneracy in civilization 
and morality. The readiness to meet the challenge that such 



142 WITH OUR READERS [Oct., 

forms of so-called art throw down, is a good sign of the reaction 
against the same sort of thing in other fields. May it not indicate 
a revival of opposition to that kind of philosophy that declares 
against God and religion and strives to eliminate those factors 
from human life: or against that education that would ignore 
the claims of the Deity? May it not be an evidence of opposition 
to the perversions of the moral law that would wipe out, if pos- 
sible, some of the Ten Commandments, that would destroy the 
sense of domestic and family duty, that would erase the laws of 
justice and that would make earthly and individual expediency, 
rather than the will of God, the rule of mankind? At any rate, it 
is opposition to the distortions of the highest arts; to painting 
that purveys to lust rather than idealism: to music that reflects 
only vagueness, indefiniteness and immorality instead of speaking 
the message of God's beauty: to the drama that exploits the 
darkest things of life and condones and even approves the most 
glaring offences instead of truly "holding the mirror up to nature." 
It is not too much to say that such opposition is a rebuke to the 
multitudes that apotheosize pleasure at its lowest as the one aim 
of existence. 



THE missionary spirit is characteristic of Catholicism. Zeal for 
the winning of souls to the truth and the following of Christ 
is the accompaniment of active and devout faith. The evidence 
of growth in the development of this virtue are at once gratifying 
and inspiring. It is only in recent years that American Catholics 
have entered fully into the field of foreign missions, by the actual 
sending of men and women apostles. It was just the other day 
that the first band of American Catholic women, six Sisters from 
Mary knoll, left their home on the Hudson for mission work in 
China. This is the most striking evidence of American Catholic 
interest in the souls that still walk in darkness. 

* * * * 

AMONG other evidences of advance, two, widely separated, have 
recently been called to our attention. One is quite unique: 
the establishment in one of the San Francisco parishes of a Cath- 
olic parochial school for Chinese children exclusively. This school 
opened with three hundred pupils; and with about the same 
number of older pupils in the night classes. One of the features 
of the school building is a chapel where Mass is celebrated and 
which Chinese only are permitted to attend. 

The other evidence consists in the news of the establishment 
in India of the "St. Thomas Printing and Publishing Society" by 



1921.] BOOKS RECEIVED 143 

one of India's most zealous native priests, Father Mattam. The 
objects of this society are: 1. To start an Apostolate of the Press 
for the Propagation of the Faith. 2. To print and publish news- 
papers and magazines, books and tracts on religion. 3. To start 
a vigilance bureau for defending the doctrines of the true religion. 
4. To conduct an orphanage and an industrial school where boys 
may be trained for carrying on the above said objects. 

Efforts of this nature must necessarily warm the hearts of 
Catholics everywhere, and contribute largely towards the mainte- 
nance of a living, active, cooperation through prayer and alms. 



BOOKS RECEIVED. 

BENZHIKR BROTHERS, New York: 

The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas. Part I. Literally translated 
by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. $3.50 net. Meditations on the 
Litany of the Holy Name. By Rt. Rev. J. O. Smith, O.S.B. 90 cents net. A 
Guide to the Mass. By H. F. Vaughan. 20 cents net. In Touch With God. 
By Rev. Joseph Sunn. 35 cents net. Heading for the Workers. By B. F. Page, 
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Smith, O.S.B. $1.75 net. Some Errors of II. G. Wells. A Catholic Criticism 
of the Outline of History. By R. Downey. 35 cents net. A Life's Oblation. 
(Biography of Genevieve Hennet de Goutel.) Translated from the French of 
Marthe Alambert by L. M. Leggatt. $2.00 net. The Potter's House. By Isabel 
C. Clarke. #2.00 net. Catholic Home Annual, 1922. 35 cents net. Bobby in 
Movieland. By F. J. Finn, S.J. $1.50 net. A Practical Guide for Servers at 
High Mass and the Services of Holy Week. By B. F. Page, S.J. 35 cents net. 
A Gift from Jesus. By a Sister of Notre Dame. 80 cents net. The Fiery Solil- 
oquy with God of the Rev. Master G. Paterson. $1.25 net. Signals from the 
Bay Tree. By H. S. Spalding, S.J. $1.50 net. 

THE MACMILLAN Co., New York: 

Popular Government. By A. B. Hall. $3.00. The Social Mission of Charity. 
By William J. Kerby, Ph.D. $2.25. The Contents of the New Testament. By 
Haven McClure. $1.50. The Foundations of Modern Ireland. By Constantia 
Maxwell. Pamphlet. Peeps at Many Lands: Italy and Greece, Norway and 
Denmark, China and Japan, Australia and New Zealand. 

CHARLES SCHIHNEH'S SONS, New York: 

Laramie Holds the Range. By Frank H. Spearman. $1.75. To Let. By John 
Galsworthy. $2.00. My Brother, Theodore Roosevelt. By Corinne R. Robinson. 
$3.00. Bunch-Grass and Blue Joint. By F. B. Linderman. $1.25. 

LONGMANS, GRI-EN & Co., New York: 

The New Testament. Vol. III. St. Paul's Epistle to the Churches. $2.50 net. 
John Marlineau, the Pupil of Kingsley. By Violet Martineau. $4.50. The 
Christ, the Son of God. By Abbe Fouard. 75 cents. An Enthusiast. By E. 
Somerville. $2.00. 

GEORGE H. DOHAN Co., New York: 

Dodo Wonders. By E. F. Benson. The Thirteen Travelers. By Hugh Walpole. 
$2.00. The Pilgrim of a Smile. By Norman Davey. $2.00. A Defence of Philo- 
sophic Doubt. By A. J. Balfour. $5.00. 

ROBERT McBRini: & Co., New York: 

Some Modern French Writers. By G. Turquet-Milnes. 

P. J. KENEDY & SONS, New York: 

The Paradise of the Soul. By Blessed Albert the Great, O.P. $1.25. A Mother's 
Letters. By Father Alexander, O.F.M. $1.00. A Crown of Tribulation. By Eliza- 
beth Parker. $1.00. Rebuilding a Lost Faith. By an American Agnostic. $3.25. 

BOM & LIVEHIGHT, New York: 

Quiet Interior. By E. B. C. Jones. $2.00. Gold Shod. By N. Fuessle. $2.00. 
Dangerous Ages. By Rose Macaulay. $2.00. Gold. By E. O'Neill. $1.50. 
Babette Bomberling's Bridegrooms. By Alice Berend. $2.00. 



144 BOOKS RECEIVED [Oct., 1921.] 

G. E. STECHERT & Co., New York: 

Form Problems of the Gothic. By W. Worringer. $2.50. 
BUREAU OF THE HOLY NAME, New York: 

The Dominican Lay Brother. By V. Rev. V. F. O'Daniel, O.P. 
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & Co., Garden City, New York: 

The Beloved Woman. By Kathleen Norris. $1.75. 
FUNK & WAGNALLS Co., New York: 

Will Power and Work. By Jules Payot. $1.75 net. 
JAMES T. WHITE & Co., New York: 

Crumpled Leaves. By Christine H. Watson. $1.00. 
D. APPLETON & Co., New York: 

High Benton, Worker. By William Heyliger. 
CATHOLIC FOREIGN MISSION SOCIETY OF MARYKNOLL, New York: 

Maryknoll at Ten. By William S. Kress. Pamphlet. 
THE PAGE Co., Boston: 

The Triumph of Virginia Dale. By John Francis, Jr. $1.90. 
THE CORNHILL Co., Boston: 

A Mediaeval Hun. By J. C. Carleton. $1.50. 
WASHINGTON PRESS, Boston: 

Ireland and Presidents of the United States. Second Edition. By J. X. Regan. 
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, Princeton: 

The Portraits of Dante. By F. J. Mather, Jr. $3.50. 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT Co., Philadelphia: 

The Master of Man. By Hall Caine. $1.75. Successful Family Life on the 

Modern Income. By Mary Abel. $2.00. 
THE AMERICAN RED CROSS, Washington, D. C. : 

Handbook of Social Resources of the United States. By Genevieve Hendricks. 

$1.00. 
CATHOLIC BOOK Co., Wheeling, W. Va.: 

Archfeology Series. By Prof. Orazio Marucchi and E. S. Berry. Five Vols. 
CATHOLIC CHURCH SUPPLY HOUSE, Columbus, O.: 

My Rosary. Pamphlet. 10 cents. 
AMERICA PRESS, St. Louis: 

High School Catechism. By Mgr. P. J. Stockman. 
B. HERDER BOOK Co., St. Louis: 

In the Land of the Kikuyus. By Rev. H. A. Gogarty, C.S.Sp. $1.10. In the 
Days of Owen Roe. By James Murphy. $2.00. The Story of Lourdes. By Rose 
Lynch. $1.60. Supernatural Mysticism. By Benedict Williamson. $2.75. 
Dante's Mystic Love. By Marianne Kavanaugh. $1.50 net. A Week-End Retreat. 
By Charles Plater, S.J. 
BUHKLEY PRINTING Co., Omaha, Neb.: 

Loretta. By Gilbert Guest. $1.00. 
LOYOLA UNIVERSITY PRESS, Chicago: 

Institutiones Theologies Naturalis. By G. J. Brosnan, S.J. Apologetica. By J. T. 

Langan, S.J. $3.50 net. 
DE PAUL MINERVAL PRESS, De Paul University, Chicago: 

The Light of the Ages. By James J. Monahan, M.D. 25 cents. Pamphlet. 
LAIRD & LEE, INC., Chicago: 

Safeguarding American Ideals. By H. F. Atwood. 
MOREHOUSE PUBLISHING Co., Milwaukee, Wis. : 

The Life and Growth of Israel. By S. A. Mercer. $1.75. 
CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, London: 

Why I Came In. By B. M. Twopence. Pamphlet. 
HEATH, CRANTON, London: 

The Portal of Evolution. By a Fellow of the Geological and Zoological Societies. 

$3.00. Singing Beads. By Dom Theodore Baily. 
BERNARD QUAHITCH, London: 

Vetusta Monumenta. Vol. VI. Plates XLIII.-XLVI. 
THE TALBOT PRESS, Dublin, Ireland: 

Carmen Cavanagh. By Annie Smithson. 6 s. net. 
INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL PRESS, Ernakulam, India: 

Religio-Philosophic History of India. By Father Zacharias, O.C.D. 
E. THIBAUT, Louvain, Belgium: 

Exercitiorum Spiritualium Sancti Ignatii a Loyola, Concordantia. By Euqenio 
Thibaut, S.J. 



THE 




VOL. CXIV. 



NOVEMBER, 1921 



No. 680 



SOCIALISM OR DEMOCRACY. 




BY FATHER CUTHBERT, O.S.F.C. 

HE difficulty about the word "Socialism" is that it 
means so many different things on the lips of 
different speakers. When somebody said: "We 
are all socialists today," he showed himself a 
keen observer of the trend of human affairs. 
More people are socialists in the widest sense of the word than 
are willing to associate themselves with any of the parties 
who claim the title. For, in its widest and generic sense, the 
word signifies some fundamental opposition to the economic 
system as it has prevailed during the past century. It is really 
only on the point of this opposition that the various socialistic 
parties themselves are in agreement. When they come to 
formulate a constructive system they are frequently in funda- 
mental contradiction. Collectivist and Syndicalist are directly 
opposed on the matter of State ownership : the Guild-Socialist 
seeks a via media between the two. Again, there is the Social- 
ist who demands the abolition of all private property, and the 
other who would limit the right of private property only so 
far as it is necessary to obtain a more equal distribution of 
wealth. 

Some regard the Socialist agitation as properly a 
class-war, the aim of which is to avenge the wrongs of the 

COPYRIGHT. 1921. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE 

IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 
VOL. cxiv. 10 



146 SOCIALISM OR DEMOCRACY [Nov., 

working class upon a guilty body of capitalists and private 
employers. Others consider that the movement should aim at 
bringing all classes in the community to a better understand- 
ing as to each other's claims and rights, and regard a class- 
war as a social and economic evil to be avoided if possible. 
All are agreed that the prevalent economic system must be 
radically changed; but with some of them it is not easy, at least 
as regards direct economic changes, to determine where they 
differ from many advocates of social reform and most people 
now-a-days are advocates of social reform who oppose them- 
selves to Socialism as a party badge. Thus on the question of 
private property and the rights of the wage-earner, not a few 
Socialists go no further than Pope Leo XIII. in his Encyclical, 
Rerum Novarum; whilst the majority of Trade Unionists, 
even of the most advanced type, still refuse to be regarded as 
Socialists, though it is evident that they are working, as are 
Socialists, to bring about a more equal distribution of wealth 
and to supplant the autocracy of industry by a more demo- 
cratic control of labor. 

But though it is not easy to determine the precise points 
of economic doctrine which separate the non-Socialist oppo- 
nent of the present system from the Socialist, there is, never- 
theless, an undoubted cleavage between the two, of some 
fundamental quality which lies deeper than mere doctrines. 
Why is it that many who "out-Socialist" not a few Socialists 
in their claims on behalf of the worker against the present in- 
dustrial system, regard any propaganda which labels itself 
"Socialist,'* with suspicion and sincere opposition? In some 
cases it may be said that they fail to differentiate one Socialist 
school from another: but that is not always so. There are 
many whose sympathies are wholly democratic, yet who with 
a full understanding of Socialist aims, refuse to adopt the 
Socialist label or to associate with any Socialist party. Social- 
ism in any form or with whatever modification is to them 
suspect. 

The reasons for this attitude are not far to seek. Socialist 
theories have a history. The progress of Socialism has been 
marked by violent revolutionary outbursts, which no society 
can tolerate without subversion of all law and order. Even 
today, as the Russian Revolution has once again shown, the 
movement is apt to be dominated by the violent and anarchist 



1921.] SOCIALISM OR DEMOCRACY 147 

sections in times of active upheaval. Notwithstanding the atti- 
tude and doctrines of the more constitutional Socialists, such 
as Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, to the man in the street Socialism 
is still conceived of as a denial of the right of private property 
and as a doctrine of class-war upon capitalists and employers : 
and the opinion of the man in the street in a matter of this 
sort, is mainly the decisive factor in popular upheavals. 
Again, taking the movement as a whole, it has not yet rid itself 
of its early antagonism to historic Christianity: it is still, for 
the most part, frankly secularist. And, again, it has yet to 
convince the greater number in the thinking world, that in 
operation it will not unduly limit the freedom of the indi- 
vidual in the control and disposal of his life even to a greater 
extent than the system it would displace. Whether Socialism 
will ever outgrow the suspicions its history has engendered, 
only time can tell, but if it does, it will be a Socialism radically 
different in its constructive programme from the Socialism 
of the past. Already it has shown radical changes both in its 
general attitude towards society and in its constructive 
theories. 

From its first inception in the early days of the nineteenth 
century, the history of Socialism has been one of reactions : it 
is not one theory, but many theories largely contradictory of 
each other; so that to speak of Socialism in one breath as of a 
theory or system, is to speak at once of many theories or 
systems hardly reconciliable. At the present day, to say that 
Socialism as a theory denies the right of private property is 
true only if the word is used vaguely as descriptive of the 
communist or anarchist: it is not true of the Socialist bodies 
at large; to say, again, that State ownership is a Socialist 
dogma, is to take no account of the Socialist organizations 
which repudiate State ownership. The generic use of the 
word is, therefore, apt to breed confusion of thought; and, as 
a consequence, many of the criticisms aimed at Socialist 
theory are met by the retort on the part of the Socialist, that 
the theory attacked is no part of his programme. On the other 
hand, theories or doctrines which have no essential connection 
with the popular conception of Socialism are not infrequently 
regarded as socialistic, merely because they find a place in 
some Socialist propaganda. Thus the Labor demand that the 
workers should have a large control in industry, is not uncom- 



148 SOCIALISM OR DEMOCRACY [Nov., 

monly branded by hostile critics as Socialist, though, in fact, 
it is put forward by non-Socialist, as well as Socialist, and is 
founded in an elementary principle of Christian ethics. 

We need, then, a clear definition of the term as it is com- 
monly used if we are to avoid the pitfalls of loose language. 
Two definitions might be given, very widely different, in 
which the word "Socialism" might be used generically. In the 
first place, it may be used, as it frequently is, as signifying an 
opposition to the system in which wealth and capital are the 
governing factors in social and economic life. In this sense, 
the trend of present day social reform, whether as represented 
in the ethical or legislative movements of the time, may well 
be described as Socialist. They are radically opposed in prin- 
ciple to the social and economic conditions which have been 
accepted in the immediate past under which a few have risen 
to great wealth and power, whilst the body of the people have 
had a bare subsistence and hardly any voice in the disposal 
of their lives. As thus used the word Socialist signifies nothing 
more than a definite opposition to the capitalist system as it 
has developed during the past few centuries. With some, 
"Socialism" in this vague and negative sense, has been a con- 
venient stick with which to belabor any advocate of social 
reform; with others, it has been voluntarily adopted as a con- 
venient label to denote their attitude in the struggle between 
Capital and Labor. But in either case the use of the word is 
unfortunate, since it tends to confuse social reform with the 
particular constructive movement to which the word more 
properly applies by prescriptive right. If the general move- 
ment towards a new constructive system must have a distinc- 
tive name, the word "democratic," in the modern English sense 
of the term, 1 would be a juster and clearer designation, since 
its purpose is to secure the rights and liberties of the people 
at large. For, undoubtedly, the social reform movement is 
democratic in its opposition to the oligarchic character of the 
modern capitalist system; and on the ground of democratic 
liberty it finds its true position both in regard to oligarchic 

1 The student will of course be aware that in classical and mediaeval language 
"democracy" meant the "tyranny" by the many as distinct from the tyranny of the 
few (oligarchic) or of the one (monarchic). Leo XIII. has formally recognized the 
term in the sense in which it is generally used in English-speaking countries, as 
meaning the "liberties" of the many, whilst at the same time denouncing democracy 
in the old sense of the word. (Cf. Encyclical Graves dc Commnni.) 



1921.] SOCIALISM OR DEMOCRACY 149 

Capitalism and to the Socialist theories with which it is in 
fundamental disagreement. The term "Socialist" in the wide 
sense, however harmless in itself, was more wisely discarded 
by those in sympathy with social reform. That it should be 
discarded by those in opposition to reform is hardly to be ex- 
pected, so long as it is useful for their purpose. 

We come then to the more correct sense in which the word 
"Socialism" may be used as a common denominator. We 
have already noticed that the denial of the right of private 
property and State ownership can no longer be attributed to 
Socialist theory, at least not in any absolute sense, unless we 
first distinguish between this or that school of Socialism; nor 
can we say that present-day Socialism regards class warfare 
as a fundamental tenet, though there are Socialists who still 
adhere to it. If then the word Socialism is to have any distinct 
generic meaning, we must seek for it elsewhere rather than in 
precise doctrines. Communists, Internationalists, Syndicalists 
to take the three chief divisions into which the Socialist 
movement has split up set forth theories and doctrines in 
many ways fundamentally antagonistic to each other. Where 
they all find common ground, is in a tendency, or per- 
haps we should say, a mental atmosphere rather than in a 
doctrine. 

It is that common tendency or mental atmosphere we 
would now determine. 

In this strict sense of the word, any theory or system may 
rightly be spoken of as Socialist, which substitutes for the 
appeal to conscience the legislative action of the State or com- 
munity, as the final factor in fixing the moral law, whether for 
the individual or the community at large. It is not State 
ownership so much as State sanction divorced from the funda- 
mental liberty of individual conscience, which is the radical 
formative quality in the Socialist movement from its first 
inception. This State sanction may be vested in the Commune 
or in a representative Parliament of the nation, or in a legal 
organization of the workers : but in whatever way the author- 
ity is formulated, individual conscience is superseded by the 
common action of the community as the final rule of morals. 
The ideal Socialist State or community not merely determines 
conduct in accordance with the moral law, it creates the moral 
law itself, for the acceptance of the individual. 



150 SOCIALISM OR DEMOCRACY [Nov., 

It may be said that this after all is what State theory as 
widely accepted, has tended towards for many past centuries : 
it has already found a consistent expression in the militarism 
of Prussia and in the liberalism of France. That is true; the 
only difference being in the conditions under which this State 
worship of the Socialist expresses itself. Socialism voices its 
State religion in economic values, whilst Prussian autocracy 
and French liberalism place upon the altar the soldier or the 
politician : and it is probably for this reason that Socialism has 
found its most congenial nurseries in France and Germany, 
where the worship of the State has most logically molded the 
social and political thoughts of the peoples. In fact, as be- 
tween the theory of the omnipotent State, upon which both 
Prussian militarism and French liberalism have thriven, and 
the Socialist ideal, it is merely a question of replacing the ma- 
chinery of State government, and of substituting one form of 
moral servitude for another. On this ground the worshipper 
of the omnipotent State, be he militarist or capitalist or by 
whatever title he may label himself, is ethically at a disadvan- 
tage in his opposition to the Socialist. For once it is conceded 
that the law of the State or community is the supreme moral 
law, the Socialist may well retort that the people at large have 
the greater claim to make the laws and govern the State. 
When, then, it is claimed that the Socialist tendency is towards 
the creation of a servile State, the criticism is equally true of 
most modern State theory and practice. In this matter the 
Socialist has but too faithfully taken over the fundamental 
principle of Stateship against which, in modern days, the 
Catholic Church by its doctrines and, to a large extent, the 
English-speaking peoples by an inherent instinct of personal 
liberty, have alone protested. 

But whilst the Socialist movement has taken to itself this 
fundamental idea of modern theory : that the State is the final 
arbiter of moral law, it is in tendency opposed to the national- 
ism of the modern State. The French form of Socialism has 
tended to break up the nation into small sectional bodies : the 
commune and the syndicalist labor organization are its 
products; the German form has tended, on the other hand, 
towards the formation of a Socialist empire, overleaping 
natural boundaries and welding together the workers of all 
nations in one universal community: it was German inspira- 



1921.] SOCIALISM OR DEMOCRACY 151 

tion which founded the Internationalists. For the time being, 
whilst they are welding its own forces into a more organic 
whole, the Socialists may recognize the national unit as a 
means towards an end. Thus they aim at capturing the gov- 
erning power in the nation and utilizing it for their own pur- 
poses: but the end itself is anti-national: the Socialist com- 
munity recognizes no country, it claims the earth as its father- 
land, and wherever it establishes itself, it aims at being the 
final sovereignty. 

Yet, again, in thus overriding national sovereignt}^, the 
Socialist may well retort that he has but taken a leaf out of the 
capitalist tyranny which has made national legislatures and 
governments little else but parodies in the industrial and po- 
litical world. Wars and international crises and the passing 
or defeat of laws have been maneuvered on the Stock Ex- 
change and under the dominance of capitalistic industry. 
Parliaments have been the legislatures of the capitalists 
rather than of the nation. The Socialist community is hardly, 
if at all, more anti-national than the capitalist community 
has tended to become in recent years. The modern growth of 
the monopolies and international trusts follows the same path 
as the anti-nationalism of the Socialist; so much so, that it 
may be doubted whether in a frankly Socialistic condition of 
society, the capitalist would not be even more free to exploit 
the State for his own benefit, taking into consideration the 
nimbleness of human ingenuity. As between the recent de- 
velopments of capitalistic industry and the Socialist ideal, 
there is little to be said on the score of anti-nationalism, except 
that the Socialist confesses his aim more frankly. Thus, so 
far as Capitalism and Socialism are concerned, the struggle 
between them resolves itself into the question as to which shall 
dominate in the control of the community, and there is no 
higher principle at stake. For one who regards no other 
issue than this, the struggle is on both sides a class war and 
on ethical grounds one's sympathies might as well go with 
the Socialist as with the capitalist. 

Socialism, then, on the one side is born of the statecraft 
which has molded the character of the modern State during 
the past century, whilst on the other it sprang from a sympathy 
witli the people who were borne down in the existing condi- 
tions of the State. Hence, it is that much of the criticism 



152 SOCIALISM OR DEMOCRACY [Nov., 

leveled against it on moral grounds tells just as fatally 
against the existing State. If it be said that the Socialist tend- 
ency is towards a servile State, the same can be said of the 
tendency of State theory generally as accepted in most modern 
States; if it is said that Socialism is anti-national, so are the 
recent developments of Capitalism. And if again the Socialist 
movement is denounced as being in tendency, secularist and 
anti-Christian, there is surely little to choose between it and 
the majority of modern governments. 

The secularist character of the Socialist propaganda will 
hardly be denied by Socialists themselves. Some may deny 
that it is anti-Christian or anti-religious; and there can be no 
doubt that with many Socialists their Socialism is backed by a 
sincere religious feeling. Yet the movement as a whole has 
tended towards secularism and has been manifestly anti- 
clerical. As an objective religion with an organization and 
authority, independent of the Socialist State, Christianity has 
no place in the Socialist ideal. The Church may be tolerated 
as a matter of expediency just as national institutions are in 
practice tolerated by those Socialists who foresee that the 
ideal Socialist State must pass through a period of revolution- 
ary compromise. But the general tendency is in opposition to 
dogmatic, institutional Christianity. 2 Yet even so it may be 
doubted whether the Church would be worse off in practice, 
in the Socialist State than it is under many modern Liberal 
governments or autocracies which hold the State supreme. 
In fact, at the beginning of a Socialist era the Church might, 
not improbably, find itself allowed a greater liberty in detail 
than in an autocratic or oligarchic Liberal State, such as 
modern State theory has developed on the European conti- 
nent: yet, sooner or later, the absolutist character of the So- 
cialist State would assert itself. For whatever variations of 
doctrine there may be amongst Socialists, they all work in the 
general conviction that the ideal Socialist State or community 
is the supreme moral authority and final arbiter of human 
liberties. It is that conviction which makes an impassable 
gulf between Socialism and the non-Socialist democratic 
movement. Socialism is not merely an economic theory; it 

1 Even so persuasive a Socialist ns Mr. Rnmsay MacDonald admits that in the 
Socialist State, religious instruction must be relegated to the fireside and not taught 
in the schools. (The Socialist Movement, p. 156.) 



1921.] SOCIALISM OR DEMOCRACY 153 

is a form of State worship; in the strictest and widest sense, 
a State religion. For that reason, it is essentially opposed, in 
character and tendency, to the ideal of a free democracy such 
as is the main inspiration of social, economic and political 
reform amongst the mass of the people in English-speaking 
countries. 

Taken as a matter of programmes, the two movements are 
not always easily distinguishable: the difference lies in the 
ultimate goals towards which they tend and the ethical spirit 
in which their proposals are put forward. The one tends 
towards freedom in the State, the other towards an absolutist 
control of the State; the purely democratic movement pro- 
claims that every man, be he wage-earner, employer or cap- 
italist, has human rights which the State must recognize and 
protect, but which are in no sense derived from the State 
and over which, therefore, the State has no absolute authority; 
the Socialists in company with the modern State theories of 
the Roussean-Kantian type, make all rights and liberties to be 
derived from the State and as having no sanction but the will 
of the State. 

Between the two movements, therefore, there is a more 
ultimate point of issue than between Socialism and the 
Capitalist monopoly, or between the Socialist State theory 
and the theory which has gone to build up the autocracies and 
bureaucracies of modern times. The issue between the pure 
Democrat and the Socialist is the issue between human liberty 
and State absolutism : at the ultimate point it is the same issue 
as that between a free democracy and the militarist, capitalist 
or political absolutism against which the Socialist himself con- 
tends. Where points of resemblance show themselves in the 
Democratic and Socialist programmes, is where they are both 
in opposition to the evils which these other forms of absolutist 
control have developed. In their opposition to the capitalist 
abuse of industry, they must frequently denounce the same 
abuses and put forward identical proposals of immediate 
value, as for instance in the matter of a fair wage, of the 
worker's share in the control of his labor, of the right to em- 
ployment, and provision for old age and sickness. As against 
militarist absolutism, both the pure Democrat and the Social- 
ist are opposed in principle to conscript armies and wars of 
conquest. There are less evident points of agreement when 



154 SOCIALISM OR DEMOCRACY [Nov., 

it comes to dealing with the purely political bureaucracy, be- 
cause there Socialism finds its more immediate kinship with 
the State theory it would displace or capture. 

But even when they are in agreement upon practical ques- 
tions of immediate issue, the ethical backgrounds of their 
action lend themselves to essential disagreement, simply be- 
cause their ultimate goals are different: the one is working 
towards freedom, the other towards State absolutism. This 
disagreement shows itself very clearly in regard to their atti- 
tudes towards the voluntary association in national life. The 
non-Socialist reformer believes in the voluntary association 
as the primary instrument for effecting and maintaining the 
rights of men: on this ground he advocates Trade Unions. 
The voluntary association is to him a natural propelling force 
in securing right human conditions, because it rests directly 
upon the sense of right in the individual, and he holds that 
this individual sense of right, or conscience, is the immediate 
basis of all moral character in the State and the ultimate 
practical test of the validity of its laws. In the voluntary 
association individual conscience has the greater opportunity 
of asserting itself and is more surely developed: its corporate 
will more nearly tends to express the individual will and, 
consequently, has more of a moral than purely legal 
character. 

To the non-Socialist reformer that distinction between the 
moral determination of human life and the purely legal, is of 
the utmost value: it ultimately determines whether he is a 
free man or a serf; and, consequently, the purely democratic 
movement works as far as possible by means of the free 
activity of the voluntary association rather than by legislation 
from above. Legislation, he holds, should be a response to the 
free demand of the people, acting individually or in voluntary 
association; and, consequently, with him the voluntary asso- 
ciation is an integral part of the State and, to a large extent, 
the basis of State government. But the Socialist tendency is 
to belittle the voluntary association, except as a phase in a 
movement towards the legalist State association. Its attitude 
towards Trade Unionism and the Cooperative movement are 
illustrative of its attitude towards voluntary association gen- 
erally. From the beginning, it has seen in these two manifes- 
tations of the democratic tendency, at once a challenge to the 



1921. J SOCIALISM OR DEMOCRACY 155 

Socialist ideal and a likely means towards the realization of 
Socialism. 

On their original lines the Trade Union and the Cooper- 
ative movement were essentially anti-Socialist, since they 
voiced the ideals of self-helps and free association, but 
in so far as they were opposed to capitalist monopoly there 
was certain immediate affinity of purpose between them and 
the Socialist movement. The Socialist has seized upon this to 
capture Trade Unionism and the Cooperative movement; and 
his policy has been to ally himself with these movements in 
opposition to the existing order; but wherever he has become 
a controlling influence, these movements have lost their 
original voluntarism, and have come to look more to State 
initiative or to surrender control to the organizing machine. 
The relation between the purely democratic Labor movement 
and the Socialist organization has been much the same as the 
relation between free capital and the capitalist monopoly, 
in which the individual becomes the mere creature of the or- 
ganization. So under Socialist influence, Trade Unionism is 
showing a tendency to exploit the worker in the interest of a 
political theory, and to gag any expression of individual 
opinion which rejects that theory. Fortunately for the cause 
of political and economic freedom, the greater number of the 
workers in English-speaking countries are not yet ready to be 
so exploited. The demand amongst Trade Unionists for 
greater decentralization, though in some cases it represents a 
reversion to the Communist ideal as opposed to the imperial- 
ist International, is in many instances a revolt against Social- 
ism itself in favor of a free democratic control. 

The crucial point, then, upon which the non-Socialist 
democratic tendency and the Socialist are in fundamental 
divergence, is in regard to the character of State authority and 
control : it is a recrudescence in new values of the old struggle 
between democratic freedom and State absolutism. But for 
that very reason the pure democratic movement is at a certain 
disadvantage face to face with the Socialist: for in almost all 
countries at the present time the political and economic 
systems play into the Socialist's hands. The tendency to 
State worship, which German militarism and French liberal- 
ism have fostered, have prepared the way for the acceptance 
by the people of a form of State absolutism which promises 



156 SOCIALISM OR DEMOCRACY [Nov., 

larger rewards to the people at large; whilst the growth of 
capitalist monopolies and trusts have led many to accept the 
principles of a State control of capital. If absolutism and 
tyranny are to be the rule, there is little to be said ethically 
for the authority of the oligarchy as against a democratic 
tyranny, whilst quite naturally the workers and the people at 
large will be led to contend for a tyranny on a wider basis. 
It is the line of least resistance. Nor can there be any doubt 
as to the ultimate issue, if the political and economic struggle 
is to be waged between the Socialist and other forms of State 
absolutism and capitalist monopoly. The spiritual forces in 
the world today are running too strongly against the prevalent 
systems to allow them an ultimate victory: and as between 
them and Socialism, this must eventually prevail, unless polit- 
ical and economic society is molded upon the lines of a free 
democracy which will give to every man and class of men the 
sense of real freedom secured by the moral sense of the com- 
munity, and protected against the tyrannies of wealth and 
political power. 

Such a democratic consummation would mean a far 
more fundamental transformation in the governing idealism 
of the community than would the Socialist triumph and, 
consequently, spell fundamental changes in every depart- 
ment of social life. The right of private property would 
be placed upon a different moral basis than that which 
has been accepted in the modern industrial world, with the 
result that wealth would be more evenly distributed; social 
position and advancement would correspond more definitely 
to a man's real worth and his service to the community; po- 
litical power would more widely be controlled by the com- 
munity at large. The change would be fundamental; but it 
would be fundamental simply in reference to the abuses of 
wealth and power, which have been fostered under the 
tyranny of the modern European State theory and the present 
developments of the capitalist industry. Working directly 
by way of remedying actual abuses, the change wrought by a 
free democratic movement is evolutionary rather than revo- 
lutionary, and is derived from the application of moral prin- 
ciple and the awakened conscience : and it retains its freedom 
and moral quality just in proportion as it adverts closely to 
ethical principle and subordinates political and economic 



1921. J SOCIALISM OR DEMOCRACY 157 

theories to that principle. The Socialist tendency, on the 
other hand, like the modern State theory and capitalist 
monopoly, would create its ethical laws out of its preconceived 
political and economic ideals. 

But the choice today, which we have to face, is not be- 
tween a radical change in the social system and no change. 
The whole social system both politically and economically is 
in a very vortex of transformations, and the element of change 
has been at work with gathering force and intensity for years 
past. There is no escape from it. The great choice of the 
moment is between political and economic servitude on the 
one hand and real freedom on the other. The servitude may 
be that of the present bureaucratic State or of the capitalist 
monopoly or eventually of the Socialist community, which 
will reap where political bureaucracy and capitalist monopoly 
have sown, unless our social life is quickly reformed on the 
basis of a more human freedom dictated by ethical principle. 
It is not now a question between an old-time conservatism and 
what are called the forces of progress. The old-time con- 
servatism no longer exists as a force in the world; it has been 
disrupted by its own fosterings. Capitalist monopoly has no 
more consideration for the rights of private property than 
has the Socialist: perhaps less than many Socialists. State 
bureaucracy has little regard for the old landmarks of polit- 
ical life, except as they serve its own purpose. The old con- 
servatism is dead both politically and economically. The one 
force which stands yet against the consummation of a servile 
State is the instinct for personal liberty, which in these days 
has found its most insistent voice in the non-Socialist Labor 
organizations. 

Hence, the future question, which all who love freedom 
and view with suspicion an absolutist State control must 
clearly answer for themselves, is this: are they willing to 
drive these non-Socialist organizations into the camp of So- 
cialism by a blind refusal to consider Labor claims because 
these claims at first sight are a challenge to the existing con- 
ditions of things? With many this refusal comes from an 
ignorance of what the existing conditions of things actually 
are. They are hypnotized by words which at one time had a 
real significance in the conception of freedom and the free 
State, but which have lost that significance in the process of 



158 SOCIALISM OR DEMOCRACY [Nov., 

change which has taken place. "The rights of capital" is such 
a phrase : but in the existing conditions it is not "the rights of 
capital" which is the impelling force of the Labor revolt, but 
the abuses of capital in its developments into trusts and 
monopolies, and in its denial of elementary human conditions 
to Labor itself. One of the most imperative needs today is to 
review words and phrases with regard to their actual signif- 
icance in the contentions which now are taking place. An- 
other need is to take long views, and not look merely to the 
appearances of the moment: since today we are in a condition 
of flux with the old landmarks rapidly disappearing. If any- 
thing which has been of real vital value to us in the past is to 
be kept, it will only be by proving its moral worth amidst the 
new conditions we have to face. 

For that reason, if for none other, the Catholic body and 
all who believe in a Christian State and Christian society, 
cannot afford to stand by either in hostility or apathy, whilst 
the non-Socialist Labor organizations are contending for the 
larger freedom of the workers and a more humane condition 
of labor. They are really contending for something more than 
the freedom of Labor; ultimately they are waging a fight for a 
more moral condition and greater liberty in society at large. 
They are fighting the capitalist monopoly and, incidentally, 
State bureaucracy in the cause of human freedom, as against 
the Socialist tendency to fasten a new monopoly and a new 
bureaucracy upon society. And in this they are, at least in- 
directly, fighting for the cause of Christianity itself. It is not 
the free democracy, but the absolutist State, under whatever 
form it may appear, and the State controlled by the non- 
moral forces of a trade monopoly or anti-national societies, 
which are the ultimate secular denials of the Church, as they 
are of human liberty. In the non-Socialist Labor movement, 
Christianity has its most natural and strongest secular ally 
at the present time, even as in the thirteenth century the cause 
of religion went together with the cause of national liberty in 
the political, economic and social struggles of that time. What 
the non-Socialist Labor movement needs today if it is not to 
be caught up into the Socialist propaganda, is a clear defini- 
tion of the ethical values of its claims : and that can be given 
only by a frank and sympathetic cooperative between the re- 
ligious forces of the Christian people and the secular tend- 



1921.] BART1MEUS 159 

encies of a free democracy. Only in that way can we hope to 
escape from the domination of an anti-Christian absolutist 
State. 

The immediate danger is that unless such a frank alliance 
is brought about, the non-Socialist workers will be led to 
see in the Socialist movement the only means of main- 
taining themselves against an unreasoning opposition on the 
part of employers, or the grinding machine of the capitalist 
company. In that case both human liberty and Christianity 
will suffer. Happily, "the Social Problem" is looming larger 
in the forefront of Christian ethics and in the religious out- 
look of the Christian people. From an indefinite sympathy 
with the worker in the hard conditions of his life, we are pro- 
ceeding to a more definite understanding and sympathy with 
his claims: in the further development of this instinctive al- 
liance lies the hope of the future for those who desire a free 
and Christian democracy. 



BARTIMEUS. 

BY LAURA SIMMONS. 

I KNOW I met Him on the fields of doom; 

In answer to my spirit's agony 

In fetid trench I glimpsed Him; I can swear 

He passed me in the wind a Shape, a sigh 

Of sorrowing; yet here, on busy streets 

Wherein men scheme for power, He walks no more; 

Here have I lost Him now in paths of peace, 

Secure from harm and fearful sacrifice! 




THE LAST CRUSADE. 

BY A. I. DU P. COLEMAN. 

N the seventh of last month the world was going 
on much as usual. Some men were watching the 
stock markets; others were busy hour after hour 
with subtle political combinations, or following 
intently the closing struggles of the season in the 
national game, or absorbed in the cares of their professions. 
Few, perhaps, gave a thought to that morning exactly three 
centuries and a half before, when, as the sun rose over Greece, 
a stately fleet of more than two hundred galleys moved for- 
ward under a banner, which bore the figure of the Crucified, 
to attack and vanquish a still larger fleet that flaunted the 
Crescent of Islam. 

And yet the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the 
battle of Lepanto is a day which has an interest not only for 
students of political history. It comes with a particular appeal 
to us who should be specially touched by any of the great 
moments in the never-ending struggle between the cause of 
Our Lord Christ and the forces of unbelief and evil in the 
world we live in. Modern people who, if they have taken any 
interest in European politics, have been accustomed to hear 
Turkey spoken of as "the Sick Man of Europe," kept alive, 
indeed, only by repeated medical consultations who have 
seen the question raised in the last five years whether there 
should be anything at all left of the Turkish Empire in Europe 
can perhaps realize with difficulty that the wave of early 
Mohammedan conquest in the West was checked by Charles 
Martel when it had come as far north in France as the neigh- 
borhood of Tours (not much further from Paris than the 
Germans were), and that nearly a thousand years later the 
Turks were still encamped beneath the walls of Vienna, 
threatening the Holy Roman Empire, of whose head Vienna 
was then the seat. 

Throughout the greater part of these centuries the Moham- 
medan invaders were steadfastly opposed by one abiding 
champion by the one earthly power which (to use Cardinal 
Newman's words) "is something more than earthly, and 



1921.] THE LAST CRUSADE 161 

which, while it dies in the individual, for he is human, is 
immortal in its succession, for it is Divine." Always, he says, 
the Holy See has "pointed at the Turks as an object of alarm 
for all Christendom, in a way in which it had marked out 
neither Tartars nor Saracens. It denounced, not merely an 
odious outlying deformity, painful simply to the moral sight 
and scent, but an energetic evil, an aggressive, ambitious, 
ravenous foe, in whom foulness of life and cruelty of policy 
were methodized by system, consecrated by religion, propa- 
gated by the sword." 

And so, when the storm clouds were gathering thicker in 
the East in the second half of the sixteenth century, the Vicar 
of Christ, sitting aloft in his watch tower, saw the danger as his 
predecessors had seen it before him. Speaking of the time when, 
in the eleventh century, the Seljukian Turks had come out of 
the desert and fought their way westward to the neighborhood 
of Constantinople, it is not Cardinal Newman, but his agnostic 
brother who says: "The See of Rome had not forgotten, if 
Europe had, how deadly and dangerous a war Charles Martel 
and his Franks had had to wage against the Moors from Spain. 
. . . On the whole, it would seem that to the Romish Church 
we have been largely indebted for that union between Euro- 
pean nations, without which Mohammedan invasion might 
perhaps not have been repelled." It was St. Gregory VII. who 
suggested in 1074 the idea of a crusade against the unbeliever, 
which Urban II., twenty years later, brought to its first accom- 
plishment; and though it is the fashion in certain circles to 
sneer at the Crusades as a quixotic failure, they saved Con- 
stantinople and placed Europe in security for another three 
hundred years. 

But in the sixteenth century the sea power of the Turks 
was an increasing menace to the whole of the Mediterranean, 
which was still the main highway of international commerce. 
The coasts of Italy were never safe. "At night the sound of 
cannon would sometimes be heard from afar in the vintage 
season. The great watch towers by the sea were firing their 
artillery to give warning to Rome of some Turkish raid, and 
in the morning some poor village would be found wanting in 
cattle and maidens and men." It is the sober judgment of 
historians that in the sixteenth century the Turks possessed 
a greater offensive power than any single Christian State. 

VOL. CX1V. 11 



162 THE LAST CRUSADE [Nov., 

Could the whole of Christendom have been once heartily 
united, a different story might have been told. But its divi- 
sions and its jealousies were so deep seated that, as a rule, a 
cautious and calculating alliance, which endured but for a 
time, was the best it had to oppose to the passionate unity of 
Islam. 

Self-preservation finally drove the southern States to- 
gether. Even mercantile Venice, which since the beginning 
of the century had seen its power gradually decline, was ready 
to grasp at any offer of help. The great island of Cyprus, 
which, after three centuries of the rule of its own Christian 
kings (of the crusading house of Lusignan), had been for 
almost another century a possession of the Republic, was now 
seriously threatened by the ambition of the new Sultan. Selim 
II. came to his throne, by the death of his father, Soliman the 
Magnificent, at the same time as the humble Dominican friar 
was raised to the throne of St. Peter under the name of Pius V. 
He stretched out his hand to add the island to his dominions, 
secure of his game. The alarmed Venetian envoy threatened 
him with the wrath of Europe; but the Grand Vizier answered 
with a sneer: "I know how much you can depend on your 
Christian princes," and the preparations for conquest went on. 

If the great victory of which I am writing had had no other 
result but to inspire Mr. Chesterton with his glorious ballad 
to my way of thinking, easily his most masterly achievement 
in verse it would still have been a thing for which to be 
thankful. Go and read the poem, if you do not know it al- 
ready, and you will be stirred with the emotion which men 
felt in Catholic Christendom when they knew that the forces 
of the infidel had been shattered. Color, and sound, and mean- 
ing are all there, from the splendid beginning: 

White founts falling in the Courts of the Sun, 

And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run; 

There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared, 

It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard, 

It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips, 

For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships. 

They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy, 

They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea, 

And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss, 

And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross. 



1921.] THE LAST CRUSADE 163 

But alas, the call fell on many ears that were willfully deaf. 
It was not likely that Elizabeth would listen to the Pope who, 
a few months earlier, had excommunicated her and absolved 
her subjects from their allegiance. France was doubly hin- 
dered from joining in the work by its jealousy and dread of 
Spain, and by the fear of Huguenot enemies within the gates; 
nor was its king, a feeble youth of twenty, not long married, 
and full of toys and whimsies, the man to kindle at the 
thought of a high emprise. Philip II. himself was but half- 
hearted in an undertaking that was for the general good of 
Christendom, not for the aggrandizement of Spain. He had 
been pitiless but a year or two before in stamping out the 
embers of Mohammedan life in his own western kingdom; but 
he was not anxious to grapple with the full force of the Otto- 
man empire perhaps only, if he won, to preserve the most 
powerful commercial rivals of his people. 

It is to Venice, however, that the chief discredit attaches 
for the long persistence of the Ottoman blot on the face of the 
European world. In the height of her power she had had both 
the means and the opportunity to wipe off this disgrace. It 
was by trying to save her life that she lost it. The name which 
Napoleon contemptuously flung at the English "a nation of 
shopkeepers" would have fitted much more closely both 
Venice and Genoa. The Republic of St. Mark craved the aid 
of Spain, but was by no means anxious to see the power of 
Spain increased in the Mediterranean. Modern research has 
revealed the discreditable fact that at the very time, six months 
before Lepanto, when their ambassadors were earnestly 
pleading for help in Rome and in Madrid, the prudent burgh- 
ers were also parleying with the Sultan in the endeavor to 
find a peaceful solution of their differences with him. 

For fourteen long months the diplomatic conversations 
went on. Meanwhile the Turks were not idle. They were 
steadily battering at the defences of Cyprus, the saving of 
which was the principal object of Venetian policy. They 
landed an army of sixty thousand, and took Nicosia, the 
capital, after a siege of more than a month. Fire and sword 
did their work. Finally, in May, 1571, the unremitting efforts 
of the Holy Father brought about the signing of an alliance 
in which he formed the link between lukewarm Spain and 
desperate Venice. Philip II. was to bear three parts of the 



164 THE LAST CRUSADE [Nov., 

cost of the expedition, the Republic two, and the Pope one. 
Spain, as the largest contributor, was to have the privilege of 
naming the captain-general; and Philip's choice fell on his 
half-brother, Don John of Austria. 

It is round the name of this gallant young prince (he was 
but twenty-four years old) that the high and heroic associa- 
tions of the crusade cluster; and fitly does it ring like a refrain 
through the whole of Chesterton's ballad: 

But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea. 
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse, 
Crying with the trumpet, the trumpet of his lips, 
Trumpet that sayeth ha! 

Domino gloria! 
Don John of Austria 
Is shouting to the ships. 

Even now, with such a leader chosen, the task of prepar- 
ation was a long one; and before the fleet was ready to move, 
the year-long siege of Famagosta, the chief trading city of 
Cyprus, had ended in barbarous destruction and slaughter, the 
insolent Moslems taking no heed of their plighted word to the 
brave defenders. Now indeed the shipyards and arsenals of 
Spain and Italy rang with feverish activity, that this loss might 
be avenged since it had not been prevented. On the fourteenth 
of August Don John received at Naples, from the hands of 
Cardinal Granvelle, the consecrated banner of the League, em- 
blazoned with a large crucifix above, and below the arms of 
the allied powers. The rendezvous of the entire fleet was ap- 
pointed at Messina, which the commander-in-chief reached on 
the twenty-fifth. 

Every day some fresh reinforcement arrived. The Duke 
of Savoy sent three ships under Andrea Provanna, which 
fought at Lepanto until they were shattered hulks. Cosimo 
de' Medici, newly created Grand Duke of Tuscany by the Pope, 
made his contribution, and the knights of his new naval order 
of St. Stephen won distinction in the battle. Still more valu- 
able was the aid of the Knights of Malta, trained by a long 
struggle with the infidel. The feudatories of the Pope, the 
Dukes of Ferrara, Parma and Urbino, and the republic of 
Genoa and Lucca did their share. 

From many a land, too, came volunteers to join the 



1921.] THE LAST CRUSADE 165 

crusade. There was hardly a noble house of Spain or Italy 
which had not some member serving in the fleet. It is said 
there came even from far-off England a sea fighter who was to 
lose his life twenty years later in a battle which the genius of 
Tennyson has rendered almost as famous as Lepanto the last 
fight of the Revenge. This I have not been able to verify, 
though it would be pleasant to believe it; apparently, in that 
year Sir Richard Grenville was sitting in the House of Com- 
mons as member for his native county of Cornwall. But there 
is no question that a still more celebrated man (of the same 
age as the captain-general) was in the thick of the fight. In 
the prologue to the second part of Don Quixote, Cervantes 
recalls the day, and exclaims with fervor that he would not 
for all his wounds have missed the glory of being present on 
the great day. It is hard not to pause for a moment and think 
what the world would have lost if the Turkish bullet which 
cost him his left hand had taken a course a few inches to one 
side. 

Though, as a statesman and a sovereign, Pius V. did all he 
could to strengthen the arm of flesh, as a saint he knew that 
the real decision lay in the will of God; and Him accordingly 
he besought in fervent prayer. He appointed a triduum in 
Rome for the success of the Christian arms. He spoke again 
and again to Our Lady. He wrote to Don John at Messina that 
if, relying on Divine rather than on human help, they attacked 
the enemy, God would not be wanting to His own cause. 
When the time drew near for the decisive issue, he passed a 
whole night and day in fasting and prayer. 

Old-fashioned notions, some would say as out of date as 
the galleys rowed by sweating slaves which advanced to meet 
the Christian forces. Yet the one great commander whose 
genius will forever be remembered when men think of the 
triumph of the good cause three years ago this month, held 
and holds the same old-fashioned view. In the darkest days 
of 1918 an English priest wrote to Marshal Foch to tell him 
how the children had been going to Communion for his inten- 
tion; and the generalissimo of the Allied armies replied: "The 
act of faith which the children of Great Britain have made for 
my intention has profoundly touched me. Please express my 
gratitude to them, and beg them to continue their prayers for 
the victory of our just cause." And later, when the sky had 



166 THE LAST CRUSADE [Nov., 

begun to clear, and the temptation to pride might have been 
irresistible to a lesser man, he wrote once more: "I am still 
depending on the prayers of the children. Ask them to go to 
Communion for me again and again." The world turned to 
Ferdinand Foch as the one man who could save it and he, 
with the whole terrible burden on his shoulders, found 
strength to carry it by kneeling day by day before the Taber- 
nacle in some quiet church. Nor has he changed his mind 
since. Two months ago, when he revisited the Jesuit college 
at Metz where he made his studies as a lad, and people 
thronged around him with laudatory utterances about his part 
in the mighty combat, these were his simple words : "We suc- 
ceeded, thanks to God. But let us not cease to pray well." 

Thus, when the preparations were all but completed for 
the sailing of Don John's fleet, a Papal nuncio came to Messina 
to proclaim a jubilee, with the same indulgences that had 
once been granted to those who shed their blood for the deliv- 
erance of the Holy Sepulchre; and it is said that after a three 
days' fast every man in the mighty host, from the captain- 
general down, approached the Sacraments. 

At last the orders were given to weigh anchor; and on the 
sixteenth of September the great fleet, "unrivaled by any 
which had rode upon these waters since the days of imperial 
Rome," sailed in quest of the foe. The words of the greatest 
Italian poet then living (I give them in the Elizabethan version 
of Fairfax, which is the only way to quote Tasso for those who 
cannot read his Italian), though written of an earlier crusade, 
might seem to have been inspired by this majestic departure: 

Great Neptune grieved underneath the load 

Of ships, hulks, galleys, barks, and brigantines; 

In all the mid-earth sea was left no road 
Wherein the Pagan his bold sails untwines. 

Spread was the huge Armado wide and broad 

From Venice, Genes, and towns which them confines. 

For a fortnight they cruised in search of the Turkish fleet, 
and finally drew near it at the entrance of the Gulf of Lepanto, 
on the western coast of Greece. Had there been time for such 
meditations, a learned volunteer might have been thinking 
that fifty-five miles to the northward the greatest naval battle 
of antiquity, that of Actium, had been fought; that just twice 






1921.] THE LAST CRUSADE 167 

as far to the eastward, the Asiatic civilization had gone down 
in defeat more than two thousand years before when it met 
the Western in the battle of Salamis. The gift of prophecy 
might have told him that two hundred and fifty years later the 
Turks would be once more defeated at sea a hundred miles to 
the south in the decisive battle of Navarino, which finally freed 
Greece from the Ottoman yoke; and almost in sight from 
where he lay would have been the little town of Missolonghi, 
where Byron accomplished the best deed of his unhappy 
career in giving his life for the cause of liberty. 

The description of the battle may be read at great length 
in the French of Admiral Jurien de la Graviere's monograph, 
or in the two sumptuous volumes of Sir William Stirling Max- 
well's life of Don John, or in the stately prose of our own 
Prescott's Philip the Second. I can but give the barest outline 
of it here. 

It began with the discovery of the entire Ottoman fleet 
soon after sunrise. Don John ran up the great standard and 
fired a gun as a signal to engage. The principal captains came 
on board his flagship, the powerful Real, to receive their last 
instructions. There were still some who, whether from the 
caution of age or a strong suspicion that the King of Spain 
would be better pleased if they avoided a decisive battle, ques- 
tioned the advisability of attacking. Don John had a short 
answer for them: "Gentlemen," he said, "this is the time for 
combat, not for counsel." 

The battle line extended for three miles from north to 
south, with Don John in the centre, supported by Colonna, the 
Papal commander, and Veniero, the Venetian. The right was 
held by the Genoese Gianandrea Doria, in the service of 
Spain; the left by the Venetian Barbarigo. A reserve of thirty- 
five galleys was under the orders of the brave Marquis of 
Santa Cruz. A rapid visit to all parts of the line by Don John 
in a swift sailing vessel, a last fervent prayer throughout the 
Christian host and the fight was on. 

For a while the advantage seemed to be with the Turks. 
Cheluk Bey attempted, with a prospect of success, to turn the 
Christian left, which lay as close to the shore as it dared. On 
the other wing the dey of Algiers, a Calabrian renegade known 
as Aluch or Uluch Ali (or Achiali the name is spelled in a 
dozen different ways) tried the same maneuver. Doria stood 



168 THE LAST CRUSADE [Nov., 

off towards the open sea to forestall it, and in so doing left a 
gap wide enough for the alert leader of corsairs to profit by it 
and come near surrounding him. Several of Doria's galleys 
were sunk and the great Capitana of Malta captured. It used 
to be said that the Genoese admiral had made an error of 
judgment; but unhappily modern research has written a more 
damning charge against his name, and placed it beyond a 
doubt that he left the gap purposely, in order to facilitate the 
escape of Uluch Ali, with whom Philip II. had once been in 
negotiation. The name of Doria had already an ill-omened 
connection with the Turkish war: in 1538 the great-uncle of 
this man, commanding a Spanish contingent, had contributed 
to the loss of another battle under circumstances quite as 
questionable. 

But Santa Cruz brought up the reserves; and in the centre 
Don John, fighting like a crusader of old, engaged and finally 
sank the flagship of the Turkish admiral. The loss of their 
commander was the final blow to the Mohammedan hosts. 
After four hours of the bloodiest fighting, they broke and 
abandoned the day, with losses which it is impossible to cal- 
culate exactly, but which must have run to at least thirty thou- 
sand men and the greater part of their ships. Had it not been 
for Doria, the victory would have been overwhelming and 
complete; but Uluch Ali, with wonderful seamanship, brought 
off most of his squadron and lived to fight another day. 

Far away in Rome, as the seventh of October drew to an 
end, the Pope was talking business with one of his officials. 
Suddenly he broke off, went to the window, and looked up long 
into the sky. Then he came back and said in tones of deep 
emotion: "This is no time for business: go, return thanks to 
the Lord God. In this very hour our fleet has engaged the 
Turkish, and is victorious." 

God, in whom Pius trusted, had done His part. The strong 
arms of brave soldiers had done theirs and chiefly the high- 
hearted leader of whom the Pope said, in the words of the 
Evangelist, when the details of the battle reached him : "There 
was a man sent from God, whose name was John." All south- 
ern Europe gave itself up to delirious joy. Church bells rang 
peal upon peal; bonfires blazed on the hilltops; men embraced 
each other in the streets, giving thanks for the lifting of the 
shadow of continual menace which had hung over them so 



1921.] THE LAST CRUSADE 169 

long. Our own memories of three years ago will enable us 
easily to fill out in imagination the details of the scene. 

And alas, because human nature has not changed in three 
hundred years, what followed is only too like what we have 
seen ourselves. We know to what heights of enthusiastic de- 
votion the Allied nations rose in our War, stimulated by the 
supreme appeal. It seemed that a new age had dawned upon 
the world that envy and greed and petty self-seeking had 
been burned away in the fiery furnace. But we are coming 
sadly to feel that it is not so; and it was not so after the great 
deliverance of Lepanto. In the weighing and measuring of the 
booty those who had fought as brothers in a great cause fell 
out and almost came to blows. Three weeks later, Don Mar- 
cantonio Colonna, commander of the Papal squadron, wrote to 
the Doge of Venice : "Only by a miracle and the great goodness 
of God was it possible for us to fight such a battle: and it is 
just as great a miracle that the prevailing greed and covetous- 
ness have not flung us upon one another in a second battle." 

Nor on a larger scale were things much better. The 
League, which was to have been a permanent alliance, ham- 
mering away year after year until , the Turks were utterly 
crushed, fell to pieces before the end of the next year. Pius V., 
the only member whose motives were lofty and disinterested, 
died in the following May, exhausted by his long labors; 
and a year later Venice made a humiliating peace with the 
Porte. 

Yet, looking back through the long perspective of the cen- 
turies, we can see that the rejoicings of Christendom were not 
unjustified. Though, by superhuman efforts, the Turks were 
able to put on the sea the next summer a fleet of a hundred 
and fifty galleys, their power in the Mediterranean had been 
irretrievably broken. The legend of their invincibility on the 
water, which had counted not a little in their triumphs, was 
gone forever. Now that Admiral Mahan's epoch-making books 
have been universally accepted as the last word on the sub- 
ject of the influence of sea power, no argument is needed to 
show that the decisive downfall of the naval strength of the 
Turks (in spite of its delusive appearance of revival just as 
happened after Salamis) was the death-blow to any hopes 
they might have entertained of pushing their conquests 
further to the west. Thenceforth, they might inflict damage; 



170 THE LAST CRUSADE [Nov., 

they might annoy, as the Barbary corsairs were annoying us 
Americans only a hundred years ago : but no longer did they 
loom as a shape of dread, casting a gigantic shadow over the 
Christian world. 

This is not all ancient history. The Church remembers 
God's deliverance, if we have forgotten, and still celebrates 
her feasts of thankfulness. Eighteen months after the battle 
on the first Sunday of October, Pius V., having gone to his 
rest, Gregory XIII. established the festival of the Most Holy 
Rosary for all churches in which there was an altar dedicated 
to our lady of the Rosary. Clement XL (who canonized Pius 
V.) extended the feast to the whole Church in thanksgiving for 
Prince Eugene's victory over the Turks at Peterwardein in 
1716, as Innocent XL had extended that of the Holy Name of 
Mary in memory of Sobieski's defeat of the same implacable 
foes near Vienna in 1683. And Pius V. himself added to the 
titles, drawn from Hebrew poetry and Christian experience, 
under which we invoke our Blessed Mother the name Auxiliiim 
Christianorum, by which her children still confidently call her 
in their various tongues all over the world. So, in this age of 
the marvels of material force, we are constantly reminded 
that (as Newman puts it in his mysterious symbolic poem) : 

The giants are failing, the Saints are alive. 



WHY GOD BECAME MAN. 



BY LESLIE J. WALKER, S.J., M.A. 



V. 



THE INDWELLING SPIRIT. 




T is of the very essence of the Christian revelation 
that it was made in and through a person, the 
Person of Christ, of Whom His disciples had im- 
mediate experience, Whom they came gradually 
to recognize as prophet, Messias, and, finally, as 
God Incarnate. What Christ said was only part of His mes- 
sage. He did not dictate it. It was lived. It was Himself, in 
Whom the Father was revealed. 

Consequently, when Christ ascended into heaven, the 
ground of man's certainty had gone. God was no longer man- 
ifest, no longer dwelt amongst us as a personal Teacher. 

We are so familiar with the Gospels, their language is so 
intimate, their realism so vivid, that we are apt to forget that 
He Whom they describe no longer dwells visibly in our midst. 
Yet this is the fact. The Son, through Whom the Father be- 
came manifest, has returned to His Father. That experience 
of God, which began with Christ's coining, and which alone 
can link knowledge with certainty, ceased with Christ's ascen- 
sion into heaven. 

Had Christ not foreseen this event, nor made provision 
for it, His disappearance would have staggered the Apostles 
scarcely less than His death had done. It was He Whom they 
were to preach, and upon Him they relied both for knowl- 
edge and power. Whence, He being absent, was to come this 
knowledge and power? They had known Him but for three 
short years. Much that He had said they had already for- 
gotten, many things they had misunderstood, much that He 
might have said, He had not said at all. They retained of Him 
a memory, in some respects vivid, but in others already falter- 
ing, and liable, as memory must be, to distortion when its 



172 WHY GOD BECAME MAN [Nov., 

vividness should fail. Was this to be the sole basis of their 
work, the sole ground on which Christianity should rest, the 
sole link that was to remain between God and His creatures, 
once the Son had returned whence He came? 

If so, Christianity would be little better than any other 
form of religion. The end which man all along has sought 
would still remain unrealized. Knowledge and certainty, real- 
ity and experience, would still remain apart. 

But it was not so. The revelation of Him Who is was not 
yet perfect. In Christ was made manifest the Father, with 
Whom the Son was one in nature, in knowledge and in power. 
But God is three in person, and the Third Person as yet was 
not manifest. Therefore was the Spirit promised, and there- 
fore was it necessary that the Son should cease to be manifest 
that the Spirit might be revealed. 

What does the term "spirit" signify? 

In the Old Testament it is when the Spirit moves over the 
waters that light breaks forth, waters are divided, chaos gives 
place to order and form. 1 .It is spirit that in a special sense 
animates man, as distinguished from the rest of creation; 2 
gives life to his bones and his flesh; 3 goes forth from him at 
death. 4 Everywhere is desolation till the Spirit be poured 
forth from on high; 5 but when the Spirit is sent forth all is 
created and the face of the earth renewed. 6 Man, too, needs to 
be strengthened with a right spirit, a holy spirit, a perfect 
spirit. 7 

Especially does the Spirit operate in God's chosen serv- 
ants. Joseph, full of it, interprets Pharaoh's dream. 8 The 
seventy elders prophesy in the spirit of Moses, which rests 
on them. 9 Josue, in whom is the Spirit, is chosen as Moses' 
successor. 10 It is when the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him 
that Gideon foretells the delivery of Israel; 11 when It comes 
strongly upon Samson that he kills the lion and breaks his 
own bonds. 12 Samuel promises that the Spirit of the Lord 
shall cause Saul to prophesy and to become another man. 13 
When it comes upon Saul he is filled with anger against the 

Genesis i. 2 et seq., cf. Psalm xxxii. 6. 

Genesis vi. 3; Job xii. 10; Isaias xxxi. 3. 

Ezechiel xxxvii. 8-11; Numbers xvi. 22. 

Genesis vi. 3; Psalm cxlv. 4. Isaias xxxii. 14, 15. 

Psalm ciii. 29, 30. Psalm 1. 12-14; cxlii. 10. 

Genesis xli. 38. 'Numbers xi. 16-29. 10 Numbers xxvii. 18. 

Judges vi. 34. > 2 Judges xiv. 6; xv. 14. 13 1 Kings x. 6. 



1921.] WHY GOD BECAME MAN 173 

Ammonites, and defeats them in battle. 14 When Samuel 
anoints David the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him from 
that day forward, but departs from Saul, who is troubled with 
an evil spirit, which David drives out by playing on his harp. 15 
Evidently, the Spirit of the Lord is a power, a something that 
possesses man, and enables him to do deeds which otherwise 
he could not have done. 

The Spirit is given, however, not for the benefit of the 
individual, but to the individual for the benefit of the race. 
It gives power for deliverance, and for prophecy, which prom- 
ises deliverance and prepares the way for it. Micheas, filled 
with the strength of the Spirit, declares unto Jacob his wicked- 
ness and unto Israel his sin. 16 Having entered Ezechiel, the 
Spirit tells him what he shall say to the children of Israel, 
and grants to him visions of different places and future 
events. 17 A like power is conveyed to Jeremias in the promise 
that God will be with him. 18 A more abundant outpouring 
of the Spirit is to accompany the coming of the Messias. A 
flower shall rise up out of the root of Jesse, and the Spirit of 
the Lord shall rest upon Him : the spirit of wisdom and under- 
standing, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, the spirit of 
knowledge and of godliness. It is the gift of the Spirit to 
the servant of Jahweh that shall enable Him to fulfill His mis- 
sion and to bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. 19 Upon His 
stock shall the Spirit be poured out, and a new heart and 
spirit be created in the Children of Israel, which shall cause 
them to walk in the commandments of God and to observe His 
judgments; 20 upon sons and daughters, young men and old, 
servants and handmaids, shall the Spirit be poured. 21 

The connotation of the term "spirit" in the Gospels is 
similar, but its use far more frequent. It is used of evil and 
unclean spirits which possess men and dominate their actions 
and life, 22 or which inhibit their speech and cause weakness; 23 
of man's soul, 24 especially of its more spiritual activities, 25 

14 1 Kings xi. 6, et seq. " 1 Kings xvi. 13-23. " Micheas iii. 8. 

"Ezechiel ii. 2; iii. 12, 14, 24; xi. 1, 5, 24. "Jeremias i. 7-9. 

19 Isaias xi. 1, 2; xlii. 1. 

"Isaias xliv. 3, 4; Ezechiel xi. 19, 20; xxxvi. 26, 27; xxxvii. 14; xxxix. 29. 
21 Joel ii. 28, 29. 

"Matthew viii. 16, x. 1, xii. 43; Mark i. 23, 26, 27, iii. 11, 30, v. 2, 8, 12, 13, vi. 
7, vii. 25, ix. 19, 24; Luke iv. 36, vi. 18, vii. 21, viii. 2, 29, ix. 39, 43, x. 20, xi. 24, 26. 
28 Mark ix. 16, 24; Luke xiii. 11. 

Matthew xxvii. 50 ; Luke xxiii. 46, viii. 55 ; John xix. 30. 
23 Matthew v. 3; Mark ii. 8, viii. 12; Luke i. 47, ix. 55; John xi. 33, xiii. 21. 



174 WHY GOD BECAME MAN [Nov., 

as contrasted with those of the flesh, 26 once of a "ghost." 2T 
The common element in all these uses is that of a spiritual 
power which animates man and controls his activities for 
good or for evil. It may be man's own spirit, his soul, or an 
alien spirit which possesses him, hut in either case it connotes 
something personal. Evil spirits recognize the Messiahship 
of Jesus more readily than do men. 

More particularly is the term "spirit" used in connection 
with Christ and with persons concerned in His advent: six 
times out of twenty-four in Mark, nineteen out of thirty-six 
in Luke, twelve out of eighteen in Matthew, nineteen out of 
twenty-three in John. It is in the Spirit that David calls the 
Christ, Lord. 28 It is of the Holy Spirit and Mary that Christ is 
born. 29 Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth blesses Mary, 
and Zachary the Lord God of Israel. 30 Simeon converses with 
the Holy Spirit. 31 John the Baptist is filled with Him from his 
mother's womb. 32 Upon Christ at His Baptism the Spirit of 
God descends. 33 It is by the Spirit that He is driven into the 
desert; 34 in the power of the Spirit that He returns; 35 by the 
same power that He casts out devils; 36 in the Spirit that He 
prays. 37 In Christ, therefore, is the prophecy of Isaias real- 
ized. 38 

This Holy Spirit is clearly a Divine Spirit, and yet is other 
than Christ, at least in His human nature, since He is born 
of it, and it comes upon Him from without. Its functions are 
similar to those ascribed to the Spirit in the Old Testament. It 
is intimately bound up with Christ's mission; is a Spirit of 
power, and also a Spirit which gives knowledge and under- 
standing. But it is still given only to individuals, is not poured 
out as yet either on the multitude or the group. What is done 
in the power of the Spirit is done as before for the good of 
the group, but it is through the individual that the Spirit oper- 
ates; and what it effects in the individual is not as yet a new 
life, but some special capacity or action. 

There is, however, in the Gospels a very distinct promise 
that, when the Kingdom of God is established, the function of 

20 Matthew xxvi. 41; Mark xiv. 38; John vi. 64. 

27 Luke xxiv. 37, 39. Matthew xxii. 43 ; Mark xii. 36. 

-'Matthew i. 18, 20; Luke i. 35. 

30 Luke i. 41, 67. 81 Luke ii. 25-27. 8 = Luke i. 15, 17. 

83 Matthew iii. 1C; Mark i. 10; Luke iii. 22; John i. 22, 33. 

84 Matthew iv. 1; Mark i. 12; Luke iv. 1. ss Luke iv. 14. 
"Matthew xii. 28. "Luke x. 21. 3S Matthew xii. 18; Luke iv. 18. 



1921.] WHY GOD BECAME MAN 175 

the Spirit in both these respects will be broadened. It is to the 
disciples as a whole that John says : "He that cometh after me 
shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and fire." 39 The Spirit, 
like the wind, breathes where He wills, 40 and will be given to 
all who ask Him of the Father. 41 Neither will He be given by 
measure. 42 All nations are -to be baptized in the name (or 
power) of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, 43 and whosoever 
is baptized of the Spirit is born again of the Spirit to a new 
life. 44 Out of such an one shall flow rivers of living water. 45 

The Spirit is promised to all men, but on certain condi- 
tions: they must believe in the Son, 46 and must be baptized 
with water in the name of the three Divine Persons. 47 Faith 
is evoked by the "hearing" of a teacher, and baptism supposes 
a minister. Therefore, that man might know Christ, were the 
Apostles sent to preach Him, and to baptize all believers in 
His name. The new life is to be built upon Truth, and, Christ 
having ascended to the Father, it is from the Apostles that 
Truth is to be learned. Therefore, it is to the Apostles prima- 
rily, and to them as a corporate group, that the Spirit of 
Truth is promised, and upon them that in the sequel He 
descends. 

The problem of how man may know God, and know Him 
with certainty, has been solved by the Incarnation of the 
Second Divine Person; man has had experience of God in the 
flesh. The problem of how the knowledge derived from this 
experience may remain linked to certainty when the object 
of experience has gone, is to be solved in a similar manner, 
by the indwelling of the Spirit of Truth. He Whom the world 
cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, nor knoweth Him, 
will abide with those who are to declare what they know, and 
will be in them. 48 A Paraclete is to be sent by the Father 
in Christ's name, Who will teach the Apostles all things, and 
bring all things to their minds, whatsoever He has said to 
them. 49 A little while and the world will see Christ no more, 
but His Apostles shall see Him. He will not leave them 
orphans, but will come to them; and in that day they shall 
know that He is in the Father, and they in Him and He in 

sn Matthew iii. 11; Mark i. 8; Luke iii. 16; John i. 33. "John iii. 8. 

41 Luke xi. 13. s John iii. 34. Matthew xxviii. 19. 

"John iii. 5-8; cf. i. V2, 13. "John viii. 38, 39. * 6 John iii. 16, 36. 

" Matthew xxviii. 19; John iii. 5. * 8 John xiv. 17. 

49 Ibid. xiv. 26. 



176 WHY GOD BECAME MAN [Nov., 

them. 50 They will testify what they know. 51 As the Father 
sent Christ, so does He send them, 52 endowed with His power 
and His Spirit. As Christ has made known to them whatso- 
ever He has heard of the Father, 53 so are they to testify of 
Christ all things whatsoever He commandeth them. They will 
not bear witness merely to what they remember, they will 
testify what they know, through the Spirit which teacheth 
them. They are to fear nothing from synagogues, magistrates 
or powers, nor to take thought in moments of difficulty what 
they shall say. For the Holy Ghost shall teach them what to 
say, and it shall not be they who speak, but the Spirit of the 
Father within them. 54 

Thus is Christ, though absent, to remain in the world. He 
must needs go, yet will He come again, and will abide with 
His Apostles for all time. 55 He that heareth them, shall hear 
Him. 56 For the Spirit Whom He will send, is His Spirit, the 
Spirit of God the Son and God the Father. The same func- 
tions which Christ exercised while on earth the Spirit will 
exercise still through the Apostles, whom He has chosen. 
Truth will still be preached and sins be forgiven 57 by those to 
whom the Spirit is given. And as Truth, radiating from this 
apostolic nucleus in which it is centred, becomes known, a 
Church will be formed in which shall be men of all nations. 
With them also will the Spirit abide, for "he that receiveth 
whomsoever I send, receiveth Me, and he that receiveth Me, 
receiveth Him that sent Me." 58 He that, believing, is baptized, 
shall be baptized of the Spirit, and so shall receive life in the 
Father, the Son and the Spirit. 

It is here that lies the chief difference between the func- 
tions of the Spirit in the Old and the New Testaments. There 
is to be an abiding, not a transient, Spirit; and He is to abide, 
not merely with the individual prophet, but with a group of 
such prophets and with all who shall join themselves to this 
group. Man, if he believes what is taught through the Spirit, 
is to be raised to a new status, a new life. Truth shall abide 
with Him, making of those who receive it one vine, whence 
life flows through the Spirit from Christ, and through Christ 
from the Father. Of God's reality man will still have expe- 

80 John xiv. 18-20. Ibid. xiv. 7. "/bid. xx. 21^"" 

33 Ibid. xv. 15. "Luke xii. 11, 12; Matthew x. 19, 20; Mark xiii. 11. 

55 John xiv. 18, 19 ; Matthew xxviii. 20. 56 Luke x. 16. 

57 John xx. 22, 23. 5 Ibid. xiii. 20. 



1921.] WHY GOD BECAME MAN 111 

rience, because the Spirit, Who is God, will operate within 
him. Knowledge will still be linked with certainty, because 
the Spirit of Truth Himself will be the source whence knowl- 
edge comes. 

That this is the solution which Christianity offers of the 
problem of the ages, is borne out by the manner in which the 
Spirit operates so soon as Christ's promise is fulfilled. The 
Holy Ghost is given first to the Apostles. A spiritual power 
comes upon them with vehemence; they are filled with it, and 
give utterance to the thoughts which are inspired. The multi- 
tude which assembles to hear them, though of different nations 
and tongues, understands. Peter explains that this is the long 
looked for fulfillment of prophecy: the Spirit is now being 
poured out, and his hearers, too, can share in it, if they will 
repent and be baptized. 59 Many, consenting, receive the Gift, 
and as a consequence "persevere in the teaching of the Apos- 
tles, in the communication of the breaking of bread, and in 
prayer." 60 A further consequence, no less significant, is that 
they resolve to share all things in common, even as they share 
also in the Spirit. 61 

The condition of receiving the Spirit is that men should 
obey God, speaking through the witnesses He has sent. 62 Hence, 
those who refuse to obey the Gospel, resist the Holy Ghost, 63 
and, in those who do obey, there are vast differences in the 
effect which the Spirit produces. Some are "full of the Holy 
Ghost," 64 and it is such men who are most efficacious in 
preaching: Stephen, 65 Philip, 66 Barnabas, 67 Agabus, 68 and, 
above all, SS. Peter and Paul, who throughout are guided by 
the Spirit. On the other hand, there are many and increasing 
difficulties. Ananias goes back on his promise; disputes arise 
about the distribution of alms; Paul meets with organized 
opposition; not all who prophesy are moved by the same 
spirit; sins, even grave sins, occur. It is evident that the Spirit, 
though given, can still be resisted. All Christians receive 
the Gift, normally at the laying on of hands, which may either 
accompany, follow, or even precede baptism. 69 Its immediate 
effect, especially in the group, is both manifest and conscious, 70 
since it produces both consolation and usually the gift of 

59 Acts ii. 38. o Ibid, ii. 42. Ibid. ii. 44, 45. Ibid. v. 32. 

68 Ibid. vii. 51. M Ibid. vi. 3. Ibid. vi. 5, 10, vii. 55. 

M Ibid, vii. 29, 39. Ibid. xi. 24. 68 Ibid. xi. 28, xxi. 11. 

"Ibid. xix. 2, 6, viii. 17, 19, ix. 17, 18, ef. x. 44. 70 Ibid, and cf. iv. 31, ix. 31. 
VOL. cxiv. 12 



178 WHY GOD BECAME MAN [Nov., 

tongues. But its enduring effect varies with the individual, 
who may or may not in his life respond to the grace that is 
given. 

The Gift of the Spirit is for each Christian an internal 
witness to the truth of what he believes. But it is also some- 
thing more. It dwells in the whole community, as the prin- 
ciple of life dwells in an organism, controlling its develop- 
ment and action. It is under the guidance of the Spirit that 
the new Ecclesia grows. The Apostles preach, deliberate 
amongst themselves and, with others, devise expedients, pass 
judgments, make plans for the future, but it is the Spirit that 
prompts them to this, in the power of the Spirit that they do it, 
to the Spirit that they attribute their success. At Pentecost 
the Spirit descends, and forthwith Peter makes the first proc- 
lamation of Christian dogma: He Whom you crucified, God 
hath raised; it is He, the Lord and Christ of prophecy, Who 
has sent the Spirit; in His name is remission of sins. A like 
declaration is made in the temple, after the first cure effected 
in Christ's name; and again before the princes and ancients 
of Israel, Peter speaking "full of the Holy Ghost." 71 The first 
exercise of Peter's binding and loosing power is ratified by the 
death of Ananias, condemned because, in lying to Peter, he 
has lied to the Holy Ghost and to God. 72 When there is need 
to find some who will "serve tables," it is men "full of the 
Holy Ghost" that are sought. In them the diaconate is insti- 
tuted by the laying on of hands, the symbol of a conveyance 
of the Holy Ghost's power. 73 It is in the same power that the 
first martyr, Stephen, vindicates Christianity at his trial; by 
this power that he is sustained at the moment of death. 74 

Still more significant is the chain of events leading to the 
admission of Gentiles into the Church, and ultimately to the 
recognition of their equality with Jewish converts. This was 
essential, if the Church was to be Catholic, and had been fore- 
told both by Christ and the prophets; yet the idea of it, as is 
evident, 75 was intensely repugnant to the mind of the Jew, 
especially to the Jew of Palestine, with his narrow traditions 
and his hatred of the Gentile yoke. Somehow this repugnance 
must be overcome. It is overcome, and God's will in the 
matter made plain, by the vision granted to Peter at Joppe. 76 

71 Ibid. iv. 8. Ibid. v. 3-5. Ibid. vi. 1-7. 

74 Ibid. vii. 7B Ibid., cf. especially x. 28. Ibid. x. 9-23. 



1921.] WHY GOD BECAME MAN 179 

Obeying the guidance of the Spirit, Peter goes to Caesarea, 
and is finally convinced of the significance of his vision, when, 
on Cornelius accepting the "Word," the Spirit descends upon 
him and his friends. 77 When these events are related to "the 
Apostles and brethren" in Judea, they too become reluctantly 
convinced that "also to the Gentiles God hath given repentance 
unto life." 78 Later, when a bitter controversy has arisen in 
the Church as to the terms on which the Gentiles are to be 
received, it is Peter's vision and the subsequent happenings 
which determine the issue in the Jerusalem conference. "If 
God gave testimony," urges Peter, "giving unto them the Holy 
Ghost, as well as to us, and put no difference between us and 
them" the clean and the unclean meats "why tempt you 
God to put a yoke upon the necks of the disciples which 
neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?" 79 To this 
argument, there is no reply. Then James assents, supporting 
Peter's evidence by appeal to the prophets, and proposing a 
resolution in accordance with it. It is passed, and a message 
announcing that "it seemeth good to the Holy Ghost and to us 
to lay no further burden upon you than certain necessary 
things" is sent to the Gentile brethren of Antioch, Syria and 
Cilicia. 80 

Besides the personal gifts and graces given to individuals, 
there is also the normal guidance of the Spirit in the govern- 
ment and work of the Church. This operates especially 
through the Apostles, who in virtue of it issue judgments and 
decrees in God's name; and still more especially in St. Peter 
through whom the Church speaks, and by whom the first of 
her great decisions is determined. To him was given the 
command that he should strengthen his brethren and feed the 
whole flock. That he might do so, there was given to him the 
same plenitude of power which was bestowed upon the 
Apostles as a group. In his life as described in the Acts the 
whole mission of the Church is summed up. It is he who pro- 
claims her advent, he who defends her against attacks from 
without, he who in the Spirit guides her in a momentous ques- 
tion to a right decision. Christ is in heaven, but the Spirit of 
Christ still dwells in His Church, governing her action and 
fostering her growth, and the law of the Spirit's operation is 

77 Ibid. x. 44-47. Ibid. xi. 18. 

79 Ibid. xv. 8-11. M Ibid. xv. 23-29. 



180 WHY GOD BECAME MAN [Nov., 

no less discernible to those who will to discover it, than are 
the laws manifest in nature's operations. 

The Gospels relate how redemption was wrought and the 
way prepared for the coming of God's Kingdom by Jesus, 
God's Son, in Whose life the Father is revealed. The Acts of 
the Apostles of Christ tell how, when the Spirit descended 
upon them, the Kingdom came into being, and under the guid- 
ance of the Spirit developed. In the writings of Paul we have 
a description of the Kingdom as through experience he knew 
it, and in it beheld the three Divine Persons operating for the 
salvation of mankind. With an account of what Paul saw in 
the Kingdom, therefore, we may well conclude these essays; 
for what he saw, we may see, and in it the same eternal ver- 
ities, which Christ became man to reveal, and has sent the 
Spirit to communicate. 

The fundamental truth, summarized in the baptismal for- 
mula, finds constant expression in the Pauline epistles. When 
the fullness of time was come, God sent His Son, made of a 
woman, that, being redeemed from the law, we might receive 
the adoption of sons; to whom, being sons, God hath sent the 
Spirit of His Son, whereby we cry in our hearts, Abba, 
Father. 81 Through Christ in one Spirit, therefore, we have 
access to the Father. 82 It is by the blood of Christ, Who by the 
Holy Spirit offered Himself unspotted to the Father, that our 
consciences are cleansed 83 by the laver of regeneration and 
renovation of the Holy Ghost, Whom He hath poured forth 
upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Saviour, that 
God, our Saviour, saves us. 84 Hence, we Christians are the 
true circumcision, for in the Spirit we serve God and glory in 
Jesus Christ, not having confidence in the flesh. 85 God sent 
His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh that we may walk 
according to the law of the Spirit in Christ Jesus; 86 and by 
Christ Jesus are we built together into a habitation of God in 
the Spirit. 87 There is, therefore, one body and One Spirit; 
one Lord, one faith and one baptism; one God and Father 
of all, Who is above all and through all and in us all. 88 

As Peter declares himself an Apostle according to the 
foreknowledge of God the Father, unto the sanctification of 
the Spirit, and unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood 

81 Galatians iv. 4-6. M Ephesians ii. 18. Hebrews ix. 14. 

84 Titus iii. 4-6. 8S Philippians iii. 3. M Romans viii. 1-3. 

"Ephesians ii. 22. M Ephesians iv. 4-6; cf. 1 Corinthians xii. 4-6. 



1921.] WHY GOD BECAME MAN 181 

of Jesus Christ;* 9 and John says that, having an unction from 
the Holy One, he confesses the Son, and in confessing the Son, 
has the Father already in him; 90 so, too, does Paul proclaim 
himself a minister of Christ Jesus, sanctifying the gospel of 
God, that the oblation of the Gentiles may be made acceptable 
and may be sanctified in the Holy Ghost. 91 He ceases not to 
pray that the God of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of 
glory, may give unto His disciples the Spirit of wisdom and 
revelation in the knowledge of Him, 92 and for their sakes 
bows the knee to the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, that He 
may strengthen them by His Spirit with might unto the inward 
man. 93 Be ye filled with the Holy Ghost, he exclaims, giving 
thanks always for all things in the name of Our Lord Jesus 
Christ, to God and the Father; 9 * for it is in the name of the 
Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God that we are 
justified. 95 

In God, then, Paul contemplates three Persons three sub- 
jects to whom in the grammatical and the real sense oper- 
ations may be referred. 96 It is God the Father Who created 
all things; 97 of Whom all paternity in heaven and earth is 
named; 98 Who chose us in Christ before the foundation of the 
world that we might become holy in His sight; 99 and Who hath 
now made us His children by adoption through Christ, 100 
having delivered us from the power of darkness and translated 
us into the Kingdom of the Son of His Love. 101 

The Son is the image of the invisible God, His first-born 
before all creatures, in Whom and by Whom all things were 
created in heaven and earth. 102 God no man hath seen, nor 
can see. 103 But Christ Jesus, Who, being in the form of God, 

89 1 Peter 1. 1, 2. 80 1 John ii. 20-23, iv. 13-15. 

"Romans xv. 16. M Ephesians 1. 16, 17; cf. Galatlans vi. 18. 

M Ephesians iii. 14, 16. " Ephesians v. 18, 20. M 1 Corinthians vi. 11. 

"The Greek term, icp6awxov, was used in the sense of person by Dionysius 
Thrax of Alexandria, born B. C. 166, in the earliest Greek grammar extant. It is 
the ordinary grammatical term for person; and the first, second and third persons 
are distinguished in Dionysius' grammar, just as they are today. The Latin term, 
persona, is also to be found in the De Lingua Latina of Varro, a contemporary of 
Julius Caesar, as the ordinary term for person in the grammatical sense. The oft- 
repeated statement that to the Greek and Latin Fathers the term "person" can only 
have connoted a mask, or the actor who wore it, ignores the fact that for centuries 
every Greek and Latin schoolboy had been taught to use it just as we are taught 
to use it today. 

"Ephesians iii. 9. M Ibid. iii. 15. M Ibid. i. 4. 

100 Ibid. i. 5. "i Colossians i. 12, 13. 

102 Ibid. i. 15, 16. 108 1 Timothy vi. 16; cf. 1 John iv. 12. 



182 WHY GOD BECAME MAN [Nov., 

can claim equality with God, has emptied Himself, taken the 
form of a servant, become made in the likeness of man, 104 and 
so has made manifest the goodness of God, our Saviour. 105 
He hath loved us, and delivered Himself up for the Church, an 
oblation and a sacrifice unto God, that He might sanctify her, 
cleansing her in the laver of water and in the word of life. 106 
In His blood we have redemption and the remission of sins. 107 
For in Him it has pleased the Father that all fullness should 
dwell, that through Him He may reconcile all things to Him- 
self. 108 By His grace we are saved through faith; 109 for through 
faith we are able to comprehend the breadth and length and 
height and depth of the charity of Christ, in which the charity 
of God has become manifest. 110 

But to know this, to know the Sonship of Christ, which 
has become our sonship, the Spirit must give testimony to our 
spirit. 111 The things that are of God no man knoweth, but the 
Spirit of God searcheth all things, yea even the deep things of 
God. 112 Christ has ascended into heaven that He might give 
gifts, 113 which the Spirit distributes as He wills. 114 For as 
Christ was sent, so has the Spirit been sent, 116 that the eyes of 
the heart may be enlightened, that we may know the hope of 
our calling, the richness of our inheritance, the greatness of 
God's power that we may realize the significance of the risen 
Christ, and of His position in heaven, above every name that 
is named, not only in this world, but also in the world that is 
to come. 118 

The Spirit is God operating within us, and yet is distinct 
from the Father and Son, by Whom He is sent. He is the 
third Divine Person, revealing Himself within our experience, 
and so bringing us into immediate relationship with God, 
whereas the Father is still invisible, and Christ also, since He 
has ascended now into heaven. The Spirit knows God, and 
has been given us that we may know the things given us of 
God, which things the Apostles speak in the doctrine of the 
Spirit. 117 For St. Paul as for St. John, He is essentially the 
Spirit of Truth and testifies to Truth. He is the "Spirit of 

l <* Philippians li. 6,7. ">< Ephesians ii. 4-7; Titus iii. 4, ii. 11. 

1W Ephesians v. 25, 26. m Ephesians i. 7; Colossians i. 14. 

108 Colossians 1. 19, 20. "" Ephesians ii. 8. ' Ibid. iii. 18, 19. 

111 Romans viii. 16; cf. 1 John iii. 24, v. 6. " s 1 Corinthians ii. 10, 11. 

118 Ephesians iv. 8. 1 Corinthians xii. 11. 

" Galatians iv. 4-6. Ephesians i. 18-21. " i Corinthians ii. 11-13. 






1921.] WHY GOD BECAME MAN 183 

wisdom and revelation," 118 the pledge of our inheritance unto 
the redemption of acquisition. 119 Those that possess not the 
Spirit have their understanding darkened; through ignorance 
are alieniated from the life of God; and, hence, despairing, 
give themselves up to lasciviousness, and to the working of all 
uncleanness. 120 Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill 
the lusts of the flesh, 121 but shall put off the old man, who is 
corrupted according to the desire of error, and, being renewed 
in the Spirit, shall put on the new man, created by God in the 
justice and holiness of Truth. 122 

It is by truth we are saved; by error that we are led 
astray. Yet the Spirit makes no new revelation, still less a 
private revelation. He is the Spirit of wisdom and revelation 
in the knowledge of Christ. 123 In the Spirit we meditate upon 
Christ, upon His baptism which symbolizes our baptism, upon 
His life, which is the model for ours, upon His sufferings in 
which we must share, upon His death in which we are cruci- 
fied to sin, and upon His resurrection which is the promise of 
our victory. The light of the knowledge of the glory of God 
shines upon us in Christ's image, 124 which, beholding, we are 
transformed into the same image from glory to glory by the 
Spirit of the Lord. 125 We thus become God's workmanship 
created in Jesus Christ in good works, 126 doing the truth in 
charity that we may all grow up in Him Who is the Head, even 
Christ. 127 

In this is true liberty. The liberty wherewith Christians 
are made free, 128 is not the liberty to do what we will; nor yet, 
for that matter, the liberty of voting or of democracy. It is the 
liberty which ensues when, beholding the glory of the Lord, 
we are transformed into Him in the Spirit. 129 It is the liberty 
that comes of submission, not of license; of submission to the 
guidance of God's Spirit manifesting to us the glory of God's 
image. Thus it is that we are joined to Christ in one Spirit, 
and hence, glorifying and bearing God in our bodies, cease 
to be our own. 130 Thus it is that, as Peter says, 131 grace and 
peace are accomplished in us in the knowledge of God and of 
Christ Jesus our Lord. Thus it is that all things of His Divine 

U8 Ephesians i. 17. M Ibid, i. 14. tzo Ibid. iv. 17-19. 

121 Galatians v. 16. " Ephesians iv. 22-24. 1M Ibid. i. 17. 

124 2 Corinthians iv. 6. I2fl Ibid. iii. 18. 1M Ephesians ii. 10. 

127 Ibid. iv. 15. 128 Galatians iv. 31. 1M 2 Corinthians iii. 17, 18. 

180 1 Corinthians vi. 17, 20. l81 2 Peter i. 2, 3. 



184 WHY GOD BECAME MAN [Nov., 

power, which appertain to life and godliness, are given us 
through the knowledge of Him Who hath called us to His own 
proper glory and virtue, so that, flying the concupiscences of 
the world, we become partakers of the Divine nature. We are 
freed from sin, in that we have become servants of justice. 132 
We are freed from the lust of the flesh, in that, and in so far 
as, we are led by the Spirit. 133 We are no longer under the 
pedagogue of the law, 184 with its bondage of fear, 135 nor are we 
the bondslaves of men; 136 but in the Spirit through faith have 
become children of God; 137 have become free in becoming the 
bondsmen of Christ. 138 It is not I who live, but Christ liveth 
in me. 139 

It is the Spirit testifieth within me, and without Him I 
cannot accept truth, nor believe in Christ's name. 140 It is 
through the Spirit I know Christ. Yet not by any private 
revelation. Christianity is not merely a personal, it is also a 
social, religion. The Spirit dwells in the corporate body, 
whose members are human beings, and through them is the 
knowledge of Christ conveyed. Faith cometh by hearing, and 
hearing by the word of Christ, the sword of the Spirit, which 
must be received from those who are sent. 141 Therefore, in 
the one body are there given some apostles and some prophets, 
other some evangelists, and other some pastors and doctors, 
for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, 
for the building up of the body of Christ, until we all meet in 
the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, unto the 
measure of the fullness of Christ. 142 For this reason, too, is 
charity the greatest of Christian virtues. For the manifesta- 
tion of the Spirit is given to every man, not for himself only, 
but to profit: wisdom, knowledge, faith, the grace of healing, 
miracles, prophecy, the discernment of spirits, tongues, inter- 
pretations all these are given that as members of one body, 
we may help one another, whether Gentile or Jew, bond or 
free, honorable or less honorable, comely or uncomely, that 
there may be no schism in the body, but each member co- 
operate with the other in suffering and in glory. 143 

There never has been any great movement, religious, 

* Romans vi. 18. 1M Galatlans v. 16-18. 1M Ibid. ill. 25, 26. UB Romans viii. 15. 
189 1 Corinthians vii. 23. m Galatlans iii. 25, 26; Romans viii. 15, 16. 

188 1 Corinthians vii. 22. " Galatians ii. 20. 

"'Romans viii. 16; cf. I John v. 6. '"Romans x. 14-17; Ephesians vi. 17. 
l Ephesians iv. 11-13. * 1 Corinthians xii. 7-26. 



1921.] WHY GOD BECAME MAN 185 

political, literary, scientific, artistic, which has not begun with 
an individual or a group, and in which, as it has spread, there 
have not been two elements, relatively distinct, teachers and 
taught. In this matter God has not departed from the policy 
which characterized His action prior to the Christian era, a 
policy which is rooted in the very nature of human society. 
What was not known in other generations the mystery of 
Christ has now been revealed, but it has been revealed, as 
hitherto, in the first instance, to Apostles and prophets. 144 
God is closer to us now, and we to one another, through the 
knowledge which has been given in Christ, and through the 
Spirit which conserves and communicates that knowledge, the 
Spirit in which we believe. We are no more strangers and 
foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and members 
of the household of God. 145 But it is on the foundation of the 
Apostles and prophets that we have been built, Jesus Himself 
being the chief corner-stone; 146 and it is still necessary that 
there should be prophets and apostles, having grace from 
God, if all men are to be enlightened, that they may see what 
is the dispensation of the mystery which has been hidden 
from eternity in God, and if the manifold wisdom of God is 
to be made known through the Church, according to the eter- 
nal purpose which He made in Christ Jesus Our Lord. 147 The 
Church can fulfill her mission, the saving of souls through the 
preaching of Christ, the image of God, and Him crucified, only 
if the Spirit dwell within her, only if she have the "mind of 
Christ," only if, within the unity of her body, the Spirit, which 
searcheth the things of God, operate in each member according 
to his function and need. 

Man was created that he might enter into conscious and 
personal communion with his Creator. It is this that he seeks, 
and has sought age after age. Impelled by his instincts, which 
environment awakens and molds, he is ever striving after 
knowledge, whereby he may explain both his environment and 
himself, and whereby he may adapt himself, and so find the 
satisfaction of his needs. Because he thinks, and may choose, 
he imagines he is free; but in truth is the slave of tradition, of 
his own concupiscence, and of the idols which he himself 
creates. Unaided, the true solution, which alone can bring 
him genuine and lasting satisfaction, ever escapes him. Thus 

l "Ephesians iii. 5. Ibid. ii. 19. w Ibid, ii. 20. Ibid. iii. 8-11. 



186 WHY GOD BECAME MAN [Nov., 

he learns humility, and the impotence and nothingness of this 
tiny being, man; yet remains with his problems unsolved, his 
intelligence still uneasy, his personality dissatisfied with aught 
this world provides, his heart still yearning for peace. He is 
still trying to probe the great Beyond, is still seeking con- 
sciously or unconsciously the ultimate Source of all being; 
but has now learned from bitter experience that to reach the 
ultimate in his own strength is impossible. He breaks forth 
into prayer. 

To this prayer the answer has been given. The Second 
Person of the Trinity, Who knows God because He is God, has 
taken to Himself human flesh, and has dwelt amongst us on 
earth, manifesting in His life God's knowledge and power, and 
in His death God's love for mankind. In Him God is manifest; 
through Him God works, for the salvation of humanity, 
wrecked with error and distorted by sin. He died; but also 
He rose again and lives. Though ascended to the Father and 
no longer visible in the flesh, He has taken to Himself a new 
body, composed of human beings. To it He has bequeathed 
the story of His life, upon it has impressed His own image, and 
has endowed it with His power. This He has done through 
the Spirit, Who with Him is one with the Father in the infinite 
Experience of God. The Second Person has withdrawn Him- 
self from our sight, only that the Third Person may dwell 
within us, preserving and vivifying the image of the Son, which 
is the image of the Father, in the mind of the body which He 
has chosen and to which we belong. 

This mind, which is God's Spirit, we share, through com- 
munion with Him and through intercourse one with another. 
The experience which we seek of God is ours, for of the Spirit 
we have experience, each of us in whom He dwells; and in 
Him recognize the truth of what we have been taught by 
those whom Christ has sent. The dry bones of history, man's 
actions past and gone, become for us animate with life. In 
them, imperfect as they may be, we see the operation of the 
Spirit of God. And in the Jesus of history we see, as the 
Apostles saw, God incarnate in flesh like to ours. That which 
is distant in time becomes to us present, through the Spirit to 
Whom all things are present. He Who is invisible, and has 
gone from our experience, enters it again through the Spirit 
with Whom He is one. In the Spirit we become conscious of 



1921.] WHY GOD BECAME MAN 187 

our unity with the Whole which God has created amongst 
men, that man may be drawn unto Himself; conscious that in 
this Whole God dwells, giving continuity to its parts, past, 
present and future, and sustaining in it the knowledge of 
Himself. 

Man's greatest problem the problem of how to get in 
touch with ultimate Reality, so as to render our knowledge of 
It both certain and durable, has thus been solved in the only 
way it could be solved by God Himself, Who has entered our 
experience first as man, and then as Spirit, vivifying the image 
of Himself which remained in the minds of His chosen Apos- 
tles, and which exists in our mind through communion with 
the body formed in them. No longer are we children, tossed 
to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, for in 
the body which the Spirit animates, and each member of it, 
Truth resides. The image of Christ, which must needs be 
communicated, expresses itself within us and through us, in 
speech, literature, symbolism, art, and, above all, in works 
of charity. In proportion as we possess it, we are free: free 
from the thraldom of error; free from the bondage of sin. 
Not yet is our destiny fully realized. Not yet have we an im- 
mediate consciousness of either the Father or the Son. But 
we know what we are and what we shall be. Born again in 
Christ's likeness, already are we truly sons of God; and be- 
cause sons, heirs also, destined, if His image develop within 
us, to share ultimately with Christ His experience of the 
Father, through the Spirit which dwells within us, unifying 
through experience the many and the one. 

That this might be our destiny, and we have assurance of 
it, is the answer to the question why God became man. What 
of ourselves we could not know, we now know through Christ, 
Who has revealed to us God's nature; and in this knowledge 
both God and the universe become intelligible to us in a way 
in which they were never intelligible before. Unless God be 
experience, intelligence, life, goodness, unless in Him be all 
that we esteem highest and best, what is God? And how can 
He be this, unless within His Experience, infinite and eternal, 
there be distinction of personality? Aristotle got almost thus 
far; but we now know that it is so, and also that this distinc- 
tion, while yet remaining, is none the less transcended in the 
Spirit of Unity and Love. Unless there were personality in 



188 WHY GOD BECAME MAN [Nov., 

God, how could there be society among men, or number or 
difference? And unless in God's Experience we were destined 
somehow to share, mediately or immediately, what reason 
could there be for our existence; what reason for our evolu- 
tion unless that we may grow in this experience, one with an- 
other, and so attain a happiness which no passing creature can 
give? What, except this, is the meaning of the first Command- 
ment? What the meaning of the second, unless it be that, each 
having the same end, each should help the other in attaining it? 
Our faith, which is in the Trinity, has value for intel- 
ligence and value for life, both personal and social. In it lies, 
as Augustine saw, the key to a right understanding of nature; 
because of it, as Paul pointed out, law ceases to be law in that 
the wherefore of law stands revealed and charity replaces 
coercion. It contains also a promise for the future. But its 
greatest value lies in the fact that with the promise is con- 
joined the pledge of its own fulfillment. Our redemption is 
one of acquisition, but what we shall acquire, already in part 
we possess. Already we are one with God through the flesh, 
in which He became one with our race; through the Gross, on 
which He took to Himself human suffering and sin; through 
the Spirit, which is God, indwelling the society He has chosen, 
and giving life to the image of the Son, by which and into 
which we are gradually transformed. The pledge of our re- 
demption dwells within us: we await but the moment when, 
the flesh being subdued, the self abnegated, vanity and error 
purged away, the Sonship, which already is ours, shall be 
fully revealed. The Society God has formed in His Church, 
though imperfect, is already Divine. The knowledge which 
sustains her in being, though imparted through symbols and 
speech, is none the less already immediate through the Spirit 
which animates her members. In the end this immediacy will 
extend to the whole of That which is: we shall see God face to 
face; and so shall be made one Society with Father, Son and 
Spirit, in Whom we believe. To become god man sinned : yet 
he can become God if he wills through the Son, in Whom man 
is redeemed, and through the Spirit which is given that pro- 
cess in time may be completed in creatures, even as it is 
eternally complete in the Experience of the three Divine 
Persons to Whom creatures owe their being. 

[THE END.] 




VERLAINE AFTER QUARTER OF A CENTURY. 

BY WILLIAM H. SGHEIFLEY, PH.D. 

NTEREST in Paul Verlaine has steadily grown 
at home and abroad. The errors of his life are 
forgotten as the greatness of his work emerges. 
In the perspective of time, we now understand 
the poet of Sagesse far better than at his death 
a quarter of a century ago. His adverse critics have modified 
their strictures. Such strictures were based upon his Bohe- 
mian career and equally upon the eccentricities of his "sym- 
bolism." Rene Doumic, for example, condemned his poetry 
as consisting of "polissonneries," "niaiseries" and "radotage" 
Even so sympathetic an appreciator as Jules Lemaitre found 
himself forced to exert persistent effort in order to understand 
Verlaine. "What I took at first to be pretentious and obscure 
refinements, I have come to regard as the natural boldness 
of a spontaneous poet, his charmingly awkward gestures." 
"Certainly, he was mad," said Anatole France. "But remem- 
ber that this poor madman has created a new art, and that 
concerning him the future will be likely to say: 'He was the 
first poet of his time.' " 

Abandoning the architectural forms of the Parnassians, 
Paul Verlaine evolved a personal poetry that was essentially 
musical. After the pompous lyrism of the Romanticists, he 
created a language capable of expressing deeper sensibility, 
employing for this a syntax emancipated from that Latin in- 
fluence which even Victor Hugo had been obliged to respect 
almost as rigidly as had Racine. Thus Verlaine represents 
the confluence of classic tradition and the French genius. 
Mr. Harold Nicolson, in his recent biography of Verlaine, has 
so skillfully reconstructed the vagabond poet's stormy life that 
it unfolds with fascinating vividness. Born at Metz in 1844, he 
had begun his career during the vogue of the Parnassian 
school. Even such standard bearers of Romanticism as Hugo 
and Gautier had virtually abdicated in favor of Leconte de 
Lisle and Baudelaire, masters of the younger generation. It 
was as their disciple that Verlaine composed Les Poemes 



190 VERLAINE AFTER QUARTER OF A CENTURY [Nov., 

Saturniens (1866), his maiden effort. Here, misunderstanding 
his own temperament, he insisted upon the Parnassian creed 
of "impassibilite," and cautioned against heeding the voice of 
inner inspiration. The poet, he said, should not abandon him- 
self idly to the blowing of the wind. He should assert his will, 
not waste his soul in vagrant feeling, and, above all, he should 
remember that the Venus de Milo is created out of marble. 
Thinking himself similarly destined to carve from stone or to 
cast in bronze, Verlaine tried his hand at plastic poems such 
as La Mort de Philippe II. , which were only clever imita- 
tions of Leconte de Lisle. But already his true talent had 
found expression in Pay sages Tristes: 

Et je m'en vais 
AU vent mauvais 

Qui m'emporte 
De ci, de la 
Pareil a la 

Feuille morte. 

And, as by wind 
Harsh and unkind 

Driven by grief, 
Go I, here, there, 
Recking not where, 

Like the dead leaf. 1 

And ere long traces of a new manner became evident, his true 
nature betraying itself beneath the mask now by a furtive 
tenderness and now by whimsicalities in thought or expres- 
sion due to the originality of his genius. Even in Les Fetes 
galantes (1869), poems somewhat precieux, written according 
to eighteenth century taste, and in La bonne Chanson (1870), 
a collection of brief love poems, sweet, sincere and simple, the 
outstanding trait was no longer Parnassian contemplation, but 
palpitant sensibility. 

The excesses of a wild life during the decade that ensued 
frightened away Verlaine's Muse. He became a vagabond and 
a wastrel, and it was only in prison that he again found him- 
self. He had read widely, and the wisdom thus acquired and 
his bitter experiences wrought upon his sensitive nature. He 

1 Translated by Gertrude Hall. 



1921.] VERLAINE AFTER QUARTER OF A CENTURY 191 

was a strange combination of god and beast, now mystic, now 
carnal, now shaking his sides with laughter, now weeping with 
melancholy. Religion, from which he had strayed, once more 
claimed him. Redeemed from his sins, he returned to his 
traditional faith. The change became apparent in 1881 with 
the publication of Sagesse, remarkable poems of piety. Here, 
lamenting his former skepticism and license, he wrote: "The 
author of the present volume has not always believed as he 
does today. He long went astray in corruption, sharing the 
vice and ignorance of the time. Recently, however, merited 
misfortune gave him warning, and, by God's grace, he under- 
stood. He knelt before the altar so long disdained, and now 
he adores the Almighty as a submissive child of the Church 
the last in merit, but confirmed in good will." 

The convert describes his fruitless struggle against the 
flesh until a Divine Lady, radiant in snowy garments, came to 
his rescue : 

J'etais le vaincu qu'on assiege, 
Pret a vendre son sang bien cher, 
Quand, blanche, en vetement de neige, 
Toute belle au front humble et fier, 
Une Dame vint sur la nue, 
Qui d'un signe fit fair la Chair. 

I was a prisoner, at bay, 
Ready to sell his blood most dear, 
When lo ! in raiment white as day, 
Most beautiful, with brow most clear, 
A Lady came to me from heaven 
And with a sign my Flesh did sear. 

So the poet, time and again, grows fervent in his confessions 
and supplications. He is as ardent in faith as he had been in 
infidelity. With the ecstasy of a Pascal, he exclaims: 

O mon Dieu, vous m'avez blesse d'amour 
Et la blessure est encore vibrante! 

O God, Thou hast pierced me with love, 
And the wound is palpitant still. 

Of the Mass he says: "Everything passes; this service alone 



192 VERLA1NE AFTER QUARTER OF A CENTURY [Nov., 

endures. It will remain as it was established at the begin- 
ning. From every corner of the world speaks this voice, 
always the same, inexhaustible in meaning, not to be altered 
or rendered more profound by all the centuries. . . . The 
words of the Mass are graven as in bronze, not to be effaced 
by eternity itself." How different is the poetry of such a man 
from that induced by the vague religiosity of the Romanticists ! 
To God Verlaine appeals in language worthy of Thomas a 
Kempis. To Christ he dedicates sonnets of rare beauty. In- 
deed, it is only in St. Teresa that one finds more exquisite 
mystic effusions. As for Verlaine's "confessions," they are 
reminiscent of St. Augustine. "It is here for the first time," 
affirms Jules Lemaitre, "that French poetry has truly ex- 
pressed the love of God," and Anatole France asserts that 
Verlaine's verse is the most Christian written in France. 

Evidently, the strains of Sagesse were remote from Par- 
nassian eloquence. Instead of carving in marble, Verlaine 
now strove to reproduce the music of the soul. Mallarme, 
another master of the hour, represented a similar tendency. 
In fact, the theories of poetry were again in the melting pot, 
as witness the number of dissidents from the Parnassian creed. 
A precursor of the new movement was Baudelaire, who 
pointed its way in his famous sonnet, Les Correspondances: 

La Nature est un temple oil de vivants piliers 
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles; 
L'homme y passe a travers des forets de symboles 

Qui I'observent avec des regards familiers. 

In Nature's temple living pillars rise, 

And words are murmured none have understood, 
And man must wander through a tangled wood 

Of symbols watching him with friendly eyes. 2 

Reaction against a rigid, metallic, or marmoreal poetry, and 
against impassive scenes from nature or society had begun to 
manifest itself before 1880. Poets evinced a taste for ideas 
and emotions revealing eternal laws and personality. Young 
rhymesters, grouped in coteries, with their progressive liter- 
ary journals, proclaimed the dawn of a new school. The 

* Poems and Prose Poems, with Introduction and Preface by James Huneker. 
New York: Brentano's. 



1921.] VERLAINE AFTER QUARTER OF A CENTURY 193 

people heard this movement described as decadent and sym- 
boliste. The fantastic obscurities and the mystifying preten- 
sions of the new creed struck them for a time as grotesque, 
the features of a hoax. Nevertheless, the movement was 
serious and fruitful. 

As Gustave Lanson has pointed out, the decadents and 
symbolists did not wish to return to Romanticism, to fill their 
poems with autobiographic confessions. They sought to 
render, in place of the fixed form of material things, fleeting 
impressions of the moment, the rhythm of life in action. They 
saw in nature a moving symbol of eternal causes, and they 
endeavored to interpret, through art, the world without and 
the soul within. They strove for a more individualized poetic 
medium, restrained only by the desire of escaping the unin- 
telligible. Not all succeeded in avoiding this danger in their 
desire to fashion a style peculiar and expressive. They dis- 
dained the old syntax, preferring sensations and impressions 
to logic. Their verses must be more varied, capable of finer 
harmonies. Impressionism, in short, was their aim. 

Now although Verlaine was recognized as master by the 
elite among his younger confreres, he was anything but a 
dogmatic regent of letters. He lacked the over-weening con- 
fidence of the doctrinaire. Thus he differed from Malherbe, 
who had discarded all that Ronsard and his literary forbears 
had accomplished. To merit Malherbe's favor, a writer had 
to pay him abject homage. Verlaine, on the contrary, wel- 
comed all impartially, incapable of exercising tyranny. Nor 
was he eager to attract converts. He recruited disciples only 
by his genius. Never was a writer less given to argument. If 
pressed regarding a disputed point of doctrine, he would 
evade his questioner by some pleasantry. He abhorred ped- 
antry^ and theorizing. From experience, he knew that a poet 
is a man of instinct, and that, in art, intuition plays the prin- 
cipal role. He was convinced that the born poet makes his 
verses much as the bee its honey, without the aid of 
recipes. 

And yet Verlaine paid attention to the theory of poetry. 
He criticized his contemporaries, and wrote an Art Poetique. 
In such work, however, he was not didactic. It was necessity 
rather than taste induced his efforts. Vanier was publishing 
a series of biographies, Hommes du Jour, and Verlaine under- 

VOL. CXIV, 13 



194 VERLAINE AFTER QUARTER OF A CENTURY [Nov., 

took to write of such poets as he knew personally. His Art 
Poetique, composed as the result of an epistolary contention 
with Charles Morice, is not without inconsistencies. Here Ver- 
laine cautions against "la pointe assassine, I'esprit cruel et le 
rire impu.r;" and yet he practises satire and epigram in his 
admirable Invectives and Parallelement. He confuses Elo- 
quence with mere Declamation, exclaiming: "Take Eloquence 
and wring its neck." Later, he admitted that he had meant 
only "the excess of romantic verbiage, in which the meaning 
evaporates amidst sonority of words, whose superabundance 
destroys the essence and mars the flavor." 

Nor was Verlaine less inconsistent with regard to rhyme. 
Once he characterized it as "ce bijou d'un sou qui sonne creux 
et faux sous la lime." Ernest Raynaud, writing recently in 
Belles Lettres, says: "I afterwards chanced to remark, in Le 
Decadent, Verlaine's desire for rhyme reform, basing my 
argument upon his authority. Modest in my suggestions, I 
only asked that the poet be permitted to rhyme for the ear. 
This got me into serious trouble with my revered master, 
whom I had thought it unnecessary to consult about the matter. 
To my astonishment, he wrote me a letter for publication in 
which he proclaimed the necessity of 'rich rhyme,' an ortho- 
dox profession of faith worthy of Boileau." Small wonder 
that, in view of these inconsistencies, Verlaine should have 
referred to his Art Poetique as a "song not to be taken too 
literally." As a matter of fact, he did not approve of radical 
symbolist innovations, although literary manuals represent 
him and Mallarme as leaders in that movement. His love of 
verbal music was instinctive. Thus he employed lines of 
thirteen, eleven and nine syllables in a swaying rhythm that 
made the rigid movement of the Alexandrine seem heavy by 
comparison. He used interlaced feminine rhymes, also, giving 
to his strophes a novel sweetness. Exquisite assonances and 
delicate alliterations rendered his verse more like the buzzing 
of bees than the utterance of human voices. 

Much as Verlaine appreciated the music of poetry, he 
held clearness to be essential. Like Gautier, he came to be- 
lieve that there are few synonyms. Proof of his ultimate con- 
servatism is afforded by his lecture upon contemporary poets 
given at Brussels near the end of his career. In speaking of 
the younger symbolist poets, he said: "I have not always 



1921.] VERLA1NE AFTER QUARTER OF A CENTURY 195 

agreed with them. To vers libre, for example, my objections 
are many, as well as to the loose versification which some of 
our younger poets employ or strive to attain. I do not under- 
stand the word symboliste. Applied to poetry, it is a pleon- 
asm pure and simple." Here he even suggested that poets "re- 
turn to the eternal formulas" the old rigid versification. As 
Ernest Raynaud has remarked, if you go through Verlaine's 
stout volumes, you perceive that whenever his genius is most 
in evidence, he is composing according to tradition. Thus, 
Verlaine was in part attached to classicism. Wishing to praise 
Arthur Rimbaud, he found no higher tribute than to compare 
him with Virgil, Racine and Lamartine. He recommended to 
writers the essential qualities of the French genius intel- 
ligence, measure and clearness. With him it was an axiom of 
aesthetics that a good writer must know his own language. 
Speaking of Mallarme, he lamented that "preoccupied with 
beauty, he had regarded clearness as a secondary grace." In 
a word, Verlaine is classic when at his best. Those critics are 
in error who, basing their arguments upon his boutades and 
paradoxes, see in him only a radical reformer. Far from 
vilifying the French Academy, he used his influence to open 
its doors to writers he admired, such as Leconte de Lisle, 
Francois Goppee and Villiers de PIsle Adam. 

According to Mr. Nicolson's interpretative biography, at 
once readable and scholarly, Verlaine achieved in poetics two 
important reforms. In the first place, he ridded French 
metrics of various impediments which had baffled even Victor 
Hugo. Then, too, he brought discredit upon the arbitrary 
dogma of rich rhyme as formulated by Theodore de Banville. 
The poet of Sagesse was the first to understand that Victor 
Hugo and his Parnassian successors had dethroned the hemi- 
stich only to raise in its place the autocracy of rhyme. He 
realized, moreover, that the meaning and the scope of a verse 
would be equally impeded by the enforced stress of the con- 
cluding rhyme, as it had been curtailed by the tyranny of the 
caesura. His object was not to abolish rhyme, but to make it 
serviceable and sensible. Accordingly, he introduced a system 
of rhymes which should be strong when concordant with the 
sense of the verse, but which, when they conflicted with log- 
ical expression, should be so modulated as to become almost 
imperceptible. In other words : 



196 VERLAINE AFTER QUARTER OF A CENTURY [Nov., 

De la musique encore et ton jours I 
Que ton vers soit la chose envolee 
Qu'on sent qui fuit d'une dme en allee 
Vers d'autres deux a d'autres amours. 

Music ever and again! 

Speed your verse with winged flight 

From a soul that scales the height 

Toward distant spheres, toward love not vain. 

This primitive poet, who never formed a definite con- 
ception of the world or of himself, whose life was spent in the 
semi-hallucination of solitary dreaming, possessed the child- 
like naivete and the abnormal senses of one deranged or in- 
spired. Says Andre Delacour : "Certain of his strophes, which 
resemble the enchantments of revery, express in all simplicity 
the soul of the lowly, and like the morning dew, seem to come 
from the depths of our race." In Sagesse, certainly, there 
speaks a pure passion like that which found voice in the erec- 
tion of cathedrals and in the composition of The Imitation of 
Christ. It was, owing to the spell of Sagesse, this most Cath- 
olic of books, that poets so different as Louis Le Cardonnel, 
Paul Claudel, Francis Jammes and Charles Peguy escaped 
the vague religiosity sprung from Rousseau and entered whole- 
heartedly into the pure spirit of the Church. From Verlaine 
they caught the warmth and rhythm of a new life and learned 
that beneath the humblest of exteriors may lie the finest 
poetry. 

The religion of Verlaine was by no means incompatible 
with the highest patriotism. He was a nationalist rather than 
an internationalist. In his prose Confessions, he proclaims 
passionately his love for Metz, his native town, and in his 
splendid Ode to Metz, written in 1892, he assails the concep- 
tion of anarchistic dreamers who would substitute for love of 
country love of the race in general. To say that all peoples 
are brothers is for him to deny national traditions and 
national hopes: 

Tous peuples freresl Autant dire 
Plus de France, meme martyre, 
Plus de souvenirs, meme amers! 
Plus de raison souveraine, 



1921.] VERLAINE AFTER QUARTER OF A CENTURY 197 

Plus de foi sure et sereine, 

Plus d' Alsace et plus de Lorraine. . . . 

Autant fouetter le flot des mers. 

Peoples brothers! That would mean 
France disrupted, Martyred queen, 
Memories vanished bitterly! 
Kingly reason downward thrust, 
Faith serene a shaken trust, 
Alsace, Lorraine, dust to dust. . . . 
Sooner still the surging sea. 

To Metz he sings as remaining virginal in purity though vio- 
lated by the invader, from whose hand it will at length be 
rescued. In prophetic accents he bids the day and the hour 
of deliverance to sound. 

Here Verlaine is vigorous. More often, he is relaxed and 
brooding, expressing for his generation something of the sad- 
ness that Musset uttered for his. Indeed, he represents the 
culmination of romantic lyrism, a melancholy which Chateau- 
briand had magnified in Rene, after its inauguration by Rous- 
seau. Such melancholy, nourished by Northern literatures, 
was as varied as the sensibility of its exponents, just as a toxin, 
in passing through different organisms, becomes more or less 
virulent. Thus, the happy childhood and fundamental opti- 
mism of Lamartine preserved him from bitterness. The 
healthy plebeian, Victor Hugo, might prate of the tragedies of 
conscience, but he did so with one eye on his audience. De 
Vigny, however, was truly pessimistic, and Musset struggled 
between contending moods, now joyous and now despairing. 
As for Baudelaire, Verlaine's immediate master, he was tem- 
peramentally neurotic, his morbid melancholy alternating 
from gloom to hysteria. In his Fleurs da Mai, the bombast 
of Romanticism was refined, and in the verses of Verlaine it is 
still further subdued, gaining in depth and subtlety what it has 
lost in amplitude. Freed from such accessories as oriental- 
ism, mythology, history and biography, it has become with 
Verlaine sheer subjectivism, exquisitely sad. 

At a time when others were coldly sculpturing the same 
conventional designs over and over, Verlaine, as we have seen, 
breathed life into marble and then turned to another medium 
for poetry the free fantasy of music. This bourgeois in the 



198 GOD [Nov., 

midst of Paris sang like a faun or a minstrel of the Middle 
Ages, evoking the most delicate vibrations of the nerves, the 
most fugitive echoes of the heart. As for influence, that of 
Paul Verlaine is latent and all-pervading rather than concen- 
trated. He bequeathed to posterity an atmosphere rather than 
a specific doctrine. He remains the purest lyrical genius of 
his country in our day, a verbal musician who has succeeded 
in transforming a melancholy that was painful into a thing 
of beauty. His work will live as long as the language in which 
he wrought this miracle. 



GOD. 

BY FRANCIS CARLIN. 

THE Shining Three 
Are One Who is 

Simplicity. 

Heaven's One 

Is Three Who are 

As Triune Sun. 

Behold ! Their Sire 

Is Mercy Who 
Shall be our Fire. 

And He, Their Word, 

In kindled Wine 
Is yet Our Lord; 

The while Their Dove 

In flaming Truth 
Is yet our Love. 

Heaven's One 

Is Three Who are 
As Triune Sun. 
The Shining Three 

Are One Who is 
Simplicity. 




THE FAILURE OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 

BY A. PALMIERI, O.S.A., D.D., PH.D. 

OLSHEVISM is a tyranny a revolutionary tyr- 
anny, if you will, the complete negation of 
democracy, and of all freedom of thought and 
action. Based on force and terroristic violence, 
it is simply following out the same philosophy 
which was preached by Nietzsche and Haeckel, and which for 
the past twenty-five years has glorified the might of force, as 
the final justification of all , existence. By substituting one 
class domination for another, it has merely reversed the 
former tyranny of the Romanoffs into a tyranny still more 
terrible in its onesidedness." x 

Everyone who has followed the gradual enhancement of 
Bolshevism, and its domestic policy within the frontiers of 
Russia, can subscribe to the definition set forth above. Polit- 
ically, Bolshevism is the fanaticism of the Revolution. It aims 
to create a new mind in Europe. The social order, as it exists 
in the most civilized nations of our day, appears to Bolshevism 
a relic of mediaeval barbarism, and therefore doomed to com- 
plete disappearance. "The purpose of Russian Socialism," 
wrote Leon Trotzky, "is to revolutionize the minds of the 
working class in the same way as the development of Capital- 
ism has revolutionized social relations." 2 

Faithful to its aims, Bolshevism has succeeded, at least 
temporarily, in subverting the foundations of society. In de- 
fault of a convincing logical foundation, it has resorted to 
violence. The soil of Russia has been piled high with corpses 
to test the social reforms of Bolshevism. A French Socialist 
deputy after his visit to Russia could not help declaring 
openly that in Russia "terror and death are everywhere and 
no one knows why the dead are dead." 3 The chiefs of Bol- 

1 "Bolshevik Aims and Ideals" and "Russian Revolt Against Bolshevism," re- 
printed from the Round Table, New York, 1919, p. 53. 

2 Our Revolution, New York, 1918, p. 142. 

8 Charles Dumas, La verite sur les Bolsheviki: documents et notes d'un temoin, 
Paris, 1919, p. 134. 



200 FAILURE OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH [Nov., 

shevism have followed the maxim written in blood by a victim 
of the old regime on the walls of his prison: "Whatever 
promotes revolution is moral; whatever raises an obstacle 
to it is immoral and criminal." The foes of Tsarism were not 
so severely crushed as have been those who rebelled against 
Bolshevism. 

But Bolshevism is not only a political and social system. 
It is also a religion. Even atheism, from a certain point of 
view, is not exempt from a religious element. * It denies God, 
only to set up gods of its own. In essence, atheism is not the 
negation of religion, but a depraved religion. And Bolshe- 
vism, in spite of its irreligion, takes the shape of a religious 
system, and wraps itself in hieratic draperies. "Bolsheviki 
are fanatics who have no concern for their personal lives, 
regarding death merely a sacrifice for the sake of humanity. 
From this we can see that the terrible, brutal and imprac- 
ticable Bolshevism, is transformed by these fanatics into a 
new religion, a creed for the international proletariat." 4 A 
Russian writer says that Bolshevism is "a religious madness 
that sanctifies all crimes." 5 Its power is the product of a re- 
ligious exaltation. Revolution is God acting in man and 
through man. Its onward sweep is the movement of the 
Divine Being. According to the poet of the Russian revolution, 
Ivanov-Razumnik, Bolshevism is a fiery hurricane that is 
crossing Russia, and bearing the seeds of spring. 

It goes towards the West; it upsets the world. It is cru- 
cified by its foes, but rises from its grave. The Revolution 
is eternal and unchangeable. It is the Absolute. 

As a religious system, Bolshevism naturally tends to op- 
pose the forms of religion that repudiate its principles. In 
Russia, its natural enemy was the Russian Church. We need 
not be surprised, then, if Russian Bolshevism in its attempts to 
extirpate the institutions of the past, assumed from the outset 

* A. Carasso, The Imitation of Cain. A Few Words on Modern Russia, Frederick, 
Md., 1921, p. 60. 

8 Serge De Chessin, Au pays de la demence rouge, Paris, 1919, p. 300. "Bolshevism 
as a social phenomenon is to be reckoned as a religion, not as an ordinary political 
movement . . Among religions, Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism 
rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. What Mohammedanism did for the 
Arabs, Bolshevism may do for the Russians." B. Russell, Bolshevism: Practice and 
Theory, New York, 1920, pp. 117, 118. 



1921.] FAILURE OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH 201 

an hostile attitude towards Russian Christianity, and made its 
destruction a starting point in its programme. 

A recent historian of Bolshevism, H. N. Brailsford, writes 
that "there is full religious tolerance in Russia, but the Com- 
munistic party is fiercely anti-clerical and conducts an unre- 
mitting controversy with the Orthodox Church, certainly the 
most grossly superstitious form of belief that survives in the 
civilized world." 6 Of course, there is a grain of truth in these 
bold assertions. Bolshevism proclaims that it champions re- 
ligious tolerance. Its utterances are belied by the facts. The 
Russian Church, in turn, is infected with superstition. But, as 
a Church possessed of sacramental life, and voicing the word 
of God, she preserves the riches of Catholic doctrinal inherit- 
ance. That Church was for centuries the palladium of Russian 
nationalism, the strongest support of Russian autocracy. The 
history of Russia is largely her history for the Russian people 
in their form of government, to quote Vladimir Solovev, were 
a theocracy. "The Russian Church," writes De Chessin, "was 
the soul of the Russian people. She was so, in spite of her 
constant decay and decline into a clumsy bureaucratic ma- 
chinery, a spiritual police of despotism. For centuries she 
had worked as the only source of enlightenment, and the 
only true bond of national unity. The history of Russian 
grandeur is inseparable from the history of the old monas- 
teries with battlemented walls and Byzantine cupolas. The 
Patriarch was a second Tsar, and without the cross, the sword 
was powerless. To the crown of the heroic princes, the 
Church added, by their canonization, the crown of holiness." 7 
Why then did "the Russian people, apparently the most re- 
ligious, the most Christian in Europe, surrender themselves, 
tied hand and foot, to a dozen Jewish adventurers, and burn 
their sacred icons? Why have they preferred the kingdom of 
Antichrist to the emperor of the faithful, according to the of- 
ficial term of the Orthodox liturgy? Why have they given 
themselves up to the dynasties of Bronstein, Apfelbaum and 
Rosenfeld? One thousand years have been wiped out! We 
are witnessing a new passion, a new Calvary. The chosen 
people have hurled down their Lord." 8 

The powerlessness of the Russian Church in face of the 

6 The Russian Workers' Republic, New York, 1921, p. 150. 
7 De Chessin, op. cit., p. 296. 8 Ibid., p. 299. 



202 FAILURE OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH [Nov., 

Revolution is the consequence of an incurable disease that 
paralyzed her. She lost her vigor in her isolation from West- 
ern Christianity, in the worship of those political maxims 
which led the Eastern Churches to lamentable disaster. The 
Russian Church broke with the cultured classes, and lost her 
hold upon the peasantry. Her influence rested upon the 
crumbling foundations of autocracy, and when they were 
shaken, she followed in the ruin of Tsarism. Bolshevism in 
achieving the destruction of the old political regime, found no 
obstacle in its attempts to de-Christianize Russia and to in- 
flict a Neronian persecution on the clergy. 

The Russian Orthodox Church made her own grave, and 
in it the Bolsheviki laid her bleeding body. During the nine- 
teenth century she lost both the nobility and the intelligentsia. 
The Russian nobles despised a clergy composed of ignorant 
Mujiki, the offspring of generations of serfs. A materialistic 
rowdyism debased the ranks of the nobility. They were 
known in Russia and abroad by their orgies, absurd whims, 
and wasteful expenditures. At times they produced flowers 
of gentleness and moral elevation, of which the best were 
transplanted into the garden of the Catholic Church. Yet, the 
Russian nobility officially did not sever relations with the 
Church. They needed the Russian priests to bridle the peas- 
ants charged with the cultivation of their vast domains. The 
"popes" (village clergy) were the policemen of the peasants' 
souls. A heavier loss was that of the intelligentsia. They 
were the brains of Russia, and it may be said, of the Russian 
Revolution. The intelligentsia depended upon Germany for 
their intellectual food. Russian philosophy was grafted on 
French positivism and German materialism. 

In his early youth Vladimir Solovev (he was then twenty 
years old) raised his protest against this abject imported 
philosophy, and published his admirable thesis, entitled The 
Crisis of the Western Philosophy. Vehement recriminations 
were heard from the lips of the most distinguished scholars 
of the Russian universities. They despised spiritualism, and 
based their conceptions of universe and life on empiricism. 
Russian philosophers were preachers of atheism. They 
strongly opposed the infiltration of the clergy in their scien- 
tific sanctuaries. Russian universities were compelled to teach 
fundamental theology, canon law and Church history: the 



1921.] FAILURE OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH 203 

academic councils, however, were always upon the watch for 
a favorable opportunity to dismiss them. On January 22, 1906, 
a commission of university professors was vested with the re- 
sponsibility of drawing up a new programme of courses. This 
body proposed and recommended the suppression of the theo- 
logical chairs. A year before (September 19, 1905) the council 
of the University of Kiev relieved students from the obli- 
gation of taking the examination on theology. 9 The intelli- 
gentsia pretended to ignore the literary production of the 
theological academies. The official organs of these learned 
institutions, in spite of their scientific value, had subscribers 
only among the priests, and were unable to prolong their exist- 
ence without the financial support of the Holy Synod. The 
Bogoslovsky Viestnik (Theological Messenger), a monthly 
magazine famous for the breadth of its ideas and the serious- 
ness of its contents, had only fifteen hundred subscribers. The 
Trudy of the Spiritual Academy of Kiev, only two hundred. 

The Russian intelligentsia did more than ignore the 
meagre intellectual life of the Church: their writings were 
saturated with hatred of the clergy. In the novels of Solovev, 
Tchirigov, Glukhovtzovoi, Volkhovich-Vell, Krizhanovsky, 
Vasilich, Kruglov and particularly, in the writings of Leonid 
Andreiev, the most talented of the Russian decadents, there 
passes before our eyes a long procession of priests, upon whose 
faces are seen the indelible traces of prolonged servitude, of 
ancestral abjection, of the moral lapses and bleeding wounds 
produced by their unhappy conditions of existence and by 
the atmosphere of hostility surrounding them. "The Church 
in Russia," wrote Dillon, "was a mere museum of liturgical 
antiquities. No life-giving eyes animated that rigid body, for 
Byzance was powerless to give what it did not possess." 10 

Deprived of the support of the nobility and the intel- 
ligentsia, the Russia Church, had she been conscious of the 
ruin impending, would have turned her gaze to the lowest 
social class. The peasants in the villages, although ill-dis- 
posed towards their popes, were, in a superstitious manner, 
somewhat attached to their Church. In the large cities the 
workers had already begun to desert Christianity and to troop 
into the ranks of Socialism. But the clergy unwillingly stood 

A. Palmieri, La Chiesa Russa, Florence, 1908, pp. 605, 606. 
10 L. Bryant, Sia: Red Months in Russia, New York, 1918, p. 261. 



204 FAILURE OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH [Nov., 

in the way of popular aspirations. The popes could but fol- 
low the example and instructions of their bishops. Like the 
episcopate, their spiritual influence was at the service of 
bureaucracy. They became clerks, spies and gendarmes of 
the State. They forgot their mission of healing souls, in order 
to help the regime that paid them. 

The spiritual dissolution of the Russian Church was has- 
tened by the religious dictatorship of Constantine Pobiedo- 
nostzev, the High Procurator of the most Holy Synod, "the 
deepest and most talented expounder of absolutist ideas." 11 
Pobiedonostzev was at the helm of the Russian Church for a 
quarter of a century, acting as the spiritual Tsar of the Rus- 
sian people. His soul was a mixture of hatred for Catholicism, 
Western Civilization, Freedom, Democratic Ideals and na- 
tionalities. The popular masses were to him a chaos. In 
order to establish system in the midst of the disparate ele- 
ments of that chaos, the ferrule of autocracy was the only 
effective weapon. 

In his famous Moskovskii Sbornik (Moscow Essays), he 
wrote: "The masses are dissatisfied, indignant, restless, pro- 
testing: they overthrow institutions and governments which 
have not kept their word, which have not realized the hopes 
aroused by their fantastic ideas. They establish new institu- 
tions, and again destroy them; they turn to new rulers who 
have lured them with the same deceptive words, and again 
they overthrow them, seeing that they are unable to keep their 
promise. A miserable and terrifying chaos in public institu- 
tions; waves of passion surge and sweep everywhere; time 
and again, the people are pacified by the magic sound of the 
words 'freedom,' 'equality, 5 'publicity,' 'popular sovereignty,' 
and he who knows how to play skillfully and at the right time 
with these words becomes the ruler of the people." 12 

This quotation shows that Pobiedonostzev was acquainted 
with the changing moods of the masses. They need a strong 
government to be bridled. The autocratic form was, in his 
eyes, the only force for cohesion in Russia. Individuals and 
institutions must be subservient to the autocratic State, and 
first of all the Church, which, by reason of her mission, ought 
to regulate the life of the masses. The principle of the sub- 

11 J. Olgin, The Soul of the Russian Revolution, New York, 1917, p. 61. 
12 Moskovskii Sbornik, Petrograd, 1896, pp. 101, 102. 



1921.] FAILURE OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH 205 

serviency of the Church to the State, a principle clearly for- 
mulated in the Spiritual Regulation of Peter the Great, was 
carried by him to its utmost conclusion. Under his dictator- 
ship, the dioceses were intrusted to bishops who were known 
for their full submission to the orders of Russian bureaucracy. 
The best elements of the Russian Church, the most learned 
bishops, such as, for instance, Sergii of Vladimir, "the Russian 
Bollandist," were either silenced or confined to small towns 
and unimportant offices. The Holy Synod headed the nation- 
alistic crusade against Poles, Jews, Lithuanians, Finns, Letts 
and Tartars; the barbarous persecution against the hundred 
thousands of Ruthenians who, by force of a decree, were 
placed under the banners of Orthodoxy, and forced to receive 
their sacraments from Orthodox popes. All the measures 
sanctioned against the religion, the literatures, the languages 
and autonomy of the nationalities living within the vast fron- 
tiers of Russia, bear the stamp of the undaunted will and the 
constant policy of Pobiedonostzev. His theories of govern- 
ment may be summed up in the following aphorisms: (1) 
Christianity is a religion which gives life to Russia; (2) Chris- 
tianity in Russia needs to be Orthodox and national; (3) the 
Russian Church ought to be subject to the State. 

Pobiedonostzev is responsible for most of the mistakes of 
the Russian bureaucracy. He was, according to his foes, the 
evil spirit of Russia. The hatred that filled the hearts of Rus- 
sian liberal patriots against absolutism in politics, turned also 
against the Church. Before his death (1907), he realized the 
fruitlessness of his efforts. The new generation was coming 
along, and, unfortunately, was wandering far from a Church 
that had lent a helping hand to a despotic State. The dictator 
was compelled to make concessions. He allowed the convo- 
cation of a general Synod of the Russian Church. The remedy 
came too late. The debates of the various commissions ap- 
pointed by the Holy Synod in 1905-1906 for the preparation 
of the Council, left things as they were, and revived only some 
obsolete forms and canons of the ecclesiastical discipline of 
Byzantium. The Russian Church under Pobiedonostzev be- 
came a bedizened corpse. 

Russian writers, even members of the ecclesiastical acad- 
emies, where a limited freedom of press was granted, graph- 
ically set forth the conditions of the clergy among the Russian 



206 FAILURE OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH [Nov., 

peasantry. "The popes have no feelings of mercy: they look 
with indifference on the sufferings of their flocks; and their 
only concern is for their fees. Many of them have erased from 
their minds the maxim of the Gospel: they make no distinction 
between good and evil, nor do they enlighten the faithful. 
Still worse, they are pleased with their estrangement from the 
Church, and clip the wings of the friends of progress, and 
extol to the skies the ancient customs as the distinctive marks 
of genuine Orthodoxy. Their tongues are filled with venom. 
In their relations with their flocks, they are false and untruth- 
ful. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the common 
people drew away from them. Their words are no longer the 
expression of divine truth. The faithful know by experience 
that they are the mouthpieces of civil authority, and, there- 
fore, their exhortations are void of results. They refuse to 
support the clergy because the clergy constitute the pillar of 
of a covetous bureaucracy." 13 

The eclipse of Pobiedonostzev was not followed by a 
brilliant revival of the Russian Church. Things went from 
bad to worse. Pobiedonostzev, at least, was a cultured man 
possessed of a strong will. He was detested and feared, but 
admiration mingled with hatred of his strong personality. 
Those who came after him, passed like meteors with no other 
aim than that of plundering the resources of the clergy. A 
certain Kiprianov, a specialist in mental diseases, was called 
to heal the nervous breakdown of the Russian Church. Of 
course, her diseased body and soul did not recover, and the 
government of the Church passed into the hands of the faith- 
ful disciple of Pobiedonostzev, Charles Vladimirovich Sabler, 
of pure German stock, who tried to conceal his German name 
under the Russian name of Deviatkovsky. The regime of 
Sabler, a regime of embezzlements and simony, inflicted a 
deathblow on the Russian Church. Ecclesiastical dignities 
were put up for sale. 

After the ephemeral days of freedom in 1905-1907, the 
reaction had its revenge. The edict of religious tolerance re- 
mained practically a dead letter. Russian bishops, like 
Anthony of Volhynia and Eulogius of Minsk, raised the hue 
and cry after the pioneers of the social regeneration of Russia. 
The Poles and Jews were attacked next. And following in the 

11 Palmieri, La Chiesa Russa, pp. 334, 335. 









1921.] FAILURE OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH 207 

steps of the reaction, an ill-fated monk achieved the ruin of 
Tsarism and the Russian Church. On March 4, 1914, Miliukov 
addressed the members of the Duma in the following terms: 
"The Church is in the hands of the hierarchy. The hierarchy 
is a State prisoner and the State is dominated by common 
tramps." 14 On May 12, 1911, Prince Mansirev was more explicit 
in his denunciation: "You know a man, whose name is asso- 
ciated with exhibitions of the vilest schemes, and the demoral- 
ization of the whole Society. Through him or by him all are 
terrorized who venture to utter their thoughts in any respect 
opposed to the prevailing tendency of the Orthodox Church 
and the leading cultured circles." 15 

The story of Gregorii Ephimovich Rasputin is the darkest 
page in the record of the downfall of Russian autocracy. A 
simple peasant, without any spiritual and intellectual gift, 
and living a life of debauchery, for several years, was the 
master of the Russian court and the ruler of political Russia. 
Many documents concerning his adventures have been pub- 
lished since his tragic death: the veil of mystery covering his 
vices has been torn away. Yet he finds even now warm ad- 
mirers, like Baroness Leonia Souing-Seydlitz, who calls him 
a saint, 16 or obstinate deniers of his ill-doings. 

"Rasputin, the monster," writes G. G. Telberg, a professor 
of law in the University of Saralov, "is a fiction, bred in the 
busy brains of politicians and elaborated by the teeming 
imagination of sensational novelists. Rasputin, the saint, is 
an imaginary product of a woman's diseased mind." 17 We 
cannot here attempt to narrate the extraordinary career of 
the Siberian peasant, whom the caprice of hysterical women 
raised to the pinnacle of glory and power. As soon as the 
Revolution proclaimed the end of the old regime, Rasputin 
found scores of biographers, who related the episodes cer- 
tainly not edifying of his adventurous life. The most im- 
portant documents about him and his relations with the Rus- 
sian court were made public by a former friend, the ex-monk 
Iliodor, who married after his escape from Russia, and sought 
refuge in the United States. His memoirs of Rasputin portray 
also the humiliating conditions of the Russian Church, whose 

14 T. Vogel-Jorgeiisen, Rasputin, Prophet, Libertine, Plotter, London, 1917, p. 83. 

"Ibid., p. 84. 

18 Russia of Yesterday and Tomorrow, New York, 1917. 

1T The Last Days of the Romanovs, New York, 1920, p. 252. 



208 FAILURE OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH [Nov., 

bishops dared not denounce the abuses and scandals they 
witnessed, and, at times, sanctioned and approved for the 
sake of their own safety and promotion. 18 

Rasputin is the genuine product of the Russian sects and 
Russian extravagant mysticism, which, among Russian sec- 
tarians, revives the practices and doctrines of the Gnostics 
and Manicheans of old. "Religion was his best weapon: it 
became foul in his hands. With its aid, he obtained by force 
erotic satisfaction, and then religion and eroticism attained a 
higher unity which, in his hands, became a power and a po- 
litical instrument of the first order." 19 His teaching, which 
drew about him a coterie of aristocratic ladies, seems to be a 
derivation v of the theories professed by the Skoptzy, a sect 
which the Russian Government branded as extremely dan- 
gerous to the social welfare. "The pitch of Rasputin's re- 
ligious doctrine is that to live is love. In love he grants the 
widest liberty. He says: 'Sin is the path to grace. Unless a 
man sins, there is nothing to pardon him for.' " 20 

To his liking, he changed the chiefs of the Government, 
and ruled the Russian hierarchy. The Tsar venerated him as 
his spiritual counselor, and the Tsarina reposed full confidence 
in him. And since he was a tool in the hands of the most re- 
actionary element of Russia, the Church was made responsible 
for the evil results of his interference in Russian political 
affairs. 

Thus at the outbreak of the Revolution, the Russian Church 
found herself isolated. The fall of autocracy left her without 
support. She flattered herself that the Government of Keren- 
sky would extend to her the benefits of freedom and still 
more the economic help of the old regime. At the outset, her 
hopes seemed to be realized. 

The Council of Moscow did not answer the expectations 
of the devout Orthodox. It showed itself to be a meeting of 
twaddlers who, while their house was burning, seriously dis- 
cussed where to get water to put out the fire. Instead of 
examining the vital needs of the Russian people and the 
causes of the unpopularity of the Church, they prattled about 

18 The Life of Rasputin, by Sergius Michailov Trufanoff (Iliodor), New York, 1916. 
The Russian edition is entitled The Holy Devil (Sviatoi Chart: Zapiski Rasputinie), 
Petrograd, 1917, and contains the reports of Russian police officers about the private 
life of Rasputin in Petrograd. 

19 Vogel-Jorgensen, pp. 9, 10. 20 TrufaiioiT, p. 11. 



1921.] MY MOTHER 209 

titles, dignities, administrative divisions, increases of salaries 
a whole lot of dead things and dead names. The Council 
pointed out the exhaustion of the inner life and apostolic zeal 
of the Russian Church. The Russian episcopate acted and 
talked as if the sun of the days of old had not set. Bolshevism 
found the Church unarmed, and spread its web over Russia. 
The peasantry that had been forsaken and oppressed by the 
Church, welcomed the new regime, and its first decision to 
divide among them the land possessed by Russian nobility. 
Under Bolshevism, the intelligentsia disappeared : the nobility 
fled from Russia or was massacred; the workers and the peas- 
ants espoused the cause of the Revolution. The clergy re- 
mained as a caste embodying the tendencies hostile to revolu- 
tion, the falling bulwark of buried autocracy. Political, re- 
ligious and national hatreds spent themselves on them. The 
leaders of Bolshevism were mostly Jews, who kept in memory 
a vivid recollection of pogromy (massacres) of their brethren 
with the cognizance of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities 
of the old regime. Besides, they abhorred the Christian 
faith, as the antithesis of their ideals. Bolshevism first con- 
solidated its power: then it measured its own forces, and when 
conscious of the inborn weakness of the Russian Church, 
began the religious war which is aiming to extirpate Chris- 
tianitv from Russian soil. 



MY MOTHER. 

BY CHARLES J. QUIRK, S.J. 

IN all men's loss, I see my loss : 

So dear thy memory! 
The world's great cross is mine own cross 

All death: the death of thee! 



VOL. CXIV. 14 




A PROPHET IN ITALY. 

BY CHARLES PHILLIPS, M.A. 

GREAT renaissance of the Catholic religion is 

coming over the world. It will be marked even 

in the Latin countries." 

This is the prediction of Giovanni Papini, 

the celebrated Italian philosophical writer, whose 
recent conversion from atheism and anarchy is the sensation 
of Italy. Papini is the latest prophet of the Old World who 
turns to the past to see the future. A complete reversal to the 
obedience of Christ and His Church, according to Papini, is 
the only solution for the present ills of the world and the only 
security for its future. He insists on this renaissance being 
distinctly Catholic. He does not say merely "religious," or 
"Christian," but, to quote him further, "of the Catholic Faith, 
of the only true Church that of Rome." After a lifetime of 
unbelief and denial, he tried "evangelical" Christianity, but it 
could not satisfy him. He has gone the full length of submis- 
sion to the See of Rome. 

Papini's entrance into the Church, while it actually took 
place two years ago, has only recently attracted notice, by 
reason of the publication of his Storia di Cristo, his Life of 
Christ, which appeared a few weeks ago, and which imme- 
diately became the most widely read book in Italy. No liter- 
ary work of any kind, not even excepting the sensational pro- 
ductions of D'Annunzio's fervid pen, has had such a thorough- 
going success as this remarkable recital of the life of Our 
Saviour. Every bookshop from one end of Italy to the other 
displays it in its windows. The publisher cannot supply the 
dealers' demands. The first edition of twenty thousand 
copies which in Europe is exceptionally large has been 
quickly exhausted. At the same time translations of the book 
in half a dozen languages are already in process. English and 
American editions are included among these. 

Back of the Storia di Cristo is another story, the story of 
one of the most interesting careers to be found in the annals of 
modern thought. The first hint of this story came to me, not 



1921.] A PROPHET IN ITALY 211 

unfittingly, from the pulpit, when Padre Magri, one of the 
celebrated preachers of Florence, spoke of the book while de- 
livering a Lenten sermon in the famous old Church of Or San 
Michele. When the work of a man known for years as one of 
the foremost radical writers of Italy is recommended from the 
altar within stone's throw of the Vatican within hearing of 
the Congregation of the Index! then, said I, it is time to 
look into it. 

I had not read many pages of the Storia diCristo before I 
was carried away by the beauty and spirit of the work, and I 
determined to learn, if possible, the history of its writing and 
its author. A little later the opportunity came of meeting the 
much talked of Papini. Before that, however, I had taken the 
reassuring precaution of asking Padre Magri point-blank 
about the book. He praised it with uplifted hands. 

The meeting with Papini gave me a pleasant surprise. 
Atrocious portraits of him printed in the papers pictures 
that looked more like caricatures than portraits coupled 
with a slight acquaintance with his handwriting, which at first 
glance seemed to suggest all sorts of imaginable eccentricities 
had somehow given me the impression that he was of the 
fire-eating type, that he belonged to that category of erratic 
and untidy minds so frequently labeled "genius." True, I had 
not quite succeeded in reconciling that impression with the 
cameo-like cutting of his wonderfully lucid prose. Never- 
theless, that was vaguely my preconceived notion of 
Giovanni Papini. I had even imagined him tousled and 
undersized ! 

How different the reality! A tall, spare man, easily over 
six feet in height, erect and soldierly, with a face at once strong 
and astonishingly youthful, indeed boyish, greeted me, and 
ushered me into a study that might have been the private 
office of a railway director for all the signs it gave of the 
average literary worker. The heavy oak writing table by the 
window, very plain and solid, instead of being littered with 
papers, fairly shone with order and precision. There was 
nothing on it but a blotter, an ink bottle, and one book; not 
even any cigarette ashes, although Papini smoked continually. 
The walls of the little room were lined from floor to ceiling 
with books but they were all in place, and there were none 
either on chairs or on the floor! Only a big bowl of lilacs, 



212 A PROPHET IN ITALY [Nov., 

their petals falling to the carpet, broke the severe rigidity of 
the author's workroom. 

But Papini was not rigid. With his slim figure dressed 
faultlessly in the dark gray tweeds of a business man, with- 
out a trace of Byronic tie or other literary negligee, he was as 
easy and as gracious as his own flowing Italian. There was 
about him the quiet charm of a man completely and uncon- 
sciously in possession of himself. ("This conversion," I com- 
mented inwardly, "is no flash in the pan, no new coat to be 
worn only while its colors seem bright. This man knows 
what he is about.") 

His shaggy head is the only mark on him of the artistic 
celebrity or of his erstwhile days of anarchy. Despite the 
boyishness of his face, it has a rugged sculpturing; and the 
eyes are rather worn with study. When he was obliged to 
peer closely at a paper he was writing, I learned the secret of 
his odd penmanship, which after all is remarkably clear and 
exact, despite its first appearance of carelessness. 

Papini knew my errand and spoke of himself when ques- 
tioned with the directness and simplicity of a legal mind. He 
should have been a lawyer! Of course, he is long ago accus- 
tomed to this sort of thing: a man who has given his life to 
the literature of opinion is not to be embarrassed by a few 
queries from a stranger. But all that he told me seemed some- 
how to be in the spirit of an offertory the same spirit that 
one feels permeating his Storia di Cristo: told frankly in 
thanksgiving for what he has gained, and not reluctantly, if 
others may benefit by it. He is, in fact, like all radicals- 
even anarchists a born missionary. "The whole inclination 
of my character," he explained to me later, "has always been, 
even during the long period of unbelief and negation, toward 
the desire of helping and illuminating others." 

Papini is only forty and looks no more than thirty yet 
in his short career he has produced twenty-three volumes of 
published works which have run already into fifty-seven edi- 
tions. "You see," he laughed just to show me his acquaint- 
ance with things American "fifty-seven varieties!" 

"How do you do it?" I asked. I had a mental picture of 
a roomful of typists and secretaries in the offing. 

"No," he answered, "I never dictate and have never used 
a typewriter. All my work, for twenty years, has been done 



1921.] A PROPHET IN ITALY 213 

in manuscript." ("You are a human dynamo, then," I com- 
mented to myself a dynamo that runs so smoothly, there is 
neither noise nor vibration.) "But, for all that I have been 
able to turn out," he went on, "I am very lazy! Sometimes 
I go whole months without even writing a letter. Then come 
periods of abundance and work, in which I compose with 
great rapidity." 

Only forty; born January 9, 1881; but a Florentine. That 
explains a good deal. The Florentines are all born dynamos! 
Papini had begun, I had been told, as a mere boy. I asked 
him if this were so. "Yes." 

"And were there any influences in your youth tending 
toward literary expression? I mean, were there any writers 
in your family?" 

"None whatever." 

"And about other influences toward radical thought?" 
(For which he had early become famous.) 

"As to that, yes. My father was an ardent anti-clerical, a 
Garibaldian soldier, a follower of Mazzini so much so that, 
when I was born, my mother had to have me secretly bap- 
tized." 

"Then your schooling under what influences did that 
bring you?" 

"I had no classical education, only that of the common 
and normal school. But I began very early to read in the 
libraries. At eight I had made my first attempts at writing 
poems, stories, dramas. Yes," he added, with a twinkle in his 
eye, "I even did what I suppose many an American youngster 
does I wrote a tragedy on Christopher Columbus! 

"Between thirteen and fourteen I began to take a lively 
and very serious interest in the problems of mankind and the 
world. Between fifteen and sixteen I was strongly attracted 
to the study of religion and philosophy and read everything 
I could lay my hands on but it was all in a negative sense, 
as a skeptic and pessimist. That, you know," he added, "is a 
favorite failing of youth pessimism. But with me, I am 
sorry to say, it remained more than a passing phase. Volun- 
tarily, at that age I began a rationalistic commentary on the 
Bible. I even took up the study of Hebrew in order to go on 
with this work. I was temperamentally an anarchist, destruc- 
tive and iconoclastic." 



214 A PROPHET IN ITALY [Nov., 

"When did you begin to actually write?" 

"At nineteen. In 1900 I published some philosophical 
essays in the scientific journals. It was not until two years 
later, however, that I published anything in America. An 
article on Italian Philosophy appeared in the Monist of Chi- 
cago in 1902." 

The writings of this young searcher after Truth early at- 
tracted attention, not only in Italy, but abroad, all the more 
so since, even at the age of twenty-one, he had founded an 
organ of his own, the philosophical and literary review, Leo- 
nardo, which was so well written and edited that it imme- 
diately took its place among the critical journals of Europe. 
Its publication continued until 1907, and it made Papini 
known to the leaders of thought in the Old and the New World. 
This new voice in the universal chorus, in fact, spoke with 
such a tone, that it quickly attracted the attention of Bergson, 
Bontroux and William James. In 1904 Papini met Bergson in 
Switzerland. In 1905 began his acquaintance with William 
James, who was then visiting in Rome. James at once formed 
a sympathetic friendship for the youthful Italian, whose name 
is to be found frequently mentioned in the writings of the 
American psychologist. 

Papini's first book, The Twilight of the Philosophers 
(Crepmculo dei Filosofi), published in 1905, was a vigorous 
and radical attack on all the modern schools of thought from 
Kant to Nietzsche. It made the name of the Italian known 
throughout Europe, and although never translated into Eng- 
lish, was introduced to American readers by James, who pub- 
lished a lengthy review of it in the Journal of Philosophy of 
New York (1906). This book was quickly followed by a still 
more brilliant work, a mixture of philosophy and phantasy, 
called The Daily Tragedy (11 Tragico Quotidiano), published 
in Florence in 1906. 

I was curious about Papini's literary associations and in- 
fluences during these first years of his success. I found them, 
as I had expected, of unusual interest. Naturally, so youthful 
and brilliant a writer was distinctly in the ring when it came 
to knowing the people of his own country who were "doing 
things" who were thinking and writing, especially those who 
were leading or following in the same free lines that he had 
chosen. Giuseppe Frezzolini, author of a widely read work 



1921.] A PROPHET IN ITALY 215 

on Modernism; Morselli, poet and dramatist "He is dead," 
Papini explained: "at Rome, just a few weeks ago; and he 
died the death of a saint!"); Soffici, famous skeptic and 
cubist; Giuliotti, anarchist since become a fervent Cath- 
olic, "the Veuillot of Italy," as Papini calls him; these and 
many others of the busiest and most brilliant of modern 
intellectuals in Europe were Papini's intimates even a 
bare review of whose names today shows straws in the 
wind of Papini's prophecy of the coming Catholic renais- 
sance. 

At the same time his reading was playing its role in 
Papini's development. There was Carducci, stylist and 
"Satanist." "I felt the influence of Carducci very strongly," 
said Papini, "and especially in my youth I owed much to him 
as a model of literary style. In 1917 I published a volume 
treating of Carducci (L'Uomo Carducci Carducci the Man), 
but in that work, as you will see, I did not pass over his spir- 
itual limitations or his anti-Christian animus. By that time I 
was getting on to Christian ground myself." 

"And what of Manzoni?" I asked. "This year you are 
celebrating the centenary of / Promessi Sposi " 

"Ah, Manzoni! For many years, from childhood, I did 
not like Manzoni at all. It was not until I was thirty years 
old that I came to see the value of his writings, especially his 
great religious work, Catholic Morals, which I especially 
recommend as the best piece of modern apologetics we have 
in Italy. It is a most beautiful thing, even though he died 
without completing it. I have in press at present an anthol- 
ogy of Manzoni's work." 

Through all this story one can see the unsatisfied spirit 
of the man searching through the dim crowded galleries of 
human thought, throwing down one idol after another, over- 
turning every pedestal to examine its foundation, impatient 
with the half lights and multitudinous shadows of the laby- 
rinth but still going ahead, never resting long, always thrust- 
ing forward, determined to find the way out to daylight. It 
was the red glare of war blazing across the world that finally 
swept him into the open air of certitude that certitude which 
speaks with such quiet finality in his whole air and manner, 
as of a man who has found himself not today, perhaps, but 
yesterday and is no longer troubled. 



216 A PROPHET IN ITALY [Nov., 

What is the story of Papini's spiritual adventure? He 
gives me this bit of searching autobiography: 

"As you see, I followed through many philosophies, 
through many schools of literature, religion, thought, and so 
on but little by little they all convinced me of one thing, the 
weakness and insufficiency of human opinions. It was not 
through them that I was to reach Absolute Truth. And 
nothing but the absolute could satisfy me. 

"So I went on. But no, not any particular personal event 
precipitated my conversion. (As you see, it was not precip- 
itate at all.) It was one big universal fact the War. 

"At first I took the War with the everyday indifference 
that characterized so many of us. But in 1916 I began to 
suffer, I myself, from all that was afflicting the world the 
misery of it, the ferocity, the falsehood, the death! Then I 
really began to ponder how men, civilized men, could have 
fallen to such degradations. I thought and read, thought and 
read until finally I turned to the story of Christ, the study 
of the Gospels. And in the light of that study I soon dis- 
covered that the same terrible things, more or less according 
to proportion and form, had always been happening for the 
same old reasons. 

"The question was, how to make them happen less often 
how, in fact, to put a stop to them altogether. All our ex- 
ternal systems of politics, economics, etc., were good for 
nothing. Changing our social regimes Democracy, Com- 
munism, and so on were equally useless. They did not alter 
the fact. What was to be done? What did the world need? 

"I arrived at the conclusion that we must change the 
spirit of man. To leave it as it is, is to simply keep on going 
wrong, perpetuating the evil. We must change our in- 
stincts. 

"How was that to be achieved? What was the doctrine 
which most perfectly revealed such a transformation the 
actual changing of the instincts of man? That of the Gospels. 
Coming to this conclusion I rested a little while, having laid 
hand on the moral system of the Evangelists. I was convinced 
now of my immortal soul. But, of course, that was not 
enough. There was one step more from the law of the Abso- 
lute to the Absolute Itself. Logically, I passed from the moral 
system of the Gospels to Christ. And Christ led me into the 



1921.] A PROPHET IN ITALY 217 

Church that is, the only true Church, the Catholic Church, 
the Church of Rome. 

"This was in 1917, my first turning to the Gospels. In 
1916 I had gone into a sort of solitary confinement to study 
and meditate. Then, the year following I went to Rome to 
become literary editor of // Tempo. But by 1918 I had again 
reached such a mental state that I was obliged to give up my 
work and once more seek solitude for thought and study. 
What I call my 'first' conversion took place at that time that 
is, to partial or evangelical Christianity. 

"But I was still unsatisfied. I must go on. I must pur- 
sue the thing to the end. In 1919 I had begun the writing 
of a new book but I never finished it. I interrupted it to 
commence the Storia di Cristo. That year I entered the 
Church." 

I asked him about some of the reading he had done during 
this period of his development. "Several of the Russian 
writers helped me reach the first phase of my conversion, Tol- 
stoi and Dostoievsky among them. Then, in passing from 
'evangelical' Christianity to the full light of the Catholic 
Faith I was aided by the French apologists, by Hello and Bloy 
and others. But the greatest influence of all was Newman, 
especially his Development of Dogma. I know Monsignor 
Benson also his Paradoxes of Christianity and his striking 
novel, Lord of the World. Benson, however, I have read only 
recently." 

Nothing of the mental strain and turmoil of spirit which 
Papini has experienced shows in his quiet self-contained per- 
sonality. All the struggle is definitely a thing of the past. 
He feels, he says, like a man who has been climbing all his 
life until now he has gained those highest levels above which 
there is nothing but sky and light. Speaking with him, there 
is left only a feeling of the man's strength a strength which 
must be enormously physical, as well as mental, for him to 
have accomplished all that he has in his still brief years. 
Besides the astonishing number of books he has published in 
the fifteen years since the appearance of his first volume, and 
besides an immense amount of journalistic work, he has been 
the founder of three important reviews and the editor of two 
others (counting the literary editorship of the Roman // 
Tempo). He has likewise traveled abroad, lived and studied 



218 A PROPHET IN ITALY [Nov., 

in Switzerland and France, and yet has found time to marry 
and devote himself to the raising of a family. When one sees 
his good Catholic wife, with that mother of his who, secretly 
baptizing him, had lived to see him a loyal son of the Church, 
and his two little growing daughters, aged eleven and thirteen, 
one's thought inevitably goes back to the old story of the silent 
partnership of woman's love and children's prayers in the life 
of a man. 

The unaffected, easy-going, business-like air of Papini 
makes his success seem a matter of course. There is nothing 
superficially exciting about it because, as it is plain to see, he 
is not thinking of how many copies of his book are sold, but 
of how many people are getting the message of it. "It is the 
non-believers I want to reach," he said, "the everyday people 
who will not go to church or read the Scriptures or listen to 
sermons. That is why the book is published as it is, in the 
'popular' style, in large attractive type, with short snappy 
chapters." Certainly, it is the easiest imaginable book to 
read. It flows like a ballad. It is in fact a great prose poem, 
rich in imagery, colorful and dramatic and as simple as an 
old song. There is not a footnote to distract you from the tale, 
not a date, not a single historical reference to remember; 
only the beautiful old story told in a new way or rather told 
in something of the old-fashioned way of folklore, with the 
flavor of the soil in it and a deep fund of appealing human 
nature, which makes Christ and His Blessed Mother, the 
Apostles and St. Mary Magdalen, Judas and Pontius Pilate, 
and all the other figures of the Divine Drama, very real and 
living creatures. 

Papini's Story of Christ strikes a singular note in the life 
of Italy at the present moment. The whole country is in a 
state of unrest, with periodical outbursts and frequent mani- 
festations of the spirit of Bolshevism, which has been allowed 
to seep in from Russia. It is the year of the sixth centenary 
of Dante "but the memory of Dante," Papini remarks, "is 
not being honored in a manner worthy of the greatest of 
Christian poets. That alone is a commentary on the temper 
of the time. There are scholastic parades and military 
parades, restorations of monuments and many useless dis- 
courses. But the spirit of Dante is forgotten. The grand final 
commemoration in Florence has been assigned to D'Annunzio, 



1921.] A PROPHET IN ITALY 219 

the farthest removed of any living man from the soul and art 
of Dante." 

But Italy is safe, spiritually and politically. The growing 
strength in parliament and at the polls of patriotic Catholics 
devoted to the saving of their country from inward destruc- 
tion, is a guarantee of the future. Without in the remotest 
degree touching on politics at all for as he expressly declared 
to me, he occupies himself with political affairs only as an 
observer and a voter Papini's is really a voice leading the 
better elements of his nation. "As for social disorders," he 
says, "they are simply the consequences of our moral and in- 
tellectual disorders. The making of Christians will automat- 
ically cure all that and the cure will be exactly in proportion 
to the making of Christians. 

"I am not worrying about the future," declares Papini. 
(He is no longer a pessimist, you see: Christianity has cured 
him of that.) "Certainly not about the future of the Church. 
I rejoice to note the progress the Faith is making in the Eng- 
lish speaking countries especially in the United States. Your 
Catholic churchmen are well known here. The late Cardinal 
Gibbons was very popular in Italy and his writings are widely 
read. 

"A great renaissance of the Faith is coming. It will be 
felt everywhere, in the Latin countries as well as in those less 
traditionally Catholic. The Catholic countries need it as much 
as the others." 



ENSHRINED. 

BY PATRICK COLEMAN. 

SECLUDED from the din and dust 
Of life, its loathly lure and lust, 
For thee, Beloved, in my heart 
I keep a hidden place apart. 

A secret place whereunto oft, 
When I the cares of day have doffed, 
In reverential love and awe 
I and my pilgrim thoughts withdraw. 

There only aspirations high 
May keep thy queenly company, 
Nor any thought less pure than thou 
Before thy grave, sweet face may bow. 

Could feeling false to thee profane 

The cloistral heart where thou dost reign, 

Or desecrate the hallowed place 

That holds enshrined thine imaged face? 

Ah, no, for nothing base may brook 
Thy saintly smile, thy virgin look; 
And nothing sensual may dwell 
With thy chaste eyes delectable. 

So from the world I keep apart 
The sanctuary of my heart; 
A secret haunt, a hidden shrine, 
To hold thy loveliness divine. 



A hidden shrine, a holy place, 
Wherein, to ponder on thy grace 
And pore on thy perfection high, 
Oft go my pilgrim thoughts and I. 




A PAPAL CURIOSITY IN NEW YORK. 

BY JAMES J. WALSH, M.D., PH.D. 

EW people know that there is in New York City 
an extremely interesting curio bearing a close 
and probably rather intimate relation with one 
of the well known Popes of the Renaissance. It 
has been on public exhibition for years, but most 
of those who see it have little idea of its rather significant 
place in history and in geography. As there gathers about it 
a whole chapter of information with regard to the relations of 
the Church to science in the century before Galileo, it seems 
well that attention should be called to it. 

This curio is the terrestrial globe made by Ulpius in Rome 
in 1542, and is one of the treasures in the library of the New 
York Historical Society. The globe is fifteen and a half inches 
in diameter and is supported upon the original stand of oak. 
This is somewhat worm eaten, but remains strong and sub- 
stantial. The globe still turns easily on its pivots and every 
visitor takes a turn at whirling it, so that one wonders whether 
it may not have to be put eventually into a glass case to pre- 
serve it from wear and tear. The main axis on which it turns 
is topped by an iron cross representing the North Pole. From 
the top of this to the floor is three feet and eight inches. 
The two hemispheres were constructed separately, and they 
shut together like a spherical box firmly held in place by pins. 
The latitudes are marked by the nicely graduated copper 
equator on which the names of the signs of the Zodiac are 
engraved. The equatorial line of the globe has the longitude 
divided into sections covering five degrees each. The Tropic 
of Cancer is called Aestivas and that of Capricorn Hy emails. 
The Arctic and Antarctic circles are indicated and the Elyptic 
is marked out very clearly. A brass hour circle enables the 
student to ascertain the difference in time between any two 
given points. The globe was evidently meant for use and is 
very complete. 

As the inscription shows, the globe was dedicated to 



222 A PAPAL CURIOSITY IN NEW YORK [Nov., 

Cardinal Cervinus, 1 who afterwards became Pope under the 
name of Marcellus II. Unfortunately, Marcellus lived but 
twenty-two days as Pope, his Pontificate being, I believe, the 
shortest in the whole history of the Papacy. As Cardinal he is 
said to have interested himself very much in art and, accord- 
ing to tradition, was an accomplished draftsman and a good 
sculptor. A knowledge of science was sufficient passport to 
his acquaintance and friendship. At the time the globe was 
made Cardinal Cervinus was Cardinal Director of the Vatican 
library. There seems to be good reason to think, therefore, 
that he must have had much to do with the making of the 
maps for the globe and perhaps actually dictated the lines of 
it to the engraver, Euphrosyne Ulpius, who was only a Roman 
handicraftsman, utterly unknown except for his connection 
with this globe. Indeed, the Cardinal is known to have had 
some ability and skill in this kind of draftsmanship him- 
self. 

Marcellus was one of the most distinguished churchmen 
of his time. He was present at the Diet of Spires, and on 
April 30, 1545, was made one of the three Presidents of the 
Council of Trent. Ten years later he was unanimously elected 
Pontiff and enthroned on the following day. Ranke has said 
of him that "the reformation of the clergy of which others 
talked, he exhibited in his own person." He was zealous for 
a pure administration throughout the Church. While he was 
interested in literature and criticism, he seems to have been 
especially devoted to science. He advocated the form of cal- 
endar in accordance with the plan devised by his father, who 
was a receiver of taxes of the March of Ancona, and who had 
given much time to the subject of mathematics and brought it 
to his son's attention early in life. About this time an impres- 
sion gained ground that the world was to come to an end in 
the course of a few years by a universal deluge. Marcellus 
wrote a treatise to contradict this notion, and neutralize the 
effect of the superstition upon the minds of many people who 

1 The dedication in Latin runs as follows: Marcello Cervino S. R. E. Presbitero 
Cardinali, D. D., Rome. To Marcellus Cervinus of the Holy Roman Church, Rome. 
Rev. B. F. Da Costa in translating this has suggested that the D. D. after the Cardinal's 
name stands for Doctor of Divinity, but it seems much more likely that it is the 
usual abbreviation for dicat dedicat, the Latin verbs of the formula of dedication. 
On the globe the dedication is surrounded by an ornamental frame capped by sheafs 
of barley or wheat, which form part of the device of the family arms, and with two 
deer in reference to the word Cervinus, derived from the Latin word cervns, a stag. 



1921.] A PAPAL CURIOSITY IN NEW YORK 223 

were beginning to think it scarcely necessary to go on with the 
ordinary avocations of life, since the world would so soon come 
to an end. He also wrote some elegant Latin poems, one of 
which, at least, De Somnio Scipionis, is still extant. 

Yet Marcellus is better known for his relation to music 
than to science. In his day, ecclesiastical music had become 
so full of disturbing artificialities that it served to distract, 
rather than to foster devotion. It is said that he had con- 
cluded to make one of the first acts of his Papacy the suppres- 
sion of music, to a great extent, in connection with Church 
services. The story goes that Palestrina heard of the Pope's 
intention and was naturally very much disturbed. He pleaded 
with him, and finally asked him to hear a Mass which he had 
just finished. Marcellus consented, and was so overcome by 
the beauty of many of the passages that he was found in tears 
at its conclusion. A few days later he died, and Palestrina's 
Mass, known ever since as the Mass of Pope Marcellus, was 
sung first in public as his requiem. As that Mass continues to 
be one of the greatest and most appreciated of musical works, 
Pope Marcellus would seem to be assured of immortality by 
his connection with it. 

The history of the globe of Ulpius is very interesting. It 
was probably the only one of its kind made. It is engraved 
on copper and was undoubtedly made at Rome, but was found 
in an old curiosity shop in Madrid. It was rather dingy and 
somewhat battered, but was very carefully restored, its outer 
surface being left intact, and was brought to this country and 
presented to the New York Historical Society. The inscrip- 
tion on the globe within an ornate border capped by the 
barley or wheat sheafs, or heads rather, of the Cervino family, 
runs as follows, and in this typographical form: 

REGIONES ORBIS 
TERRAR QILE AUT A VETERIB. 
TRADIT^E AUT NOSTRA PATRVQ 

MEMORIA COMPERT.E SINT 

EUPHROSYNUS ULPIUS DESCRIBE 

BAT ANNO SALUTIS 

M. D. XLII. 2 

2 "Regions of the Terrestrial globe handed down by ancients or discovered In our 
memory or that of our fathers. Delineated by Euphrosynus Ulpius, 1542." B. F. 
Da Costa, Magazine of American History, Vol. III., 1829. 



224 A PAPAL CURIOSITY IN NEW YORK [Nov., 

There is, of course, no way of tracing its history. Rev. 
B. F. Da Costa, in The Magazine of American History some 
forty years ago, called attention to a reference in Hakluyt 
to "an olde excellente globe in the Queen's privie gallery at 
Westminister which seemeth to be of Verarsanus makinge." 
On that globe he says the "coaste is described in Italian" and, 
as this is the special characteristic of many of the names to be 
found on this globe, it might possibly seem as though this 
were the one which Queen Elizabeth frequently consulted in 
the privacy of the gallery at Westminster. It would be inter- 
esting to trace, at least con jectur ally, the possibilities of how 
the globe found its way over to England. Very probably it 
was among the possessions left by Pope Marcellus II. at his 
death in 1555. This was the year of the restoration of Cathol- 
icism in England under Mary Tudor, and the following year 
Cardinal Pole became her principal adviser. Through him 
the globe might easily have found its way into England at this 
time, and an interesting question would be to trace the rela- 
tions of friendship between Reginald Pole during his sojourn 
in Rome and Cardinal Cervinus before he became Pope, so 
as to discover how this globe could have come into Pole's pos- 
session and be taken to England. Even with that problem 
settled, however, the question as to how the globe found its 
way back to Spain, would remain. If there were a replica, 
one could easily understand that one of the two should find 
its way there since Mary's husband was Philip II. of Spain, 
and he doubtless would have been very much interested in this 
globe which, better than almost any other map of the time, 
set forth the Spanish possessions on the other side of the 
water. But Hakluyt's reference is to Elizabeth, perhaps thirty 
or forty years after Mary's death, and when there was no pos- 
sibility of any such communication between England and 
Spain as would account for the globe reaching Spanish do- 
minions. 

A very interesting feature of the globe, doubtless the 
reason why it was made at Rome, is that it shows as one of its 
most important lines the famous arbitrary arbitration line 
drawn by Pope Alexander VI. to delimit the possessions of 
the Spaniards and the Portuguese who were both engaged in 
explorations, and were claiming dominion over territories they 
had discovered and explored. That line was drawn from pole 



1921.] A PAPAL CURIOSITY IN NEW YORK 225 

to pole at ninety degrees west longitude, giving the Portuguese 
the right over all the territory of Africa, but only a small por- 
tion of South America which projects beyond that line. This 
famous Papal decision made Brazil a Portuguese and not a 
Spanish country. Few people realize when they use the term 
Spanish-American, indicating that everybody south of the 
United States speaks and understands Spanish, that an ex- 
tremely large country representing the face of the lion on the 
eastern coast of South America is not Spanish at all, but Por- 
tuguese with a literature that looks not to Cervantes and Lope 
de Vega and Calderon for its traditions, but to Camoens and 
the Portuguese historians and poets. 

The globe of Ulpius was not the earliest globe made. The 
first we know of appeared just fifty years before, in 1492, the 
very year in which Columbus crossed the Atlantic on his first 
voyage of discovery. That globe was made by Martin Be- 
haim of Nuremburg, and is of supremely striking interest 
because of its date and, as Dr. Stevenson, the expert on car- 
tography, has declared, "because of its summary of geograph- 
ical knowledge recordecf at the very threshold of the new era." 
Behaim tells us that his delineation of the earth's surface was 
based upon Ptolemy, whose world map, dating from the 
second century of the Christian era, had been republished just 
about ten years previous and had attracted great attention. 
The Nuremburg globe maker had, however, taken advantage 
also of information provided by the travels of Marco Polo and 
of Sir John Mandeville, and of the explorations carried on 
by King John of Portugal and Prince Henry, known in history 
as The Navigator. Copies of the two hemispheres of Behaim's 
globe may be seen among the transparencies at the American 
Geographical Society Building in New York. 

Behaim had traveled considerably, had passed through 
Spain several times and had spent some years in Portugal. 
It has been suggested, and the suggestion seems not unlikely, 
that he had probably met Columbus and talked over with him 
the problems of Western Oceanic exploration, and doubtless 
influenced the great navigator by his geographical ideas. The 
fact that he greatly underestimated the distance from Portugal 
to China, quite mistakenly representing Japan as near the 
actual longitude of Mexico, would have encouraged Columbus 
very much in undertaking his voyage westward to the Indies, 

VOL. CXIV. 15 



226 A PAPAL CURIOSITY IN NEW YORK [Nov., 

that is to the Eastern coast of Asia, for that was Columbus' 
objective. Undoubtedly, some of these ideas influenced the 
discoverer of America to think that he had reached the East 
Indies, and to keep him from believing that he had discovered 
a new world. 

There is another globe, that of Johan Schoener, also of 
Nuremburg, which preceded the globe of Ulpius by nearly a 
quarter of a century. A copy of that also may be seen among 
the transparencies in the American Geographical Society (New 
York). This is the first globe that presents the New World. 
Schoener does away with the Pacific Ocean to a great extent 
and Japan, on his globe, is placed in close proximity to the 
west coast of North America, entirely too close proximity for 
us to feel comfortable under present conditions, if what 
Schoener represented were a reality and not merely the dream 
of a sixteenth century cartographer. He places a strait be- 
tween North and South America which, had it really existed, 
would have saved us the time, labor and money expended on 
the Panama Canal. He also places a strait at the south of 
South America, separating that contfnent from a still more 
southern continent, to which the name of Brasilia Inferior, 
Lower Brazil, was given. Probably these were only shrewd 
guesses, for the Panama or Darien Strait proved to be missing, 
the strait which we now know as Magellan, was discovered 
subsequently and the Northwest Passage was only dem- 
onstrated by Amundsen a few years ago. 

On Ulpius' globe South America is called Mundus Novus 
and also America. The name of America had been reserved 
for South America for the better part of half a century, at 
least for over thirty years, from the time of Canon Wald- 
seemuller's map in 1507, which followed the descriptions 
given in the notes of Amerigo Vespucci's voyages, until the 
world map of Mercator in 1538 where, for the first time, the 
name America is given to both the northern and southern con- 
tinents of the New World. It may be interesting to revert 
here to the fact that this name was given to the new continent 
by the distinguished canon of the college of St. Die, Waldsee- 
muller, because, as he said, the other continents, Europe, Asia 
and Africa had been named after women, and it seemed only 
fair to name this new continent after a man, its dis- 
coverer. 



1921.] A PAPAL CURIOSITY IN NEW YORK 227 

Ulpius* globe corrects many errors of preceding geog- 
raphers, though not free from errors itself. For the first time 
the peninsula of Florida receives a proper location and the 
shore of North America generally is rather well outlined. 
Florida is called Florida; Mexico, Nova Hispania; Northern 
Mexico, running over into what we call California, is named 
Nova Galatia, after the province of that name in the north of 
Spain. Yucatan is spelled Ivcatan, and its general shape is 
about correct. What we know as Central America is called 
Nova Andalusia; the Pacific Ocean is named Mare Pacificum, 
but also Mare del Sur, which became the familiar South Sea 
in English, and such names as Peru, Bresilia (Brazil), Vena- 
zola, Terra Paria, Rio de Platta, are to be found. In South 
America there is a note of cannibals and anthropophage. 
There is a Terra Gigantum and a Terra de los Fuegos, as well 
as an immense Terra Australis a great southern continent 
below the Strait of Magellan (the initium freti Magellanici is 
carefully noted) but with regard to this southern continent 
the globe tells us that it had not yet been explored, perhaps 
not yet actually found, for the Latin words are ad hue in.com- 
perta. 

Perhaps the most surprising thing on the globe is to find 
that the portion of North America above Florida is called 
Verrazano or New France (V errazana sive Nova Gallia). 
This, it is noted, was discovered by Verrazano, the Florentine, 
in the year of grace (anno salutis), 1524. Undoubtedly, Ver- 
razano was the first to explore the coast behind which lies this 
immense geographic region, and yet very little was known of 
that fact until quite recently. His brother published, in 1529, 
a large map, preserved in the College of the Propaganda at 
Rome, which outlines Giovanni Verrazano's discoveries. It 
was doubtless from this that the details some of them at 
least of the globe of Ulpius were secured. The name Nova 
Gallia or New France is not surprising, though that term was 
applied later to territory farther north than here delineated, 
and indeed continued to be a favorite geographic designation 
for Canada and the French possessions until the middle of the 
eighteenth century. It was on Verrazano's discoveries and 
voyage, authorized and financed by the French king, that the 
French based their claims to this part of North America. 

Verrazano first saw the North American coast in latitude 



228 A PAPAL CURIOSITY IN NEW YORK [Nov., 

thirty-four degrees north, the fires of the Indians who had 
gathered in the early spring to feast on shell fish being visible 
for a great distance. He steered northward, passing the mouth 
of what we call Chesapeake Bay, and reaching in latitude 
forty what he called the Cape of St. Mary, now known as 
Sandy Hook. Rounding the point, his little vessel, the 
Dauphin, cast anchor in what is now New York harbor. They 
visited the shore in boats, and found the Indians ready to wel- 
come them. Verrazano said of them: "They are very easily 
persuaded and imitated us with earnestness and fervor in all 
they saw us do in our act of worship." Bennet, in Catholic 
Footsteps in Old New York, has quoted Rev. Morgan Dix, late 
of Trinity Church, New York, as saying that "religious services 
of some kind or other were undoubtedly held, while his [Ver- 
razano's] ship lay in the port which he has so accurately 
described." If a priest was with the expedition, which, how- 
ever, we can only surmise, these religious services could be 
none other than the Mass which very probably, therefore, was 
said on Manhattan Island in April, 1524. 

To many it may seem surprising that Verrazano is set 
down as a Florentine, for, ordinarily, we do not think of Flor- 
entines as having the wander-craze nor as interested in ex- 
ploration and discovery. But practically all of the important 
explorations of this generation were accomplished by Italians. 
Columbus was, of course, a Genoese and his rival, Amerigo 
Vespucci, after whom the continent was eventually named, 
as he was the first to reach the mainland and to realize that he 
had found a new world, was also born in Italy. So were the 
Cabots, John and Sebastian, though because the name is now 
familiar in America and because the Cabots sailed with a 
commission from England, we are accustomed to think of 
them as of English origin. Their names were really Giovanni 
and Sebastiano Cabotto. Although spoken of as Venetians, 
having lived in Venice for many years, they were born not 
far from Genoa. Verrazano fits very well into this company, 
and so does Pigafetti, who was Magellan's second in command 
in the famous expedition that first circumnavigated the globe. 
Magellan was killed, either by the natives of one of the savage 
South Sea Islands, or, perhaps, by one of his own men, who 
feared his indomitable energy and courage would carry the 
expedition forward to a miserable ending, and his Italian lieu- 



1921.] A PAPAL CURIOSITY IN NEW YORK 229 

tenant is usually spoken of as the man who conducted the 
expedition to a successful termination. 

While the Portuguese had done much to explore Africa, 
had sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and found their 
way to India, and had crossed the Atlantic Ocean and landed 
in Brazil, so that Pope Alexander VI., before the end of the 
fifteenth century, was obliged to define the territories of the 
two powers, Portugal and Spain, the Spaniards themselves 
were only rarely in command of expeditions in the early days 
of exploration. A succession of Italians proved the daring 
adventurers who assumed responsibility for the expeditions 
and so often brought them to a successful conclusion. There 
is a famous old-fashioned saying: "Unhappie Italy that still 
hath beaten the bush for others to catch the bird and hath 
inherited nothing in these eastern and western worlds." For 
it is a very striking feature of the story of this early explora- 
tion that none of the discovered lands came into Italian pos- 
session. 

The names scattered along the coast of North America in 
Ulpius' delineation of it, are practically all of them of Italian 
form and termination, though many of them are evidently 
adaptations of place names well known in France. Breton, for 
instance, is mentioned, but there is a Selva de Cervi, a forest 
of deer or stags, there is, of course, a San Francisco and a 
Porto Reale, or Port Royal, and then there is a Terra Labor- 
atoris, evidently what was later to be Labrador, but Ulpius, 
following Verrazano, places this very much farther south than 
our present Labrador. Above all there is, in the distant 
northwest of the North American continent, a Tagu Provincia, 
which is evidently a reminiscence of previous map makers 
who had used that name. Curiously enough, Greenland is pic- 
tured not very far from where we know it and under a name 
not very different from ours, but Islandia is placed very close 
to the Greenland coast. Hibernia has much the form we know 
and looks like the little dog we see on our maps, but Scotia, 
much less well known, did not extend far enough north, and 
England was much compressed in length. The Orkney Islands, 
under the name of Orcades, were given a very prominent 
place, thus leaving insufficient room for north Scotland. 

Other names are also interesting. On what would be now 
the coast of South Carolina is to be found the B. della 



230 A PAPAL CURIOSITY IN NEW YORK [Nov., 

that is the bay of the cross, next to it is Valleombrosa, doubt- 
less a reminiscence of Vallombrosa, the "shady valley," not 
far from Florence. Along the coast, one finds Lungavilla, 
evidently a reminiscence in Italian form of Longueville, the 
still fashionable watering place near Dieppe. There is a G. 
di S. Germane not very far from where New York harbor is, 
and perhaps intended to be the name for that, which recalls 
the French royal residence of St. Germain. C. Frio, the cold 
cape, is one of the capes of what we now know as Newfound- 
land. There is an Island of the Demons off the coast here, 
between the continent and Groestlandia, which is the spelling 
of the name for Greenland. The North, as well as the South, 
Pole is represented as having land all around it, though north 
of Asia there is a sea or immense lake called the Mare Glaciale. 
Only two of the names between the gulf of Mexico and the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence remain today. One of these is Port 
Royal and the other is Labrador. The country back of the 
coast up north is called Terra Baccularum, the land of sticks, 
because the Indians of that region dried their fish by spread- 
ing them apart with a stick. The Ulpian globe shows a num- 
ber of islands not found in modern times. Some of these are 
in the neighborhood of Newfoundland and were evidently 
consequent on specious appearances due to fogs or icebergs. 
There is an island of S. Branda, which probably means 
Brandon, but no island is known in that neighborhood now. 
The Tagu Provincia, already mentioned, situated in the distant 
northwest near what is now Alaska, is probably the Tangut 
of Marco Polo, the coast of America here being joined to 
Asia. 

The globe is further interesting for illustrations of many 
different kinds of fish that are found in the different oceans. 
Many of the varieties are very well illustrated. The parts of 
the ocean where they are usually seen are also indicated. 
These are the first illustrations of fish with any hint of their 
habitat that we have. Paul Jovius wrote a book on Ichthyol- 
ogy, which was published in 1524, but it was not illustrated. 
The whale is represented as living in the distant north and is, 
perhaps, the poorest illustration of all. Of course, the sea 
serpent finds a place here, but then the sea serpent has been 
seen many times, ever since, without scientists being able to 
locate him. 



1921.] A PAPAL CURIOSITY IN NEW YORK 231 

Da Costa concludes his account of the globe with these 
words: "This ancient globe has come to us from the Eternal 
City, finding a permanent resting place at last, not without a 
certain fine justice, in the great Metropolis which looks out 
upon the splendid harbor visited and described by him whose 
name is so prominently engraved upon the portion repre- 
senting the New World ( Verrazano) .... It is a rare souvenir 
of the past. It embodies many of the great aspirations of the 
sixteenth century, it stands connected with its maritime enter- 
prise and adventure and with its naval and geographic 
romance. It forms an epitome of the world from the begin- 
ning to 1542. Especially does it prove to the student how the 
exploration of our continent tried the courage, tested the en- 
durance, baffled the skill and dissipated the fortunes of some 
of the noblest of men." 

It also serves to show how deeply interested were the 
Popes and the high ecclesiastics near them at Rome in secur- 
ing and diffusing the best available scientific information. 
This globe, surmounted with a cross, remains as a very definite 
demonstration that the too common impression of Roman 
ecclesiastical authorities as hampering the progress of science 
or keeping information away from the people, is one founded 
entirely on ignorance of the actual conditions. 




AUSTIN DOBSON. 



BY F. MOYNIHAN. 

HE recent death of Austin Dobson removes a 
notable figure from the world of belles-lettres. 
He represented the last of a literary school that 
sought its inspiration in the England of the 
eighteenth century. In prose he harks back to 
Thackeray of the English Humorists, and the Four Georges; 
in poetry he recalls the modish prettiness, the exquisite con- 
vention of Prior, Praed and, more recently, Locker-Lampson. 
Like these, he excelled in vers de societe, and improvised 
deftly on the lyra elegantiamm. He had the true Horatian 
quality, the smack of the man about town in the London of 
the Augustan Age. His Muse was powdered, patched, bro- 
caded; wistful, frolic, debonnaire. He carved daintily in por- 
celain and tinted couleur de rose the beaux and belles of 
Georgian days. He sang of Beau Brocade and the ladies of St. 
James'. He sang, too, of the gallants and marquises of the 
times of Louis Quinze. The pictorial quality of his art sug- 
gests now the silken shimmer of a Watteau, now the tender 
pastel of a Greuze, and again the court pastoral of a Francois 
Boucher. He experimented in old French forms rondeaus, 
rondels, ballades and villanelles and made these gracile 
measures native to English speech. He penned idylls like 
"Good-Night, Babette!" that suffused with a pensive charm, 
a haunting tenderness the memory of a past bygone and irre- 
coverable. A Gallic grace and sprightliness, due to his French 
extraction, contributed with an English reserve and earnest- 
ness to give these poems their distinctive quality. The result 
is a vintage of choice bouquet that vies somewhat with the 
Falernian of his illustrious predecessor. Like him he dedi- , 
cated his songs virginibus puerisque: 

O English Girl, divine, demure 
To you I sing. 

and for an exegi monumentum he has written : 



1921.] AUSTIN DOBSON 233 

In after days when grasses high 
O'er top the stone where I shall lie. 
Though ill or well the world adjust 
My slender claims to honored dust, 
I shall not question or reply. 

* * * * 

But yet, now living, fain were I 
That some one there should testify. 
Saying "He held his pen in trust 
To Art, not serving shame or lust." 
Will none? Then let my memory die 
In after days! 

Mr. Dobson is a past master in the literary lore and to- 
pography of eighteenth-century London. He has written biog- 
raphies of its distinguished worthies : Steele, Goldsmith, Field- 
ing, Richardson, Hogarth. He is, like Leigh Hunt, a delight- 
ful cicerone who gossips endlessly about the Town and its 
historic associations. He loves to visit the places where 
dwelled its celebrities, to note the changes in and about Char- 
ing Cross, Leicester Square, Fleet Street, Drury Lane and 
Covent Garden. He re-creates its pleasure resorts : Ranelagh, 
Kensington and Old Vauxall Gardens. He sketches in minia- 
ture the figures who played minor roles in that dramatic 
period. His curiosity is unfailing, and extends to the merest 
minutiae that concern them. The particularity of his method 
he is at pains to describe for us: 

For detail, detail, most I care 
(Ce superflu, si necessaire!) ; 
I cultivate a private bent 
For episode, for incident: 
I take a page of Some One's Life 
His quarrel with his friend; his wife; 
His good or evil hap at Court; 
His habit as he lived; his sport; 
The books he read, the trees he planted 
The dinners that he ate or wanted: 
As much in short, as one may hope 
To cover with a microscope. 

Anyone who has read the many volumes of his literary 
vignettes will recognize the exquisite justness of this charac- 



234 AUSTIN DOBSON [Nov., 

terization. His personalia embrace Dr. Johnson in his garret 
at Gough Square; Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill; Pope 
and Matty Blount; Steele and Prue; Goldsmith, The Jessamy 
Bride and Little Comedy, Swift and Stella; Prior's "Peggy" 
and "Kitty;" Garrick, Peg Woffington and Mrs. Clive; the 
learned Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Delany; Lady Mary Coke, and 
Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey and others too numerous to men- 
tion. Among these he moves as a contemporary with an inti- 
macy of reference and allusion that make them living, breath- 
ing personages. He is perhaps most original when he silhou- 
ettes some minor character "Little Roubillac;" Jonas 
Hanway; the bookseller Dodsley, or Newberry; William 
Heberden, the physician who figured in the entourage of 
these great lights of literature. If selection were not in- 
vidious, one might instance the papers: "Bewick's Tailpieces," 
and "In Cowper's Arbor" as supreme examples of his en- 
gaging quality. 

The excellence of Mr. Dobson's work is such as to chal- 
lenge comparison with that of acknowledged masterpieces. 
His monograph on William Hogarth, for instance, is no whit 
inferior to Lamb's and Hazlitt's essay on that painter-historian, 
and his sketch of Steele is more authentic than Thackeray's or 
Macaulay's. It is his amazing knowledge of customs and man- 
ners, of setting and accessories that accounts for the verve and 
gusto of his critiques on Hogarth's pictures. His aper$u of 
the London of the time in the opening chapter is a triumph 
of sympathetic realization. He interprets cursorily every de- 
tail of "Marriage-d-/a-/node," or "A Rake's Progress," and he 
recognizes every motley figure in "The March to Finchley." 
His delineation of the special genius of the artist cannot 
be bettered: "To take some social blot, some fashionable 
vice, and hold it up sternly to 'hard hearts;' to imagine it 
vividly and dramatically, and body it forth with all the re- 
sources of unshrinking realism; to tear away its trappings of 
convention and prescription, to probe it to the quick, and lay 
bare all its secret shameful workings to their inevitable end; 
to play upon it with inexhaustible invention, with the keenest 
and happiest humor; to decorate it with the utmost prodigality 
of fanciful accessory and allusive suggestion; to be conscious 
at his gravest how the grotesque in life elbows the terrible, 
and the strange grating laugh of Mephistopheles is heard 



1921.] AUSTIN DOBSON 235 

through the sorriest story those were his gifts, and this is 
his vocation a vocation in which he has never been rivaled." 

His reconstruction of the London of the Toiler in his 
memoir of Steele, is a feat that recalls the best efforts of Leigh 
Hunt and Thackeray. This charming passage is reproduced 
in his mellow anthology, A Bookman's Budget: "We see the 
theatre with Betterton and Bracegirdle on the stage, or 'that 
romp' Mrs. Bicknell dancing; we see the side-box bowing 'from 
its inmost rows' at the advent of the radiant *Cynthia of the 
minute;' we hear the shrill cries of the orange wenches, or 
admire at the pert footmen keeping guard over their mis- 
tresses' bouquets. We see the church with its high pews, and 
its hourglass by the pulpit; we hear, above the rustle of fans, 
and the coughing of the open-breasted beaux, the sonorous 
periods of Burnet or Atterbury; we scent the fragrance of 
Bergamot and Lavender and Hungary-water. We follow the 
gilded chariots moving slowly round the Bing in Hyde Park, 
where the lackeys play chuck-farthing at the gates; we take 
the air in the Mall with the Bucks and Pretty Fellows; we 
trudge after the fine lady, bound, in her glass chair, upon her 
interminable *how-dees.' We smile at the showy young Tem- 
plars lounging at Squire's or Serle's in their brocaded 'night- 
gowns' and strawberry sashes; we listen to the politicians at 
White's or the Cocoa-Tree; we accompany with the cits at 
Batson's and the Jews and stock-brokers at Jonathan's. We 
cheapen our Pekoe or Bohea at Motteux's China Warehouse; 
we fill our boxes with musty or 'right Spanish' at Charles 
Lillie's in Beaufort Buildings; we choose a dragon-cane, or a 
jambee at Mather's toyshop in Fleet Street. We ask at Lin- 
tott's or Tonson's for Swift in Verse and Prose, we call for 
the latest Tatler at Morphew's by Stationer's Hall. It is not 
true that Queen Anne is dead : we are living in her very reign : 
and the Victorian age with its steam and its socialism, its 
electric light and its local option has floated away from us like 
a dream." 

And again for criticism which bears the cachet of the 
literary connoisseur, what can equal his arbitration of the 
respective claims of Steele and Addison? 

"Addison's papers are faultless in their art, and in this 
way achieve an excellence beyond the reach of Steele's quicker 
and more impulsive nature. But for words which the heart 



236 AUSTIN DOBSON [Nov., 

finds when the head is seeking; for phrases glowing with the 
white heat of a generous emotion; for sentences which throb 
with manly pity or courageous indignation we must turn to 
the essays of Steele." 

The other full-lengths that he has executed are his por- 
traits of Horace Walpole, flaneur and virtuoso, and Fanny 
Burney, diarist and novelist. In one book only, Four French- 
women, has he strayed beyond England, and given us speak- 
ing likenesses of the heroines of the Revolution Charlotte 
Corday, Madame Roland and the Princess de Lamballe. In a 
style that vibrates with the passion of his theme, and catches 
the very accent of his emotions, he limns these noble figures 
of womanly self-devotion in luminous relief against the "red 
fool-fury" of the Terror. Of Charlotte Corday he is the con- 
fessed apologist: 

Ah! judge her gently, who so grandly erred 

So singly smote, and so serenely fell. 
Where the wild Anarch's hurrying drums are heard, 

The frenzy fires the finer souls as well. 

A fitting pendant to the essay on the Princess de Lamballe 
which recounts her fidelity unto death to the hapless Marie 
Antoinette, is the companion picture of the Abbe Edgeworth 
in his last volume just issued from the press. The account of 
this gallant Irishman's loyalty to the cause of the royal family 
to Princess Elizabeth and to Louis XVI., whom he attended 
as chaplain at the guillotine, revives the memory of one "who 
belongs to the uncanonized Saints of self-sacrifice the un- 
cenotaphed Martyrs to duty." It is pleasant to know that this 
generous tribute was the last labor that engaged Mr. Dobson's 
pen. Now he, too, is gone, and as the chronicler of a pictur- 
esque era he leaves no successor. 

Nee viget quidquam simile aut secundum. 



THICKER THAN WATER. 



BY CATALINA PAEZ. 




S Annette pushed open the outer door of the 
Church of St. Benedict the Moor, a driving gust 
of rain assailed her. Hastily drawing up her 
black satin skirt in her carefully gloved hand, she 
stepped back into the vestibule, which already 
harbored a goodly number of St. Benedict's dusky congrega- 
tion. Annette withdrew as far as possible into the corner 
near the font of holy water. There she was accosted by fat, 
kindly Mrs. Williamson, her neighbor. 

"I reckon ma umbrella's plain ty big enough for two, Mis' 
Millet, and I see you ain't got none. I suttin'ly would be 
pleased to have you come home with me." 

Her broad black face beamed with friendliness, but An- 
nette shook her head. 

"You're very kin 1 , Mrs. Williamson," her musical cadenced 
speech and rising inflections denoted her West Indian origin, 
rou're very kin'. But my husban' will be comin' for me, I 
feel sure." 

She knew in her heart that her Jules would not be free to 
leave his elevator for an hour yet. 

'But I jes' can't bring mysel' to associate with those South- 
lers," she mused, as she watched fat Mrs. Williamson 
waddle out of the door. "I jes' can't. Though I am afraf its 
uncharitable and unchristza/i. Jes' as unchristian as the way 
I feel to my sister. But I can't help that either! May the 
lints forgive me!" 

Little by little the group in the vestibule left its shelter 
for the protection of some neighborly umbrella, or else boldly 
hazarded Sunday finery to the dangers of the downpour. 
At the last there was left only Annette, reluctant to accept of 
proffered hospitality, and still more reluctant to imperil her 
)lack satin and white kid; and, crouching in the furthermost 
corner, a tiny girl with the straight nose, limpid eyes, and old- 
ivory tinted skin of the youthful octoroon. Annette's own was 



238 THICKER THAN WATER [Nov., 

only a tone darker, but she noted the distinction, and the 
child thereby gained caste in her eyes. 

Surely, it was no fear for her apparel that kept the girl 
thus lingering away from the storm. For summer shower 
could run no color from her faded calico garment, nor shrink 
that which was already shrunken to the uttermost; neither 
could the wreath of field flowers nor the limp headgear which 
it purported to adorn, become more drooping and bedraggled 
than already they were. Annette's critical glance traveled 
from the child's withered daisies to her rusty broken shoes. 
She felt no need of further explanation. 

"Poor HP thing!" she murmured. "She isn't afraf of 
hurtfn' her clothes, but herse/'. She'd be drenched through in 
a minute! Those shiftless Southerners!" 

And just at that moment the child spoke. In her voice 
there trilled, as in Annette's, the mellow cadences and rising 
inflections of the West Indies. 

"Do you think there is gom' to be a hurricane?" 

Her limpid eyes held a dawning terror, and she sidled over 
toward Annette with the mute appeal of the frightened young 
thing seeking protection from an elder of its kind. The mother 
instinct in Annette roused at once to the call; and added to 
this there thrilled within her another great instinct almost as 
dominating that of tribal kinship. The child was of her 
race, and of her breed. She drew the pathetic little figure to 
her, and patted the wee brown hand reassuringly. 

"Don't you be afrai'! They don' have hurricanes out here, 
lak in the West Indies." 

The child beamed up at her joyously. 

"You from there, too?" she cried. "How n i ice! I was 
born in S'n'Kitts! You from S'n'Kitts?" 

"No," responded Annette, a ruminative light coming into 
her soft eyes, "though I bean there. I'm born een Hayfz. 
My husfcan' he's from Martinique. He ought to be here soon, 
now. Unless the rain laits up he'll be comm' for me, with an 
umbrella as soon as the other elevator man relieves heem." 

"Nobody will come for me," whimpered the child. 

"Why, where's your mother?" queried Annette sharply. 
To her well ordered mind such maternal delinquencies were 
worthy only of "those Southerners" those benighted sons and 
daughters of Virginia and Alabama, whom Annette from the 



1921.] THICKER THAN WATER 239 

height of superior West Indian culture, so uncompromisingly 
despised. 

"She's she's I'm not quite sure where she is." 

To Annette the words conveyed only the possibility of 
some temporary maternal absence a neighborly visit or such 
like. To Ivy May they meant a terrifying uncertainty, a re- 
volting vision of a corpulent, disheveled figure, flourishing in 
one hand a pack of cards, and in the other an empty gin bottle, 
from which an hour since the child had fled to the gentle pro- 
tection of Mother Church. Ivy shivered at the memory. An- 
nette's kindly mother heart was touched. 

"You're col'," she said gently. "You must be hungry, too. 
I know I am with this wait/n'. Who's a' goin' to get your 
dinner eef your mother's not home?" 

"Nobody," murmured Ivy May. "I jes' was a' goin' to eat 
bread and molasses." 

"Bread and molasses is no proper food for a chiP," hotly 
ejaculated Annette. "Even if you could get decent molasses 
in this countree/ Which you can't. You come home with me, 
chiP, and I will give you a good West Eendian broth which 
will make you stop shiverm' in no time. Gome, the rain is 
over." 

They walked to the elevated station in Fifty-third Street, 
and there took a train to Harlem where Annette conducted 
te child toward a modern and finely built apartment house. 
My!" breathed Ivy May rapturously. "You live here? 
But then I might a known eet! They do say all the fines' 
color' people in New York live in Hundred Thirty-seex StreeV 

Annette plumed herself a little at the frank compliment. 

"I was brought up respectafc/e, and I've got to live re- 
she confided as they shot up in the elevator. "I 
couldn't stan' a tenement swarmin' with those dirty South- 
erners ! Though the rent here is somethin' dreadful! But I've 
three lodgers, and that helps some. The young man who has 
the fron' par lor comes from S'n'Kitts. His father's health 
inspector of the port. A color' man certainly does have a 
chance in the West Eendies." 

She let herself in with her latch key, and ushered Ivy 
May into her cozy living-room. A modern rug, whose brilliant 
coloring delighted Ivy May's warm tropical sense, covered the 
floor; and gayly flowered chintz hung at the windows, arrayed 



240 THICKER THAN WATER [Nov., 

the sofa pillows, and draped itself about the oak extension 
table. There were a few inexpensive oak chairs, a little oak 
sideboard, and, contrasting strangely with these, a great high- 
boy and long davenport of deep and richly carved mahogany. 

"A dealer once offer' me a hundre' dollar' for those 
pieces," Annette proudly confided to Ivy May, "but I toF heem 
they're not for sale. I brought them from home," she mur- 
mured, lovingly stroking the arm of the davenport. "No! So 
long as my Jules can run an elevator, and I can get enough 
fine laundry work to do, we'll get along without those hundre' 
dollar'." 

Ivy May gasped a little. 

"You don' look lak you could be a washer-woman," she 
commented, her admiring gaze fastened upon the black satin 
raiment which Annette was exchanging for a trim print house 
dress. 

At Ivy May's words she drew herself up to the full. 

"I'm not a washer-woman," she asserted proudly. "I don' 
do none of that common laundry work. I'm a blanchisseu.se 
de fin!" 

"Oh!" said Ivy May, uncomprehending but impressed. 

"I've done up laces and fine embroideries for Mrs. Vander- 
bilt," boasted Annette, "though she didn't know it was me that 
done them. When the cleaners get a special job they're afraf 
to try, they send it to me. Though I've got so many private 
customers now, I shan't be able to take any more of that work. 
If only I could get help that was help ! But there is only one 
other -woman I know in New Yor', can handle fine white 
goods the way I can. And she " Annette's face lowered and 
she clenched her hands passionately. "Oh, what's the use of 
my makm' mysel' angry anyway! She isn't fit to be spoken of." 

"Who is she?" murmured Ivy May, frightened at this out- 
burst. 

"My sister," said Annette. Then after a pause, "I don't 
have anythzn* to do with her. I haven't seen her in seven 
years. I conseeder her a deesgrace. My family held their 
heads high in Hayti. My father and both my grandfathers 
were Frenchmen, and they all married their women legal. I 
never thought I would have to do laundry work for a liviV/ 
But I've often been glad the nuns taught me to clear starch 
and flute. They taught my sister, too, and she could earn a 






1921.] THICKER THAN WATER 241 

respectable livzn* and be respectable, too, if she wan'ed to. 
But she don' wan'. She'd rather go 'roun' fortune tellzn'." 

Ivy May's little olive face twitched suddenly. 

"Ees fortune tellin' so very bad?" Her tone sounded 
almost appealing. 

"Eet's the devil' work," returned Annette grimly. 

Ivy May shrank back as though she had been struck. 

"Come chil'," said Annette. "This is useless talk, and I 
must be gettzn' dinner. Jules will soon be here." 

For a rapturous half hour thereafter Ivy May, de- 
lightedly sliced onions and green peppers, and with nimble 
fingers helped poke slim, spiced lardings of salt pork into beef 
for the ragout. 

"You certain/ee are clever with your hands, chiP," com- 
mented Annette approvingly. "It wouldn't surprise me in the 
leas' if you could learn clear starchzV. Would you lak to try?" 

"Oh," cried Ivy May. "Oh, if you only would lait me ! It 
certain/ee is lonesome vacation time. I won't play with the 
color' children here. They're rough not lak een the West 
Eendies ! An' the white children won' play with me." 

"Haven' you got nobody home," queried Annette sym- 
pathetically, "except your mother? Where's your father? Is 
he a white man?" she added with sudden suspicion. 

"Maybe you call heem a white man," responded Ivy May. 
"In S'n'Kitts, we jes' call heem a Poriugee. Only now we don' 
call heem nothin*. He's dead." 

Ivy May's limpid eyes filled and flooded. 

"My father's dead," said Annette softly, "and so's my 
mother. I've got nobody in the worF, exceptzn' my Jules." 

"And your sister," corrected Ivy May. 

"I've no sister," cried Annette fiercely. "The one I did 
have is dead to me. I wouldn' breathe the same air with her, 
nor anyone belongm' to her. I wouldn' give them a bite nor 
a crumb if they were starvi/iV 

For a while they sliced and stirred in silence. The arrival 
of Jules, his elevator uniform replaced by staid Sunday black 
and immaculate collar and shirt-front, sent the dinner on to 
the table in short order. Ivy May's soft eyes grew round and 
rounder, as one savory mess after another was dished up and 
served. 

"It's only on Sunday we have both fish and meat," ex- 

VOL. CXIV. 16 



242 THICKER THAN WATER [Nov., 

plained Annette half apologetically, as she heaped Ivy May's 
plate with that standard West Indian delicacy, salt cod-fish 
smothered in onions, tomatoes and olive oil. And after that 
came the ragout, in all the glory of its spiced lardings, and 
surrounded by chopped vegetables and mounds of rice, each 
grain gleaming and distinct. And then, joy of joys, the salad! 
A true West Indian salad, thoroughly infused with garlic and 
green pepper. 

Ivy May crunched the last delicious clove of garlic and 
soaked up what little oil remained on her plate with a piece of 
bread. Then she closed her eyes and leaned back in her 
chair, replete and ecstatic. 

"My," she breathed, "but that was better than bread and 
molasses!" 

And before she knew it, she was fast asleep. 

Early the next morning before Annette had even finished 
sorting Mrs. Van Elton's lace petticoats and hand embroidered 
blouses, Ivy May appeared, ready for her first lesson in clear 
starching. And all that day she hovered about the washtubs 
and boiler, hanging upon Annette's instructions as gems of 
wisdom. 

"It's all in the wrinsm'," explained Annette, carefully sop- 
ping up and down in clear water an exquisite bit of Mrs. Van 
Elton's Paris finery. "You never can hope to have them any 
kin' of color at all, if you don' wrinse them plainly. 'Seven 
times is none too much,' Sister Marie-Rosalie used to tell us." 

So all that day, and during many days thereafter, Ivy May 
sopped fine linen in seven clear waters. And as days went by, 
Annette grew to depend more and more upon the nimble 
fingers of her young assistant, and to listen with even greater 
delight to the little shrill cadences which made a music echo- 
ing of home in Annette's erstwhile silent kitchen. While every 
hour spent in that busy kitchen was one of untold happiness 
to the lonely child. And between the tiny ex-patriot and the 
grown up one, there grew a bond that was firmer and stronger 
than any of the fine linen tapes that fastened Mrs. Van Elton's 
dainty lingerie. 

"Eet certainlee is a comfort to know I have some wan I 
can depend on for help; somebody that won't tear the laces 
and yellow the linen, and ruin things generally," Annette 
would often say. "If you were only a little older chiF, we 



1921.] THICKER THAN WATER 243 

could start that li'l business I have dreamed about so many 
years! A nice li'l store with a sign, and a counter, and the 
ironin' all out of sight in behin'. But one person can't do it 
alone, an' you've got to go back to school in the fall." 

"Couldn* you get your sister " began Ivy May. But her 
query broke in the middle, so fiercely did Annette turn on her. 

"Didn* I tell you I don' have anyttu'n' to do with my 
sister?" she cried. "I don' wan' anything to do with her. I 
wouldn' have her help me if she cared to! But she don' care 
to. She'd rather jes* go roun' fortune-tellin'." 

Ivy May's little brown fingers trembled under the blouse 
sfre was wrinsing. 

"Mayfce," she said softly, "may be she don' know no better ! 
Maybe she don' think fortune-telh'n' is so awful bad. Maybe 
if you tol' her, and explain' to her . . .! Perhaps, she don' 
understan' so many things lak you do." 

The eyes she raised to Annette were soft with appeal; but 
the woman's proud heart was not to be touched. 

"I don' wan' to hear anythz'n' more about her." 

Her tone was so decided that Ivy May made no further 
effort at conciliation. 

The following morning the child did not appear. 

"Perhaps her mother needs her," mused Annette. "It's 
funny she didn' send me wor'." 

The next day passed; still Ivy May came not. The third 
morning of absence found Annette torn with anxiety. 

"Somethzn' must have happen' to her," she murmured. 
"Perhaps she is sick." 

She searched for the address Ivy May had given her, and 
at once set out to find it. Her quest brought her to a colored 
tenement of the poorest kind. 

"Do you know a chiP name' Ivy May?" she asked of a little 
pickaninny at the street door. Only then she remembered that 
it had never occurred to her to inquire Ivy May's other name. 

"Yes," asserted the baby. "She live on the top floh back. 
She is sick," he added. "You bettah look out! It might be 
ketchin'." 

With a new fear clutching at her heart, Annette mounted 
the rickety stairs. Knocking at the top floor rear brought no 
response, so she tried the door. It yielded to her touch, and 
she entered the room. 



244 THICKER THAN WATER [Nov., 

It was bare, disorderly, dirty. In a corner on an untidy 
bed, lay Ivy May, her eyes closed, her little thin cheeks thinner 
if possible than ever. Annette went up to her, and took her 
hand. It was hot and dry. 

"Tell me what's wrong with you, honey," she pleaded. 

Ivy May opened her eyes and smiled wanly. 

"I don' know exac'/y," she whispered, "but I think I did 
catch col' in the rain las' week" 

"And what were you dom' out in the rain," demanded 
Annette. "Didn' I tell you not to go runnm' roun' in storms 
in those thin clothes you wear? What were you dom'?" 

"I was lookin' for some wan." 

"Who?" Annette's tone was gentle but insistent. 

The child's purple veined eyelids wearily fluttered down 
and her little breast heaved. 

"My mother," she sighed. 

Annette's indignation flared out. 

"What kin' of a mother you got anyway?" she exclaimed 
excitedly. "I guess she must be jes' about as bad as those . . ." 

Ivy May's little brown fingers pressed down upon An- 
nette's in weak protest. 

"She's my mother," she whispered. 

And, Annette silenced by the gentle reproof, ceased her 
tirade. 

For several minutes Ivy May lay quite still, but her little 
face was twitching as though under the workings of strong 
emotion. She seemed to be nerving herself for something. 
She pulled herself up on the pillows, her little breast heaved, 
and one hand caught at the neck of the ragged nightgown. 
Then she opened her eyes and looked straight into An- 
nette's. 

"There is somethm'," she said, "I got tell you. I should 
have toF you before, only I ... I couldn,' I was afraf you 
would not lait me come no more. My mother my mother 
she goes 'roun' fortune-telh'n'." 

Then spent with a tremendous moral effort of her reve- 
lation, Ivy May sank back wearily upon the pillows. Annette 
stooped over her gently, and smoothed back the straggling 
kinky hair. 

"Poor lil' girl," she murmured. "Poor liF girl." 

Ivy May opened her eyes in startled surprise. 



1921.] THICKER THAN WATER 245 

"Why you don' seem to mind!" she cried, "lak you did 
about your sister . . ." 

"What's your mother got do with my sister?" answered 
Annette. 

The door opened, and framed in its embrasure stood a 
corpulent, disheveled figure. 

"I've got the med'ceen, honey," she cried. "The doctor 
at the dispens'ry said, . . ." 

Her words trailed off into a half articulate exclamation, 
her relaxing fingers dropped the bottle which rolled unheeded 
to the floor, and she huddled limply against the door, staring, 
staring at the woman who bent over her daughter. And An- 
nette, suddenly straightening up at the sound of that voice, 
stared back. Then almost simultaneously each woman ut- 
tered one word : 

"You?" 

Annette was the first to recover her self-possession. She 
gathered her skirts into one hand, and picked up her purse 
with the other. 

"Well," she said, "I guess I better be got'n'. I didn' know 
what I was coming info, or I certainlee never should have 
come. I didn' know, . . ." she cast a withering glance at Ivy 
May's weak terrified little figure on the bed "I didn' know I 
had been nursm' a viper in my breas'." 

Her next words caused her a tremendous effort, something 
within her protested wildly against her saying them, but, 
nevertheless, say them she did. 

"You don' need come no more, Ivy May." 

The child in her fright and exhaustion made no reply, but 
the slouching figure at the door straightened itself with a swift 
reminiscence of dignity, and she faced upon Annette with the 
resoluteness, thinly masking terror, of the mother bear making 
her last stand in defence of her peril-threatened cub. 

"The chiV ain' done no harm to you. She ain' ever done 
no harm to nobody. I know / ain' much good, and I don't 
suppose I ever will be now. I've los' all my chances. But 
the chiP ain' never had a chance, till you took her up. Now 
if you throw her over, she'll never have another. She wan's 
to grow up respectafc/e, and I can' do nothin' to help her. I've 
slid too far down. Don' force her after me. She ain' never 
done you no harm." 



246 THICKER THAN WATER [Nov., 

She cowered before Annette in almost brute appeal. Then 
she straightened herself, again with that ghostly remnant of 
dignity. 

"After all's said and done, Ivy May's got jes' about as much 
of old grandfather Marceau's blood as you have, Annette. An' 
she's got somethzn' else which he had, and you haven', and 
never did have. And that's Christian charity." 

Annette's eyes traveled from her sister to the limp little 
form on the bed. Silhouetted against the pillow, the wan 
brown face took on a sharp resemblance to the clean cut pro- 
file of "old grandfather Marceau" that melted into a still 
stronger likeness to his daughter Annette's mother. Her 
heart fluttered wildly; she felt choked, weakened, over- 
wrought. 

She looked back at her sister once more. The woman was 
fat, gross, blear-eyed, but that ghostly mantle of the Marceau 
dignity still draped itself about her. 

From the rooms across the hall there suddenly issued the 
sound of voices in altercation, followed by the noise of com- 
bat. Annette shivered, and almost automatically she reached 
a protecting hand out over Ivy May. 

"Those dreadful Southerners!" she ejaculated. 

The noise next door grew louder and more ribald. An- 
nette shivered again. 

"A child of the Marceaus in the midst of that!" she mur- 
mured. 

Then she rose hastily, and picked up her pocketbook. 

"I'm goin'," she said, "to get a taxicab. And I'm goin' to 
take Ivy May over to my house. And and " just for a 
moment longer she hesitated. "I guess you better come along, 
too, Marguerite. I never did believe in family separations." 

As she took her way down the stairs, Annette paused for 
a second with a half smile. "It looks," she murmured "lak as 
tho' I'd be able to start that HP laundry business after all." 



Ulew Boohs. 



SUPERNATURAL MYSTICISM. By Benedict Williamson. St. 

Louis: B. Herder Book Co. $2.75 net. 

This book is introduced by Cardinal Bourne, Archbishop of 
Westminster, and it has in addition, "A Foreword on the Call to 
Contemplation," by the Lord Bishop of Plymouth. The twenty- 
seven chapters of the volume contain a series of discourses de- 
livered by Father Benedict Williamson, a distinguished English 
convert who was a chaplain during the War, to the enclosed nuns 
of the Convent at Tyburne, who spend their lives in prayer and 
adoration before the Blessed Sacrament on that spot consecrated 
by the blood of the English martyrs. 

Among the many and constantly increasing number of books 
dealing with mysticism that have appeared of late, this volume 
will probably prove to have a particular appeal to lay people 
because of the clarity of the language, the simplicity of the de- 
scriptions of the mystic way, and because of the fact that the tone 
and spirit of the book will enhance the devotional life of its 
readers, even though they may not be able to live and practise the 
life of contemplation. Not the least remarkable feature of Father 
Williamson's book are the experiences he relates showing the 
efficacy of prayer. 

Supernatural Mysticism may not appeal very strongly to 
students of the subject, to those who seek to explore the philo- 
sophical concepts or trace the historical development of different 
schools, but as a book which enables the average Christian way- 
faring man, or those who are not as yet members of the Catholic 
fold, to grasp some idea of the reality and practicability of the life 
of prayer, Father Williamson's volume deserves, and will probably 
attain, wide circulation throughout the English-speaking world. 

As Cardinal Bourne says in his introduction: "There are at 
the present day so many souls, not only among those consecrated 
to God in the priesthood and in the cloister, but among men and 
women in every rank and position in the world who need only a 
little encouragement in order to unite themselves more com- 
pletely to Our Lord. By such union not only would their own 
sanctification be rapidly promoted, but their influence for good 
upon their own immediate world would also be enormously in- 
creased." For such persons Supernatural Mysticism will rank 
high among books that really help. 



248 NEW BOOKS [Nov., 

THE MORALITY OF THE STRIKE. By Rev. Donald Alexander 
McLean, M.A., S.T.L. New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons. 
Father McLean in this book gives the most complete account 
of the morality of the strike published in English. The morality 
of a strike in itself, in its object and in the means employed, the 
morality of the sympathetic and the general strike, and the moral- 
ity of State action to prevent strikes are each given a chapter. 
The timeliness of the book in these days of "open shop" drives 
and Kansas laws is beyond question. The particularly strong 
portions of the book are the chapters on the morality of the 
strike in itself, in its objects and means, and the morality of 
State action. 

Doctor Ryan, in a preface, gives three reasons for the timeli- 
ness of the volume. The first is that ordinarily the morality of 
strikes is not considered and, therefore, too many of them occur, 
and when they do take place, fail in their best results. The second 
reason is the conviction that strikes are unjust and should be 
prohibited. The third reason is that the book goes more com- 
pletely into the subject than any other book in English, and does 
so on the basis of the new facts in industrial life. Side lights and 
direct statements are numerous on the contentions of those doing 
publicity work for the "open shop" drive, the Kansas law, etc. 
The sources of its merit are to be found in the knowledge the 
author possesses of what our industrial system is and what are 
the rules of justice. It gives a course in the ethics of strikes and, 
while some of its statements will be hard doctrine to many people, 
a closer knowledge of the facts, and a realization that there are 
such things as rules of justice for industry, business and labor 
unions will make the conclusions of Father McLean if not more 
palatable, at least more convincing. 

PAUL VERLAINE. By Harold Nicolson. Boston: Houghton Mif- 

flin Co. $5.00. 

It is gratifying that the twenty-fifth year after the death of 
Paul Verlaine should be commemorated by a book at once so 
readable and so scholarly as the present volume. During the last 
two decades of his life, and even long after his death, Verlaine's 
critics too often were biased either detractors or charitable pane- 
gyrists. Since literary prejudices die hard, the perspective of 
time was necessary for an impartial appreciation such as Mr. 
Nicolson has contributed. 

The first English critic to undertake a life of Verlaine, Mr. 
Nicolson has made his penetrating biography broadly interpre- 
tative, showing incidents and creative work in relation to their 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 249 

causes. Accordingly, capricious as was the vagabond poet's 
stormy career, the reconstructed story unfolds with fascinating 
vividness. It is, moreover, logical enough. In view of Verlaine's 
environment and his complete lack of will, his life was inevitably 
an almost continuous tragedy. For without the will to resist 
alcohol and the temptations of the flesh, what does genius avail? 
Strangely enough, knowing his impulsiveness and his childlike 
dependence, the poet long sought in vain from without that 
authority which he could not evolve from his own will. After 
every fresh disaster he would yearn for a moral support. He 
cheerfully accepted the discipline of prison or hospital, and even- 
tually the most salutary of all the discipline of the Church. 

Verlaine's early Parnassian attempts to "carve in marble 
and bronze" were unsuited to his impressionable temperament. 
It is as symbolist, as a delicately-attuned musician of the soul, 
that the poet of Sagesse will endure. Although he initiated much 
that is essential in contemporary French poetry, yet neither his 
genius nor his creed can readily be defined. Says Mr. Nicholson: 
"He was above all personal, and for this reason he stands, to some 
extent, in an isolated position. His influence is all-pervading 
rather than concentrated. He left behind him an atmosphere 
rather than a doctrine. He is universal rather than particular." 

MAN AND HIS PAST. By O. G. S. Crawford. New York: Oxford 

University Press. $4.85. 

The title of this book, which would indicate that it is a 
manual of Prehistoric Archaeology, is somewhat misleading, since 
it is in fact partly a plea for the better recognition of the impor- 
tance, both scientific and national, of anthropology and partly a 
description of some of the recent methods employed in field work, 
methods largely based on those of a pioneer in this matter, the 
late General Pitts-Rivers. 

It is a little difficult to form an opinion as to the kind of 
;lientele to which this book is expected to appeal. If it be in- 
tended for the unscientific general reader, we must confess that 
we feel some doubts as to whether it is likely to make any great 
appeal to him, though there can be no doubt as to the valuable 
information which he would derive from its perusal. To the 
professed anthropologist the defence of his subject must appear 
a mere preaching to the converted, who likewise, if he is not, 
ought to be familiar with the methods described in the latter part 
of the book. These are quite sound and the descriptions given 
may well be commended to the young anthropologist, though, as 
in other subjects, he can learn more in a couple of days in the 



250 NEW BOOKS [Nov., 

field with an experienced worker than by a year's study of the 
most excellent books. We perfectly agree with the author as to 
the many futilities of history as commonly taught, amongst which 
stands preeminent the trivial and inaccurate information given 
as to almost everything which occurred in England before the 
Norman Invasion and still more before the coming of Julius 
Caesar. But the careful anthropologist should abstain from mis- 
leading the historian and the student by fairy tales as to the 
origin of man, such, for example, as are to be found in the early 
chapters of this book. If set down as surmise, such statements 
may do no harm, but to talk of our "far-sighted ancestor" in the 
Tertiary Period and describe his doings as in the following pas- 
sage, is simply to mislead the innocent and ignorant reader: 

He did not, like so many, spoil his chances by giving way to 
fear on every possible occasion, he did not run away from 
danger on principle, and so have to adapt his limbs for swift 
flight; nor yet did he yield to the temptation to clothe himself in 
protective armor. Nor did he cut himself off from the world by 
adopting nocturnal habits. On the other hand, he was not pos- 
sessed by a devil of pugnacity; he preferred vegetarianism to the 
horrors of carnivorous diet. Moderate in all things, he led a life 
of meditative aloofness in the forest, waiting for something to 
turn up. His patience was rewarded; what turned up was not 
any kind of external goods, but the key to all such an intel- 
ligent mind. 

When we reflect that no one knows, however much he may 
surmise, whether man had an ancestor in Tertiary times and, 
consequently, cannot have any sort of idea of what he or his ways 
may have been like, it is not too much to say that greater scien- 
tific nonsense than this never was put on paper. 

A COMMENTARY ON CANON LAW. By Rev. Charles Augustine, 
O.S.B. Vol. VII. St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co. $2.50 net. 
The seventh volume of Father Augustine's commentary on 
the new code of canon law deals with Ecclesiastical Procedure. 
It embraces canons 1552-2194 of Book IV. Part I. treats of Trials, 
discussing in brief the ordinary tribunals of the first and second 
instance, the order of procedure, the judges and other officials, 
the rights of plaintiff and defendant, proofs, witnesses, contumacy, 
appeals, etc. Part II. treats of the processes of beatification and 
canonization. Part IIII. discusses peculiar modes of procedure 
in the removal or transfer of pastors, the suspension ex informata 
conscientia, etc. 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 251 

MORAL PRINCIPLES AND MEDICAL PRACTICE. By Charles 
Coppens, S.J. New and enlarged edition by Henry S. Spald- 
ing, S.J. New York: Benziger Brothers. $2.50 net. 
Father Coppens' book, Moral Principles and Medical Practice, 
has been so well known for years that it is gratifying to have it 
presented in a new and enlarged edition. The first nine chapters 
of the book have been left unchanged, for after all ethics do not 
change, and as the authors well say : "What was true of the ethics 
of craniotomy or abortion twenty years ago, when this book first 
came from the press, is true today." What the editor has done 
is to add chapters applying moral principles to the new problems 
that have come up in medicine in recent years, treating such sub- 
jects as Euthanasia and Vasectomy, Sex Hygiene and Eugenics, 
and Birth Control. Those acquainted with the book in its original 
form may be assured that the added chapters are worthy of the 
conservative thoroughness of Dr. Coppen's work. Father Spald- 
ing's years as dean of a medical school, has given him a practical 
acquaintance with the medical details of these subjects that makes 
him well able to apply ethical principles to them. 

There are passages in the book which deserve to be known 
generally, although the volume is intended particularly for phy- 
sicians and medical students, for hospital superiors and nurses, 
for clergymen in their ministry and for professional men and 
women in a teaching capacity. The chapters on Euthanasia, Sex 
Hygiene and Eugenics and Birth Control will be of special interest 
and significance to all engaged, however slightly, in social work or 
interested in social problems. 

THE STORY BOOK OF THE FARM. By J. H. Fabre. Trans- 
lated by H. Texeiro de Maltos. London: Hodder & Stough- 
ton. 8s. 6d. net. 

Fabre, that "inimitable observer" as Darwin called him, is 
well known to all lovers of nature study, and the book under 
review is one which will give much pleasure to all such persons. 
It is especially fitted for intelligent boys and girls, particularly 
those who have any taste for gardening. It gives not only a great 
deal of information as to how such operations as grafting and 
layering are carried out, but explains why the operations are con- 
ducted as they are and can be conducted in no other way. We 
cannot imagine any better text-book for a teacher desirous of 
instructing his class in the biology of the fields and especially of 
the cultivated fields. It opens up a vast number of interesting 
and unsolved problems which might form the foundation of a 
great deal of profitable inquiry and discussion. 



252 NEW BOOKS [Nov., 

An interesting point wnich rises to the mind in connection 
with such common objects of cultivation as the pear, the potato, 
the cabbage or wheat, is the inquiry as to what first set men to 
the task of improving the wild stock and how did they imagine 
that anything edible could be raised from the apparently useless 
and hopeless natural plants. We are apt to think great things 
of our modern inventions, wireless electricity, the internal com- 
bustion engine, aeroplanes and the like. Yet if we seriously con- 
sider the matter, the forethought and ingenuity of agriculturalists 
of days gone by were in no way less than those of the modern 
inventors of whom we think so highly. 

The arrangement of the chapters of The Story Book of the 
Farm might well be rectified. It seems to us that the chemical 
preliminaries might first of all be treated and then the biological 
considerations built upon them. In this way a clearer view of 
the whole matter would be obtained. The lack of an index is 
also a great blot on a book like this, which is packed with facts. 
Nevertheless, it is an excellent elementary manual, and we can 
highly recommend it. 

POST-BIBLICAL HEBREW LITERATURE. Vol. I. An Anthol- 
ogy Text, Notes and Glossary; Vol. II. The Translation. By 
B. Harper, M.A., Ph.D. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication 
Society of America. 

These two volumes by the erudite professor of Dropsie Col- 
lege serve as an introduction to the Jewish Classical series which 
the Jewish Publication Society has set out to issue. The work 
contains Hebrew selections of special literary merit and of peda- 
gogic value. At the head of the works published and translated, 
Dr. Harper places the wisdom of Ben Sira, the Ecclesiasticus of 
the Vulgate. The Hebrew original of this book is now recognized 
by all, although it was not included in the Jewish Bible at the 
time of Luther. The other portions of the Anthology are taken 
from the Mishna, the Babylonian Talmud, the Midrash, of his- 
torians, philosophers, etc. The language is largely taken from 
the Biblical Vocabulary of the Old Testament, as all the authors 
from whom selections have been made did not speak the Hebrew 
as their mother tongue. The Hebrew language, however, never 
ceased to be cultivated in spite of difficulties. Witness, therefore, 
new words and expressions introduced into the works of post- 
Biblical writers. The style is of necessity lacking in the flexibility 
of a living tongue, Biblical phrases are taken bodily from the 
sacred text, and thus a tone of artificiality is seen in the selections. 
The work will be of great importance to Biblical scholars and 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 253 

I 

to general readers who seldom have access to this kind of liter- 
ature. The glossary appended to the second volume consists of 
non-Biblical expressions that have been introduced into the 
Hebrew by the Jewish writers of the last two thousand years. 
The work does great credit to Dr. Harper's scholarship. 

THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION. By Preserved Smith, Ph.D. 

New York: Henry Holt & Co. $5.00. 

It would take a volume to point out the many inaccuracies 
that disfigure the pages of this bulky book on the Age of the 
Reformation. The writer gives us a formidable bibliography of 
some sixty-seven pages, but certainly gives no evidence whatever 
of having profited by the writings of the Catholic scholars he 
quotes, such as Pastor, Janssen, Denifle, Grisar, Gasquet, Fouque- 
ray, Brou, etc. 

The apostate, Sarpi, is his authority for the Council of Trent, 
the bigot, Lea, furnishes him his data upon the Inquisition and the 
celibacy of the clergy, and the journalist, McCabe, provides his 
caricature of the Jesuits. If he had taken the pains to consult the 
Catholic Encyclopedia, which figures, we know not why, on his 
book list, he might have saved himself the trouble 'of repeating 
many a false statement of both fact and theory. Dr. Smith, in his 
preface, tells us that Dr. Guilday of the Catholic University read 
three of his chapters, the first, the fifth and the eighth. Certainly 
these chapters give no evidence of the Catholic critic. In his treat- 
ment of the Council of Trent and the Jesuits in Chapter VIII. he 
is more than usually unfair and inaccurate. No man can treat 
adequately of the Council of Trent without at least an accurate 
knowledge of the teachings of Catholicism. 

THE GROPING GIANT: REVOLUTIONARY RUSSIA. By William 
Adams Brown. New Haven: Yale University Press. $2.50. 
So fast is history being made in Russia that most of the 
recent books on that country have been out of date by the time 
they were presented to the public. This is an exception. Here 
is a volume that is just as valuable today as when it was written, 
and will be just as valuable ten years from now. The author 
covered the vast extent of Russia in his experiences as a relief 
worker both during and after the War. He saw the rise of Lenine 
and Trotzky and witnessed their methods. His observations are 
based on the effect Bolshevism has had on the three major groups 
of Russians the Bolsheviks themselves, the masses and the in- 
telligentsia. The transfer of autocracy from the hands of the 
Tsar to the control of the Soviet leaders did not lessen the horrors 
of that autocracy. Both the transfer and the sub-sequent attempts 



254 NEW BOOKS [Nov., 

at national adjustment affected each one of these major groups in 
a different way, but the general effect on the nation as a whole is 
that it forced it to live on its capital. Neither the peasant nor the 
intellectual nor the Bolshevik has planned for the future. Today 
famine stalks Russia as a consequent of this wasteful policy. 

The picture this book brings is the composite view of a 
nation content to live for the present day, and not beyond the 
present. Incident after incident make the high lights in this view 
only the more pronounced. It is a ghastly panorama, analyzed 
coolly by one who sees it from the viewpoint of an American 
democrat. The conclusions that Mr. Brown has drawn have all 
been justified by the events of the past six months in Russia. The 
Soviet does not work; the dreams of Marx completely neglected 
the element of human nature, just as the theory of the Tsars 
neglected it. Bolshevism has only etched deeper into the Russian 
national consciousness that destructive fatalism which was always 
the weakness of her people. It has, moreover, proved conclusively 
that class rule, whether by Tsar or communist leader, must in- 
evitably be tyranr ;us. The failure of Russia today is only one 
more justification of "the worthiness and adequacy of the ideal 
of free government, for which America at her best should stand." 

THE SALVAGING OF CHRISTIANITY. The Probable Future of 
Mankind. By H. G. Wells. New York: The Macmillan Co. 
$2.00. 

The world is in a distressing and deplorable condition, Mr. 
Wells thinks. It will continue to drift to utter ruin and destruc- 
tion, unless it can be educated to reform itself according to Mr. 
Wells' programme. Such is the Alpha and Omega of this, his 
latest book in which he assumes the role of prophet and toys, 
not with disturbing facts, but with pure futurity. As is his way, 
Mr. Wells has some good things to say, but he so wraps them up 
in the fantastic that they are hard to discover. He despises the 
present plan of the League of Nations, he abominates war and 
the patriotism that begets it, he calls the world stupid and advo- 
cates some educational reforms. In his opening paper, he re- 
views the present-day crisis of civilization, and prescribes the 
political reorganization of the world as a unity. To prove that 
such a collective will to reorganize is possible, he cites the propa- 
gation of Mohammedanism and Christianity, forgetting that the 
former required the sword, and the latter, supernatural help. 
The succeeding papers fill in the outline of his projected salvation 
of the world and his organization of a World State. To effect this, 
boundary lines must be effaced and patriotism quenched in an 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 

all-pervading harmony. Such a brotherly union of the human 
family would be as feasible as the peaceful gathering of the feline 
family, tiger, jaguar, wild cat. 

Mr. Wells' imagination soars when he describes the life of 
an ordinary citizen in this world state. The greatest blessing 
would seem to be that "probably he (the world citizen) will never 
know what a cold is or a headache." Fundamental in this future 
state of beatitude, is a world-wide reform of education. We are 
to have syndicated schools, conducted, of course, by the world 
government, and syndicated lessons taught to every child, Euro- 
pean as -well as African, the world over. We are to have a new 
Bible, new in a real, not metaphorical, sense, that will supplant 
our present Bible, and be better adapted to the needs of the world 
to come. Mr. Wells is, at times, quite humble in these essays, 
and while he is in some such mood, we would suggest that in 
meditating on the future of the world, he should think of Divine 
Providence, in his Biblical studies he should learn the meaning 
of Revelation and Inspiration, and in his observations on his fel- 
lowmen, he should notice the workings of grace and the super- 
natural life. 

A HISTORY OF ENGLAND. New Edition. By E. Wyatt-Davies, 

M.A. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. $2.00. 

Into a space comparatively brief, the author of this book has 
contrived to compress an outline of the history of the beginnings, 
the growth and the development of the British Empire that is at 
once reliable and interesting. His third chapter refers to the 
"ruined church of St. Martin outside Canterbury," though in the 
preceding pages nothing was said about the introduction among 
the Britons of the Christian religion. That subject, though really 
somewhat obscure, deserved at least a paragraph. 

The importance of unity in the Christian Church as an ex- 
ample to the political and military leadership of that time is sug- 
gested rather than described. In effecting concert of action 
among the Germanic conquerors of Britain, the influence of the 
Christian Church was immense. 

Though the victory of the Picts at Nectansmere (685) pointed 
to ultimate Celtic rather than Anglo-Saxon supremacy, the sig- 
nificance of that event is not emphasized. The intelligent student 
should be offered some explanation of the later subordination of 
the Celt, who at that very moment was forced to defend himself 
against the Norsemen. This unexpected assistance was the turn- 
ing point in English history. Norse interference established for 
centuries the Anglo-Saxons in Britain. 



256 NEW BOOKS [Nov., 

The section describing the Norman conquest does not clearly 
set forth the ethnical character of Duke William's army. That, 
to be sure, is not the fashion. If our recollection is not at fault, 
the victor at Senlac or Hastings commanded Normans, from the 
valley of the Seine, Celts, from Brittany, and from other parts of 
Gaul, French, as well as continental, adventurers. 

The author's summary of the age-long Irish question is thus 
given in his account of Henry II.: "Henry's interference, there- 
fore, only began the unhappy policy by which England would 
neither rule Ireland nor allow the Irish to work out their own 
system of government." All later references t the relations be- 
tween the two nations are not less sympathetic. The term 
nations is here used in its ethnological sense. 

In the account of the Seven Years' War and of the result of 
that conflict in North America, the assistance of Prussia and of 
Ireland in securing complete victory for Great Britain is not so 
clearly indicated as its importance appears to deserve. The text 
follows the usual narrative found in the school histories of the 
United States, but it is not the more valuable for being time- 
honored. The policy of William Pitt was so to depress the power 
of France that she could never again become a rival of England 
in commerce or in colonization. In its execution, the regiments 
of Ireland and Prussia were helpful. The Due de Choiseul, 
destined to divide the Empire, had not yet become a portentous 
figure on the international landscape. 

This edition of an excellent text-book includes a sufficiently 
complete and very temperate narrative of the causes, as well as 
the progress, of the World War. Throughout the volume, indeed, 
all controversies, whether concerning religion or politics, are 
admirably presented. 

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF GEORGE A. LEFROY, D.D. By 

H. H. Montgomery, D.D. New York : Longmans, Green & Go. 

$5.00. 

Dr. Montgomery has written a good biography of his friend, 
the late Anglican Bishop of Calcutta. Most of his material has 
been drawn from the letters of Dr. Lefroy to his family during his 
thirty-nine years' stay in India. These letters reveal the troubles 
of an Anglican missionary in his all but futile endeavors to win 
over the Moslems and Hindus, and the difficulties of an Anglican 
Bishop in dealing with his clergy. As usual, with his confreres 
the good Bishop dared not teach too do^ iiiatically when questions 
are proposed to him, lor he realized the differing views of his 
fellow-Anglicans at home and abroad. 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 257 

Yet we find him objecting strongly to Archbishop Benson's 
utterances on Mohammedanism. The Archbishop declared "that 
a missionary to the Moslem would not succeed if he believed that 
Mohammedanism ministered to pride, to lust and to cruelty, that 
we must go to them (the Moslems) acknowledging that God had 
brought them a long way on the road to Him!" The Anglican 
mission to the Moslems of India was never very successful at the 
best, but it surely could not be furthered, as Dr. Lefroy clearly 
saw, by utterly ignoring the evil nature of its religious teaching. 

THE GOLDEN GOAT. By Paul Arene. New York: George H. 

DoranCo. $2.00. 

Mr. Arene has given us a pretty, wholesome, and charming 
story of the kind which no one can do better than a Frenchman 
when he so desires. It is the tale of a visitor on a holiday, who 
finds himself in the quaint town of Puget Maure, whose inhab- 
itants trace their descent to the Saracens and who cherish the 
tradition of a goat on whose bell and collar was inscribed in 
Saracenic characters the secret of a great treasure. The legend 
persisted, but never a sign of the mysterious treasure appeared. 
At last, among the effects of the recently deceased Mayor, M. 
Hannorat, are found some papers which explain the failure of 
many ardent seekers to find the treasure. 

The book is charmingly done and touched by playful humor 
and Gallic irony. The translation by Frances Wilson Huard is 
excellent. It is comforting to know that Americans are given 
access to French novels, and there are many of them, which are 
not a source of offence, virginibus puerisque, and are as fresh and 
fragrant as a breeze across the daisied fields of May. 

WILL-POWER AND WORK. By Jules Payot, Litt.D., Ph.D., 
Rector of Aix-Marseilles University. Authorized Translation 
by Richard Duffy. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co. $1.75 
net. 

Professor Bayot treats such familiar themes as Love of Work, 
The Condition of All Progress, How to Work, Real Intelligence 
and Pseudo Effort, Attention, Memory, Instruction Through Read- 
ing, in special chapters, and has made each of them a little mono- 
graph full of suggestion, at least, if not of new information. A 
chapter on Studies of Great Men and Their Habits of Work will 
be particularly interesting to most readers, largely because of the 
great differences noted. Manifestly the individual counts more 
than the method, but men have to evolve a system for themselves 
if they expect to accomplish much. 

VOL. CXIV. 17 



258 NEW BOOKS [Nov., 

What one misses in Payot's book is the lack of any hint of 
anything more than a natural motive for all the effort that is 
counseled. In spite of this, these purely secular studies of work 
and the will recall old-fashioned asceticism. There is insistence, 
for instance, on the fact that will power enables men to continue 
their work even when difficulties and injustices assail them, and 
that indeed such apparent obstacles often serve, especially for 
those who are great enough of soul, to bring out the best qualities 
of mind and heart. 

The new cult of success in life is bringing back the old phil- 
osophy of stoicism without the consolations introduced by Chris- 
tianity, and with merely human motives for effort in spite of hard- 
ships: "grin and bear" because that will help you to grin and 
bear all the more, replaces the consoling counsel, "take up your 
cross and follow Me." The satisfaction of success, so likely to be 
empty, is set up as the goal of life. It is interesting to note how 
popular these success books are, showing how much people feel 
the need of external stimulus. 

A HUNDRED VOICES AND OTHER POEMS. By Kostes Palamas. 

Translated by Aristides E. Phoutrides. Cambridge: Harvard 

University Press. $2.50. 

This present volume by Kostos Palamas, being the second 
part of his Life Immovable, is significant chiefly as an expression 
of poetic activity in contemporary Greece. Its author has be- 
come recognized as a champion of all that is somewhat dubiously 
meant by modernity : he is a passionate lover of freedom, a seeker 
of inspiration from humble, familiar sources, a defender of the 
colloquial language of his people very reverent toward art and 
toward thought, and correspondingly irreverent toward authority 
either temporal or spiritual. These "hundred voices" tell, in free 
verse and blank verse, the poet's brief reactions to various unre- 
lated emotions, and for the most part they are voices of beauty if 
not of any memorable illumination. But in his "songs of wrath," 
with their denunciations of "the black monk's fury and the teach- 
er's rage," there is, to the detached mind, something curiously 
puerile and outworn. 

No doubt this singer of modern Greece has worked against 
the odds of classicism and convention no doubt he does sincerely 
long to find that mystical unity which shall bring all human expe- 
rience, even the most bitter, "nearer to the wings of birds and 
songs of nightingales." But he has not found it yet possibly 
because he seeks it in pantheistic skepticism rather than in the 
awful simplicity of a personal God. Palamas may be described 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 259 

for English-speaking readers as an Athenian Walt Whitman, with 
something of Byron and something of Renan thrown in. But 
candidly it is doubtful if his work will intrigue readers of another 
tongue, even in Dr. Phoutrides' dignified and devoted translation. 

ST. PAUL: HIS LIFE, WORK AND SPIRIT. By Philip Coghlan, 

C.P. New York: Benziger Brothers. $2.50. 

The author's foreword states, as matter of legitimate sur- 
prise, that although English Catholic literature abounds in biog- 
raphies of holy persons, English-speaking Catholics have not 
hitherto been provided with a life of St. Paul, written by one of 
themselves. An unaccountable indifference obtains, not limited, 
however, to any one country, in regard to him who more than 
anyone else "has influenced the thought and life of the Church in 
succeeding ages." He quotes a German writer's complaint that 
the great Apostle of the Gentiles has never become an object of 
the people's religious veneration, in any such sense as Joseph, or 
Anthony of Padua. To supply this lack, in such a manner as to 
promote fuller, closer knowledge of the personality of St. Paul, 
is the author's intention. It is not lost sight of at any time; 
whether he is guiding his readers in the Apostle's footsteps 
through the conversion, journeyings and missionary labors, or is 
carrying the student through the Epistles with analytical, ex- 
planatory comment, at every turn he holds up to view the charm 
and attraction of the character that is the object of his loving 
study, thus imparting to the work a vital interest that should 
appeal to readers among the laity. 

Purposely, the book has been kept within as small compass 
as was consistent with its title; it is scarcely the size of the aver- 
age novel, and agreeably light to hold. Notwithstanding this, it 
is indexed, and is supplied with a map of St. Paul's journeys, also 
a bibliography. 

PRIZE STORIES OF 1920. O. Henry Memorial Award. Chosen 
by the Society of Arts and Sciences. Garden City, New York : 
Doubleday, Page & Co. $1.90 net. 

In the spring of 1918, the Society of Arts and Sciences insti- 
tuted annual prizes of $500 and $250 for the best short stories of 
the year, as an appropriate perpetual memorial to the genius of 
O. Henry, the admitted master of this form of artistic expression. 
Sifting the periodicals of 1919, the Committee of Award found 
thirty-two short stories which they considered superior, and from 
these the prize winners were selected. This year the process has 
been repeated. Seventeen prize winners were chosen, and are 



260 NEW BOOKS [Nov., 

reprinted in this, the second volume of the series. The selection 
is of particular interest as throwing light upon the sources of the 
best American short stories. Magazines of frankly popular ap- 
peal, much frowned upon by pundits, are far in the lead. The 
Red Book and the Pictorial Review are represented by three stories 
each, the Saturday Evening Post by two, Everybody's and Collier's 
by one each; while Harper's has three, Scribner's two, and the 
Century one. 

Conrad, perhaps the supreme master of the art today, has 
said that the aim of the story-teller, difficult and evanescent, is to 
arrest for the space of a breath hands busy about the work of 
earth, to compel men entranced by the sight of distant goals to 
pause for a look, a sigh, a smile. Such an ideal, reserved for only 
the very few to achieve, is reasonably well secured by the writers 
represented. The range of emotional appeal is broad, from the 
sheer horror of "Butterflies'* and the poignancy of "Contact" to 
the ludicrous absurdity of "The Camel's Back." Wholesome 
enough in general, it is to be regretted that some strike a note of 
fatalism, making it appear that blind destiny holds the strings 
and men, like puppets, move but as they are led. False and de- 
pressing as it is, such, unfortunately, is a philosophy of life only 
too common today, and must necessarily have been reflected in a 
collection like this, for, as the Chairman of the Committee of 
Award says in her introduction : "A revenant who lived one hun- 
dred years ago might pick up this volume and secure a fairly ac- 
curate idea of society today; a visitor from another country might 
find it a guide to national intelligence and feeling." 

AN OCEAN TRAMP. By William McFee. Garden City, New 

York: Doubleday, Page & Co. $1.75. 

This reprint of Mr. McFee's first published work cannot but 
be welcome to his large and growing circle of readers, most of 
whom have probably made his acquaintance through Casuals of 
the Sea. Issued originally in 1908, it makes its reappearance with 
a long preface written especially for this edition, while retaining 
that of the earlier publication. To say that this preface outranks 
the main substance, is not to disparage An Ocean Tramp, which is 
entirely characteristic and worthy of the author; it is only to 
acknowledge the augmented power of his mind, enriched by 
thirteen years more of experience and reflection. 

Mr. McFee's keen, sensitive observation vibrates response to 
all human appeals. In speech, as in thought, he is a free lance; 
his writings are not for the immature. For those who can dis- 
criminate, there is nothing that offends; and, always, he holds 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 261 

consistently to the conviction expressed at the end of the preface : 
". . . character, the achievement and acceptance of it, stands out 
as the one desirable and indispensable thing in the world. . ." 

THE GRINDING. By Clara G. B. Bush. New York: Henry Holt 

&Co. $2.00. 

The title of Miss Bush's story of Creole life in Louisiana be- 
fore the World War, denotes both the grinding of the sugar cane 
and the grinding of character under the stress of unexpected 
poverty. 

The heroine, Catherine Maine, is a New Orleans society 
butterfly lazy, ignorant, capricious and selfish who enters the 
story as the Queen of the Mardi Gras. In a moment of pique, she 
has rejected her lover, and betrothed herself to the villain of the 
piece. Luckily, the family fortune disappears over night, and she 
and her brother are forced to take refuge on a broken-down sugar 
plantation belonging to the family. The grinding is a slow proc- 
ess, but at the last moment Catherine succeeds in learning the 
gospel of work and in understanding, the unselfish devotion of 
her lover. 

The thesis of the novel is well stated by Fergus, the sterling 
brother, who retrieves the family fortune by his indomitable will. 
"Poverty is humiliating, not degrading. No outside circumstance 
can degrade us in the true sense of the word, any more than a poor 
garment can impoverish the soul." 

The writer gives us some vivid pen pictures of superstitious 
Louisiana negroes, proud Southern planters, and interesting 
Creole types. 

THE WRITER'S ART. By Those Who Have Practised It. Se- 
lected and Arranged by Rollo Walter Brown. Cambridge: 
Harvard University Press. $2.50. 

The distinctive feature of this book is indicated in its sub- 
title : instruction on the writer's art is imparted by those who have 
practised it. Of text-books in Rhetoric, the number is legion: as 
a matter of fact, one familiar with educational catalogues is forced 
to marvel where so many enterprising publishers find a market 
for their wares. But there is a plentiful lack of books by men 
who can sincerely and truthfully say: "Here are the principles 
of my art as I have formulated and practised them. Be their 
worth what it may, I, at least, by following them, have achieved 
recognition and success." Other professions, as Professor Brown 
points out in his preface, are quick to take advantage of expert 
counsel: why should the literary man alone make but small con- 



262 NEW BOOKS [Nov., 

tribution to the promotion of his art? Hence has the editor gath- 
ered together twenty-eight essays on the technique of composition 
contributed to the world by successful critics whose very criticism 
is itself literature, like Hazlitt, Emerson, and, to some extent, Poe, 
or by successful novelties of the standing of Stevenson, Conrad and 
de Maupassant. 

The great advantage to be obtained from a book like this is 
that the reader finds within its covers a number of fugitive pieces 
not otherwise readily accessible, and can analyze, compare and 
synthetize at leisure. At the same time no compiler has succeeded 
in pleasing everybody by his choices. We cannot but feel that 
Newman, for instance, deserves an honorable mention among 
those who could teach as w r ell as practise the writer's art. But, 
though in this single instance Professor Brown might perhaps 
have chosen better, he has, at all events, always chosen well, and 
has provided a valuable source-book for the philosophy of literary 
mechanics. 

THE WORKS OF SATAN. By Richard Aumerle Maher. New 

York: The Macmillan Co. $1.75. 

This entertaining book is pure comedy, with now and then 
an aside of the "half-joke but whole-earnest" nature, which is all 
the more forceful because of its unexpectedness. The humorous 
happenings are well told, without apparent straining for effect, 
and they appear to grow naturally out of one another. The 
reader will find entertainment and many a hearty laugh. The 
only possibility of disappointment is in the title, which promises 
wickedness of the deepest dye, and is consequently misleading. 

THE PROBLEMS OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH. By Hereward 

Carrington, Ph.D. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. $3.00. 

The best thing about the present volume is the fact that it 
does not claim to have solved the nature of the causality behind 
the so-called spiritistic phenomena. As an investigator, Mr. Car- 
rington, unlike many of his predecessors and contemporaries in 
the same line, is painstaking and laborious. Unlike them, too, in 
his conclusions, he is conservative. 

In a field so subtle it is a great relief to find an experienced 
experimenter who declares that the problem is as yet unsolved, 
and is likely to remain so for some time to come. Spiritists of 
the extremer type, like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, might well learn 
caution from the weighed judgments of Mr. Carrington. 

While Sir Arthur is already assured that "Spiritism" solves 
everything and that the "New Revelation" is a "fait accompli," 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 263 

Mr. Carrington quietly asserts: "I do not believe that the simple 
spiritistic explanation especially as at present held is the cor- 
rect one, nor one that explains all the facts." 

The net result that one gathers from Mr. Carrington's volume 
is that in the sphere of psychical research there are "problems" 
a-plenty, while "solutions" are as scarce as food in the famine 
areas of Russia. 

THE PARISH SCHOOL. Its Aims, Procedure and Problems. By 

Rev. Joseph A. Dunney. New York: The Macmillan Co. 

$2.00. 

With the marvelous growth of our parochial school system, it 
is well to take pause and look to its strength and efficiency. The 
parish school must not only compete with the best of the public 
schools in the secular branches, it must enter a field of education to 
which they never attain. To keep this moral and supernatural ideal 
fresh in our minds is the purpose of Father Dunney. The scope 
of the book is summarized in the sub-title. Under the first head- 
ing, the author discusses the general status of our system, the re- 
sults expected from the individual school in this system, and such 
fruitful topics as "Organization and Cooperation," "Principals and 
Teachers," "Discipline," and "Grading." He then turns to the 
actual school work, laying particular emphasis on the necessity 
and methods of teaching religion. Under the heading of "Prob- 
lems," he discusses honestly and with candor, certain difficulties 
that have been forced upon our system by non-sectarian educa- 
tional theorists. 

The book does not attempt to trace the historical growth 
of our system of schools, neither is it a manual of pedagogy, 
nor does it descend to the intricacies of class methods and 
management. It is a general survey that places before us our 
ideals; that warns us of our dangers, and emphasizes the Catholic 
spirit that should supernaturalize all our educational efforts. 
Father Dunney is Diocesan Superintendent of Schools in Albany, 
and speaks as a specialist, who has reduced his theories to prac- 
tice and success. 

THE PATH OF VISION. By Amern Ribani. New York: James 

T. White & Co. $1.50. 

This series of pocket essays, written partly in America, partly 
in Syria, attempts to meet the problems of man's restlessness. It 
suggests that we take account of our self-satisfaction, which is 
born of materialism. This is the source of unrest, social, re- 
ligious, economic. We are conscious of our ailment. We are 



264 NEW BOOKS [Nov., 

groping for a cure. The platitudes of the pulpit, Spiritism, mystic 
love, theosophy fail us. The author recommends "Vision." The 
vision, he presents, is not very clear. He makes a passing refer- 
ence to "Divine essence." He insists upon "spiritual ideals," 
"innate flame," union of the soul with "pure thought" influences 
by their nature never impelling and generally too obscure to 
awaken the dull of heart. If the author withheld his almost Vol- 
tairean dislike for the Church, sprinkled less rose-water and ful- 
minated more, his message, in some measure, might find its way 
into the minds and souls of a distraught and restless people. 

OUR LORD'S OWN WORDS. By Right Rev. Abbot Smith, O.S.B. 

Vol. III. New York: Benziger Brothers. $1.75 net. 

This is the third volume of meditations on the words of 
Our Lord as contained in the four Gospels. This volume begins 
with chapter xv. of St. John's Gospel and completes the Gospel. 
The words of Christ have ever been a rich source of meditation 
and Abbot Smith, in these volumes, has done a service to all 
of their lovers. Those who have been in the habit of meditating 
on the Saviour's words will find here new thoughts, and those 
who have never meditated, will be initiated into a practice which 
cannot but be most beneficial to them. 

SINGING BEADS, by Dom Theodore Baily, Monk of Caldey (London: 
Heath Cranton). In a prefatory note to his compilation of old 
English prayers and devotional verses, A Book of the Love of Jesus, 
Monsignor Benson pointed out certain characteristics of mediaeval 
English devotion. They spring, for the most part, from an intense and 
passionate love for the sacred humanity of Jesus Christ, manifested in 
an intimate familiarity of vocabulary and a deep love for the details 
of the Passion. A mediaeval suggestion is deliberately sought in the 
format of Dom Baily's book, especially in the antique wood cuts, and 
the characteristics sketched by Monsignor Benson are easily recog- 
nizable. The note of wistful pathos and spiritual yearning is constantly 
struck in practically all of the thirty poems included in this little book. 
The verse lines are unusually free, but here Dom Baily follows a tra- 
dition for devotional verse, already well established by Patmore, Lionel 
Johnson and Thompson. It is to be regretted that the book was not 
published in a more substantial form of binding. 

BIRD-A-LEA, by "dementia" (Chicago: The Extension Press. 
$1.50). Bird-A-Lea is the name of the beautiful house in one of 
the Southern States which is the home of twin girls, four years old, 
their eleven-year-old sister, their parents, colored servants, and 
various pets. The story deals with the exciting adventures and other 
experiences of the young people, but is, unfortunately, rather forced 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 265 

in dialogue and happenings. All who have enjoyed Uncle Frank's Mary 
and The Quest of Mary Selivyn will be equally pleased with Bird-A-Lea, 
and will be glad to meet again the little heroine of the other stories. 
This book, like the others, is pervaded by an edifying Catholic atmos- 
phere. The type is clear and good, and the book is illustrated. 

DAISY, OR THE FLOWER OF THE TENEMENTS OF LITTLE OLD 
NEW YORK, by Gilbert Guest (Omaha : Burkley Printing Co. $1.00) . 
This is a story suited for the consumption of very young children, who 
like their realism strongly flavored with fairy-tale occurrences of the 
type in which the child from the tenements is adopted by a beautiful 
and very rich foster-mother, and everything ends happily for her, her 
real parents, her adopted family, her newsboy friends, and, in general, 
everyone remotely concerned. 

EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN AND PUBLIC SCHOOL POLICY, by 
Arnold Gesell (New Haven: Yale University Press), gives us the 
results of a survey made of the public school children of New Haven, 
Conn. Only those children whom the teacher reported as backward 
were examined. This examination was made by Doll's abbreviated 
version of the Binet intelligence scale. This method of survey showed 
that about one and five-tenths per cent, of the school children of the 
city were feeble-minded. The same method in Meriden, Conn., gave 
one and twenty-five-hundredths per cent, feeble-minded. Considering 
that these figures are lower than the incidence of feeble-mindedness in 
the general population, either the method did not discover all the cases 
in these cities or the standard of diagnosis was somewhat lax. Un- 
fortunately, the author gives us no definite information about the 
criteria he used in making his diagnosis. The pamphlet advocates 
the passing of a law of compulsory education of the feeble-minded, 
either in public schools or in institutions. 

BUNCH-GRASS AND BLUE-JOINT, a Book of Verse, by Frank B. 
Linderman (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons). This is a group 
of swift-riding and colorful little poems, celebrating the excitement, 
and (one gathers) the rather precarious glory, of the life of the typical 
American cow-puncher. The manner is, in the main, the manner of 
Service, with much of his ease and jingling finish. The verses are 
quite sufficiently pleasant to read, and not at all taxing emotionally. 

MEDITATIONS ON THE LITANY OF THE HOLY NAME, by the 
Right Rev. Joseph Oswald Smith, O.S.B., Abbot of Ampleforth 
(New York: Benziger Brothers. 90 cents net). Any book that helps 
to give us a deeper appreciation of our accustomed vocal prayers is 
to be welcomed. The Abbot Smith, in these meditations, has done 
this for the Litany of the Holy Name. We recommend this little book 
to all those who make this Litany a part of their devotions, as well as 
all who seek materials for daily meditation. 



266 NEW BOOKS [Nov., 

OF small really pocket editions of new devotional books that 
have reached us, The Christian Ideal To Make God Known 
and Loved, which is from the French, treats briefly of the Divine 
Attributes (New York: Benziger Brothers. 65 cents net); these pub- 
lishers also offer a dainty little volume, entitled A Gift from Jesus, the 
Spirit and Grace of Christian Childhood, a translation and adaptation 
from L'Enfance Chretienne (M. Jean Blanlo), by a Sister of Notre 
Dame (80 cents net). The translation gives the spirit rather than the 
letter of the original, while here and there a suggestion is made, or a 
verse quoted, which tends to illustrate or emphasize its teaching; 
A Practical Guide for Servers at High Mass and for Holy Week, by 
Bernard F. Page, S.J. (35 cents net), in which the instructions and 
diagrams are so clear and simple that it will be found a great help to 
the "Altar Servers," for whom it is written, is another Benziger book; 
The Blessed Sacrament Guild Book, with a preface by His Eminence, 
Francis Cardinal Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster (New York : P. J. 
Kenedy & Sons. 65 cents, postpaid, 70 cents), has for its purpose to 
inspire love of the Blessed Sacrament by assisting souls individually in 
the matter of personal devotion, and collectively, in their devotion in 
common, by treating of the origin and development of the Archconfra- 
ternity and Guild of the Blessed Sacrament, and giving the Guild serv- 
ice, Daily Devotions, Indulgences, Music and Hymns. 

F^AMILIAR ASTRONOMY, by Rev. Martin S. Brennan, A.M., Sc.D., 
Jr A.A.S., A.S.P., B.A.A., Fellow of the A. A. A. S., Member of the St. 
Louis Academy of Science (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co. $1.50 
net). A text-book on Astronomy with sixteen illustrations. The book 
gives a concise summary of the science of Astronomy, and treats with 
fairness the history and different theories of the science. 

STUDENTS of shorthand may find it interesting and, we hope, also 
profitable, to read The Garden of the Soul in shorthand. ($1.00.) 
This curious experiment in book publication is issued by Isaac Pitman 
& Sons of New York, and follows the version as prescribed by the 
Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. 

QONGS FOR CHRISTMAS, by Daniel Joseph Donahoe (Middletown, 
^J> Conn.: Donahoe Publishing Co.), is an attractive pamphlet of 
Christmas songs, featuring specially the author's versions of Stabat 
Mater Speciosa, and the Adeste Fideles. 

/CATHOLIC HOME ANNUAL FOR 1922 (New York: Benziger 
V^/ Brothers. 35 cents), is out. The Annual contains Church Calen- 
dars, sketches of the Saints, religious articles from learned pens and 
fiction by such popular authors as Marion Ames Taggart, Mary T. 
Waggaman and A. J. Bradley. It is an interesting number, and is sure 
to be much in demand. 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 267 

PAMPHLET PUBLICATIONS. 

The Foundations of Modern Ireland is a selection of extracts from 
sources illustrating English rule and social and economic conditions in 
Ireland in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, by Constantia 
Maxwell, M.A., Lecturer in Modern History, Trinity College, Dublin. 
The Macmillan Co. is the American publisher. 

The Terror in Action, by J. L. Hammond, a reprint from The 
Nation and the Athenaeum of April 30, 1921, is a light on Irish history 
of recent times. 

Ireland and the Presidents of the United States, by John X. Regan, 
M.A., contains various quotations from Presidents of the United States 
who favored Ireland's freedom. Orders may be addressed to J. X. 
Regan, care of Washington Press, 242 Dover Street, Boston, Mass. 
$3.50 per 100; $30.00 per 1,000. Second edition. 

An Irish Pilgrim Priest, by the Rev. E. O'Leary, O.S.A., gives a 
short biography of Father Benjamin Joseph Braughall, a pioneer parish 
priest of Graig-na-managh. It is a delightful story of holiness and 
goodness (The Catholic Truth Society of Ireland). 

The Catholic Truth Society of Canada issues in pamphlet form, 
Divine Faith, by Cardinal Manning, and Why Separate Schools? giving 
some moral, social, political, national, British, historical and religious 
reasons in support of the Separate School system. Father George 
Thomas Daly, C.SS.R., is the author. 

The student of Dominican lore in England will find a very com- 
plete history of the English Dominicans in a valuable series of pamph- 
lets issued by the London Catholic Truth Society (twopence each). 

Scholastic Philosophy Explained, by the Rev. Henry H. Wyman, 
C.S.P., is a clear and scientific exposition of the rational grounds for 
belief in God and immortality, especially useful for advanced students 
in colleges and seminarians (New York: The Paulist Press. Six cents 
by mail. $3.50 per one hundred copies). 

Catholics should have the Catholic position on the vital question 
of Eugenics. A very comprehensive and enlightening treatment is 
contained in a small booklet of sixty-four pages, entitled The Church 
and Eugenics, by the Rev. Thomas J. Gerrard (St. Louis: B. Herder 
Book Co. 50 cents). 

The Catholic Truth Society of London also publishes Why I Came 
In, by B. M.; / Am a Catholic Because I Am a Jew, by Hugh Israelowicz 
Angress; Buddhism in Europe, by G. Willoughby Meade, A.I.A., M.R.A.S.; 
Pascal's "Provincial Letters," by Hilaire Belloc, and The Beginning and 
End of Man, by Rev. Ronald Knox, M.A. 

The Catholic Reading Guild with its interesting motto, "The Con- 
version of England by Books," publishes a report of its work in pamph- 
let form. This effort to make conversions is deeply interesting. 

A very useful, devotional pamphlet is that entitled The Precious 
Blood, by Richard F. Clarke, S.J. (Brooklyn: International Catholic 
Truth Society. 5 cents). It contains short meditations for each day 
in July. 

In these days of political upheaval, when all sorts of notions are 
advanced about the State, it is well to have a clear understanding of 
the State's power. A pamphlet, entitled After All, What Is the State? 
by the Rev. Lucian Johnston, S.T.L. (Brooklyn: International Catholic 
Truth Society) , offers this information. 

Dante students will find helpful a Guide to the Student of Dante, a 
small folder coming from the Academy of Our Lady of Victory, Council 
Bluffs, Iowa. 

A Catholic Historical Brochure (St. Louis: Central Bureau of the 
Central Society) on Blessed Peter Canisius, by Francis S. Betten, S.J., 
covers its subject very comprehensively and interestingly. 



IRecent Events. 



French and European interest generally in 
France. the Conference on the Limitation of Ar- 

maments, which is to open in Washington 

on November llth, has been growing steadily. At first there 
seemed a disposition in certain French circles to discount the im- 
portance of the Conference, but with the more or less ineffectual 
proceedings of the League of Nations' Assembly before their eyes, 
and the feeling that their country stands in a position of isolation, 
the French have now come to the belief that much depends on the 
outcome of the Washington meetings. The chief aim of the 
French Government will be to convince the delegates of other 
nationalities, especially those of the American Government, that 
France is not unduly armed and that her security requires the 
number of men now in active service. France at present has 
under arms between 450,000 and 500,000 men, including the army 
of the Rhine and colonial troops, which is about sixty per cent, of 
the number in active service on May 1st last, when the French 
army consisted of about 800,000 men. The French attitude will 
be to show just how far France can go towards disarmament in 
the face of information received from Germany concerning that 
country's power of prompt mobilization, and in the absence of 
other guarantees than France's own troops. It will be the view- 
point of the French delegation that unless there are guarantees 
along the lines of those contained in the American, British and 
French defensive agreement against unwarranted aggression, as 
elaborated by President Wilson and Premiers Lloyd George and 
Clemenceau, but never ratified, a standing army of from 400,000 
to 450,000 men, with a like number subject to immediate call to 
mobilization, will be required. 

During the month various reports have come from London 
that international banking interests were desirous of having the 
powers at the Conference make a definite decision on the question 
of pooling the Allied war debt. Paris, however, is opposed to rais- 
ing this issue, and would be better satisfied if financial matters 
were entirely ignored in the discussion at Washington. In the 
matter of her obligations to the United States and Great Britain, 
France frankly admits her inability to pay for a long time, and 
she fears that the war debt question might easily be the source of 
bargaining pressure in Washington, by which France's national 



1921.] R&CENT EVENTS 269 

defence would be weakened, and she would be left without ade- 
quate military guarantees. France's debt to the United States is 
$3,000,000,000, on which the interest alone every year is in the 
neighborhood of $150,000,000, and her debt to England is even 
more. England owes the United States $4,277,000,000. 

Besides French reluctance to bring up financial matters for 
consideration, the United States Government looks with disfavor 
on their introduction, except as they are related to a reduction in 
armament costs, and wishes to limit the discussion to the subjects 
considered vital to the Conference. These subjects, as set forth 
tentatively in a note by Secretary Hughes on September 20th, in- 
clude under the head of Limitation of Armament the limitation of 
naval and land armaments and rules for control of new agencies 
of warfare, and under the head of Pacific and Far East Questions, 
questions relating to China, Siberia and mandated islands. The 
foreign offices to whom this list has been sent, however, have been 
informed it is merely suggestive and subject to amendments or 
additions. 

It has been decided that that phase of the Conference having 
to do with the limitation of armaments will be participated in only 
by the five principal Allied and Associated Powers, and other na- 
tions, such as China and Holland, which have since been invited 
to enter the Conference, will discuss only the questions regarding 
the Pacific and the Far East. The participating Governments, re- 
gardless of the size of their delegations, will have but one vote 
each, and action on any subject must be unanimous. 

The second Assembly of the League of Nations adjourned on 
October 5th after a month's session. Immediately before adjourn- 
ment Brazil, Belgium, China and Spain were reflected as the four 
non-permanent members of the League Council, and Latvia, 
Esthonia and Lithuania were admitted to membership in the 
League. The most important and, incidentally, most definite, ac- 
tion of the League was the establishment of the permanent Court 
of International Justice, to which twenty-nine countries have sub- 
scribed, and the election of its eleven members. Although the 
United States has never ratified the project, an American citizen, 
John Bassett Moore, was named as one of the judges. The Court 
will hold its first meeting at Geneva in October, but its permanent 
seat will be The Hague. 

Despite a report early in September that the Vilna dispute 
between Poland and Lithuania had been finally settled, the ques- 
tion is still at issue, the Assembly contenting itself with assur- 
ing the League Council of its moral support in its efforts to solve 
the problem. The controversy between Bolivia and Chile also 



270 RECENT EVENTS [Nov., 

failed of settlement, due to Bolivia's action in withdrawing the 
question from this session of the Assembly. 

The Silesian imhroglio, which was handed over to the League 
Council, is still under consideration by that body, though a deci- 
sion is expected in the near future. Great alarm has been ex- 
pressed in Germany over the report that the Council has decided 
to give political control of the Silesian industrial area to Poland, 
and intimations have been given to the Allies that the Wirth Cab- 
inet would be definitely placed in jeopardy if the plebiscite area is 
partitioned. Meanwhile German and Polish workmen in Upper 
Silesia have united in a demand for compensation because they 
were thrown out of work during the May uprising. A general 
strike is threatened unless the Inter-Allied Commission or the em- 
ployers grant the demand. 

On September 17th the French Foreign Office issued a state- 
ment to the effect that, despite rumors to the contrary, there was 
complete accord between England and France on the question of 
keeping in force the economic penalties imposed upon Germany 
last March. These penalties were to have been lifted on Septem- 
ber 15th if two conditions were fulfilled by Germany. First, the 
payment of 1,000,000,000 gold marks by the end of August; and 
second, the acceptance by Germany of an international organiza- 
tion to collaborate with the German customs authorities. Ger- 
many has met the first condition, but not the second; consequently 
the customs barrier will be maintained until such time as Germany 
shall have accepted the control indicated. 

Roland W. Boyden, the American member of the Reparations 
Commission, was asked by the Allied Supreme Council to decide 
whether Belgium's debt to the Allies, to be paid by Germany under 
the Peace Treaty, should be repaid at the rate of exchange at the 
time the loans were made or at present rates. He has decided that 
calculations should be made on the gold mark rate of November 
11, 1918, the day of the armistice. Under this ruling France will re- 
ceive more than 2,000,000,000 gold marks instead of 1,000,000,000. 

Out of the extremely complicated political, 
Germany. financial and economic situations in Ger- 

many today, one fact seems strongly emer- 
gent namely, that the central Government at Berlin, with Chan- 
cellor Wirth at its head, is for the time being firmly established in 
power. The only cloud on the horizon is, as mentioned above, a 
possible adverse decision on Silesia. As a result of the investiga- 
tions following the Erzberger assassination, several monarchist 
organizations have been discovered in Bavaria, and vigorous meas- 



1921.] RECENT EVENTS 271 

ures taken against them, and the reaction on which the mon- 
archists counted after the murder, have turned instead over- 
whelmingly in favor of the Republic. Bavaria itself, which had 
been holding out against certain exceptional powers claimed by 
the Berlin Government, finally gave in and a new Bavarian cab- 
inet has been constituted. Count Hugo Lerchenfeld has been 
elected as the new Premier in succession to Dr. von Kahr, who 
had stood for an autonomous Bavaria and had virtually defied the 
German national Government to enforce its laws in Bavaria. Von 
Kahr's resignation is considered a blow to Bavarian reactionaries 
and a victory of no small importance for republican Germany. 

A much more vital element, however, contributing to the con- 
tinuance of the Wirth regime, is the serious financial situation of 
the country, which has forced the support of the chief political 
parties. The Majority Socialists, meeting at Goerlitz in Septem- 
ber, voted in favor of entering a coalition cabinet, and the entire 
Centrist, Socialist and Democratic press declares emphatically that 
Chancellor Wirth must remain. The prospect of the entrance 
into the cabinet of the People's Party, or the party representing 
the big industrial interests such as those of Stinnes, also seems 
bright in view of the attitude shown by the Association of German 
Industry and its readiness to cooperate with the Government in 
the solution of the country's economic problem. Till recently the 
big industrialists showed an inclination to back the monarchial 
element, but with the reactionary movement badly discredited 
and its Bavarian citadel smashed, they have apparently come to 
realize that they must work with the Republic if they are to have 
any influence in affairs. 

The great question in Germany today is : How can Germany 
bring about a revision of the Allied reparation terms. On this 
issue all parties are united, those which opposed, as well as those 
which favored, acceptance of the Allied ultimatum. Late in Sep- 
tember the value of the mark reached the low record of eight- 
tenths of a cent and emphasized the country's need of stabilization. 
The German contention is that revision of the terms is necessary 
from the Allied standpoint as well as the German, since the more 
Germans work, the more will workers in outside countries remain 
idle, thus swelling the ranks of the unemployed. Recently Win- 
ston Churchill, the British Colonial Secretary, declared himself in 
favor of an international readjustment of the world's financial 
situation, including the reparations problems, and on this declara- 
tion the Germans are largely basing their hope for a revision of 
the financial features of the Versailles Treaty. 

One means of staving off possible bankruptcy and of assur- 



272 RECENT EVENTS [Nov., 

ing the regular payment of future installments on Germany's war 
bill, was the agreement signed by representatives of the German 
and French Governments at Wiesbaden on October 6th. Under 
this agreement France agrees to accept as part of her share of the 
reparations payments due in the next five years 7,000,000,000 
marks' worth of live stock, machinery and goods, in lieu of cash. 
The signing consummates the tentative agreement drawn up last 
month by Louis Loncheur, French Minister of the Liberated Re- 
gions, and Walter Rathenau, German Minister of Reconstruction. 

After a three-day session of representatives of the Berlin 
Government and of the Inter-Allied Guaranty Commission, it was 
announced officially on October 1st that Germany would pay in 
full the first export tax payment due the Allies on November 15th. 
This announcement came simultaneously from the Commission 
and the German Treasury, after the Commission had audited the 
Government's accounts for the first quarter of the fiscal year be- 
ginning May 1st. It is on this period that payment is to be based. 

The cost of maintaining the Allied troops on the Rhine up to 
the end of March, 1921, was more than one hundred billion paper 
marks, according to figures recently published in Berlin. All 
this expense must be borne by Germany, under the Treaty of Ver- 
sailles, although to date the Berlin Government has paid only 
7,313,911,829 paper marks on the bill, the Allies having advanced 
the remainder. 

On October 6th the Reparations Commission officially issued 
figures showing that the cost of the American Army of Occupation 
on the Rhine from the date of the armistice until April, 1921, was 
second only to that of France. The figures in gold marks, which 
has been established as the standard, instead of francs or ster- 
ling, are as follows: France, 1,276,450,838; United States, 1,167,- 
327,830; Great Britain, 991,016,859; Belgium, 194,706,228; Italy, 
10,064,861. 

Germany, throughout the period of occupation, has been pay- 
ing in marks more than ten per cent, of the upkeep of the Amer- 
ican forces. Brigadier-General H. T. Allen, commander of the 
forces, is now working out with German authorities a plan to in- 
crease the amount to thirty or forty per cent, of the cost. The per- 
centage paid has amounted to between $25,000,000 and $30,000,000. 

The unemployment wave that swept the world has left Ger- 
many in the best condition of any of the great industrial nations 
except France. A boom in industries, stimulated by the low value 
of the mark in other countries, has absorbed the idle, until today 
there are less than 400,000 unemployed in the whole country, and 
even this number is decreasing steadily. The latest official re- 






1921.] RECENT EVENTS 273 

port from the Ministry of Labor, dated September 20th, shows 
that on that date there were 301,647 men and 81,981 women seek- 
ing work. These figures show a progressive decline in unemploy- 
ment in Germany in the last twelve months and represent a par- 
ticular improvement, as compared with August of this year, when 
the number of men unemployed was 681,000 and of women 
256,000. These figures are the result of a canvass made by three 
hundred and twenty State unemployment bureaus throughout the 
greater part of the country. 

After considerable preliminary delay, due 
Russia. to the demoralized condition of the rail- 

ways, outside relief began to reach famine 

sufferers on September 22d, when the American Relief Adminis- 
tration opened its first kitchen in Kazan in the Volga region. 
Since then the twenty-two members of the administration, under 
the direction of Colonel William N. Haskell, have succeeded in 
spreading out their activities. Other agencies are also in the field, 
including an international relief corps under Dr. Fridtjof Nansen, 
the Quakers, and the German Red Cross. The Soviet authorities 
are working in close cooperation with the American administra- 
tion, in accordance with the agreement reached with Secretary 
Hoover. Speaking broadly, it may be said that the aiding of a 
million children by the American Relief Administration will have 
to constitute the major portion of foreign relief this winter. The 
situation along the Volga, where the Government has successfully 
evacuated 50,000 workers and 70,000 members of their families, 
has been temporarily ameliorated by this move, but it is expected 
to be worse again in a couple of months. Meanwhile the relief of 
starving adults remains an unsolved question. 

The successful completion of the Soviet Government's cam- 
paign to secure seed grain for the famine district, was announced 
in September, when it was declared that 13,500,000 poods of grain 
had been collected instead of the 12,000,000 poods required. The 
greater portion of the seed grain has already reached the famine 
area and will be available in time for sowing. 

In a note dated October 10th, the British Foreign Office points 
out that the stipulation made by the International Russian Relief 
Commission that the Russian Government must recognize its exist- 
ing debts and other obligations, has not been fully appreciated. 
The British Government has already given $1,250,000 in surplus 
stocks, clothing and medical and transport supplies, and is willing 
to give the Red Cross and other charitable societies working in 
Russia further help at once, but the immediate relief efforts are 

VOL. CXIV. 18 



274 RECENT EVENTS [Nov., 

distinct from the credit question. On the question of credits, the 
view taken by the British Foreign Office and Government is that 
the Russian Government must on its part undertake the obliga- 
tion of all civilized countries, namely, that their loans will at some 
time be repaid. 

A request by the Far Eastern Republic, whose seat is at Chita, 
addressed to the American Minister at Peking, that it be per- 
mitted to participate in the Washington Conference on the Limita- 
tion of Armaments, was the occasion in September for the re- 
affirmation by Secretary Hughes of the American policy towards 
Russia. In a communication to the Minister at Peking, Secretary 
Hughes lays down the principle, that until "a single recognized 
Russian Government" is in existence, the vast territory that for- 
merly constituted the Russian Empire, with the exception of that 
portion ceded to the new Polish nation, must remain under a 
moral trusteeship of the Powers which are to take part in the 
Washington Conference. It is made plain that the United States 
considers the break-up of Russia and Siberia into a number of 
independent States as a calamity, and that it intends to do its best 
to preserve Russian unity, so that in the course of time the Rus- 
sian people might establish a central Government for all Russian 
territory. The reiteration of this principle is regarded in this 
country and abroad as notice to the Soviet Government of Russia, 
that in no circumstances will the United States recognize the 
Soviet authority. 

On the other hand, a special mission to go to the Washing- 
ton Conference has been appointed by the members of the Rus- 
sian Constituent Assembly in Paris, representing virtually all the 
anti-Bolshevik groups. The mission will be headed by Nicolai 
Avskentieff, President of the Constituent Assembly, and Professor 
Paul Milukoff, member of the Assembly and editor of the official 
anti-Bolshevik organ in Europe. Although they have not received 
an invitation to the Conference, both these delegates express the 
belief that they will be given a hearing when the Far Eastern ques- 
tions are discussed. 

A Polish ultimatum was handed the Russian Government on 
September 22d, demanding the restoration to Poland of railway 
rolling stock, creation of a joint Russian-Ukrainian-Polish com- 
mission for the evacuation of Poles from the Ukraine, and the 
payment to Poland of 30,000,000 gold rubles of the Russian im- 
perial gold fund, all in accordance with the first three sections of 
the Russo-Polish Peace Treaty. In reply, the Soviet Government 
stated that, while Poland insisted upon compliance with the first 
three sections of the Peace Treaty, Russia likewise insisted on 



1921.] RECENT EVENTS 275 

Poland's compliance with Article 5, under which both States 
mutually guaranteed to respect the sovereignty of each other's 
territory, and agreed not to support organizations fighting against 
the other's Government. The tense situation created by these 
notes was suddenly relieved on October llth, when Poland agreed 
to expel from her territory the various White Guard representa- 
tives who had been actively opposed to Soviet Russia. 

The new economic policy of the Soviet Government had re- 
sulted, up to September 25th, in the leasing to private concerns 
from all of Russia's twenty-five provinces a total of two hundred 
and sixty manufacturing plants. The leases run for various pe- 
riods of years, and the list includes five chemical works, ten saw- 
mills, twenty-seven tanneries, five textile, eleven metallurgical 
and fifty-six food factories and thirteen plantations. Moreover, 
the Russian Soviet Council of Commissars, of which Premier 
Lenine is President, decided on October 7th to create a State bank 
to develop industries, agriculture and trade, and also to control 
circulation and exchange. The bank will be capitalized at 3,000,- 
000,000,000 rubles. The decentralization of Russia's schools and 
denationalization of the theatres and moving picture houses also 
was recently announced. 

The Fascisti have grown dissatisfied with 
Italy. the compromise agreement effected by the 

Government two months ago, restoring 

peace between these Extreme Nationalists and the Socialists. 
They accuse the Government of partiality towards the Socialists 
in view of the expectation that they will join the national cabinet. 
As a result of this feeling, conflicts between the two factions have 
again broken out at various places, particularly at Ortanova, near 
Bari, and a general strike has been declared in virtually all of 
South Italy. In a fight at Modena five Fascisti were killed and 
twenty seriously wounded. 

Communist riots and bomb outrages have occurred in Trieste 
as the result of the refusal of the Italian Government to pay what 
it regarded as exorbitant demands from the shipbuilders for money 
grants, to facilitate the completion of fifty-four vessels now under 
construction. The company tried unsuccessfully to intimidate 
the Government by notifying the workmen of a reduction in 
wages, knowing that this would involve a strike, but the Govern- 
ment stood firm. Thereupon the workers declared a strike, which 
has since extended to the dock workers, the bakers and most of 
the public utilities. Traffic in the port has been completely 
paralyzed, and no ships are arriving or leaving. 



276 RECENT EVENTS [Nov., 

Professor Ricardo Zanella, leader of the Fiuman People's 
Party, on October 6th was elected President of the new independ- 
ent State of Fiume by the Constitutional Assembly, receiving 
fifty-seven of the sixty-eight votes cast. Since then he has an- 
nounced his programme and made public the names of his cabinet, 
in which he himself will hold the portfolios of foreign affairs, 
commerce and communications. In his programme President 
Zanella said he desired to end feuds and hatreds, and declared he 
had no thought of revenge against political enemies. The Pres- 
ident announced that he placed all Fiuman citizens residing 
abroad under the protection of the representatives of the King of 
Italy. He urged an early solution of the question of Porto Barros, 
which is still an unsettled point between Italy and Jugo-Slavia. 
The programme of President Zanella was adopted by the Assem- 
bly by a vote of fifty against ten. The Fiume Fascisti have issued 
a proclamation calling the Assembly's election of Professor 
Zanella illegal, and characterizing Zanella and his party as 
enemies of Italy. 

The outcome of the month's fighting in 
Spain. Morocco, where the Spaniards have now 

concentrated 60,000 troops, has on the 

whole been favorable to Spain. The latest and most important 
fighting has been in the mountainous Gourougon region, which 
has been the principal Moorish base of operations. Though the 
Moors were driven back, the Spanish forces did not hold the posi- 
tions they had taken, contenting themselves with burning a num- 
ber of native cantonments. Three cannon and a quantity of am- 
munition were captured. Other places taken by the Spaniards 
include Nador, a town southwest of Melilla and the key to the 
Moorish positions around that city. Warships with a heavy bar- 
rage of shells have been used in covering the advance of troops 
along the coast. The Moors are offering stubborn resistance, and 
the indications are that it will require months of constant fight- 
ing before the country is finally pacified. 

Former Emperor Charles of Austria, at present in Switzer- 
land, has for the second time petitioned the Spanish Government 
for permission to take up his residence in Spain. The Govern- 
ment, however, is demanding certain political and financial guar- 
antees before granting the requested permission. Spain espe- 
cially demands restrictions on the household expenses of the ex- 
Emperor, which are estimated to amount annually to 1,280,000 
Swiss francs. This expenditure is caused by his staff of eighty 
persons, which the Spanish Government desires to see reduced 
considerably. 



1921.] RECENT EVENTS 277 

In a nine days' battle beginning on Septem- 

Greece. ber 30th along the new front in Asia Minor 

extending from Afium Karahissar to a point 

almost directly east of Brusa, the Greeks won a complete victory 
on the southern end of the line, driving the Nationalists from the 
field and inflicting heavy losses upon them. Further north the 
fighting consisted of raids in force. Turkish concentrations north 
of Kiosm on the right bank of the Sakaria River, have been scat- 
tered by a Greek offensive, while Nationalist detachments have 
suffered severe losses in recent skirmishes. 

Recruits of the class of 1922 were called to the colors by a 
royal decree issued in September. All those who have acquired 
Greek citizenship since 1921 and have not passed the age of forty, 
were also directed to report for military duty. 

The Greeks, who in September were reported to be in a diffi- 
cult position, have at no time evinced an intention of applying for 
Allied mediation in their war with the Nationalists. In an offi- 
cial outline of Greece's peace demands, it is asserted that Greece 
has no imperialistic aims in view, and does not intend to claim 
all the lands that her armies have occupied. Her chief demands 
include the freedom of the Greeks not under Turkish rule, a fron- 
tier to protect her liberated Asiatic provinces, the freedom of 
Armenia, and the confinement of Turkish rule to those lands that 
are essentially Turkish in population and character. 

The discovery of a vast revolutionary plot at Constantinople 
was announced in September by the British authorities there. The 
plot, which was organized and subsidized from Angora, the Turk- 
ish Nationalist capital, aimed at fomenting a revolution in Con- 
stantinople, and to this end it was planned to spread dissatisfac- 
tion among the loyal Indian troops and assassinate the leading 
Allied officers. Allied authorities have made demands on the 
Turkish Government to surrender the conspirators, who will be 
tried by Allied court-martial. The guns of British warships, 
anchored in the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, have been 
directed against Stamboul, the Asiatic section of Constantinople, 
and British troops are proceeding to disarm the populace. 

For several months a situation of consider- 
Austria. able difficulty has been existent between 

Austria and Hungary. This concerns the 

controversy over Burgenland, or West Hungary, a narrow strip 
of territory awarded to Austria by the Treaty of St. Germain. De- 
spite repeated notes from the Allies regular Hungarian troops 
have continued to occupy the district, and finally the Council of 



278 RECENT EVENTS [Nov., 

Ambassadors informed the Hungarian Government that she must 
completely withdraw her troops in the near future or be forcibly 
expelled by the Allies. The Hungarian Government in reply sug- 
gested that the controversy be submitted to Italian mediation, and 
to this the British, French and Italian Governments have agreed. 
The Italians have invited Count Stefan Bethlen, the Hungarian 
Premier, and former Foreign Minister Banffy to Venice for a con- 
ference, the date of which has not been fixed. 

Meanwhile reports are numerous that an attempt is being 
made by the Hungarian ex-Premier Friederich to establish West 
Hungary as an independent State. The danger from the West 
Hungarian bands of irregulars, which are reported to be rapidly 
increasing, is heightened by the complete accord recently reached 
between ex-Premier Friederich and Colonel Pronay. Up to this 
time the two have disagreed, Pronay being antagonistic to ex- 
Emperor Charles and Friederick in favor of his restoration, but 
both are now united in the military endeavor to hold West Hun- 
gary. The Allied delay in enforcing upon Hungary the fulfillment 
of her Treaty obligations to part with Burgenland, is encouraging 
the various revolutionary elements throughout Austria. 

Besides the Burgenland complications, the position of the 
Austrian Government under Dr. Schober is extremely difficult on 
other accounts. This Government was formed last spring on the 
basis of the rejection of the Ausschluss (union with Germany) 
propaganda, in return for Allied credits, and the pan-Germans in 
Austria promised to support it till autumn, when, if no credits 
were received, they would reserve freedom of action. That time 
limit has almost expired, and the Schober Cabinet finds itself with- 
out credits, with the burden of a broken Treaty on its back, and 
faced with impossible economic conditions. It is anticipated that 
the coming winter will see many social troubles in Austria. Al- 
ready the Socialist leaders have the utmost difficulty in keeping 
the workers in hand, and there is likely to be a movement among 
certain working groups to have wages paid in German marks in- 
stead of kronen, which is a backhanded way of leading to union 
with Germany. 

October 13, 1921. 



With Our Readers. 



HPHE awakening of Catholics in America to a responsibility 
A that is not limited by parochial and diocesan lines, but ex- 
tends rather to the whole country, has recently been evidenced 
in many ways, but in no way so plainly as through interest in The 
National Catholic Welfare Council. One of the five great depart- 
ments of this Council is that of Lay Organizations, as made up of 
the National Council of Catholic Men and the National Council of 
Catholic Women. The Chairman of the whole department is 
Right Rev. Joseph Schrembs, Bishop of Cleveland, who was 
present at the two conventions held recently in Washington, D. C., 
one in September when Catholic men assembled from all parts of 
the country and the other in October, when representative Cath- 
olic women gathered likewise from all quarters of the land. 

In the number of those who attended, in the extent of ter- 
ritory represented, in the interest displayed, in the social ques- 
tions that were ably presented and intelligently discussed, in the 
consequent recognition of the need of increased membership of 
organizations and individuals, both conventions were eminently 
and thoroughly successful. Never have there been more enthu- 
siastic gatherings, never more sane and, at the same time, eloquent 
presentations of ideas. Our readers have no doubt read accounts 
of the meetings in the Catholic weeklies and the daily papers. The 
fuller report of the Men's Convention is given in the October 
number of the National Catholic Welfare Council Bulletin, and 
that of the Women's Convention will be given in the November 
issue. 

* * * * 

THROUGHOUT the deliberations of these conventions two basic 
ideas were featured, and their favorable reception augurs 
well for the life and effectiveness of these American and Catholic 
lay organizations. One of the ideas had to do with the scope and 
character of the purposes of these wonderful federations. Again 
and again, it was brought out that their outlook is national; that 
if, up to the present, Catholic societies in our land have limited 
their activities to their own parish or diocese, city or state, or if, 
having nation-wide membership, have limited their purpose to one 
feature of social advantage or improvement, now, in their union, 
they are to be active in a national way, they are to take united 



280 WITH OUR READERS [Nov., 

interest in national questions of social and ethical import, they 
are to function nationally as well as locally. Individually and in 
organizations, the various members are indeed to continue to 
carry on their respective works in their own community as repre- 
sented in their parish or diocese, their city or state; but, in addi- 
tion, they are to consider it their business also to bring their 
influence to bear upon moral and civic and social questions of 
national significance. 



THERE is a strong tendency today among the promoters of 
Federal legislation to concern themselves not merely, as of 
old, with economic and industrial questions, but also with those 
of an educational, moral or domestic character. These latter 
affect the spiritual and religious life of the citizens of today and 
of the generations to come. Those who have at heart the moral 
welfare of all and who should be so concerned as Catholics 
must keep in touch with all such efforts, to support them when 
they are good, to oppose them when they are evil. Religious and 
educational rights in our own land and in the lands where our 
country exerts an influence; the rights of immigrants coming to 
make their home amongst us and to be adopted as citizens; the 
rights of children and women, the rights of home and family, the 
rights of human souls to protection from indecency in whatever 
form it shows itself; the rights of the whole body of citizens to 
social justice; these are some of the things in regard to which 
Catholics, as well as others, should have a national outlook, and 
about which they should speak in a united and common voice. 
They are the better Americans and the better Catholics when they 
take such interest. For, if they are true American citizens they 
must have the moral and social welfare of the whole country at 
heart; and if they are true Catholics they must realize their pos- 
session of saving truths which can be applied, with no uncertainty 
of effect, to the ills of the day. 

Such was the great national message proclaimed at both of 
these important conventions; such the message received by the 
many representatives from various sections of our country; such 
the message they were asked to bring back to their local com- 
munities. In these days of moral upheaval and uncertainty, 
nothing has aroused greater hope for the future of our country 
than the sane expression of fundamental civic and moral prin- 
ciples put forth in the well considered resolutions of these two 
National Catholic Conventions. 






1921.] WITH OUR READERS 281 

rE other idea, just as strongly insisted upon and just as fully 
featured, had to do with the motive back of all this National 
Catholic effort. Each Convention was inaugurated with the Holy 
Sacrifice of the Mass, and in the opening sermons, one by Bishop 
Schrembs and the other by Bishop Gibbons of Albany, the futility 
of social and patriotic work without the spiritual background of 
faith was insisted upon. Likewise w 7 as it shown that the best 
results in combined social effort could be obtained only if high 
spiritual standards were maintained in individual life, especially 
in the lives of those who were called upon to engage most actively 
out in the field. The same note was struck in the message of the 
newly-elected President of The National Council of Catholic Men, 
Admiral Benson, and in the introductory address of the President 
of The National Council of Catholic Women, Mrs. Michael Gavin. 
The closing words of the more detailed report of the latter 
form a splendid spiritual appeal: "We have touched but a few 
of the many problems which confront us on every hand. Surely 
a sufficient number, however, to show the need of our organiza- 
tion, and to prove to you the necessity of arousing to action every 
Catholic woman throughout the length and breadth of the land. 
We need each one of you. We need you as organizations, we need 
you as individuals. And just as we have national problems to 
face, you have in your own community local questions to handle. 
Will they not be more intelligently understood, more efficiently 
handled, because of the fact that we are a part of a great body of 
Catholic women pledged to uphold the ideals of Christian woman- 
hood, and to prove to the world that in spite of the great allure- 
ment of luxury and wealth on the one hand and the hardships 
resultant from poverty on the other, we are one in spirit, one in 
aim because we are members of that one body of which Christ is 
the Head." 

* * * * 

EVER, in the various addresses made by members of the clergy 
and the laity, did the same thought of individual spiritual 
consecration recur again and again. The models proposed were 
no other than the Saints of God, and the Leader was no other than 
the Leader of those Saints Christ Our Lord. The work could be 
of no value unless it was work in Him and for Him : it could have 
no permanency unless it was inspired by Him: it could have no 
beauty unless it was instinct with His Life: it could have no 
effectiveness unless it were undertaken and carried on in union 
with His Church, that mystical body of which we are members 
and He is the Head. 

Both of these conventions, while considering every feature of 



282 WITH OUR READERS [Nov., 

social and civic life and while concerned with every means for the 
improvement of temporal conditions, thrilled and pulsated with 
the vital force of Christian faith and Christian charity. Their 
solicitude for social justice, for the alleviation of earthly ills, for 
the upholding of right ethical standards, was animated by such a 
spirit of consecration to the ideals of Christ that they took on the 
character of sacred assemblies in a sacred cause. 



DURING the Convention of The National Council of Catholic 
Women, much stress was laid upon the National Catholic 
Social Service School for Women. In obedience to the recognition 
of the necessity of trained workers in the fields of social and civic 
activity, this school has been undertaken by the Women's Council. 
It is the successor of the emergency school of a like character, 
which was established by The National Catholic War Council to 
meet the exigencies of the days of a great struggle. The present 
school is to be housed in a splendid edifice recently purchased 
and already thoroughly equipped. The Director of the School, as 
he will be also of a school of similar type for men which is 
contemplated, is the well known educator and sociologist and 
economist, Dr. Charles P. Neill. The Rev. John A. Ryan, D.D., will 
give the course in ethics; Rev. William J. Kerby, Ph.D., the 
course in sociology; the Rev. Thomas V. Moore, C.S.P., courses in 
clinical problems of childhood and in the elements of psychiatry, 
and Dr. Neill will give the courses in economics and social legis- 
lation. With such experienced teachers forming part of the staff, 
which includes also a number of women, the high standing of the 
school is immediately secured. The students, who for admission 
must have completed a college course or possess its equivalent in 
training and experience, will follow a two years' programme of 
studies. 



National Council of Catholic Women is to be congratulated 
upon the undertaking of this magnificent work, which augurs 
well for the social influence of Catholic principles in the future of 
our land. Already a goodly portion of the fund of $500,000 for 
the support of the school, a fund which the Council is collecting 
through subscription, has been obtained. We wish them success, 
and we also hope that young Catholic women of the attainments 
required, will, by entering the school, take advantage of this op- 
portunity to become w r ell equipped workers for the social welfare 
of our country. That the influence of the school will extend even 
beyond the confines of America is assured through the plan of 



1921.] WITH OUR READERS 283 

establishing scholarships for foreign students. Already, in this 
inaugural year, nine such students are enrolled, three from 
France, three from Belgium, two from Poland and one from the 
Philippines. 



HPHE Second International Congress of Eugenics met at the 
A Museum of Natural History, New York City, September 22d 
to 28th, 1921, with representatives from most of the European 
countries, as well as North and South America, in attendance. 
The term Eugenics has, in recent years, become associated in 
many minds with radical doctrines of various kinds, but the 
important representatives of the genuine science of Eugenics at 
this Congress were rather thoroughgoing in their conservatism. 
They demanded protection for the monogamous marriage with 
limitation of divorce, more children in the families of educated, 
well-to-do people as a moral duty, earlier marriages, a more 
sheltered life for mothers, better safeguards against the marriages 
of imbeciles and the insane, and unselfishness as a patriotic duty. 
There were radicals present, and they took occasion to proclaim 
some of their doctrines, but they were completely overshadowed 
by the important scientists who emphatically proclaimed old- 
fashioned principles as the basis of true Eugenics. 

* * * # 

TTHE keynote of the discussions was the distinct danger of de- 
A terioration of mankind which present-day conditions por- 
tend. We have heard so much about the progress of the race, 
and the apparently inevitable tendency of mankind to grow ever 
better and better, and to go ever higher in the scale of development 
that this phase of discussion at a scientific congress could not 
but be striking. It has come to be recognized very generally that 
evolution through the struggle for existence, may readily bring 
deterioration in its train rather than amelioration, and that in- 
deed for several thousand years there has been no advance in 
humanity. The whole question of how evolution has come about, 
unless some great directive, not to say creative, force is posited 
behind it, is evidently occupying a very prominent place in the 
minds of a great many men of science. Major Leonard Darwin, 
the English representative at the Congress, the son of Charles 
Darwin, the author of The Origin of Species, proclaimed that the 
doctrine of evolution is a belief accepted by scientists, and this 
gives rise to the hope that the upward march would be continued 
in the future, but he did not suggest that evolution was a dem- 
onstration on scientific grounds, for, of course, most of the evi- 



284 WITH OUR READERS [Nov., 

dence for it is subjective rather than objective, and Eugenics, 
therefore, is founded on hope and not on any necessary causative 
factor. 

* * * * 

THE President of the Congress, Professor Henry Fairfield 
Osborn, the director of the American Museum of Natural 
History, New York, dwelt on the monogamous family as one of 
the most important factors for Eugenics. The evil of divorce, as 
almost inevitably making for deterioration of the race, was a sub- 
ject of discussion prominent in the Congress, and Professor Os- 
born dwelt on the proposition that monogamy should be "main- 
tained and safeguarded by the State as well as by religion." He 
proclaimed it "a natural and hence a patriotic institution," and 
that without it any real amelioration of the race is impossible. 
In agreement with this, the son of the father of evolution 
declared: "I can find no facts which refute the theoretical con- 
clusion that the inborn qualities of civilized communties are 
deteriorating, and the process will inevitably lead in time to an 
all round downward movement." The only efficient corrective 
factor for this impending calamity is the presence of more chil- 
dren among the better-to-do intellectual classes. He felt that it 
is necessary now to produce the wide and deep conviction that 
"it is both immoral and unpatriotic for couples, sound in mind 
and body, to unduly limit the size of their families." He felt that 
a campaign against the limitation of families was extremely im- 
portant. He believed that such a campaign would succeed, if 
only persons of character and intelligence can be awakened to the 
serious dangers now threatening the race. He was not inclined 
to think that bounties for large families or premiums on parent- 
hood would do much good, unless a profound conviction was 
created in the minds of the better-to-do classes that they had a 
definite serious duty to perform to their country and their race. 



'""pHE limitation of offspring in order to assure education and a 
A fair start in life to the smaller number born is fatal to the 
race, and Major Darwin urged that sacrifices must be made for 
the good of the race. This could be best accomplished by having 
the duty in this regard strongly felt by the mass of the people. 
He did not hesitate to say that "there ought to be a great moral 
campaign against the exaggerated regard for personal comfort 
and social advancement, which now dictates the limitation of 
families." Major Darwin advocated special taxes on the un- 
married and the childless. And he declared that marriage among 






1921.] WITH OUR READERS 285 

the unfit, the feeble-minded, those with definite tendencies to in- 
sanity and sometimes to criminality should be prevented as far 
as possible, and this was one of the difficult problems that civil- 
ization had before it. 



THE French representative, Dr. Delapouge of Poitiers, declared 
that the world was suffering from a shortage of mind large 
enough to deal successfully with its problems. The War has 
carried off far more than the due proportion of the very flower 
of humanity, for it was the unselfish, the patriotic and those 
ready to do things for the benefit of others who risked all and, 
unfortunately, often perished. The best of the young men of 
France have succumbed or been invalided in the proportion of at 
least two out of three. Many of the oldest, finest French families 
have been wiped out, the last male having been killed. Something 
nearly like this has happened in all the countries of Europe, and 
the degradation of the race seems impending, unless the intel- 
lectual classes can be made to realize their patriotic duty and, 
by increasing the number in their families, replace some at least 
of those who have been lost. Dr. Delapouge evidently felt that 
civilization was in very serious straits unless some of the old- 
fashioned virtues were to prove its salvation, and he looked to 
America particularly as the hope of the future of the race, but 
only on condition that the radical elements shall not be allowed 
to gain the upper hand to the detriment of civilization. 
* * * * 

MR. LOUIS I. DUBLIN, the statistician of the Metropolitan Life 
Insurance Company, New York City, in his discussion of the 
mortality of foreign race stocks, brought out some facts with re- 
gard to the expectancy of life in New York City as a type of what 
it is in other large cities throughout the country, that were very 
startling. At the age of twenty, the expectancy of life among 
the Russian Jews is a year greater than that among the natives 
and two years greater than that among the Italians. Other for- 
eign races follow these in their expectancy of life, the Irish having 
the highest mortality and the lowest expectancy of life, two years 
less even than that of the negro, who is usually supposed, because 
of the conditions in which he lives, to have less possibility of long 
life than any of the people around him. The Russian Jew resists 
very well tuberculosis and pneumonia and so also does the Italian. 
The Italian death rate from cancer is ever so much lower than 
that of the native American, and also the other races in this 
country. The Irish have a very high death rate from tubercu- 



286 WITH OUR READERS [Nov., 

losis and pneumonia, a still higher comparative death rate from 
cancer, and the highest death rate of all from Bright's disease. 

It is well understood by statisticians that it is only a question 
of time, and not a very long time either, before any race which has 
a distinctly greater expectancy of life than the others around it, 
will come to exceed in numbers the other people, so that the sta- 
tistical outlook is for a dominance of the Russian elements in 
New York City's life. The Irish, on the other hand, seem destined 
to disappear to a considerable extent. Their death rate here from 
all the principal diseases is much higher than it is at home in 
Ireland, and Dr. Dublin's statistics make it very clear that the 
Irish who come here, sacrifice, on the average, five years of life 
for the privilege of living in America. 



DR. KNOPF of New York, discussing Eugenics in the tuber- 
culosis problem, recalled that tuberculosis began in early life 
and that healthy children had excellent resistive vitality against 
it. He declared that the healthiest children as a rule were those 
of young couples who married at comparatively early ages. The 
limitation of the number of children in the family by the delay of 
marriage, was likely to be unfavorable for the children's health 
and strength. He bewailed the fact that in our well-to-do and 
healthy American families, our best American stock, where larger 
families would be no burden, early marriages are unfortunately 
not encouraged. 

* * * * 

HPHE place of heredity in the transmission of insanity, imbe- 
A cility and certain other defects, was emphasized in a series 
of papers founded on the histories obtained in the various insti- 
tutions for the insane and defectives, especially in this country. 
The role of environment in the production of criminal tendencies 
was brought out, and the fact that the marriage of criminals is 
above all likely to perpetuate unfortunate conditions. The rela- 
tion of marriage between near relatives to the production of de- 
fects of various kinds, was confirmed in a number of papers, and 
Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, was prom- 
inently portrayed and hailed as one of the first contributors to 
Eugenics in this country by his studies of the United States census 
report, which brought out the fact that many more blind and 
deaf and otherwise sensorily defective children were born of the 
marriages of near relatives, and especially of first cousins, than of 
others where there was no relationship between the parents. 



1921.] WITH OUR READERS 287 

TPIE comment of the newspaper reporters that Birth Control, 
with which the word Eugenics is usually confounded in 
popular estimation, was kept in the background, was true for all 
the better known contributors to the Congress. The subject, 
however, came up for discussion at one of the afternoon sessions, 
and the surprise was to find teachers from the women's colleges 
lined up in favor of it, and of the repeal of laws preventing the 
diffusion of information with regard to this subject. A special 
appeal had been made to college women by readers of papers to 
marry early and raise a number of children as their best contribu- 
tion to the solution of the problems of dysgenics, which the world 
is now facing. It was declared to be a great racial loss that 
w T omen with higher education often remained unmarried and 
seldom raised many children. Dr. Dublin urged the college 
woman to look on matrimony as a career with great and inspiring 
possibilities. With overt advocates of the free teaching of Birth 
Control practices on college faculties, it is easy to understand the 
ordinary attitude of the college woman toward such an appeal. 

* * * * 

PERHAPS, through the darkness of the times, the greater 
* scientists are beginning to see the light. At any rate, the 
leaders in this International Congress of Eugenics recognized on 
scientific grounds that, for the welfare of the race, those means 
are necessary which have always been proclaimed, on moral 
grounds, by the Catholic Church. 



AMONG the many tributes offered Dante on the occasion of his 
six hundredth anniversary, we have found none that sur- 
passes in conciseness and completeness that of the Secretary of 
State Hughes, pronounced at a memorial meeting in Washington. 
As reported, the Secretary of State said: "It is well to turn back 
six hundred years to learn once more the lesson that 'moral 
supremacy is the only one that leaves monuments, and not ruins, 
behind it.' Dante embodied all the knowledge and culture of his 
time. He was scholar, patriot and poet, but his distinction tran- 
scends his age and becomes more impressive as the centuries 
pass. He is universal because he is the poet of the Christian faith, 
and with the ideals of that faith he wrote the epic of the human 
soul. Dante, with matchless power, taught the lesson of faith's 
victory of the soul triumphant, of the strength which alone gives 
the mastery of life and cannot know defeat." 



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THE 




VOL. CXIV. 



DECEMBER, 1921 



No. 681 



THE EXTRA-EVANGELICAN CHRIST. 




BY EDWARD ROBERTS MOORE, M.A. 

S many a protagonist of Christianity has truly 
said, were the Person of Christianity's Founder 
to be ruled off the pages of certain history for 
lack of sufficient evidence, then by the same 
canon would fall nearly all the great figures of 
antiquity. F. C. Conybeare, of whom we may say only that 
he is less a radical than Professor Arthur Drews, whose ex- 
travagant theories he attacks as baseless and absurd, is willing 
to admit 1 that the Gospels and other Christian literature date 
back at least to within seventy years of the death of Christ, 
whereas, he points out, our chief sources of information re- 
garding Solon the Lawgiver, for example, are Plutarch and 
Diogenes, writers who lived seven and eight hundred years 
after Him. And this is but one example of hundreds that 
could be adduced of "individuals for whose reality we have 
not a tithe of the evidence which we have for that of Jesus." 
If, then, Christ and His teachings are but emanations from the 
collective consciousness of mankind, or merely the results of 
the evolution of the religious impulse, which in turn is rooted 
in primitive man's ignorance and superstitious fear of natural 
phenomena, then are Solon the Lawgiver but a preexistent 

1 The Historical Christ, p. 3, et seq. 

COPYRIGHT. 1921. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE 
IN THB STATE OF NEW YORK. 



290 THE EXTRA-EVANGELIC AN CHRIST [Dec., 

aeon, the Battle of Marathon a myth and Pythagoras and the 
rest but figments in the mind of some later romancer. 

But theological predeterminations should not be permitted 
to drive from the judgment seat sober reason meting out 
equal justice to all claimants. If the more scanty and unsatis- 
factory evidence dealing with those dim but majestic figures 
of ages antedating by many centuries the opening of our era, 
be accepted as conclusive, then far, far beyond all thought of 
question should be the voluminous testimony corroborating 
in every detail the traditional account of the beginnings of 
Christianity, a testimony that includes the findings of true 
higher criticism, as well as a great mass of matter extrinsic 
to the text itself, consisting of quotations from scores of the 
early writers, countless indirect references, and last, but not 
least, innumerable monuments, if not contemporary with the 
Apostolic Age, at least closer to the deeds they commemorate 
by many hundred years than the earliest record we have 
of many an event universally regarded as unimpeachably 
historic. 

It is not our purpose, nor were it possible, to recount in 
this article these testimonies in their entirety, nor to examine 
into and defend their validity as a basis for evangelican cred- 
ibility. The vast compass of such an investigation constrains 
us to restrict our present interest to just one phase of the 
question. The enemies of Christianity had sought in many 
ways to devitalize or to destroy entirely the New Testament 
record of Christ; it remained for David Friedrich Strauss, 2 in 
1835, and after him, for Professor Arthur Drews 3 and his asso- 
ciates, to seek not merely to strip Christ of supernatural power 
and mission, but actually to deprive Him of the fundamental 
attribute of existence. In their judgment, the Gospels were 
pure myths and Jesus a mere creation thereof! 

Even among those formerly considered the most thorough- 
going of the Rationalistic school, this extravagant theory met 
with but little encouragement, and today Das Leben Jesn and 
the Christ-Myth with their fantastic ramblings live but as re- 
minders of the absurdities to which the human mind will 
descend in its attempt to defend a preconceived notion. Not 
infrequently, however, we do hear one question propounded 
for the raising of which these gentlemen were largely re- 

2 In Das Leben Jesu. Writer of The Christ-Myth. 



1921.] THE EXTRA-EVANGELIC AN CHRIST 291 

sponsible: "Why does not profane history tell of Christ? If 
He is all the Gospels claim Him to be, how does it happen that 
in secular chronicle there is no mention of Him?" That this 
question involves a "petitio principii," since, as a matter of 
fact, impartial history did not thus, by its silence, bear witness 
against Him, it shall be the purpose of this article to 
demonstrate. 

One of the favorite arguments of the Mythists was culled 
from what it pleased them to term the "Silence of Flavius 
Josephus." This gentleman was an historian, a professional 
narrator of events. Hence, they aver, if he knew of Chris- 
tianity and Christianity's Founder, he certainly should have 
made some mention thereof. Secondly, it is absolutely incom- 
prehensible that he should not have had this knowledge if, 
say our friends, there was any such knowledge to be had! 
because his life was cast by the very cradle side of the infant 
Church. It was within a decade at most after the death of Our 
Saviour and in the very city against which was written the 
stoning of the prophets of the Old Law, and now the cruci- 
fixion of the Great Prophet of the New, that Josephus entered 
upon the stage of mortal existence. Here he lived, very nearly 
continuously, until, in the year 70 at the hands of Titus, the 
"Holy City" paid the penalty of her faithlessness. For thirty 
years, then, he dwelt at the birthplace of Christianity; for 
approximately thirty more, basking in the sunlight of imperial 
favor and perfection, he lived at Rome, already Christendom's 
primatial See. It is, therefore, clearly beyond the scope of 
possibility that he should have been ignorant of a movement 
which was already assuming proportions not only sufficient to 
rend in twain the outworn veil of Judaism, but to set even the 
temples of pagan Rome a-tremor with apprehension. 

And yet, it is said, Josephus makes no mention of Chris- 
tianity or Christianity's Founder, and, therefore, the latter 
could never have existed at all. But suppose we were to grant 
which we do not the original basis of this whole conten- 
tion, that the author of Jewish Antiquities really was silent 
on this momentous topic, would we be constrained by the 
force of the above reasoning to admit the truth of the rather 
startling conclusion startling at least to one unacquainted 
with the vagaries of the Mythists? Far from it. Of this conten- 
tion, a brief consideration of the proving force of the so-called 



292 THE EXTRA-EVANGELIC AN CHRIST [Dec., 

"argument from silence" will be sufficient evidence. For its 
validity two conditions are necessary, one that the writer must 
certainly have known of the event if it took place; the other, 
that if he knew of the event he must certainly have mentioned 
it. Now, the second does not follow from the first. 

To bring the discussion within the periphery of our own 
personal and constant experience, do we feel obliged to impart 
any and all knowledge we have, just because we have it? Do 
we rush at once to our business rival's office and blurt out our 
newly conceived plans to circumvent him? Do we summon in 
our friends and neighbors and, flinging open the closet door, 
disclose to their horrified gaze the disedifying remains of the 
family skeleton? Or, to step again into the realm of history, 
shall we argue that Thomas Jefferson was never President of 
the United States, because on a monument erected to him as 
a quondam President of a University, no mention is made of 
the higher dignity? Absurd, of course, you will say, but not 
applicable to the present discussion because in this case both 
conditions are fulfilled. Josephus, as a historian, setting out 
formally to give an account of the period, must certainly have 
mentioned an event of the importance you ascribe to the 
origin and early growth of Christianity. The answer is that 
it is true that Josephus was a historian, but that he was such 
only secondarily. 

First and foremost, Josephus was a courtier, a sycophant, 
writing only those things which fell with sweetness on the 
ears of his royal master and benefactor, and when occasion 
arose Truth readily followed to the same block of sacrifice on 
which Honor and Loyalty to the land and people of his birth 
had already bled. As Schurer points out, 4 Josephus was 
writing a history of the Jews to suit the taste of the Romans, 
and at that time it was the fashion as we see from the writ- 
ings of educated Romans, as Pliny and Tacitus 5 to look upon 
Christianity as contemptible and of no account. And it was 
his scrupulous observance of just such niceties, his skill as a 
flatterer and ready adaptation of personal allegiance to vary- 
ing political fortunes that had won for our "historian" the 
proud title of Roman Citizen, the patrician praenomen, Flavius, 
and a large share in the estates confiscated from his own fel- 

4 History of the Jewish People, vol. ii., p. 150. See also Battifol, Credibility of 
the Gospels, p. 16; T. J. Thorburn, Jesus the Christ, Historical or Mythical, p. 101. 
Tacitus, History, v. 3; Pliny, Eptst., x. 96, 7, 8. 






1921.] THE EXTRA-EVANGELICAN CHRIST 293 

low countrymen! As Thorburn says, 6 "that Josephus could 
have said much (i. e., about Christianity) is the opinion of the 
great majority of scholars. But since he was writing mainly 
for educated Greeks and Romans, who knew nothing and 
cared nothing about Jesus, who, politically speaking, played an 
insignificant part in the history of the period, he does not 
prominently obtrude the question; and again, "since Josephus 
was above everything a discreet and politic man, it was better 
for him to avoid, as far as possible, such a subject." 

Moreover, the attitude of Josephus towards his own people 
might also be considered a factor in the problem. Although a 
thoroughgoing opportunist, a "Jewish ex-priest," as Schiirer 
calls him, 7 and as Battifol says, 8 one of "that despicable class 
of men who build up their fortunes on public calamities," yet 
when it did not interfere with his own interests, he did have 
some regard for those of his people, in fact, we might say that 
this affection for his people was second only to his affection 
for himself. Hence, one would expect in his work, which Bat- 
tifol terms "a literary defence of a conquered nation," a 
tendency to pass over in discreet silence any allusions to 
"deceptive national aspirations," such as were contained in the 
Judaic idea of the Messias, 9 and anything that, in the mind of 
the world for which he was writing, brought so little honor 
to Judea as did this new and despised cult. To quote again 
from Battifol: 10 "Thus Josephus, in speaking of Jesus and of 
Christianity, might have compromised the Jewish Cause, 
which he had at heart, and also his own reputation as a man 
of letters, which he had still more at heart. To a man so filled 
with vanity and opportunism as Josephus, this was more than 
enough to make him keep silence." 

So much for the "Silence of Flavius Josephus" if he had 
been silent ! But such is not the case. Although his testimony 
is neither as voluminous nor as clear as we could desire, yet 
certain passages in his work have a bearing on the point, and 
since, as has already been stated, there is sufficient reason for 
even total silence, then, a fortiori, any deficiencies in the selec- 
tions we will quote certainly constitute no argument against 
us. There are, in all, three of these passages. The first has 
reference to the death of John the Baptist: 

Jesus the Christ, Historical or Mythical, p. 101. 

7 Diesen Chemalige Judische Priesten, vol. i., p. 77. 

1 Page 5. Acts i. 6, et al. 10 Page 17. 



294 THE EXTRA-EVANGELIC AN CHRIST [Dec., 

Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of 
Herod's army 11 came from God, and that very justly, as a 
punishment of what he did against John, who was called the 
Baptist; for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and com- 
manded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteous- 
ness towards one another and piety towards God, and so to 
come to Baptism. 12 

We have here, in the words of Keim, 13 "a splendid and un- 
assailable account," though brief, of the mission and death of 
John the Baptist, and one which agrees with, and confirms, the 
Gospel narratives 14 of the same events. Regarding the 
genuineness of the passage, the fact that in some details 
Josephus deviates from the earlier accounts, as, for instance, 
in particular, the reason for Herod's murderous rage against 
John, is an argument in favor rather than against it for a 
Christian interpolator would have sought a more minute agree- 
ment and is easily explained by the difference in the writer's 
viewpoint. Moreover, all the external evidence also favors 
this passage. 15 

The second passage 16 describes the death of St. James the 
Less, the brother of Jesus. It reads as follows : 

So he assembled the Sanhedrim of Judges, and brought 
them the brother of Jesus Who was called Christ, whose 
name was James, 17 and some others. And when he had 
formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, 
he delivered them to be stoned. 

This passage also, "it is difficult to believe a Christian 
interpolation," 18 and though Professor Arthur Drews says, 19 
that "in the opinion of the eminent theologians such as Gred- 
ner (Eml. Ins. N. T., p. 581), Schiirer (Gesch. d. Jud. Volkes, 
I., p. 548), etc., it must be regarded as a forgery," in the words 
of T. J. Thorburn, 20 this is "not a very valid argument, since 

11 By Arctas, King of Arabia. " Josephus, Antiquities, Book XVIII., ch. v. 

18 Jesus of Nazareth, vol. i., p. 16. 

"Matthew xiv. 1-12; Mark vi. 17-29; Luke iii. 19, 20. 

"For example, Battifol, Credibility, p. 8. After Schurer, vol. IL, p. 24, says: 
"The authenticity of this passage of Josephus is not open to any suspicion," and 
Professor Emery Barnes in The Contemporary Review, January, 1914, p. 57, in an 
article which I will quote frequently later, says of this passage and the one that 
follows: "It is difficult to believe that either of them is a Christian interpolation." 

16 Josephus, Antiquities, Book XX., ch. Ix. 

" Tov dSetapov 'Iriaou TOU A.EYOU.EVOU XOIOTOU, Iajt(o6o? ovona autco. 

" See note 15. The Christ-Myth, third edition, pp. 230, 231. 

"Jesus the Christ, Historical or Mythical, p. 108. 



1921.] THE EXTRA-EVANGELIC AN CHRIST 295 

equally and even still more eminent theologians and scholars 
might be quoted on the other side of the question. . . . There 
are really no valid reasons of any kind for regarding the pas- 
sage as a forgery." Keim 21 remarks upon it: "There can 
scarcely exist any doubt concerning the authenticity of this 
passage, which is quoted in full by Origen; here is genuine 
Jewish history, without a trace of Christian embellish- 
ment." 22 

Accepting the passage, then, as genuine, what does it 
prove? Somewhat more to the discerning reader than a 
casual glance might discover. It has, in the first place, a 
direct reference to "Jesus Who was called Christ," and the 
manifest identification of this Jesus with Him Whom we know 
as the Founder of Christianity is undeniable, in spite of 
the far-fetched ratiocinations of Professor Drews and his 
school. 23 In the second place, the phrase, "Who was called 
Christ," TOU Xeyoyilvou Xpt<rrou although it expresses no personal 
opinion of the author, 24 does something far more significant 
and important: it indicates a widespread knowledge of and 
shall we not say acceptance of? the Messianic claims of the 
Jesus he mentions. Finally, as Battifol points out, 25 although 
it does not declare explicitly whether St. James and his com- 
panion were accused of violating the laws or The Law, the 
penalty inflicted they were stoned to death is that decreed 
in Deuteronomy 26 against those who would serve strange 
gods. It is clearly implied, therefore, that their crime con- 
sisted in the desertion of Judaism for some other form of 
worship. 

It is about the third of these reputed passages from the 
Jewish historian 27 that the greatest controversy rages a con- 
dition to be expected, for so clear is its testimony that, once 
accepted, the so-called "Silence of Josephus" fades away into 
that mysterious nebula whence come and whither return so 
many evanescent theories and fancies of those who are re- 

21 Jesus of Nazareth, vol. i., pp. 16, 17. 

22 See also in this connection, Battifol, Credibility, p. 11, footnote: "To me it 
(i. e., this passage) seems fully authentic, since Origen found it in his copy. He 
quotes three times the words, 'Brother of Jesus, Who was called Christ,' Comment, 
in Matthew, x. 17; Contra Celsun i. 47; ii. 13." 

23 See passage referred to in note 19, ably answered by Dr. Thorburn on pp. 107- 
111 of his work. 

24 Battifol reads it as ironical, Credibility, p. 11. 2B Credibility, p. 11. 
26 xvii. 1-7. "Antiquities, Book XVIII., ch. 3. 



296 THE EXTRA-EVANGELIC AN CHRIST [Dec., 

solved, at any cost, to know not Christ. I am quoting the cur- 
rent translation 28 of the passage : 

About this time lived Jesus, a wise man, if it be proper 
to call Him a man; for He was a worker of miracles, a 
teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He 
drew over to Him both many of the Jews and many of the 
Greeks. He was the Christ. And when Pilate, at the insti- 
gation of the principal men among us had condemned Him 
to the Cross, those who had loved Him at first, did not for- 
sake Him. For He appeared to them alive again on the 
third day; the divine prophets having foretold these and 
many other wonderful things concerning Him. And the 
sect of the Christians, so named after Him, are not extinct 
to this day. 

What shall we say of this passage? Is it genuine? Let us 
state the case. In the first place, we may say that it is found in 
all manuscripts of Josephus. But, "melior conditio possidentis" 
the presumption is in favor of the existent order. Hence, if 
the passage is to be rejected, strong positive reasons must be 
presented. It is said that both on external and internal grounds, 
the passage cannot be genuine. In the first place, though it be 
admitted that all the existing manuscripts bear witness in its 
favor, of what value, it is asked, is testimony that reaches back 
only to the eleventh century, the date of the earliest of these 
manuscripts? Again, though Eusebius thrice quotes the pas- 
sage, 29 and that brings us back to about 320 A. D., yet before 
that date it is not found at all, and its absence (the "argument 
from silence" again!) is particularly to be noticed in Origen, 
who, in his Contra Celsum, published about 248 A. D., shows 
knowledge of the two other passages already quoted from 
Josephus, but entirely passes over this one, which it would 
seem he could have used in his polemic with most telling effect 
of all. Is it not clear, then, it is asked, that the passage in 
question was interpolated by some Christian between the years 
248 and 320, especially since (the internal argument) the sen- 
timents contained in it are far different from anything 
Josephus could have written? This is, in general, the conten- 

!a l say the "current translation;" later I will have occasion, after Barnes, in The 
Contemporary Review of January, 1914, to find some fault with it. 
29 Notably and at length in his Ecclesiastical History, I., 11, 7, 8. 



1921.] THE EXTRA-EVANGELIC AN CHRIST 297 

tion of Professor Drews, 30 Doctor Thorburn, 31 Kurt Linck, 32 
etc., and our own Doctor Schiirer 33 and Father Lagrange. 34 
What shall we reply? 35 The attack is twofold, historical and 
higher critical. Can we repel this double assault? 

In our attempt to do so, we will marshal our defence first 
against the destructive weapon that our foes reserve for the 
final thrust, the argument from the content of the disputed 
passage. Is it such that Josephus could not possibly have 
written it, as our opponents aver? Could anyone but a Chris- 
tian and the Jewish Chronicler, opportunist that he was, cer- 
tianly never was that could anyone but a Christian have 
written such a phrase as : "If, indeed, He may be called a man," 
or again : "For He was a worker of miracles," or "This was the 
Christ," or, finally: "For He appeared to them alive again on 
the third day?" 

Would not he who penned such words as these be declar- 
ing his faith in the Nazarene? Let us take up these phrases 
one by one. In the first : "If, indeed, He may be called a man," 
is there anything incompatible with the character of Josephus 
as we know it? It is said that the inescapable implication of 
these words is that this Jesus Whom the writer is discussing 
is something more than a Man and this is a necessarily Chris- 
tian concept. But he who argues thus, is basing his con- 
tention not on what Josephus wrote, but on a peculiarly un- 
fortunate version of it. The original is sfys avBpa auTov X^stv 
ypri- Now ovSpa does not mean "man" in the sense of 
human being and in opposition to some being other than the 
rational animal. Had such been the idea that Josephus, 
who was a careful student of the classics and their almost 
slavish imitator, intended to convey, he would have used the 
generic avOpcozos* the Latin "homo'' instead of "uir." 'Avrjp 
(nominative case of v5pa, accusative) signifies rather the 

30 The Christ-Myth, third edition, p. 230. 

11 Jesus the Christ, p. 97, where it is argued (a) that "the passage was apparently 
unknown to Origen and the earlier Fathers who quoted from Josephus;" (b) that 
"even its position in our present Greek text seems uncertain;" and (c) finally, that 
"in Its present position it very awkwardly breaks the narrative." 

82 In his treatise, De Antiquissimis Veterum qu.ee ad Jesum Nazarenum Spectant 
Testimoniis. 

M Geschichte des Judtschen Volkes, vol. ii., p. 146. Messian. 

u On the other hand, it has been defended by Whiston, Daubuz and F. H. 
Schoedel, Flavins Josephus de Jesu Christo Testatus; F. Bole, Flavins Josephus uber 
Christus Und Die Christen; and, finally and most convincingly in the article already 
mentioned of Professor Emery Barnes in The Contemporary Review of January, 1914. 



298 THE EXTRA-EVANGELIC AN CHRIST [Dec., 

possessor of manly qualities or virtues, and the English equiv- 
alent is formed only by proper accentuation, as we would say 
of one who had accomplished some feat of daring. "He is a 
MAN," with the stress on the last word. Further, as Professor 
Barnes points out, 36 no doubt is expressed in the phrase, 

fye xp-r), for although the first meaning of et is "if," 

it is frequently used to signify "since." Hence, the real 
meaning of the phrase is not "if, indeed, He may be called a 
man," with the implication that He is really something more 
but rather, "since it is befitting to call Him a MAN" i. e., 
a somewhat unusual individual because a doer of wonderful 
works. And is there anything in those words that Josephus 
could not have written? Is it not merely the translator, in- 
stead of the original author, who ventures thus to betray 
decidedly Christian inclinations? 

And this contention is strengthened by a consideration of 
the very next phrase: "For He was a worker of miracles." 
Triumphantly, you say: "Could Josephus, a non-Christian, 
thus describe Jesus?" No, it certainly is not likely that he 
would and de facto he did not! "Worker of miracles" 
is a very free and misleading translation of wapaSo&ov Ipywv 
icoci)TT]<;. IIapaB6o<; means strange or unusual and not mirac- 
ulous; hence, the writer of these words is not at all professing 
faith in the possession of any supernatural power by Him 
Whom he describes as doing these opSoa ep^a. In fact, if 
we look closely enough at the text, cannot we discover 
here an example of that delicate innuendo, intended only for 
the discerning reader, for which Josephus was well known? 
A paradox in English today is something which seems to be 
what it really is not would a Christian have written that 
Jesus was a doer of works that seemed wonderful whereas 
they really were not? That were equivalent to calling Jesus 
a common trickster a blasphemy that it were absurd to 
ascribe to a Christian interpolator, seeking to strengthen the 
position of his Faith, but quite in keeping with the character 
of Josephus. Finally, would any Christian writer have fin- 
ished this description of the Lamb of God, Who had offered 
Himself as a Living Sacrifice for the world, with anything 
quite so tame and cold as "a Teacher of men Who received 
true words (for there is no basis for translating cdeXYj0YJ as 

88 The Contemporary Review, January, 1914, p. 59. 






1921.] THE EXTRA-EVANGELIC AN CHRIST 299 

'the Truth') with pleasure?" No one at all familiar with the 
burning sentences of love and reverence that flowed in such 
abundant streams from the tongues and pens of the Fathers 
could ever imagine a Justin or Clement or any contemporary 
thereof, interested enough in Christianity to seek by such ex- 
treme means to establish its place in history, guilty of such 
tepidity ! 

"But," you object again, "Josephus said of Jesus: 'This was 
the Christ.'" What if he did? Does he thereby express his 
own belief in the Messiaship of Our Saviour? No more than 
a Protestant who calls a priest "Father," by the word acknowl- 
edges all that title connotes. Today in a city like New York, 
where non-Catholics necessarily mingle a great deal with 
Catholics, and in that way are familiar with their priests also, 
it is almost the ordinary thing for them so to speak. "Father" 
is simply the conventional title of the priest. In like manner, 
the writer of this passage was merely seeking to connect his- 
torically the character of Jesus, of Whom he was speaking, 
and that of Christ, with which many of his readers would be 
familiar, without advancing any personal opinion whatsoever 
regarding the theological accuracy or significance of the iden- 
tification. It is as if he said: "This Jesus, of Whom I am 
speaking, is the same person as Christ, the Founder of that 
sect you probably have heard of, the Christians." Would it 
take one of these same Christians to write anything so simple 
and free of implication as that? 

Immediately after this phrase, which the protagonist of 
the "silence" would make so damning, we read the following: 
"Now when at the instigation of our chief men, Pilate con- 
demned Him to the cross, those who had first loved Him did 
not fall away." Is this the style of a Christian apologist? 
Here we have merely a cold, lifeless statement of fact, with 
perhaps an implication of faint surprise that His followers did 
not fall away; no word of the noble cause in which He died, 
no word of vindication, no word of praise or affection, not a 
single Christian thought or expression. In the words of Pro- 
fessor Barnes: "Why should a Christian trouble himself to 
make up such an interpolation as this?" 37 And as for the suc- 
ceeding phrase : "For He appeared to them alive again on the 
third day," at the very most it proves merely that the writer 

"Ibid., p. 62. 



300 THE EXTRA-EVANGELICAN CHRIST [Dec., 

"knew of a tradition of an appearance or appearances of Our 
Lord to His disciples after His crucifixion;" for no suggestion 
of the Resurrection is there in the word eqpavij. 

So much then for the sections of this passage which 
those inimical to its genuineness claim in support of their 
case. How ill-founded are those claims by now is evident. 
As Professor Barnes well says: 38 "The writer, in setting 
down the main facts of the Gospel History, has not once 
fallen into Christian, or at least into Gospel, language. This 
supposed Christian interpolator has had the self-restraint 
to avoid the term 'Prophet' (applied to Jesus) 39 and the terms 
'Signs' and 'Mighty Works' (applied to His miracles) ; 'Par- 
ables,' 'Believe,' 'Repent,' 'Be Saved,' 'Convert,' 'Disciples,' are 
all absent from his vocabulary, together with all mention of 
Herod, the High Priests, the Scribes and the Pharisees. He 
does not use the phrases 'Rise (be raised) from the dead,' 
'That it might be fulfilled,' 'As it is written,' and his phrase for 
'on the third day' is non-evangelican." And so with the em- 
inent author whom we have just quoted, we feel justified in 
concluding that the content and style of the passage under 
consideration furnish no argument against its authenticity. 

HO\Y does the case stand? The opponents of the passage 
advance two mutually complementary arguments: one, that 
the passage is un-Josephan in style and content; the other, that 
no trace of it is found up to the year 320. Taken together, they 
would present a formidable front. If the language of the pas- 
sage and the thoughts contained therein were entirely alien 
to what we should expect from the putative author thereof, 
and in decided contrast to his other writings, then we would 
say, indeed, that there was solid probability that he was not 
responsible for it. And if we were to add that for two hundred 
years after his time no trace of these words is to be found, 
then we might well feel justified in concluding that they did 
constitute an interpolation on the part of someone who sought 
thereby to advance himself or some project dear to his heart. 
But the former argument, in the light of the examination given 
it, must be rejected, for the characteristics of the passage are 
such that Josephus might well, and that no Christian inter- 
polator could, have written it. Therefore, all that can be ad- 
vanced against it is the apparent failure of other writers 

n lbtd., p. 59. n Cf. Matthew xxi. 11; Luke xxiv. 19. 



1921.J THE EXTRA-EVANGELIC AN CHRIST 301 

living between the years stated above remember that it is 
definitely traced to 320 A. D. to quote it. And even though 
there was nothing further to be said, would any well-balanced 
judge, with every external authority back to, and including, 
Eusebius, solidly in its favor, and with the internal or higher 
critical argument likewise sustaining it, reject it because it is 
not found among the very incomplete remnants that have 
come down to us from the literature of the second and third 
centuries of our era? 

And that is "even though there were nothing further to be 
said," which is far from being the case. Remember that this 
is the argument from silence again, which, to be valid, must 
rejoice in the possession of various characteristics. Where 
are they in this case? We cannot even be sure, in the first 
place, that none of the writers of the period did quote the pas- 
sage, for, as Rawlinson points out, 40 "testimony of the greatest 
importance has perished by the ravages of time," and Profes- 
sor Barnes adds: "Time has wrought havoc on the literature 
of the third century, and particularly on the works of 
Origen," 41 and again : "So much of the literature of that period 
is lost that "Silence," as an argument, becomes unreal and in- 
conclusive." 42 And this fact is not one merely of vague and 
general possibilities; 43 it has a very definite and particular ap- 
plication. In his commentary on the Gospel, according to St. 
Matthew, Origen quotes the passage which refers to St. James, 
without mention, however, of the one now under discussion. 
But perfectly natural is a reference to the former when com- 
menting on Matthew xiii. 55, where the brother of the Lord is 
first mentioned, whereas the obvious place for turning to the 
latter passage is in the discussion of the second verse of the 
twenty-seventh chapter, where Pilate is first mentioned. But 
the commentary on this part of the Gospel has not come down 
to us in the original. 

If, however, we were to omit even so logical and probable 
a surmise from our discussion, and restrict our consideration 
to fragments of Origen in our possession, among which there 
is no trace of the passage in question what then? That 
Origen, for instance because it is of his silence that the 

"Historical Evidences, p. 184. 

41 "Testimony of Josephus," Contra Renan, p. 65. 

Ibid., p. 7. Ibid., p. 5. 



302 THE EXTRA-EVANGELIC AN CHRIST [Dec., 

strongest point is made that Origen would have known oi 
this passage if it existed is indeed probable, but that, there- 
fore, he must have mentioned it does that necessarily follow? 
Let us quote again from Professor Barnes: 44 "What force re- 
mains in this objection [i. e., the silence of contemporary 
writers] ... if the passage be as carefully guarded in its 
admissions as I have tried to show? What is there to compel 
earlier apologists to quote it? It shows that a Jewish his- 
torian, who was born and bred in Palestine, who was twenty- 
six years old when Felix was Governor of Judea, was ac- 
quainted with an outline of the Life of Our Lord which agrees 
with that accepted by Christians. Such a passage has become 
of serious evidential value only since Strauss started the 
Mythical Theory; it is 'Testimony' today only because Arthur 
Drews and others are again writing about the 'Christus- 
Mythus! " And, in solid substantiation of this contention, it 
might be mentioned that Eusebius quotes the passage without 
any comment, without any endeavor to prove great things 
from it; apparently, although he spoke the same language as 
Josephus, without seeing in it much that modern objectors 
would have us believe has lain hidden for a decade and a half 
of centuries awaiting discovery by their eyes. He actually 
states, in so many words, that he brings forward the passage 
not as a necessary or even important part of his argumenta- 
tion, but merely olov ex weptoixiia?, as of superfluity! Why, then, 
must Origen or other writers have quoted what Eusebius only 
thus carelessly mentions? 

Regarding Origen, we can say still more. It can be 
doubted 45 whether he ever possessed a copy of the Archaeol- 
ogy itself, because in the first place his references to it are so 
few and slight, and, secondly, because he, at least twice, mis- 
quotes it, asserting that Josephus attributed the destruction of 
Jerusalem and the attendant calamities to the Divine wrath 
over the slaying of James, the brother of the Lord, whereas 
no such statement appears in the writings of Josephus as we 
have them. This statement also accounts for the assertion 
found in his Commentary on Matthew, xiii. 55, and again in 
Contra Celsum, i. 47, that Josephus did not believe in Jesus 
as the Christ, for a Christian would have ascribed the disasters 
above mentioned not to the slaying of the brother of the 

** Professor Barnes, ibid., p. 63. B Ibid., p. 66. 



1921.] THE EXTRA-EVANGELIC AN CHRIST 303 

Lord, but to the cruel and shameful execution of the Lord 
Himself. 

And so we feel constrained to regard the so-called "Silence 
of Josephus" as but a figment of prejudiced and predisposed 
imaginations. Three passages from his works have been 
quoted, two admittedly beyond all serious attack, the third 
intrenched in a position which is the despair of its enemies. 
And, we might add, an argument from Philip Schaff, 40 that, in 
addition to these direct references, "the writings of Josephus 
contain indirectly much valuable testimony to the truth of the 
Gospel narrative. His History of the Jewish War is unde- 
signedly a striking commentary on the predictions of Our 
Saviour concerning the destruction of the city and the temple 
of Jerusalem; the great distress and affliction of the Jewish 
people at that time; the famine, pestilence and earthquake; 
the rise of false prophets and impostors, and the flight of His 
disciples at the approach of these calamities." Moreover, this 
testimony, just because incidental and unintentional, is, by 
that very fact, all the more eloquent, and, in addition, honey- 
combing as it does the whole work of the author, as to gen- 
uiness is absolutely unimpeachable. 

We now turn our attention from a Palestinian-born Jew 
living at Rome to a small group of the Imperial City's native 
sons, and the testimony which they have handed down to us. 
Cornelius Tacitus, 47 the most famous of all the historians of 
Ancient Rome, shall be the first to occupy the witness stand. 
Does he support our contention? In the Annals xv. 4, 4, he 
says: 

The author of this name [i. e., Christian], Christus, was 
executed in the reign of Tiberius by the Procurator, Pontius 
Pilate, and the detestable superstition, suppressed for a 
time, broke out again, and spread not only over Judea, 
where the evil originated, but even through Rome, where 
everything upon earth that is vile or shameless finds its 
way and is practised. 48 

"The Person of Christ, p. 193. Rawlinson (Historical Evidences, p. 185) also 
speaks of the "allusions to the civil history of the times which the writings of the 
evangelists furnish." See also Doctor Lardner's, Collection of Ancient Jewish and 
Heathen Testimonies to the Truth of the Christian Religion, vol. vi., p. 406, of his 
Works. " Born about 50 and died about 120 A. D. 

w "Auctor nominis ejus, Christus, Tiberio Imperitante, per Procuratorem Pontium 
Pilatum, suppliciis affectus erat; repressaque in preesens exitiabilis super- 
stitio rursus erumpebat non modo per Judteam, originem ejus mali, sed per Urbem 
etiam, quo cuncta undiquc atrocia aut pudenda conftuunt celebranturque," 



304 THE EXTRA-EVANGELIC AN CHRIST [Dec., 

Here we have a very clear and definite reference to Chris- 
tianity and its origin, and a testimony safe from any attack. 
It is true that Professor Arthur Drews finds fault with it, 49 but 
serious minded scholars pay little attention to the wholly 
biased and incomprehensibly fantastic attempts of this gentle- 
man to warp and distort or to eliminate entirely all evidence 
at variance with his strange theories. His only authority for 
the rejection of this particular passage is a French writer 
named Hochart, known principally for the amazing effrontery 
and absolute independence of voluminous testimony to the 
contrary with which he relegates the whole of the last six 
books of the Annals and the first five of the Histories to a 
forgery on the part of Poggio Bracciolini, an Italian scholar 
of the Renaissance period! And this in spite of the fact that 
in the Laurentian Library is a manuscript of Tacitus with 
the passage that especially interests us intact dating back to 
the eleventh century, four hundred years before Bracciolini's 
time! 

Another prominent Roman of the period who may be 
cited not as "a primary and independent authority for the fact 
of the existence of Jesus, but as testifying, in a secondary 
sense, to the record of that fact in general and well informed 
public opinion," 50 is Suetonius, private secretary to the 
Emperor Hadrian. Two quotations from his works concern 
us. In his Life of Claudius, he reports that that ruler (A. D. 
48-54) expelled the Jews from Rome on one occasion, because 
they continually made riots at the instigation of Christus, 81 
and in his Life of Nero he writes that by him "the Christians, 
a race of men professing a new and mischievous superstition, 
were punished." 52 

Even Professor Drews is unable to find any argument 
against the authenticity of these passages; it is left to Rein- 
ach 53 to attempt to nullify them by emphasizing the discrep- 
ancy betwen the form "Chrestus" and our Christ. The name 
Chrestus, he says (from the Greek XP^TO? . serviceable) was 
common enough among slaves and freedmen, and here prob- 

The Christ-Myth, third edition, p. 231. 
Thorburn, Jesus Christ, Historical or Mythical, p. 125. 

K Chapter xxv.: "Judaeos Impulsore Chresto Adsidue tumultuontes Roma Bxpulit." 
"Chapter xvl.: "Affectt suppliciis Chrlstiant, Genut Hominum superstitionls 
Nova ac malefices." 
a Orpheus, p. 227. 



1921.] THE EXTRA-EVANGELIC AN CHRIST 305 

ably refers to an obscure Jew who had stirred up some com- 
motion amongst his co-religionists in Rome. But if such were 
the case, would not Suetonius have written "Chresto quedam," 
"a certain Chrestus," rather than the unqualified "Chrestus," 
just as today we would refer to our nation's Chief Executive 
simply as "Mr. Harding," while, were we to narrate an incident 
in which some unknown gentleman of that name figured, we 
would describe him as "a certain Mr. Harding?" Moreover, 
we have testimony in abundance that the Romans spoke of 
Christ and the Christians as "Chrestus" and "Chrestiani." 54 
Regarding the ignorance of Suetonius, in which he could write 
that it was Christ Himself in person Who caused the disturb- 
ances of which he writes, it is amply accounted for by "the 
carelessness and inattention with which he treated a matter 
that really did not interest him, nor his friends and con- 
temporaries." 53 

We have reserved for the last a document or rather two 
documents "of the highest value" 56 whose authenticity is 
beyond all question, 57 the letter of Pliny the Younger, Imperial 
Legate of the Province of Bithynia and Pontus from 111 to 
113 A. D., to the Emperor Trajan, and the latter's reply. Re- 
garding the Christians in the District under his jurisdiction, 
he reports : 

There are many of every age, and of both sexes, and not 
only cities, but country towns and rural districts have been 
touched by the contagion of this superstition. 58 

He has discovered, too, that they offer neither incense to the 
Emperor nor sacrifice to the gods, nor will they curse Chres- 
tus, being a people of "inflexible obstinacy," but gather before 
dawn each morning to repeat in alternating chant among 
themselves a hymn to Christ as to a god, 59 and later in the day 
assemble once more to partake of a common meal. Except for 
the "gross and immoderate superstition," 60 he has nothing 

64 Tertullian, for example, refers to "Chrestus" and "Chrestiani" as "a faulty 
pronunciation of the words in use principally among the heathen," Ad Nat tones, III. 

3B Thorburn, ibid., p. 127. Battifol, Credibility, p. 30. 

37 Thorburn, Conybeare, Keim, Platner, Wilde; Renan, Mommsen, Neumann, 
Heinach, Harnack, etc. 

"Epistle x. 96. 

*"Essent solttt ataio die ante lucem convenire oarmtnque Chrtsto quasi deo 
dtcere secum invicem." 

90 "Superstitionem praoam immodtcam." 
VOL. cxiv. 20 



306 THE EXTRA-EVANGELIC AN CHRIST [Dec., 

against them, for they bind themselves by oath not to commit 
adultery nor theft; nor bear false testimony, and he sees in 
the above-mentioned repast only a meal of the ordinary and 
innocent kind. In reply to this report, the Emperor issued 
strict orders that Christians who proved obstinate were to be 
punished, but that they were not to be sought out, and if, when 
accused, they sacrificed to the national pagan deities, they 
were to be released. 

Here we have two official documents, without a single ex- 
trinsic argument against them; couched in the peculiarly char- 
acteristic style of the writers whose names they bear, giving 
testimony to the thus early ubiquity of the Christian Faith and 
its purity of worship and morals, and even attempting some 
description of its rites well is it that secular history is not 
made to pass a more rigid test of credibility! 

There are other footprints left by the Divine Captain of 
Christendom which it might profit us to examine. Celsus, a 
Grecian Eclectic philosopher of the second century, wrote 
A True Discourse, the first pagan work devoted in its entirety 
to an attack on Christianity. Living, as he did, almost within 
hailing distance of the Apostles, this able infidel writer, the 
principal portions of whose work have been preserved to us by 
Origen in the author's own language, "bears witness, as St. 
John Chrysostom remarks, to the antiquity of the Apostolic 
writings, and the main facts of the Gospel History." 61 Lucian, 
a Syrian writer of the second century, testifies to Christianity 
by his indirect attack on it in his Life of Peregrinus. The 
heretics, Basilides (c. 125 A. D.), Marcion and Valentius (c. 
150 A. D.) and Heracleum (c. 160 A. D.), are certainly not 
writers who could be accused of a predisposition in favor of 
Christianity, yet they bear indisputable testimony of a very 
early date to the existence and person of Christ. Again, Can- 
den M. Cobern, D.D., of Allegheny College, in a volume en- 
titled New Archaeological Discoveries, published in 1917, gives 
an interesting account of some recent excavations that have 
resulted in finds of considerable historical value, all of them 
tending to confirm the results of investigation through other 
sources. 

And so we see that after all Christ is not a mysterious 
personage Who left an impression only upon history written 

81 Schaff, Person of Christ, p. 199. 



1921.] THE EXTRA-EVANGELIC AN CHRIST 307 

by His friends and, therefore, open to suspicion. In fact, when 
all circumstances are taken into consideration, the manner in 
which history was written in those days, the many reasons 
which would induce non-Christian writers of the period to be 
silent about Him, the peculiar character of His mission, life 
and work, it is not surprising that we find, comparatively 
speaking, so little in contemporary profane history about Him, 
and, on the other hand, a source of the greatest wonder at 
least to those not possessing a strong faith in the Divine 
Ordering of all things is the completeness with which the 
Gospel narrative, as it has been handed down to us, is verified 
by the findings of history certainly not prejudiced in favor of 
Christianity. 

One good thing, however, Mythism did accomplish to 
draw good out of evil is often the way of the Lord it con- 
stituted an occasion for us to search into the pages of secular 
history, and to discover the real strength that our case pos- 
sesses. Strauss and Drews and the rest had eyes and saw not, 
and then, with the rash folly of a moth that would seek, with 
its flimsy wings, to cut off from the earth the light of the sun, 
they thought to hide from their fellowmen Him Whom they 
would not see. But the penalty of willful blindness has been 
paid; they and their work are well-nigh forgotten, and the 
ghost of the monster conceived by their warped brains is laid 
and walks no more, while more glorious than ever, majestic, 
dominating, standing out like a towering mountain peak 
against the blue sky of Truth, is the eternal, resplendent 
Figure of Jesus the Christ. 




OF FATHER TABB. 

BY KATHERINE BREGY, LITT.D. 

NEW biography of John Bannister Tabb has re- 
cently come from the press, 1 compiled very sym- 
pathetically by a niece, the daughter of his elder 
brother, William Barksdale Tabb. It is what one 
has learned to recognize as a family book, with 
the intimate human qualities and the critical defects of its 
kind. Defects, to be sure, must here be understood in the 
sense of superfluity rather than omission. For the little vol- 
ume is copiously documented: it reprints almost everything 
that has yet been said of the inimitable Father Tabb, owing 
much to the appreciation published a few years back by U M. 
S. Pine." But when all is gathered together, poetry lovers 
must admit that not half enough critical praise or critical 
knowledge has yet been meted out to him whose music Mrs. 
Meynell profoundly compared to that of George Herbert on 
one side, and of Mozart on the other. One slim but admirable 
critique written chiefly from the devotional point of view 
and this present one written from the ancestral leave much 
still to say of an artist who invites, and can endure, the "abash- 
less inquisition" of art itself. But because this book brings 
the poet-priest's life once again freshly to memory, and be- 
cause it has the grace to include quantities of his loveliest 
lyrics, it is quite manifestly justified by works as well as faith. 
There is rather a curious coincidence in the fact that both 
Father Tabb and Father Ryan the two American priests who 
first won popular recognition as poets should have been sons 
of that Southland which is not generally associated with Cath- 
olic traditions. Traditions there were, indeed, about the head 
of John Bannister Tabb, rich and ancient enough, although not 
of the Faith. He was born of a patrician English-Scotch fam- 
ily, one of the earliest to settle in Virginia; his father, Thomas 
Yelverton Tabb, being a direct descendant of Sir Thomas Pey- 
ton, and of that Humphrey Tabb who was already burgess of 

1 Father Tabb, His Life and Work. A memorial by his niece, Jennie Masters 
Tabb. Introduction by Dr. Charles Alphonso Smith. Boston: The Stratford Com- 
pany. 1921. 



1921.] OF FATHER TABB 309 

Elizabeth City County in the year 1652. The future poet's 
mother (tenderly immortalized in his "Cowslip" verses), being 
first cousin to her husband, naturally shared his genealogy: by 
name she was Marianna Bertrand Archer, a daughter of the 
distinguished Dr. Archer of "The Forest," Amelia County, Vir- 
ginia. And at this latter estate the boy was born on March 
22d, in that year of 1845 which must forever be associated with 
the historic submission of John Henry Newman to the Catholic 
Church. Little John Tabb had an adoring black "Mammy" 
from whom he won his first superlative, by being delightedly 
singled out as "the ugliest baby ever born in Virginia" and 
his childhood was passed in an atmosphere probably more 
leisurely than any since known to this strenuous continent, 
the atmosphere of the Old South. In the course of time he 
studied under the family tutor, one Mr. Thomas Hood, along 
with his brother, Yelverton, and a few of the neighbors' chil- 
dren who were permitted to attend classes at "Cassels," the 
Tabb homestead. One of these pupils, a cousin, later de- 
scribed the whimsical "Johnny" as the "most joyous, rollick- 
ing and trifling boy" he had ever known a lad who rarely 
"studied his lessons a minute," and whose chastisements (not 
of the modern "moral" kind!) were consequently frequent. 
But he was already not only the favorite of the school, but also 
a clever cartoonist; and if he neglected his books, he gave 
proof of heroic concentration when the incentive was strong 
enough by frequently sitting at the piano six hours a day. 

In 1861, the threatened scourge of Civil War swept the 
country into two hostile camps, and John Tabb although only 
sixteen years old proved equal to the other sons of Virginia 
in immediate valor. As his already feeble eyesight disquali- 
fied him for army service, he enlisted in the Confederate navy, 
and was assigned as captain's clerk on the ship, Robert E. 
Lee. It is said this adventurous craft ran the Federal blockade 
twenty-one times; but in 1864, when returning from England, 
she was captured, and young Tabb was one of those forth- 
with sent as prisoners to the "Bull Pen," Point Lookout, Mary- 
land. Inevitably, it was a searing experience: but its great 
consolation was the companionship of the gentle poet and 
musician, Sidney Lanier. The friendship of the two young 
Southern patriots, begun in those "evil days," lasted through 
life, and doubtless beyond. For in more than one of his later 



310 OP FATHER TABB [Dec., 

poems, John Bannister Tabb celebrated the memory of Lanier, 
and of the precious flute with which he had sweetened the 
bitterness of their captivity. 

With the peace of 1865, the future priest returned home, 
weakened by fever and illness, indeed, but, as he soon found, 
less broken than his beloved Virginia. As the ancestral estate 
was ruined, he cast about for some means of promptly earning 
a living. Music was his first thought; but this had to be aban- 
doned in favor of teaching, and in 1866 he accepted a post 
momentous as it afterward proved as instructor in St. Paul's 
Protestant Episcopal School, Baltimore. The parish with 
which this was connected was of the advanced ritualistic type, 
its rector being the Rev. Alfred Curtis, with whom the youth- 
ful pedagogue almost immediately climbed into relations of 
affectionate intimacy. A more stimulating friendship could 
scarcely have been imagined, and it continued unbroken when, 
about 1870, John Bannister passed on to a more lucrative post 
at Racine, Wisconsin 

There was no longer any doubt about it the boy who 
would not study was a predestined professor: but with teach- 
ing merely human truths, he was already unsatisfied. So 
within a year he resigned his chair, to enter the theological 
seminary of his ancestral faith at Alexandria, Virginia. But 
his feet were destined for more distant shrines, and a sharp 
turn in the road of their pilgrimage. Almost simultaneous 
with his own decision to enter the Protestant Episcopal min- 
istry, came Mr. Curtis' conviction that it must be abandoned. 
With characteristic sincerity, the former pastor promptly sev- 
ered his powerful association with St. Paul's foundation and 
sailed for England as a humble seeker after truth from the 
lips of the Oxford apostle, Dr. Newman. More than one soul 
trembled in the balance during their conferences; and when 
the mighty Oratorian bade Mr. Curtis read more and study "if 
he liked," but above all, to pray, he was all unwittingly dou- 
bling the orisons of another and younger neophyte, over in 
Virginia. In 1872, Alfred Curtis was baptized into the Cath- 
olic Church in the presence of his preceptor, John Henry New- 
man. And before that year was out all in a single golden 
day, according to the present biography in St. Peter's Cathe- 
dral, Richmond, John Bannister Tabb received at the hands of 
Bishop Gibbons (the future Cardinal) the four sacraments 



1921.] OF FATHER TABB 311 

of Baptism, Confession, Confirmation and Holy Communion. 
"I was always a Catholic born a Catholic," he declared later 
on. "Whenever any doctrine of the Church was spoken of, I 
knew it was true as soon as I heard it. I would have been a 
member of the Church before I was, if I had learned what the 
Catholic doctrines were, and had known that they were taught 
and practised in the Catholic Church." With him, as with so 
many converts, the "coming over" had been less a matter of 
revelation than of inspired recognition; and in his newly ac- 
quired fullness of faith he found immediate and permanent 
peace. 

It was, perhaps, a foregone conclusion that both of these 
men should press on to their natural, or supernatural, home in 
the further sacrament of Holy Orders. In fact, Mr. Curtis pro- 
ceeded at once to St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, and even- 
tually, of course, to the episcopacy as Bishop of Wilmington. 
With more "deliberate speed" but not less "majestic instancy," 
young Mr. Tabb entered in 1874 St. Charles' College, Ellicott 
City, Maryland. And there he remained, with the briefest of 
temporary vacations, until his death in 1909. His was, in all 
truth, a life of singular simplicity; and like the poetry he was 
to create, of singular concentration and even condensation. 
There is an old saying that a happy woman has no history: 
but even the most conservative would hesitate to suggest this 
of a happy man. And yet, the life under consideration was 
essentially happy in achieving at once spiritual fullness and 
usefulness and objective artistic satisfaction, while being, with 
quite obvious spontaneity, itself. But it was, both from cir- 
cumstance and desire, a very hidden drama. 

When Father Tabb first went to St. Charles' Seminary, his 
intention was simply to complete his classical studies, then to 
follow his friend to St. Mary's. But the Sulpicians were so 
deeply impressed by his rare teaching gifts that they persuaded 
him to stay on at Ellicott City, continuing his theological studies 
while one of their own faculty. Consequently, he was not or- 
dained to the priesthood until December, 1884, when he cel- 
ebrated his first Mass with extraordinary joy and devotion 
in the college chapel at midnight on Christmas Eve. His pa- 
tience in brooking this long delay of his vocation seems all the 
more extraordinary in a man of such keen sensibilities and 
quick wit. Indeed, this quality of patience whether natural 



312 OF FATHER TABB [Dec., 

or acquired at great cost, who shall know? was conspicuous 
throughout his whole life. It was the guardian angel of his 
class-room; where he presided with unfailing energy and 
humor, not only through the inspiring hours of English litera- 
ture, but also through the more arid and technical periods of 
English grammar. Generations of students learned from him 
to love the fine things of speech and poetry and to this per- 
ennial harvest of his pupils, "Active and Passive; Perfect and 
Imperfect; Past, Present and Future," Father Tabb dedicated 
those inimitable Bone Rules, or Skeleton of English Grammar, 
which inaugurated a new and vivid fashion in text-books. One 
can imagine the gurgle of delight with which any young 
wrestler with the King's English would attack the following, 
among "sentences to be corrected:" 

"Lay still," his mother often said 
When Washington had went to bed. 
But little Georgie would reply: 
"I set up, but I cannot lie!" 

Of course, the supreme test of the poet-priest's patience 
came with the partial and at last complete failure of his eye- 
sight during the final years. This ever-darkening shadow of 
blindness he met with constant work, and equally constant wit, 
almost to the very end. Many and historic have become the 
puns and bons mots with which he bantered his calamity his 
request that Cardinal Gibbons confer upon him "a new see," 
his quips about "taking his two worst pupils" up to Baltimore, 
having his volume of poems bound in "blind-man's buff," etc., 
etc. But like the long line of laughing saints, John Bannister 
Tabb smiled at sorrow because he had learned the stark secret 
of abandonment in God's hands. To his friend and former 
pupil, Father Connor of Scranton, he declared awhile before 
the end : "If the Almighty came to me and said : 'John Tabb, 
you can have your eyesight back by asking for it,' I would not 
ask. I would be afraid of proving unfaithful to responsibilities 
of which I might not be fully aware. Now I know perfectly 
what is God's will, and I am resigned to it." The one supreme 
privilege of offering up Holy Mass was permitted Father Tabb 
even in blindness, and it is not easy to think unmoved of this 
ultimate union between the silent, hidden Victim and the 
priest whose eyes were closed to all but Him. In the Later 



1921.] OF FATHER TABB 313 

Poems, published after Father Tabb's death, one finds that 
supreme message of Helplessness, which so consummately 
distills the threefold secret of the Purgative, the Illuminative 
and the Unitive ways : 

In patience as in labor must thou be 

A follower of Me, 
Whose hands and feet, when most I wrought for thee, 

Were nailed unto a tree. 

Delivery came to him after a short illness, on November 19, 
1909; and like one of his own poetic paradoxes, it was midnight 
when the light not of this world broke suddenly upon him. 

Father Tabb possessed a most unique and vivid personal- 
ity, and to his idiosyncrasies even the poet's gift owed much. 
This gift he does not seem to have discovered, or at least to 
have used, until after slipping into the destined groove at St. 
Charles' College that is to say, after all his great decisions 
were made and his individuality was well matured. And if 
the distinguishing merits of his poetry were mystical insight 
on one hand, and metrical skill on the other, it will not do to 
forget those minor characteristics which were so intimately 
his own. One of these was a pungent, an almost perverse 
originality: the quality which Poe had in mind when he de- 
clared that the true poet could not see, and consequently never 
said, the obvious thing. Another was intuitive sympathy, par- 
ticularly with child-nature. And a third was his glorified but 
quite incorrigible habit of punning. 

His nature poems are, for the most part, brief vignettes 
of long vision and exquisitely compressed music painting na- 
ture realistically in such verses as the "Fern Song," but more 
often interpreting her by some- sudden and striking analogy. 
Here, for instance, are two flower-pieces in which surprise 
leaps to a new truth, and fancy to a new simplicity of vision : 

MIGNONETTE. 

Give me the earth, and I might heap 

A mountain from the plain; 
Give me the waters of the deep, 

I might their strength restrain; 
But here a secret of the sod 

Betrays the daintier hand of God. 



314 OF FATHER TABB [Dec., 

THE WATER-LILY. 

Whence, O fragrant form of light 
Hast thou drifted through the night, 
Swanlike, to a leafy nest 
On the restless waves at rest? 
Art thou from the snowy zone 
Of a mountain-summit blown, 
Or the blossom of a dream, 
Fashioned in the foamy stream? 
Nay, methinks the maiden moon, 
When the daylight came too soon, 
Fleeting from her bath to hide, 
Left her garment in the tide. 

Of the poems for children Father Tabb wrote one entire 
volume of them, and scattered others throughout his various 
books it is perhaps the highest praise to say that children 
themselves understand and love them. "Only great poets can 
write about childhood poems worthy to be printed," declared 
Joyce Kilmer, who knew both childhood and poetry! And 
surely, between the multitude of poems about children and 
children's supposed interests, written from the adult stand- 
point, and such delectable foolery as the following, there is all 
the difference between Dresden tea-cups and buttercups! 

THE SQUIRREL. 

Who combs you, little Squirrel? 

And do you twist and twirl 
When someone puts the papers on 

To keep your tail in curl? 
And must you see the dentist 

For every tooth you break? 
And are you apt from eating nuts 

To get the stomach-ache? 

Again, following the child's imagining straight up to the skies, 
Father Tabb gives this version of the Bluebird's creation: 

When God had made a host of them, 
One little flower still lacked a stem 

To hold its blossom blue; 
So into it He breathed a song, 
And suddenly, with petals strong 

As wings, away it flew. 



1921.] OF FATHER TABB 315 

But, of course, the most celestial of all his child poems one of 
the most perfect child poems in all literature (although infinite 
maturity went into its making!) and by the same token one 
of the most unique of Christmas verses is the well-beloved 
"Out of Bounds:" 

A little Boy of heavenly birth, 

But far from home today, 
Comes down to find His ball, the Earth, 

That Sin has cast away. 
O comrades, let us one and all 

Join in to get Him back His ball ! 

It is obviously possible to have an extraordinary fondness 
for animals without any all-embracing sympathy with "man's 
unpardonable race:" but it is far less possible to love little 
children without loving grown-up children, and somehow 
comprehending their broken or unbroken toys. Father Tabb, 
while intensely shy of strangers and of all public functions, 
even ecclesiastical, had deep wells of affection and copious 
sympathies. Indeed, this hermit-priest, to whom, in the out- 
ward sense, almost nothing ever seemed to happen, had not 
only the "genius for friendship," but also the priceless gift of 
psychic versatility. He could enshrine in one perfect quatrain 
Father Damien, the "leper white as snow;" yes, and he could 
also probe the ultimate passion of "Cleopatra to the Asp" and 
of "St. Afra to the Flames." Death was familiar to him as, 
indeed, it grows familiar to all priests; but because he was a 
poet, it was the singleness, not the uniformity, of death. He 
found words, quiet words, to voice the mysterious pathos 
of broken babyhood even of martyred motherhood in 
"Confided:" 

Another lamb, O Lamb of God, behold, 

Within this quiet fold, 
Among Thy Father's sheep 

I lay to sleep! 
A heart that never for a night did rest 

Beyond its mother's breast. 

Lord, keep it close to Thee, 
Lest waking it should bleat and pine for me! 

And under the selfsame symbol, he made audible the contrast- 
ing pathos of tired age in his "Old Pastor:" 



316 OF FATHER TABB [Dec., 

How long, O Lord, to wait 
Beside this open gate? 

Thy sheep with many a lamb 

Have entered, and I am 
Alone, and it is late. 

In conversation, as has been already pointed out, it was 
Father Tabb's high habit to jest at the jeopardy of his eyesight, 
but in a few of his later poems he permitted the voice of the 
Great Void to speak aloud. Fiat Lux is one of the most pierc- 
ing of these; but to some of us, the terrible simplicity of Going 
Blind strikes even closer : 

Back to the primal gloom 
Where life began, 
As to my mother's womb 
Must I, a man, 

Return : 

Not to be born again, 
But to remain; 

And in the School of Darkness learn 
What mean 

"The things unseen." 

Through all these poems rings the same note of ultimate 
hope: the hope, even the mystical certainty, of light in dark- 
ness. And there can be no doubt at all that he achieved this. 
Possibly the accident of blindness aided, possibly it had very 
little to do with it, since spiritual insight or the lack of it is 
not in the natural order. But through all his later years, he 
spoke habitually as one for whom the Veil of the mortal temple 
had long since been rent asunder. As he himself said (and as 
everyone writing about him seems bound to quote), 

My God has hid Himself from me 
Behind whatever else I see 

the result being an enormous enriching of the imagination, 
even on the human side. To attain this gift of mystical vision 
is to see, indeed, with a lucency beside which mortal eyesight 
seems too myopic even for regret. It is to see in the Assump- 
tion the Mother-bird soaring up at the Fledgling's familiar call, 
and to hear the trees along the Via Crucis murmuring "in 
awful silence" as the God-man passes. 



1921.] OF FATHER TABB 317 

Behold, the Gardener is He 
Of Eden and Gethsemane . . . 

And it is to discover the final cosmic harmony far from our 
daily discord and unrest of a poem such as "The Dayspring:" 

What hand with spear of light 
Hath cleft the side of Night, 
And from the red wound wide 
Fashioned the Dawn, his bride? 
Was it the deed of Death? 
Nay, but of Love, that saith, 
"Henceforth be Shade and Sun, 
In bonds of Beauty, one." 

John Bannister Tabb may be said to have anticipated the 
recent school of "imagism" in the pictorial vigor and boldness 
of his metaphors. In fact, he is nearly all on the side of the 
moderns: and if one wishes to realize just how nearly, one has 
but to compare or contrast his work with that of his confrere 
and contemporary, Father Abram Ryan. Father Ryan's work 
is remembered for the sincere pathos of "The Conquered Ban- 
ner," for the tender piety of such short pieces as "The Valley 
of Silence;" in its longer efforts it is forgotten. For his affilia- 
tions were with his poetic predecessors: in more senses than 
one, he was the gentle laureate of a lost cause. But again and 
again, Father Tabb points on toward the poetic future. He 
shared Edgar Poe's revolutionary belief that "a long poem does 
not exist," and he stood, as nearly every poet of today stands, 
committed to the brief lyric worthy of perpetuation because 
it gathers up perfectly the emotion and the music of the mo- 
ment. It is doubtful, certainly, if his intense musical sense 
and the felicity and facility of his rhymes would ever have 
permitted him to espouse the crusade of free verse. To the 
contrary, his metrical skill was so certain that he rejoiced in 
all the finesse of his craft. He was master not only of the 
sonnet, but of the sextet and the quatrain. And the challenge 
of these forms is, to the poet, what the intimacy and the exac- 
tions of the "little theatre" are to the actor. The lines are so 
frightfully few, so frightfully close, not one can afford to waver 
by a hair's breadth ! 



318 NATIVITY [Dec., 

But all this is simply repeating that Father Tabb was a 
consummate artist one of the very few consummate artists in 
American literature. Within his chosen and highly specialized 
field he stands peerless. Always in his work the vision is 
unique the music like a swift, sure clash of bells. It has be- 
come a distinguishing trait of contemporary poetry to ask ques- 
tions beautifully and vividly. But Father Tabb found beauti- 
ful and vivid answers, too. Therein lies his demarcation from 
the ultra-modernists, his frank derivations from the past from 
the eternal. For mysticism, authentic mysticism, is not merely 
the cure for materialism. It is also the completion of 
sestheticism. 



NATIVITY. 

BY GERTRUDE ROBISON ROSS. 

Now, there was the man with quiet face 

And the Maid with the shadowed eyes, 

And sleeping soft in the lowly place 

The King in a babe's disguise; 

With none to lay at the princely feet 

The sceptre or studded crown 

(O! reeds stand tall where the waters meet, 

The thorn bush grows in a safe retreat 

While the star shines calmly down.) 

No one dreamed on the twisted way 
That led unto David's home 
Or thought in the inn at the close of day 
That the end of the watch had come. 
But oh! may we, by Mary's grace 
Who have pierced the poor disguise, 
Open our hearts for a little space 
To the tired man with the quiet face 
And the Maid with the clouded eyes. 




THE NEAR EAST SINCE THE WAR. 

BY JOSEPH GORAYEB, S.J. 

ODAY the world is pulsing with expectancy for 
the outcome of a great Conference. We are face 
to face with a most serious problem; and Amer- 
ica, at least, seems determined to settle the prob- 
lem once and for all. 

But while a new period is thus about to open for the 
Western world, for America and the Far East, are we to forget 
that older, more vexing question, the question which is coming 
to be recognized more and more clearly as the real tap-root of 
the World War, and which, never removed, may yet again 
spring up to yield the same terrible fruitage? What of the 
Near East, and the complicated ramifications of that war- 
fertile question? Why was not that problem faced, as Amer- 
ica is facing the Far Eastern problem now, courageously, 
dispassionately, and with finality of purpose? And, a query 
that is of more immediate interest to ourselves whose sym- 
pathies were so deeply aroused during the War what of the 
people of Armenia, of Palestine and of Syria, whose misfor- 
tune it is to dwell in a region that has known no peace and 
will know none, so long as the nations continue to bicker and 
wrangle over it as over the spoils of victory? "Quicquid 
delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi:" for persecution and plague 
and massacre and famine and war all the ills of humanity 
are still dreadfully rampant over the Near East, still rampant 
on the third anniversary of the Armistice. Peace has scourged 
the nations of Asia Minor more terribly than four years 
of war. 

But it would be impossible to find scope for an adequate 
answer to all these questions within the compass of one article. 
At least nine new nations have arisen on the ruins of Turkey, 
in a territory extending from the Black Sea to the Indian 
Ocean, from the Mediterranean to the Caspian Sea, a region 
which is nearly as large as the United States west of the Miss- 
issippi. Changes are daily taking place, and events still pass- 
ing with kaleidoscopic rapidity over this vast area. But 



320 THE NEAR EAST SINCE THE WAR [Dec., 

strange to say, in all this shifting panorama the background 
remains always the same and that is the background of Euro- 
pean politics and European relationships with affairs in the 
Near East. 

First of all, the nation most immediately and directly in- 
terested in Asia Minor is France. France now holds by far the 
most of Turkey's bonds and war debts. French money has 
long supplied the capital for the railroads and industries of the 
country. Paris bankers financed the Young Turk Revolution 
in 1908; and it was the French loan of seven hundred million 
francs that raised Turkey from the wreck of the Balkan wars 
in 1913. Most of her interests are centred in Syria, where 
France has for centuries exercised a sphere of influence. And 
when the War was won, the French press made no secret of 
the plan to extend that influence over the whole of Asia Minor. 
But events have since not only proved this hope illusory, but 
have made it increasingly clear that France stands to lose with 
every loss of territory and prestige to Turkey. 

No less concerned with Near Eastern affairs, but for an 
entirely different reason, is England. Along the stepping 
stones in Britain's trade route to India, the weakest point in 
an otherwise impregnable line is said to be the Suez Canal. 
Germans spoke of it during the War as the "heel of Achilles" 
of the British Empire. Hence, it is easy to conjecture that 
Britain's is no merely sentimental or religious reason for her 
present policy. Indeed, it has been said that every increase of 
British territory in the Near East due to the War and it may 
be seen at a glance how immense that increase has been is 
meant but to consolidate and insure the fortifications of the 
Suez Canal. 

True, there are other influences also at work in the Near 
East; but all seem destined to prove either negligible factors 
in the final settlement, or else mere pawns in the game of the 
two controlling powers. German}' began, with the Kaiser's 
pilgrimage to Palestine in 1888, and again in 1896, a strong bid 
to wrest control of the situation from Britain, using as means 
to this end the reorganization of the Turkish army, the build- 
ing of the Bagdad Railway and the exploitation of Turkey's 
economic resources. But since the War, German influence 
has been practically non-existent in Turkey. Russia, too, has, 
for the moment, ceased her restless pressure in the direction 



1921.] THE NEAR EAST SINCE THE WAR 321 

of warmer waters and Mediterranean ports; but Russia must 
sooner or later reenter the struggle in the Near East. Italy's 
position there is a comparatively new factor of modern pol- 
itics. But in the whole sordid game, the old game of European 
imperialism, there is but one redeeming feature, supplying the 
only visible element of real gallantry and romance, and that is 
found in the latest phase of Greece's age-long struggle against 
Turkey. The Greek War of Independence, which began in 
1821, has lasted, with varying intervals of peace, over the 
whole century; and the present struggle in Asia Minor is but 
the dramatic culmination of a secular effort to free the whole 
of the Greek race from Turkish domination. 

In point of fact, then, France and England hold the keys to 
the situation in the Near East, and every move in the world 
game, in this theatre, is inevitably subordinated to the realiza- 
tion of their definite aspirations. 

It is easier, then, to envisage the swift changes and the 
appalling events that have taken place in this region since 
1914. It will be remembered that Turkey entered the War on 
Germany's side on November 1st of that year, her chief cause 
for fear being the alliance existing since 1908 between Eng- 
land and Russia, an alliance which she felt could have but one 
aim, the ultimate dismemberment of Turkey. Then came the 
Dardanelles campaign, which ended in costly failure for the 
Allies in the late winter of 1915. Its immediate sequel was the 
Armenian massacres, the bloody attempt made by the Young 
Turk party, now that they felt secure against European inter- 
ference, to carry out ruthlessly their insane plan for a phys- 
ical unification of all Turkey, the "Turkification," as they 
called it, of all the elements of the population. That plan 
made it necessary to deal summarily with the Christian ele- 
ments in what revolting manner the world has since been 
told. We have available appalling reports from the Bryce 
Commission and other official investigations, which fixed the 
full responsibility for the Armenian massacres, and for their 
fiendish atrocity, not on incompetent subordinate officials, but 
directly on the Turkish Government at Constantinople. But 
it was only last June, at the trial in Berlin of Solomon Teil- 
irian, the Armenian who assassinated Talaat Pasha, that the 
official Turkish documents were published to the world, and 
revealed the deliberate cold-blooded plan to get rid of the 

VQL. cxiv. 21 



322 THE NEAR EAST SINCE THE WAR [Dec., 

Armenian question, in the words of Talaat himself, "by getting 
rid of the Armenians." 

An infamous triumvirate was then in power, Talaat, 
Enver and Djemal Pashas; and these men, aided by the De- 
portations Committee, with headquarters at Aleppo, in North- 
ern Syria, used the riff-raff of Turkish jails, who were released 
for this very purpose, as their tools in carrying out a policy 
of annihilating a Christian nation. In the same gruesome pro- 
gramme were also included the Greek, the Assyrian and the 
Syrian Christians of Asia Minor. We may well be spared 
another recital of the frightful details; but that a million 
human beings were thus killed is said to be only a conservative 
estimate of this horrible slaughter. 

We will glance quickly at the outstanding events of the 
following years of the War. On April 29, 1916, the surrender 
of the British forces, beleaguered at Kut-el-Amara, halted the 
British Mesopotamian campaign; Russia's collapse in the 
spring of the following year led to the withdrawal of Russian 
troops from the Caucasus, and left the Christian population 
completely at the mercy of the Turks. Meanwhile, in the 
south, Allenby's army successfully crossed the Sinai Desert; 
the King of the Hejaz revolted from the rule of Turkey; and 
the Arabian tribes, under the guidance of Colonel Lawrence, 
cooperated with Allenby in the campaign which resulted in the 
capture of Jerusalem and the annihilation of an entire Turko- 
German army. Then, on October 30, 1918, came the armis- 
tice with Turkey. 

We in America can scarcely appreciate the tremendous 
burst of thankfulness that welled from the heart of Christian 
Asia Minor at the moment of its deliverance. And, strange to 
say, in that moment all eyes turned hopefully for guidance, 
not to England or France, but to America. Eastern peoples 
are thoroughly familiar with European intrigues, and distrust 
them as thoroughly. But America is to them a land of mystery 
and idealism. Respect for America is a veritable cult in the 
Near East, and perhaps nowhere else in the world did the 
hopeful aspirations of down-trodden races respond more en- 
thusiastically to the wonderful ideals embodied in President 
Wilson's utterances. Then came the Harbord and other 
American investigating commissions, the American Committee 
for Armenian and Syrian Relief, the Red Cross and, finally, the 



1921.] THE NEAR EAST SINCE THE WAR 323 

great Near East Relief organization, which has since merged 
all American philanthropic activities in this region. Thus 
there grew up among the peoples of Asia Minor the most 
sanguine hopes for an American mandate over the whole of 
Turkey. 

At this moment the Near East Question seemed very 
simple and easy of solution. Turkey was a vanquished nation, 
helpless and penitent. Everywhere there was enthusiasm 
and eagerness for an immediate start; people were ready to 
adopt almost any plan for a readjustment of their individual 
national policies and the resumption of the normal pursuits 
of peace. 

But the Allies did not act. There were uncertain plans 
and endless delays. The psychological moment was allowed 
to pass, and soon the Near East was as restless as ever before. 
The very terms of the armistice with Turkey, absurdly easy 
as they had been, were not even enforced. No time had been 
set for the final disarming of the Turkish troops. Very few 
places of strategic importance were occupied by the Allied 
armies, though it is estimated that one-tenth of the troops 
available, under command of Allenby and D'Esperey, would 
have sufficed for the purpose. And worse still, no attempt was 
made to oust the Turks who had settled on Armenian lands, 
or to repatriate the homeless refugees, or to compel the re- 
lease of prisoners, to say nothing of the women and children 
still held captive in Moslem homes. For two whole years the 
Peace Conference allowed Near East affairs to drift along, 
and a dreadful chaos was the result. 

The first tangible fact to arouse the world's indignant at- 
tention, was the reawakening of Turkish fanaticism. Dis- 
banded Turkish soldiery, still in possession of arms and am- 
munition, presently gathered together in irregular bands of 
brigands to terrorize the land. Soon there were serious up- 
risings throughout Asia Minor, and new massacres were per- 
petrated, at Aintab in Syria, at Marash in Cilicia, and at Alex- 
andropol in Armenia. The meagre French forces left in North 
Syria found themselves unable to cope with the numerous 
hordes, and withdrew, leaving the Armenians and Syrians, 
and the Relief Agencies to shift for themselves. The Arme- 
nian Governments of Erivan and Georgia, which had at- 
tempted vainly to secure outside aid, were attacked by the 



324 THE NEAR EAST SINCE THE WAR [Dec., 

Bolshevik! from the north and the Turks from the south, and 
were overpowered. In the words of Lord Bryce, "the Turks 
once again know that they can massacre a million Christians 
with impunity, and then claim that there is no reason for 
liberating a land where no Christians exist." 

All that the Turks now needed was a strong leader to 
gather these guerilla troops into an army. That leader soon 
appeared in the person of Mustapha Kemal Pasha, a member 
of the notorious Young Turk party, and during the War com- 
mander of the Turkish Third Army Corps at Sivas. So many 
Turks rallied to his Nationalist army that Kemal was able to 
defy the Allies, and to establish a provisional government at 
Angora, which professed loyalty to the person of the Sultan 
of Constantinople, but repudiated his foreign-ruled govern- 
ment, and refused to abide by the Treaty which had been 
signed with the Entente. 

For, in the meantime, the Peace Conference had moved to 
San Remo, and there the patient diplomacy of Venizelos had 
at last won over the Allied statesmen to draw up the Treaty 
of Sevres, which was finally presented to Turkey on May 11, 
1920. By the terms of this Treaty, Armenia was created into 
an independent nation, whose boundaries President Wilson 
was asked to determine. Greece was given Thrace and most 
of the coast of Anatolia except for the city of Smyrna, left 
nominally under Turkish suzerainty, with the option of a 
plebiscite after five years. Constantinople remained under 
the Sultan, but subject to Allied control conditionally on the 
Turkish fulfillment of the Treaty. France was confirmed in 
her mandate over Syria, while England retained the mandate 
over Palestine, Arabia and Mesopotamia. 

"Turkey will never again trouble Europe," were the 
solemn words of the European politicians who affixed their 
signature to the covenant. When the Turkish Government 
refused to sign, the Allies replied with an ultimatum, which 
has been called one of the most startling indictments ever pre- 
sented against any nation. By this ultimatum, Turkey was 
compelled, under threat of losing Constantinople itself, her 
last foothold in Europe, to sign the Treaty of Sevres, on August 
10, 1920. 

Though the hopes of Greece were yet far from being real- 
ized, she was the chief beneficiary by this Treaty. But again, 



1921.] THE NEAR EAST SINCE THE WAR 325 

as at the armistice, no strong measures were taken to enforce 
the terms, and the Allies seemed unwilling to allow Greece a 
free hand in carrying out the Treaty. It was soon found that 
the words which Trotzky had written on the walls of the old 
Jesuit College at Brest-Litovsk, where the Russo-German 
Treaty w r as signed, were applicable also to the Treaty of 
Sevres : "Neither war nor peace," was the result. The situa- 
tion was suddenly complicated for the Allies, by the Greek 
elections of December 5, 1920, which took on the character of 
a complete ostracizing of the Premier, Venizelos, in the class- 
ical manner; and there was an overwhelming popular vote for 
the restoration of Constantine, the Kaiser's brother-in-law, to 
the throne of Greece. This was gall and wormwood for the 
Allies. 

At once France and Italy initiated measures to have the 
Treaty of Sevres set aside, and began to give more active sup- 
port to the Turkish Nationalists. A conference was called at 
London on February 21, 1921, to revise the Treaty. By the 
new terms adopted, Smyrna and most of the Asiatic littoral 
were given back definitely to Turkey, with other concessions, 
at the expense of Greece, that were to make Turkey again a 
considerable military and naval power. The result is well 
known. Greece flatly refused to accept the new terms, de- 
claring that the final settlement had already been made, and 
that she alone was ready, with an army at her disposal, to en- 
force the original covenant as signed by England, France, 
Italy, Greece and Turkey. The Greeks were in a fever of 
excitement. Constantine called three new classes to the col- 
ors, and the response was enthusiastic and prompt. Early in 
March a vigorous campaign against the Turkish Nationalists 
was begun, regardless of all the warnings of the Allies. But, 
by the middle of April, the campaign was over. Disaster had 
met Greece in the battle of Eski-Shehir and the evacuation of 
Ismid. And yet, dark as the situation then was, when the 
Allies came forward, on June 8, 1921, offering to intervene on 
the basis of the revised Treaty, Greece held firm, and abso- 
lutely refused to reconsider the original covenant. 

Suddenly the whole situation underwent a swift change. 
What the outside world saw was an amazing revival of 
morale in the Greek army and people. Constantine went to 
the front and assumed command. Somehow, many new 



326 THE NEAR EAST SINCE THE WAR [Dec., 

troops were equipped and organized. From somewhere, 
fresh supplies and ammunition began to pour into the Greek 
lines. A magnificent offensive was begun early in July, and 
by the middle of the month the Turkish army was all but 
crushed, and the way left practically open to Angora. But 
what had really happened? Word had come to the Allied 
premiers of the daring game that Kemal was really playing. 
Successful alliances with the Bolsheviki of Moscow, and with 
the Moslem leaders of Afghanistan and Mesopotamia, for a 
concentrated Russo-Turkish drive on Constantinople this 
was a danger far more threatening to the interests of Europe 
than tolerating Tino as King of Greece. Hence the sudden 
outpouring of British support, and the recent victory, which 
brought the Greek army to within fifty miles of Angora, has 
given Greece control of the whole of Asia Minor south of the 
Sea of Marmora, and now leaves her, apparently, in a position 
to claim Constantinople itself. "The Great Idea" of Greek 
national aspirations seems at last near realization, and Byron's 
words have again proved true: 

Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not, 
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow ! 

Meanwhile events had been moving in other parts of the 
Near East. Syria for many months continued in turmoil and 
uncertainty, but the strong, efficient leadership of General 
Gouraud gradually brought confidence and order. The de- 
velopment of orderly government was only once seriously in- 
terrupted, by the adventure of Emir Feisal in Damascus, about 
which we must speak presently. Roads and railways are be- 
ing constructed, and the industries of the country, notably the 
cultivation of the silk-worm, have been reorganized. After 
several experiments, Syria was last June divided by General 
Gouraud into six autonomous districts united into a common 
federation, somewhat on the plan of the cantons of Switzer- 
land. For a time, after-war conditions and high prices started 
a wave of emigration that threatened to cripple all attempts 
at economic revival; but early in the present year the French 
High Commissioner put a complete stop to the exodus, and 
the passage of the American immigration law last June re- 
moved most of the danger from this quarter. It is gratifying to 
note that since the Armistice and through all the uncertainties 



1921.] THE NEAR EAST SINCE THE WAR 327 

of the political situation, the patriotic Catholic clergy proved 
to be the strongest element for stability, giving whole-hearted 
support to the French administration in its efforts at recon- 
struction. Happily, Syria has now started on its way to a 
revival of prosperity. French schools and missions are oper- 
ating in every part of the Lebanon and in Ccele-Syria, and in 
Beirut the Jesuit University has re-opened its classes in Col- 
lege and Preparatory Departments, as well as in Seminary, 
Medicine and Law. But at present the one disquieting element 
in the religious situation in Syria comes from the tremendous 
impetus, since the War, given to French Masonic influences, 
and to American Protestant activities centring at the American 
College of Beirut. 

But affairs of a far more complicated nature have occu- 
pied the British in the Near East. There had been before the 
War, two distinct departments concerned with this region: 
the India Office, operating through Bagdad, and the London 
Foreign Office, operating through Cairo. The latter began 
early in the War to develop a plan for a vast Arab empire 
centring at Mecca, to take the place of Turkey. This plan com- 
prises the famous Sherifian Policy, so called because the 
empire was to be built around the family of the Sherif of 
Mecca, Ali-Hussein, the guardian of the Holy Places of Islam 
and a descendant of the Prophet. Hussein was to be made 
King of the Hejaz, while his sons were to be advanced to sub- 
ordinate positions of power: the Emir Feisal as ruler in Da- 
mascus, Emir Abdullah in Bagdad and Emir Said in Kurdes- 
tan; while a fourth son, Emir Ahmed, was to remain as Heir- 
Apparent at Mecca. Even during the War the Sherifian Policy 
was fairly on the road to realization. Hussein declared a 
Holy War against the Turks, and was at once recognized by 
England as King of the Hejaz; and when, in the spring of 
1918, Damascus was taken by Allenby's army, the Emir Feisal 
and his officers were hustled in Ford cars to take possession, 
and give him, in the eyes of the Arabs, the glory of capturing 
the city. Shortly afterwards was enacted the farce of a Syrian 
Congress, which elected Feisal King of Syria. Meanwhile, 
steps were taken to install Abdullah and Said in their assigned 
places. 

But all three plans were broken up. Damascus being 
within the traditional sphere of influence of France, Gouraud's 



328 THE NEAR EAST SINCE THE WAR [Dec., 

army promptly stepped in and expelled Feisal; while affairs 
in Mesopotamia and Kurdistan proved to be far too unsettled 
for the success of the other parts of this interesting pro- 
gramme. Other complications ensued. The powerful chief 
of the Nejd-Hasa, a much more important personage among 
the Arabs themselves than Hussein, renewed an old quarrel 
with the latter and attacked the Hejaz from the east, and was 
only prevented from capturing Mecca by the warnings of the 
British Government; Mustapha Kemal, of course, was utterly 
opposed to the Sherifian plan; but what was far more serious, 
the entire Moslem population of India and Mesopotamia de- 
clared a boycott against Hussein, because he was unable of 
himself, without the aid of the foreigner, to guard the holy 
places of Islam. As a result of this boycott, the famous pil- 
grimage to Mecca was this year, for the first time in gener- 
ations, completely discontinued. Then again, in England 
itself, popular sentiment, led by Herbert Asquith, began 
clamoring for the abandonment altogether of a mandate 
which was costing the taxpayers nearly five hundred million 
dollars a year. 

Late last spring, Lloyd George felt it was time to take 
active measures to straighten out the tangle. His first step 
was to abolish the dual control of the India Office and the 
Foreign Office, and a new bureau, the Middle East Department 
of the Colonial Office, was created, with Winston Churchill 
at its head, to take control of affairs in Arabia, Palestine and 
Mesopotamia. Churchill went to the East to investigate con- 
ditions, and on his return, in June, announced to Parliament 
that the Government had definitely adopted the Sherifian 
Policy, by advancing subsidies both to Hussein and to Ibn 
Saud, establishing Abdullah in the newly created State of 
Trans-Jordania, and promising support to Feisal for the 
throne of Irac, as Mesopotamia is now to be called. Feisal 
has since been invited to Bagdad, and installed as king. 

All this time France was watching with undisguised alarm 
the progressive unfolding of the Sherifian plan: it meant a 
danger to her own policy in the East. The tension between the 
two Powers has become daily more acute. Churchill, in the 
same speech in Parliament, attempted to reassure France, de- 
claring that the Sherifian Policy was itself for France's best 
interests, and that the only hope of a peaceful settlement of 



1921.] THE NEAR EAST SINCE THE WAR 

the Near East problem was for France and England to co- 
operate. 

Nor has the situation in Palestine been entirely couleur 
de rose for the British Premier. It will be recalled that, early 
in the War, Jewish activities were organized for a united drive 
on the Allied Governments to secure the reestablishment of 
the Jewish nation, and Britain, in 1917, definitely committed 
herself to the realization of Zionist aspirations. The Balfour 
Declaration then made it clear that Palestine was to be made 
a national home for the Jews. After the conquest of Palestine, 
military rule soon gave way to a complete civil administration 
under Sir Herbert Samuel, a Jew, and the task of actuating 
the Balfour Declaration was at once begun. Ry the spring of 
1920, some ten thousand had immigrated into Palestine and 
were absorbed on farm areas or in gainful industries. They 
arrived with a plentiful supply of ready money in gold, and 
were guided by an efficient organization, whose headquarters 
are at Haifa, the chief seaport of modern Palestine. They 
easily tempted the Arab landholders to give up some of the 
best holdings in the territory; while in the towns Arab mer- 
chants soon found themselves forced out of business by Jews 
who sold the same goods at half the price. Even at present 
the Arabs are leaving for the interior at the rate of some forty 
or fifty families a day. Their leaders at last were awakened 
to the real meaning of the movement; and a widespread con- 
spiracy was set on foot, and is still operating, to thwart the 
incursion by every means, fair or foul. Placards were posted 
in Jerusalem, calling on the Moslems to "arise, and make of 
Jerusalem a national cemetery instead of a national home 
for the Jews." There were serious riots, in the Holy City at 
Easter time, 1920, and in May of this year at Jaffa, Haifa and 
the large new Jewish colony of Petah-Tikvah. Their evident 
object was to terrify and intimidate the Jews, and to make the 
Jewish programme impossible. 

So serious was the situation that in June the High Com- 
missioner gave orders to suspend immigration altogether; 
more rigid regulations were made; and a new declaration of 
policy was given out with the purpose of conciliating the 
Arabs. But the Arab Congress at Haifa organized a delega- 
tion, which went to London to protest against the whole Zionist 
scheme. Nor have Christians all this time remained indiffer- 



330 THE NEAR EAST SINCE THE WAR [Dec., 

ent to the menace which Zionism involved. Energetic pro- 
tests from all parts of the world were finally, on June 14, 1921, 
crystallized in the solemn declaration of Pope Benedict XV., 
who, in his Allocution of that date, reiterated still more plainly 
a warning he had given to the Powers two years before. The 
Pope declared: 

The situation in Palestine not only is not improved, but 
has been made worse by the new civil arrangements which 
aim, if not in their authors' intentions, at least in fact, at 
ousting Christianity from its previous position to put the 
Jews in its place. We, therefore, warmly exhort all Chris- 
tians, including non-Catholic Governments, to insist with 
the League of Nations on the examination of the British 
mandate in Palestine. 

The English Government forbade the publication of this 
Allocution in Palestine. It is seldom that the Holy Father has 
spoken so openly of any one nation; yet his outspoken lan- 
guage in this case seems but to represent a universal Catholic 
opposition to the present aims of Zionism. It is well to under- 
stand that there is even stronger opposition from the ranks 
of Jewry itself. Influential and well-informed Jews, both in 
Europe and America, are declaiming against the folly of the 
whole movement. The word is not a haphazard one. Henry 
Morgenthau calls the Zionist plan "the most stupendous fal- 
lacy in Jewish history." Impressive figures are adduced to 
prove its final impracticability, and though Jewish wealth and 
British protection have made a start really possible, the whole 
scheme is doomed to failure because it is "economically un- 
sound, politically impossible and spiritually inadequate." 
Baron Rothschild's comment, made long before the Palestine 
campaign was over, is typical of the present attitude of many 
Jews: "Yes, I am for a Jewish republic in Palestine, if they 
will make me perpetual ambassador at London." 

But by far the most hopeful sign in the present situation 
in the Near East lies in the possibilities that are now open for 
the spread of the Faith. The oppressive restrictions of Turk- 
ish misrule are gone forever. Missionary activity and active 
propaganda, which up to this time were rigorously proscribed 
in Turkey, can now be undertaken. Had the Allies acted with 
decision at the close of the War, who knows what progress 
would have been made in these three years? But even now, 



1021.] THE NEAR EAST SINCE THE WAR 331 

with this late beginning, the brightest hopes may be enter- 
tained for the now easily attainable reunion of large numbers 
of the Oriental Churches with the See of Peter, and the evan- 
gelization of the non-Christian elements. But affairs are still 
in a chaotic condition in large sections of the Near East. And, 
while all praise is due to the heroic efforts of the Near East 
Relief organization, whose workers are in the field combating 
disease and bravely attempting to save whole populations 
from starvation, Catholics cannot be indifferent to the danger 
that other agencies, Protestant for the most part, will take hold 
when the Near East Relief organization withdraws, and start 
the same unscrupulous proselytizing which aroused such stern 
criticism in France and Italy. 

But we can rely again on the watchful care of the bishops 
and clergy of the land to give timely warning. The Holy 
Father has shown himself keenly alive to the immense pos- 
sibilities for good in the present conjuncture of affairs in the 
Near East; and besides making the friendliest advances to 
the heads of all the Oriental Churches and raising one of 
their great Patriarchs, St. Ephrem, the Syrian, to the dignity 
of Doctor of the Universal Church, Pope Benedict has in- 
augurated active plans for the reorganization and restoration 
of Eastern Catholicism. In pursuance of these plans, various 
eminent prelates have been selected to visit Europe and the 
United States, in order to organize the faithful for the support 
of the Churches of their homeland, and at the same time to 
study conditions abroad with a view to establishing, on their 
return, needed reforms and improvements. Thus between the 
lines of the restless and pitiful story of the Near East we may 
read God's message of hope. 

In conclusion, we can but touch briefly on other sections 
of the Near East, which it is impossible now to speak of in 
detail, and to survey the situation in general. Palestine, as we 
have seen, is passing through a crisis that is altogether an 
anomaly and a vexation to all concerned. Armenia and the 
adjoining nations of Georgia and Azerbaijan are still helpless 
under the chaos of Soviet and Turkish rule; to the north of 
them, the terrible Russian famine stalks across the border; 
cholera has lately invaded the region, and winter is on add- 
ing still deeper shadows to the gloom that has so long hung 
over that unfortunate region: so true is it that war's after- 



332 THE NEAR EAST SINCE THE WAR [Dec,, 

math inflicts untold sufferings on victims utterly innocent of 
its cause. In Arabia disorder still holds sway, though King 
Hussein retains his title and two of his sons are established 
in power. Assyria is now a Republic, under British mandate, 
and with a woman, the Lady Surma, as its first President. 
Egypt continues to seethe with unrest, and was last year on 
the point of forcing from England the concession of autonomy; 
but the final decision was put off, as was said in Parliament, 
till the Irish question should first be settled. Syria alone ap- 
pears to be moderately peaceful, under the French mandate, 
and well on the way to prosperity. 

There is no concealing the fact that all these nations are 
now awake and marching to ultimate independence, which 
many of them believe to be very near. They understand the 
motives of greed and selfishness and jealousy that have too 
often actuated European dealings with them and their coun- 
tries; and they will not, as in the past, tamely submit to foreign 
dominance. Now, as never before, there is need of infinite 
tact and patience on the part of European statesmen. Mo- 
mentous possibilities hover in the air over the entire Near 
East for religion and for civilization. These nations are not 
in any real sense a backward people. They were once the 
vanguard of progress. And if centuries of oppression and 
physical violence and the moral degradation of their alien 
conquerors have coerced and restricted them in every field of 
legitimate endeavor, the very fact that they have survived to 
see the opening of this new era, shows that the Greek, the 
Armenian and the Syrian and, to a certain extent, the Arab 
people, are not only sincere in their eagerness, but able also, 
to take once again their old, honored places in the march of 
civilization. 

It behooves the Briton and the Frank to make haste, and 
to put an end to the intolerable chaos and the sickening 
miseries that have piled up as a result of their unfortunate 
policy of indecision. Settle the Near East Question definitely 
and wisely, and give us peace : else there is no prophet daring 
enough to foretell all the dreadful havoc that is yet in store. 
"Where there is no vision, the people perish." 




WHEN THE GODS DIED. 

A GALLERY OF FOUR PICTURES. 

BY C. M. WAAGE. 

I. 

THE GODS. 

EARS, fraught with unrest and dismal forebodings, 
had passed over Norway's land. A century 
before Harald, the Fairhaired, had bargained the 
submission of many kings for the love of a 
woman, when Gyda had stipulated that the only 
way to win her heart and her hand would be for Harald to 
make himself supreme ruler in Norway. Then he had gone 
forth to conquer, and kings and mighty earls had been forced 
to leave home and country and had sought new fields in 
Iceland, in the Orkney and Shetland Islands, had gone to Ire- 
land, where, as the Finngalls, they had fought the Dubhgalls 
or Danes, or they had settled on the shores of Normandy, 
whence they were destined within another century to emerge 
for the invasion and conquest of Britain. Some few chiefs 
had remained independent in spite of Harald and the wars 
for supremacy, carried on by his successors. Their "fylkes," 
or domains, had been too secluded to be reached by the con- 
queror; or their resistance, aided by natural conditions, had 
been so bold, that shielded, as they were, by natural environ- 
ments, they had been left alone, considered, probably, of too 
small importance to be worth the price of war. 

Among such isolated chiefs was Gunnar of the Ref. He 
belonged to the men of the Fjords, the most daring of Norse 
vikings. Through the narrow inlet from the sea, framed on 
either side by sheer and towering cliffs and guarded on the 
outside by dangerous reefs, the men from this part had for 
generations made their exit, when starting out on viking raids 
or for commercial purposes, steering towards the islands of 
Hjatland, south past Scotia, then coasting the lands of the 



334 WHEN THE GODS DIED [Dec., 

Franks and the Moors, passing through Njorve Sund, as they 
called the Strait of Gibraltar, and eastward through that 
mighty island sea which bore them to many a coast of un- 
known mysterious lands, from which they had brought back 
rare and costly booty. 

In this isolated place, Gunnar had lived all his life, as did 
his ancestors for generations back, that is, when not sailing 
the seas, for he had himself been a viking of great renown. 
Here he had married a maiden from the uplands, who had 
borne him a daughter, whom they called Astrid. Then his wife 
had died and the girl had been left to the care of Gunnar's 
sister. She had grown into womanhood, living her simple life 
where the waves of the fjord lapped the shores of the verdant 
valley, and her home was the only place she knew on the 
bright earth. 

Gunnar had built a house of rough hewn rock. Warm and 
snug it was in the winter, when the tempest blew over the little 
valley, lashing the waters of the great ocean outside and send- 
ing them thundering over the reefs, until they rolled like huge 
white mountains into the otherwise tranquil fjord. ^Egir's 
horses, they taught Astrid to name them. They were the 
horses ^Egir, the god of the great waters, rode in his merry 
chase, laughing at the tempest, and Astrid wondered at their 
grandeur and their might, when the tide rose and carried them 
far into the fjord. 

She had sat of winter's evenings near the huge log fire 
that burned in the centre of the hall, sending its volumes of 
smoke through a hole in the roof, and had listened to her 
elders telling curious tales of the Lapp-folk, who knew witch- 
craft. Had not Snefrid, the Lapp-girl, turned the head of the 
great King Harald? And had not another, Gunhild, done the 
same thing with his son, Erik? This happened long years 
ago, and she wondered whether there were still Lapp-girls 
and what they looked like. She felt sure there were trolls 
within the mountains and sprites within the waters that 
tumbled in splashing torrents over the mountain sides. For 
did not the trolls forge the swords and shields for the Asa- 
gods and the fallen heroes who lived with them in Valhalla, 
and had she not heard the voices of the sprites singing through 
the roar of the waters? When the winter gale bore down upon 
the valley and carried the snow upon its invisible wings, she 



1921.] WHEN THE GODS DIED 335 

had heard the cries of elves and spirits, that human eye could 
not see, yet the human heart could feel the terror of them. 
And Thor, that majestic god who drove through the heavens, 
throwing his hammer amidst the Jotuns, the evil powers 
had she not heard the chariot thundering through the clouds 
with a noise that terrified her as echo was calling to echo 
from mountain to mountain? Had her own eyes not beheld 
Mj diner, Thor's glittering weapon, traversing the sky in sweep- 
ing zig-zags, sometimes rending a mighty forest tree or killing 
cattle, when a Jotun had taken refuge behind them? 

As Astrid grew up these pictures assumed a more definite 
form in her mind. They became the fabric out of which was 
woven her faith in the unseen, her hopes and her aspirations. 
The strength and poetry of the Asa-myths gripped her young 
soul. Naturally, as she grew older, certain myths forced 
themselves to the front in her imagination. The story of 
Freya, the goddess, ruling in Folkvang, impressed her deeply. 
She shed tears when she contemplated Sigyn holding the cup 
over Loke, as he lay chained to the rock with the serpent 
dropping its venomous poison upon his head from above. 
Then, when the cup was full and Sigyn turned to empty it, 
the venom struck the tortured body and in his agony Loke 
shook it, so that the earth trembled. But nothing that had 
ever been told of the Asa-gods so appealed to her as did the 
account of Baldur's fate, when killed, not in battle as he 
ought to have been, but from ambush, by the assassin's shaft. 
Then Baldur could not share in the joys of Valhalla, but must 
descend to Hela. They placed his body upon a burning ship 
and pushed it out to sea; but Nanna, his wife, leaped into the 
lurid flames that she might follow him even down into the 
shadow land. With the women of the North faithfulness unto 
death was esteemed the highest virtue, and so Astrid treasured 
the myth as a sublime inspiration. 

When the men were at home other tales were told, tales 
of foreign lands, of wonderful adventures, of strange people 
and daring deeds. Costly presents would be unfolded, mag- 
nificent costumes for the women, ornaments, drinking vessels, 
plates and platters of gold and silver, fine linen for the house- 
hold, drapery of splendid hues, shields and weapons, wonder- 
fully wrought, to hang upon the walls or for more practical 
purposes, and a hundred other things, not seen before but 



336 WHEN THE GODS DIED [Dec., 

much admired and wondered at by the women and the older 
men, whom advancing years or infirmities had kept at home. 

Among the latter was Gunnar himself. Though not far 
past middle age, he had for some years past stayed at home, 
when the younger men that he used to lead had taken wings 
for distant countries. Wounds and the physical imperfections 
that come from exposure had prevented his leaving home 
except on short excursions, when he went up the coast to 
attend the annual "ting," where the chiefs from the various 
parts assembled to discuss matters of common importance. 

Meanwhile, his fleet had been directed by Alf, his younger 
brother, while Leif, Alf's foster son, a youth of uncommon 
presence and great renown for seamanship and intrepid valor, 
had commanded his own vessel, a magnificent craft with a 
gilded prow like a dragon's head rising high and defiant from 
the waters. It had a half deck fore and aft, along the gunwale 
hung glittering shields, and it was thirty-benched, with two 
men to each oar, and a total crew of over two hundred men. 
When the wind was fair, they set the mast and hoisted the 
immense sail, and then the ship would cleave the waves like 
a frightened doe fleeing over the forest meadow. 

Leif had been reared at the Ref. When he was still an 
infant his mother had died, and his father had fought in dis- 
tant Bjarneland on Gandviken, now known as Archangel, and 
there he received his death wound. Then Alf, who had shared 
his father's hardships in the frozen North, had taken the boy 
as his own, and he had grown up at the Ref, being, in fact, the 
childhood's companion of Astrid, though older than she by a 
few years. 

No wonder, then, that Astrid, when she pictured to herself 
the viking hero of her native land, pictured him as Leif. His 
stately and muscular figure had grown into splendid propor- 
tions through athletic exercises from his very childhood. 
Often she had watched him fighting the eagle, hanging with 
one hand to the ledge of the towering crag and battering with 
a club in the other hand the king of birds, from whose nest 
he daringly extricated the coveted eggs. This was but a boy- 
hood's prank, but, as he grew older, he showed himself far 
above his companions in all manly sports. 

No mountain buck was more agile on its feet than Leif; 
his aim was so true that his arrow never missed and his 



1921.] WHEN THE GODS DIED 337 

strength so great that he could speed it to goals far beyond the 
ordinary reach of the archer. At sea, he could handle the 
steering oar singly, when it would require two strong men to 
keep the prow to the wind, and he had been known to brave 
the waters with his armor on and keep himself afloat till 
assistance reached him, albeit the rest of the crew went down 
with the sinking vessel. 

Since he got command of Gunnar's vessel, Leif had 
brought many precious gifts to Astrid from far foreign shores. 
To her wardrobe he had added costumes of rare material, rich 
in color and texture; to her ornaments costly gems, to her 
household goods white linen of rare fabric. Nobody ever 
spoke of the betrothal of Astrid and Leif, but nobody ever 
thought of them in any other relation, and as for themselves, 
they intended that the marriage feast should be held after 
Leif's next return from abroad, when he intended to turn 
from the sea to agriculture, an art which had of late come con- 
siderably into vogue. 

With this intention in view, he had built a great house of 
mighty logs close to Gunnar's hall. It had two fireplaces 
within and seats along the side walls. There was a private 
chamber for himself and Astrid and there were beds in the 
four corners of the hall. The walls were hung with rare 
tapestry and the windows, made from the membrane of 
animals, admitted the light of day. The gables were richly 
ornamented, and over the door beam runes had been carved 
for good luck and also the welcome which is spoken in the 
"Elder Edda:" 

Fire needs he 

Who enters the house 

And is cold about the knees 

Food and clothes 

The man is in need of 

Who has journeyed over the mountain. 

II. 

THE BOAST OF THE GODS. 

It was midwinter solstice in the northlands. They called 
it Yuel, because the word signified a wheel, and the seasons 
had once more revolved to a point, the most momentous in 
the year, when the long nights would begin to shorten and 

VOL. CXIV. 22 



338 WHEN THE GODS DIED [Dec., 

brighter days were in store. Though sometimes it took months 
to bring about, yet everybody knew that the time was ap- 
proaching when the rills would again leap unfettered through 
the meadows, when the migrating birds would return from the 
South and bring with them the warm breath of sweeter climes, 
when the grass would sprout again and the cuckoo would tell 
lovers the number of years they should dwell together. "Bal- 
dur's return from Hela," they said. Life renewed, for life 
might slumber for a while, but it must awake again, and even 
the embrace of Hela had to loosen, when the ransom was paid 
and Baldur arose once more. No wonder, then, that the peo- 
ple of the North rejoiced at this season and gathered together 
in festive mood to pledge one another renewed friendship, and 
over the hospitable board speak of the past and plan for the 
future. 

Outside, the sun was shining brightly. It was what they 
called a ringing frost, and the word was well chosen, for so 
clear and pure was the atmosphere that man's footfall upon 
the hard black ground, or the slight, crunching noise when 
he stepped over the frozen snow, sounded afar off and gave 
notice of the approaching traveler. Up over the mountains 
the snow lay like soft dunes; it covered the pine trees and 
forced their branches earthward. In spots the green needles 
seemed to have thrown off the white mantle, and occasionally 
a belated cone, not yet fallen from its branch, added its sombre 
color to the glitter, which, like a million precious jewels, 
sparkled in the rays of the winter sun. The rills in the 
meadow below were silent, harnessed by the ice, and, like 
gigantic stalagmites, the frozen waters in the walls of the 
mountains threw back the reflection in a variety of colors as 
the light from above played upon the opalescent shafts. 

Over the surface of the snow, the nimble foot of the hare 
and the fox had left their imprints in thin straight lines, tra- 
versing the landscape in different directions, but there were 
other tracks, somewhat larger and heavier, where the wolves 
had come down in packs from the dark forest to prey upon 
stray cattle or sheep, which might have escaped the byre in 
which they were kept during the winter months. On the 
roofs gathered the hungry house sparrows, knowing, as they 
did, the habit of the people of the North to feed them when 
the rigid winter made it hard to gather food. 



1921.] WHEN THE GODS DIED 339 

Within the hall of the Ref the feast was on. Gunnar sat 
in the high seat at the head of the table and along the sides 
were most of the men, belonging to the Ref, both those who 
had returned from the raids with the approaching winter and 
were now waiting for the fairer season and new adventures, 
and also those who, at the lower end of the table, represented 
the menial staff of the household, some of them slaves, brought 
as captives from foreign land, but all treated as members of 
one large family. At another table sat the women, presided 
over by Astrid, and here also the seats had been distribute*! 
according to the rank and position of those present. 

The huge log fire in the centre of the hall added to the 
lighting of the scene as well as to the warmth. It threw its 
glare upon the walls, and was reflected from many a gleaming 
weapon upon the table and danced in the shining curves of 
costly vessels; it sent sparks toward the ceiling that sometimes 
caused some cautious person to leave his seat and adjust the 
pile of logs, it sent volumes of smoke through the outlet above, 
that carried with them the scent of savory viands. 

Through it all, an incessant interchange of speech was 
going on. Every now and again a youth would call out some 
bantering remark to one of the young women only to receive 
a prompt counter from the maiden addressed; and there was 
much laughing and jesting as the feast progressed, while 
sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks bespoke the enjoyment of 
the company. 

Near the high seat sat the foremost men among those 
present, Alf on Gunnar's right hand and next to him Leif. 
With them the entertainment appeared to have a somewhat 
different import. The merry jesting of the rest found only an 
occasional response with this little circle of more serious men, 
who were discussing among themselves matters of greater sig- 
nificance. Naturally, Gunnar spoke as the leader. His words 
were listened to with profound respect, the older men nodding 
their bearded heads in silent assent, the younger ones giving 
vent to their approval in a more boisterous manner by loud 
acclamation and knocking with clenched fist or perhaps with 
some heavy goblet the oaken plank of the table. 

"These are evil days," said Gunnar. "Evil days for Nor- 
way and for all these parts. Men are mocking the gods and 
turning away from them. Those who live in foreign lands 



340 WHEN THE GODS DIED [Dec., 

despise them altogether. Some have no gods at all, others 
call upon a new god, who has come from far off Jorsalaland, 
they say. They say he is mightier than all the Asa-gods put 
together but that cannot be." 

"Has he drunk wisdom from Mimer's well, like Odin?" 
asked one. 

"Can he cleave the heavens with lightning, like Thor?" 
demanded another. 

"Or sound the Gjaller horn like Heimdal, so that the 
whole world may hear it?" from a third. 

"Twelve Asa-gods rule the world," said Gunnar. "How 
could one god do it alone?" 

The old men shook their heads. How could he? 
There were men and women in this world, there were the 
waters and the dry land, there was love and there was war, 
there was the grain in the fields and the forging of weapons 
and one god to direct all these and a hundred other things it 
was impossible! Somebody laughed aloud and others fol- 
lowed. It became part of the general mirth. 

"There is a great chief somewhere in the Southlands," 
said Alf. "They call him Otho. He came north and made 
King Harald of Denmark pledge fealty to the new god, and 
then the King forced Haakon, the Earl of Norway, who had 
helped him in battle, to do likewise. He sent Haakon back to 
Norway accompanied by men with shaven heads and long 
beards, dressed in long cloaks and wearing ropes around their 
waist, that they may tell the men in Norway all about the new 
god." 

"And did they?" someone asked. 

"No," said Alf. "The Earl slew some of them and sent 
the rest back to the King of Denmark. 'No one must mock the 
Asa-gods where I rule!' he said, and made an offering to 
Odin." 

Again they laughed. 

"There is a country far to the south, further than I have 
ever been myself, but I have heard of it," said Alf. "They call 
it Romagna, and there, they say, dwells this god." 

"You mean : he still lives there in the land whatever you 
call it?" ejaculated Gunnar in amazement. 

"Yes!" said Alf. "They say he can never die." 

"How's that?" queried one of the company. "Even the 



1921.] WHEN THE GODS DIED 341 

Asa-gods must die, and this one never dies. That is impos- 
sible." 

By this time the feast had reached a point, when certain 
semi-religious ceremonies were in order. No Yuel passed by 
but that the host of the feast would sprinkle the hall with the 
blood of some animal, dedicated to the gods before being 
slaughtered, and again, there was the promise to be made on 
Sonegalten, the sacred boar. This last ceremony was not only 
very ancient, but was also looked upon as an event of par- 
ticular interest, for, when the animal, well groomed, was con- 
ducted into the hall, the men would rise, and those who de- 
sired to make special promise of some daring deed would 
place one hand upon the back of the animal and make an oath 
to that effect. 

Gunnar had risen from his seat and strode toward the 
door, which he threw open. Then all rose from their seats, 
men and women, for the moment had come when they would 
pay respect to the Asa-gods who had so far preserved the in- 
dependence of their existence, shielding them against the in- 
vasion of the usurper and protecting them against that 
mysterious power from distant lands, which was said to have 
conquered their gods in neighboring countries. 

A loud call from Gunnar, which echoed on the still crisp 
air from the mountain sides, brought to the door a man who 
handed his master a silver urn of splendid workmanship 
containing the sacred fluid. It had been the custom in earlier 
days to sprinkle the blood over the walls of the hall and even 
over the guests, gathered within, but a greater refinement in 
custom and manners prohibited such an act, and Gunnar 
merely poured the blood from the urn in a few scattered 
places upon the hard clay floor, then he threw the rest into 
the blazing fire and returned the urn to the bearer. 

Meanwhile, the door had been left open, and the bright 
sunlight from without silhouetted the opening in sharp out- 
lines upon the floor. In this illumined spot the famous boar 
now appeared, conducted by two stalwart youths. It was, 
indeed, a magnificent animal. As it stood there in the full 
blaze of the sunlight, it might have been easily taken for the 
gold-bristled boar upon which Freyr, the god of the fruitful 
fields, was said to ride, or for one of those famous boars upon 
which the fallen heroes fed in Valhalla, which, slaughtered 



342 WHEN THE GODS DIED [Dec., 

for the day's supply, came lo life again for the feast of the 
morrow. In truth, the boar in the Northlands was as sacred 
as the bull, Apis, was to the Egyptians of old or as the elephant 
is to the natives of other distant lands. This one was of im- 
mense proportions with large protruding tusks, ornamented 
with golden bands. Its bristles stood upright like a cropped 
mane upon the forepart of its back. A massive bronze ring 
had been placed in its snout, to which ropes were attached for 
the keepers to hold it. Its small vicious eyes blinked ma- 
liciously as it stood there, dazzled by the glare of the fire 
through the sombre twilight of the hall. No wonder that the 
maidens nearest the entrance timidly shrank further in the 
interior behind some of their companions, though the animal, 
apparently in perfect control of its keepers, made no attempt 
to advance. 

Gunnar, who had returned to his place without taking his 
seat, now spoke: "Who is there among those here assembled," 
he said, "who will take the oath on Sonegalten and swear to do 
some daring deed of which all men shall speak?" 

He had scarcely finished when Leif stepped forward. His 
cheeks were flushed, his eyes glittered defiantly and his broad 
chest heaved like the long swell of the sea. He seized his 
sword, which had been hanging on the wall above him, and, 
dipping it deliberately into one of the little pools of blood 
left on the floor, he placed his left hand on the back of the 
boar, and, raising his sword, he spoke boldly, albeit his voice 
trembled a little with inward emotion : 

"You men of the Ref," he said, "have all heard of the 
White God, who rules far in the south and defies the Asa-gods. 
We have been told that he dwells in Romagna, whence he 
sends forth his sorcerers, that they may do their evil deeds 
and crush even Thor in all his might. I swear to you at this 
hour with my hand upon Sonegalten and the point of my 
sword dipped in the sacred blood, that I will find this Romagna, 
find the White God and pierce him with this sword or bring 
him back, a captive, that we may offer him to Odin. I have 
spoken." 

He returned to his place and seized his goblet: "To this 
undertaking I pledge you this toast. Skaal!" he said and 
emptied the goblet. 

A tremendous tumult followed. The men stamped their 



1921.] WHEN THE GODS DIED 343 

feet upon the floor or beat it with heavy weapons, raising their 
beakers with uplifted hands and spilling much of the contents 
ere it reached the lips to be drained to the last drop. Loud 
calls of approbation rose from both men and women, and for 
a while pandemonium reigned. Leif alone stood calm and 
silent. Gunnar threw his arms around the strong shoulders 
of the youth and others followed his example. Women ap- 
proached him and tugged at his tunic to let him know of their 
admiration. But Astrid stood aloof. She remembered other 
similar scenes, when men had sworn on the boar to do great 
deeds, and had gone to sea with unswerving courage and a 
brave following, but had never returned to tell the adventure. 
They had gone out to fight other men, but Leif had declared 
war upon a god, and there were bitter misgivings in her soul. 
It was not to be wondered at that no one else offered him- 
self for an undertaking after Leif's great promise. Many 
pledged themselves to be his companions or asked for the 
privilege, and long and loud was the talk and the noise at 
Gunnar's banquet, as the night closed upon the Yule-feast at 
the Ref. 

III. 

THE GODS SICKEN. 

The welcome sun of early spring shot its tender rays upon 
the ancient city of Ravenna. Down from the vast primeval 
pine forests that were the pride of the province came every 
now and again a cool and fragrant breeze, that raised the dust 
on the Via Caesarea, and sent a slight ripple over the dark blue 
waters of the Adriatic as they lapped the quays of Classis, the 
seaport of Ravenna. Here ships from all known parts of the 
word were at anchor, and seafaring men of many nations 
surged in a colorful throng from their landing places up along 
the famous highway towards the great city of the Romagna. 

Ravenna, emerging from a misty past with no record of 
her birth and the names of her founders buried in oblivion,, 
was in those days a city of much importance. Her architecture 
Roman, Greek and Byzantine pointed to the vicissitudes 
which had made her history, and the magnificent churches 
with their rich monuments spoke of the great part she had 
taken in the service of Christendom. She was, indeed, one of 
the foremost cities in the Christian world. 



344 WHEN THE GODS DIED [Dec., 

The city was dotted with pretty gardens. On this spring 
day many of the early flowers had unfolded their buds, and 
their petals were eagerly inhaling the sun-tempered air, while 
the darker leaves of the laurel and the myrtle glistened in the 
lightsome day and orange hlossoms began to unfold their 
delicate charms. 

In one of these gardens, somewhat larger than the rest, 
opening upon a narrow lane, but in reality being part of the 
environment of a palatial mansion facing on a more preten- 
tious street, stood a small cottage, which might have been 
erected there for the use of a gardener or a keeper of the 
property. Looking along a wide veranda, running the full 
length of one side of the structure, one perceived that this side 
was but a series of windows, all of them thrown wide open to 
admit light and air. The whole space within consisted of but 
one room, filled with innumerable mechanical devices, placed 
on tables, while on the wall opposite hung a variety of tools, 
such as mechanicians might use. Bending over one of these 
tables, busy with some intricate piece of workmanship, stood 
a tall, athletic man of middle age; upon his broad shoulders a 
well proportioned head with soft pleasant features and large 
kindly eyes, set far apart. His eyebrow r s were marked, almost 
as if they had been artfully penciled, his general expression 
was genial, one might say benevolent, and his movements, as 
he adjusted or removed portions of the mechanism, were vig- 
orous, showing energy and strength, although executed with 
great care, even tenderness. He wore a loose kirtle, open at 
the throat and fastened round the waist with a leathern girdle. 
The sleeves were short and displayed arms and hands, by no 
means those of the ordinary artisan, but the most striking 
feature about him was the crown of his head which, as he 
stooped, revealed plainly the bald spot of the tonsure, always 
worn by the priest. Indeed, this toiler in mechanical arts was 
a priest. He was known as Gerbert of Rheims, a friend of the 
young King Otho. 

The genius of this man was considered phenomenal. His 
knowledge of theology was profound, and carried him even- 
tually to the chair of St. Peter, which he occupied as Sylvester 
II. He had mastered mechanical arts and had constructed the 
most wonderful clock in the city of Madgeburg; he ranked 
high as a mathematician and had taught mathematics at 



1921. J WHEN THE GODS DIED 345 

Rheims, and he was no stranger to medicine, being a student 
of Hippocrates and Galen. He had studied music as well, 
and was familiar with the keys of the famous Constantine 
organ in the Church of St. Corneille at Compiegne, and the 
organ builders of Venice had no better friend. He spoke many 
languages, for at Rheims and on his travels he had met men 
from Iceland in the far North, Arabs from the tropical South, 
men from the Orient and men from many parts of Europe, all 
in quest of knowledge. Only recently, he had been removed 
from his beloved France and was at this time Archbishop of 
Ravenna, an office high in the service of Rome. 

As this singular person stood there, absorbed in contem- 
plation of his work, he suddenly became aware that he was 
being watched, and, looking up, he saw at one of the open 
windows a man of noble stature, wearing a costly armor of 
glittering steel rings and leaning upon an immense sword, 
while he appeared to be contemplating the toiler within with 
a sense of curiosity. Versed as he was in the world's affairs, 
Gerbert immediately recognized in the stranger one of those 
Norsemen, who occasionally reached Ravenna for commercial 
purposes or paid visits to less settled districts of the coast 
with more sinister intent. There was something about the 
man's appearance which attracted him, so he made an inviting 
gesture with one hand, as he dropped his work, and, address- 
ing the stranger in what was known as the "Danske Tunge," 
he bade him enter. 

It has always been particularly pleasing to the human ear 
to hear one's native language spoken in a strange land, where 
the vernacular is merely a jumble of inarticulate sounds. Leif 
was no exception, for it was he who, after much voyaging and 
constant inquiry, had found his way by accident to this se- 
cluded spot. The sound of a language with which he was so 
famliar, the pleasing intonation of the well modulated voice 
that greeted him, the friendly and courteous manner in which 
the invitation was extended impressed him immediately, and 
he entered the workshop, where his host, with a hand clasp, 
bade him be seated, and presently the two men were in con- 
versation. 

"From Iceland?" queried Gerbert. 

"Norway," answered Leif. 

"You are a trader?" 



346 WMEN THE GODS DIED [Dec., 

Leif passed his hand over th hilt of his sword in a 
caressing manner. 

"I do not barter," he said. "I have been roaming over 
two years now, in search of someone. I cannot find him." 
"Looking for whom?" inquired his host. 
"Up North we spoke of him as the White God. They say 
he is very strong and will conquer the world. Here in the 
South they call him Christ, I believe. Do you know him? Do 
you know where he dwells?" 

This extraordinary statement, so frankly spoken, almost 
staggered Gerbert. He had come in contact with pagans from 
different parts at various times, but the stranger's speech 
puzzled him. However, prompted by a sense of curiosity, he 
asked: 

"And when you find Him what then?" 
"I will slay him," said Leif. "Over two years ago I swore 
on Soaegalten at the Yuel feast that I would go out and find 
him, and, having found him, I would slay him." 

Gerbert could hardly conceal his amazement at this 
audacious speech. Yet, he curbed himself and, with an effort, 
he said in his usual pleasant manner: 
"I know Him I am His servant." 

"I am not one who would ask a man to betray his master," 
said Leif, "but you tell him that whenever and wherever I 
meet him one of us must yield." 
"That's fair," said Gerbert. 
"And does he dwell in this city?" asked Leif. 
"He dwells in this city and in every other city and in 
every hamlet and little cottage, where His name is known and 
honored." 

"Then it is not true that he died?" 
"He died and rose from the dead," said Gerbert. 
"So did Baldur," rejoined the Norseman. 
Gerbert looked at him thoughtfully. He was familiar 
with the myths of the North, and he knew the significance the 
one referring to Baldur would have upon this man's imagina- 
tion. It was the one demonstration of eternal life, and it was 
a powerful one, for it came back to the worshippers of the 
Norse gods every succeeding year. But he also knew the argu- 
ment of the Norsemen, when they contemplated the death of 
men, so he said with some force : 



1921.] WHEN THE GODS DIED 347 

"Baldur died a foul death, so he must stay with Hela till 
the last day. But the Christ that I speak of faced His foe as 
they slew Him. Hence, Hela could not hold Him and He rose 
in three days." 

"And where is he now?" queried Leif, becoming im- 
pressed. 

Gerbert raised one hand towards heaven and laid the 
other upon the steel covered shoulder of his guest. "I will tell 
you of Him," he said. "You know that in Ragnarok all the 
Asa-gods must die, but have you ever listened to Hynda's 
lay?" 

Leif merely nodded silently. 

"Then you must remember what the Skald sings: 

Then comes another 
Yet more mighty 
But Him dare I not 
Venture to name." 

Again Leif nodded, for he had heard the Skalds from 
Iceland recite the song. 

"I will tell you His name," said his host. "His name is 
Christ. He is the One by Whom all men are called, Who died 
for all men and in Whom all men may rise from the dead to 
live for ever in eternal happiness." 

He paused for a moment. Leif sat motionless, his two 
hands clasping the hilt of his sword and his head leaning upon 
them. He remained in utter silence, his eyes gazed into space 
like one in a dream. 

Then Gerbert spoke again: "Five days hence," he said, 
"in yomder temple we celebrate the Risen Christ. Be there, 
that you may see us worship, and after that I will meet you in 
this place that you may tell me what you think." 

The trees in the garden threw long shadows across the 
gravel walks, when Leif finally left his new-found friend, for 
he had to confess that he felt drawn towards this strange man. 
The sun was setting behind the pine forests and threw fan- 
tastic reflections upon the light clouds that rose like mist from 
the eastern horizon. The birds were bidding "good-night" in 
gentle notes, the fragrance of the sweet moist earth filled his 
nostrils, and strange filaments of hitherto unknown thoughts 



348 WHEN THE GODS DIED [Dec., 

were woven into life and whispered to his soul as he made his 
way towards the quay where his ship was moored. 

* * * * 

It was Easter morn. The grand old church of Sant' Apol- 
linaris was rapidly filling with an eager crowd, anxious to 
show their devotion and to do honor to the Risen Saviour of 
mankind. Moreover, it had been announced that Gerbert, the 
famous Archbishop, who had but recently arrived from 
France, would sing Pontifical Mass and also address the con- 
gregation in their own language, of which he was said to be 
perfect master. 

Through the windows in the upper story long shafts of 
light fell into the sombre twilight of the vast space and 
illumined the magnificent mosaics, wherever they happened 
to strike, or brought out in bold relief the delicate moldings 
of capitals and archivolts, which topped the marble columns 
dividing the central nave from the two aisles. The high altar 
was rich in decoration. Magnificent candelabra with long, 
arrow-like candles, already lighted, altar cloth of the finest 
texture, delicately embroidered; the floral offerings of many 
gardens, tastefully arranged in vases of exquisite workman- 
ship ; the artistry of the carver and the smith in wood and iron 
details in fact, everything that human ingenuity had made 
it possible to express through art was there to add to the 
splendor of the occasion. 

Leaning against one of the slender columns stood Leif. 
As usual, his hand rested upon his sword hilt, and his helmet 
was jammed under one arm, for though, on entering, he had 
kept it on, when he perceived that all men removed their head 
gear he had instinctively uncovered himself. 

He looked in wonder upon this immense throng of wor- 
shippers, most of them kneeling in prayer upon the hard 
floor, for in those days bodily comfort and religious exercise 
did not unite and pews were not known. He noticed the ex- 
pression upon uplifted faces, in them all humility, in some 
fervor, in others ecstacy, and he realized that something or 
somebody was present, that he had not yet perceived with his 
own senses, withal, a power that moved the throng in some 
inexplicable, intangible manner. 

Suddenly, one long note of a trumpet was heard, and as it 
died away, sounds of music poured forth from the organ, 






1921.] WHEN THE GODS DIED 349 

the like of which had never burst upon his ear before. Human 
voices joined in a magnificent chorus and down the nave came 
a procession, headed by a cross bearer and ending with Leif 
had to ask himself whether he was awake or dreaming that 
stately man at the end, wearing the mitre, the crozier in his 
hand and clad in the rich vestments of an Archbishop; bless- 
ing the kneeling people with a graceful movement right and 
left as he passed on that man was in truth the artisan from 
the garden cottage by whose strange speech Leif had been so 
singularly impressed. 

"He, the servant of this Christ!" thought Leif. "How 
powerful, then, must be his master, how rich, how wonderful!" 

Little did he understand of what he witnessed, but his 
soul was filled with wonder. How different the melodious 
singing from the shouting of boisterous men, trying to outdo 
the thunder of Thor at the sacrifice! How sweet the fragrance 
of incense that floated through the space in comparison with 
the nauseating stench of burnt flesh! The grace and dignity 
of the priest at the altar impressed him. How different, when 
he lifted up his hand in solemn benediction, from the blood- 
stained hands of the priest in his own home! How soft and 
melodious his voice, when he spoke, how earnest his voice, 
when he addressed the throng! 

Leif did not understand the language, but he did under- 
stand, without knowing, that behind the words spoken, there 
was a prompting voice of some mysterious, unseen one. When 
the service closed he walked out as one in a dream. Still 
holding his helmet under his arm, he passed down the street, 
unconscious of his surroundings. Men and women turned to 
stare at him, wondering who this stranger might be; but he 
walked on until he reached the little gate in the lane, which 
led him into the garden, and, when Gerbert shortly after ar- 
rived, he found him seated on the edge of the veranda, his 
head between his hands, supporting his elbows upon his 
knees and his eyes fixed upon the ground, like one in deep 
thought. 

IV. 
THE GODS PERISH. 

Behind Gunnar's house a narrow trail took its beginning, 
zig-zagging up the mountain, leading by innumerable turns 



350 WHEN THE GODS DIED [Dec., 

and twists to a plateau, which gave a view, as far as the eye 
could reach, over the vast ocean that stretched into unknown 
regions, and showed the way to such distant lands as had 
already been explored by the men of the Ref and by other 
daring sailors of the North. There, too, was a bauna, a pile of 
pine logs ready to be lighted in answer to summons from other 
mountain peaks where similar baunas were installed, which in 
those days gave notice of approaching danger or announced 
important events, as the case might be. 

When the weather permitted, Astrid had for many months 
past climbed almost daily to this plateau, spending perhaps 
hours there, scanning the sea that churned its broken waters 
over the reefs below, looking into the western horizon in the 
hope of seeing the returning dragon ship which should bring 
Leif back once more. There she had lived over again in pain- 
ful daydreams the departure of Leif, when he set out over 
three years ago for a fair wind, spreading the mighty sail on 
which, with her own fingers and with the assistance of her 
maids, she had worked the hand of Thor, throwing his ham- 
mer, the lightning represented by long red streaks, making fan- 
tastic figures upon the white canvas. There she had invoked 
Freya, praying in her heart that the goddess would preserve 
Leif s love for her; and Thor, that he might give Leif victory; 
but the months had grown into years and Leif had not come 
back. 

Every now and then men had returned from abroad, who 
had seen him on the coast of Scotia, which some called Erin, 
or further south, but even such messages had ceased to come, 
and her heart was heavy with fear. 

"He will come back!" said the young men of the Ref, for 
they knew his courage, his resourcefulness and his superior 
seamanship, and, moreover, they wished to encourage the 
maid for whom they all had great affection. 

Then, one morning, near summer solstice, Astrid per- 
ceived from her lofty station far away over the blue waters 
a large ship, steering for the Ref. Her heart leaped with joy, 
for she thought she could see the sunlight playing upon the 
painted dragon in the bow. Nearer still, and her keen eyesight 
beheld a figure in the sail that swelled in the summer breeze. 
But lo! Though it was surely Leif's ship, the sail she looked 
again there were no red streaks furrowing the white canvas; 



1921.] WHEN THE GODS DIED 351 

instead a huge black, sinister looking cross had been painted 
on it, a cross, such as she remembered having seen on a smaller 
scale among the odd things brought home as curiosities from 
abroad. 

Astrid leaped down the mountain trail in great excitement. 
Hope and fear blended within her soul. Would Leif be on 
board, and if so why had he changed the sail that on the day 
of his departure had meant so much for both of them? 

There was great stir on the Ref. Others had sighted the 
dragon ship and Gunnar had ordered a horse sacrificed to 
Odin that they might feast on the meat, and word had gone 
abroad, which soon brought men from different parts of the 
valley, eager to welcome the returning friends. As to the 
change in the sail, that might be explained in different ways. 
Nobody paid any attention to that except Astrid; when Leif 
came ashore he would tell them about it, and probably it 
would be a tale well worth listening to. 

And now the boat had crossed the outside breakers. The 
sail had been hauled down and strong arms drew the bending 
oars through the water, making the dragon ship fly like an 
arrow from the narrow inlet into the smooth and tranquil 
fjord. Men shouted their welcome from the shore and were 
answered with lusty calls from the crew. Forward in the 
bow stood Leif, bareheaded, his long hair falling in curls over 
a leathern doublet, his face somewhat sterner than when he 
left, his hands waving greetings to those ashore, who, as the 
boat now neared the landing place, were eager to assist in the 
final task of making fast. 

Leif was the first to leap ashore, and Astrid was the first 
whom he greeted. He took her in his arms and pressed her 
against his broad chest, whispering a word or two into her ear, 
and she forgot her misgivings and the fear she had felt. 

Who can describe the many little scenes that were enacted 
at this happy reunion? There were other maids and other 
swains whose hearts beat as fast as did Astrid's at this home 
coming. There were friends and kinsmen whose greeting was 
no less hearty, there were mothers who had missed their sons 
these three long years; wives who had wondered whether 
widowhood were in store for them; sisters who were proud of 
returning brothers after an adventure so great. Human sen- 
timent is ever the same. Love and hate came into the world 



352 WHEN THE GODS DIED [Dec., 

when the world was very young, and the men who braved the 
great seas in those days and knew no fear in the fierce battle, 
were subject to the same emotions that dominate their 
descendants of the present age. 

Once more there was a feast in Gunnar's hall, but now it 
was midsummer. Most of the younger men were away, but 
such as chanced to be at home flocked to be present, happy at 
the return of their comrades. 

Alf had gone to Iceland on a visit, so Leif held the seat on 
Gunnar's right, and all along the table the men, who had re- 
turned with him, were quizzed by the others and gave answer 
as to places they had visited and deeds they had done, praising 
one another and sometimes taking personal credit for some 
valorous act. Every now and then somebody would touch 
upon the strange worship they had witnessed and how Leif 
had made friends with a mighty priest, who spoke their own 
language. But Leif, alone, appeared silent and moody, and 
when the meat of the sacrifice was placed before him, he 
pushed it aside. 

Then Gunnar spoke: 

"What ails you?" he asked. "Scarcely a word have you 
spoken, and you spurn the sanctified meat. Did you not swear 
that you would go South and find the White God and that you 
would slay him or bring him back a prisoner? Now I perceive 
that you have forgotten your oath, or it may be that you slew 
him in some distant land. But fain would we hear of your 
meeting, if so it be that, indeed, you met him." 

"I met Him," said Leif, "and I have brought Him home 
with me; but not as a prisoner, for He conquered me." 

"And how did it ever happen that the prisoner brought 
home the victor?" asked Gunnar, who seriously thought for a 
moment that Leif had lost his wits. "I take it," he added, "that 
the mead has been too strong for you or that the sun in the 
South has dulled your senses." Then, after a moment's pause, 
Leif remaining silent, he continued in a more cheerful tone: 
"Come Leif! Throw off whatever dismal thoughts may possess 
you and give the toast to the Asa-gods who have brought you 
back to Norway. Drink, I say, to Thor, in whose name you 
have fought." 

The men around the table had heard Gunnar's speech, for 
it had been uttered in a loud and distinct voice, so that all 



1921.] WHEN THE GODS DIED 353 

present might hear it. All now craned their necks. Those 
who had returned with Leif were well aware that a great 
change had come over him, and all were eager to learn what 
response he would make to Gunnar. 

Then Leif rose to his full height. His head was thrown 
back and his eyes seemed fixed upon the rafters. Even though 
his face was weather beaten it seemed pallid in the gray light 
that came through the open door and windows, for the sky 
had grown leaden with threatening clouds, the harbingers of a 
storm. But his voice was calm and steady as he spoke : 

"Men of the Ref," he said, "you may think ill of me for 
refusing the sanctified meat. You may despise me for refusing 
to drink to the Asa-gods, but you shall know the reason and, 
whatever your judgment, I will pay the penalty. I swore in 
this hall to find the White God, to slay Him or bring Him back 
with me, and I have brought Him back, but I am His slave and 
He is my Master. Against the White God no Asa-god can stand, 
for they are but like shadows and drifting clouds. The wis- 
dom of Odin, the strength of Thor, the goodness of Baldur are 
as naught against His majesty, His power, His goodness. The 
name of that God is Christ, and He is my God. I drink to Christ !" 

So saying, ere the astonished men and women, who had 
listened to him open-mouthed, barely understanding him, had 
realized the meaning of his speech, Leif emptied his cup, 
threw it on the floor and strode out of the hall. 

Gunnar sat dumfounded. For many seconds, which ap- 
peared as so many minutes, no one spoke. The scene was 
one the like of which no one present had ever witnessed, nor 
ever expected. Great as was their admiration and friendship 
for Leif, they all understood that he had grossly offended. 
Then one cried out: "He denies the gods!" and immediately 
the cry was taken up in angry tones, while men rose from their 
seats and spoke and gesticulated in wrathful moods. 

Suddenly a terrific crash was heard. The clouds, gather- 
ing around the mountain peaks, had let loose their mighty 
tongues and spoke in threatening thunder, echoing from moun- 
tain side to mountain side with a deafening roar, awe-inspir- 
ing, striking terror to their hearts. The women fell back into 
the interior of the hall, pale and trembling. Then men, in 
clusters, looked aghast and shouted still louder as they real- 
ized the sacrilege: 

VOL. cxiv. 23 



354 WHEN THE GODS DIED [Dec., 

"The gods are angry! The gods are angry!" came the 
fierce chorus from many throats. 

Meanwhile, Leif had repaired to his own house. In the 
little chamber, set apart for Astrid and himself, when she 
should he his bride, he had deposited some of his belongings, 
already brought ashore. He opened a small bundle and re- 
moved from it a cross upon which hung the image of the cru- 
cified Saviour of men. He knelt down, and with the cross 
lifted towards heaven his lips moved in prayer, for well he 
knew that the hour of the test had come. 

A garish, blinding light flashed through the heavens and 
illumined the murky scene without. Another deafening crash 
followed, and then 

"His house is aflame!" they shouted. "Leif's house is 
burning the gods will be avenged !" 

For a little while the men stood in silent awe, clustered at 
the doorway of Gunnar's hall, while the flames surged in fan- 
tastic leaps around the wooden structure, which they speedily 
enveloped. Then a singular sight was revealed. In the midst 
of this seething furnace, holding in his hands the cross, stood 
Leif, his eyes lifted towards heaven, his arms stretched up- 
wards. He did not appear to move. Calmly, he awaited the 
approach of the scorching flames, every now and then hidden 
by dense smoke that disclosed him again, in the same position, 
as it whirled away upon the breeze. 

All of a sudden, a piercing cry was heard. Astrid had 
broken from the women, who were trying to hold back the 
frantic girl. 

"Ye men of the Ref," she cried, "make way for Gunnar's 
daughter!" 

Mechanically, the men stood aside, and through the narrow 
passage thus formed Astrid rushed forward, her hair stream- 
ing behind her, her hands in front, like one breasting a strong 
tide. Once in the open she made straight for the burning struc- 
ture, and ere the astonished men could realize her intent, she 
had plunged into it. 

For a moment the smoke curtained the scene. When 
again it lifted, they beheld her by the side of Leif. He had one 
arm round her waist, and the other was still lifted towards 
heaven, his hand firmly grasping the cross. 

Horrified, the men beheld them thus, standing like two 



1921.] DISARMAMENT AND ARLINGTON 355 

statues, motionless in the midst of the terror, while the flames 
were licking their clothes and help was beyond the scope of 
human endeavor. Suddenly the roof began to give way. A 
large portion fell down close by them, but as yet they stood 
like a group of hewn stone. 

Then an agonized cry rent the air. Clinging to Leif with 
both hands round his neck as far as she could reach, Astrid 
called out: "Now rides Nanna with her Baldur to Hela!" 

Leif once more straightened himself to his full stately 
height. He still held the crucifix aloft, but for a moment his 
eyes sought Astrid, and an expression of great tenderness 
passed over his face. Then looking towards heaven, he cried 
so that all could hear him : "No, no ! Now rise two souls to the 
living Christ!" 

There was another crashing sound of falling timber. 
Sparks flew upwards like spray from a fountain, the dense 
smoke hid the scene for a while, and when it had cleared away 
Leif and Astrid had passed from view, buried in the lurid 
wreck. 



DISARMAMENT AND ARLINGTON. 

(November 11, 1921.) 

BY KATHRYN WHITE RYAN. 

ONCE on a hill the dead God hung His head 

Because men sinned. 
After three days the stone rolled back its girth, 

Peace walked the earth 

Like a great wind. 

Lord, on this hill is throned atoning Dead! 

Let it befall 
This present Resurrection Morn shall blow 

War and its woe 

Beyond recall! 




THE TEXT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 

BY CUTHBERT LATTEY, S.J. 

N strictly Biblical studies, what is most funda- 
mental is the text itself. Until we have the text, 
we cannot begin to study it. In reading most 
ancient authors a certain familiarity with textual 
criticism is a legitimate self-defence, for fear an 
editor should foist upon us his own private composition. 
Something of this kind there is in the Old Testament, but in 
the case of the New, it is perhaps even more the ancient scribes 
themselves of whom we need to beware of that free lance 
who perpetrated the Codex Bezse, and of that manner of copy- 
ing that ended in the texlus receptus, or rather (should we not 
now say?) reiectus. But of these things more in detail pres- 
ently. Meanwhile, before we go further, it must be understood 
that what was said in a previous article on "The Study of Holy 
Scripture," chiefly as regards the question of method, with 
especial reference to faith and authority, is here presupposed, 
because it is fundamental in the widest and most important 
respect of all. 

As a matter of fact, the conclusions to be indicated in the 
matter of text, seem to be reasonably certain, apart from any 
theological argument, and in a course of strict apologetic 
would have to be considered in that light. Another point may 
also be worth immediate attention; from the point of view of 
textual criticism, both Old and New Testaments are unique, 
but that, strangely enough, for reasons in the main dia- 
metrically opposed to each other the New Testament by 
reason of the abundance of the attestation the Old Testament 
by reason of the lack of it. 

It is best to speak of the New Testament first, because the 
course of events is here more certain (though much must still 
be left doubtful), and also easier to follow. And here, again, 
it may help to give a brief sketch, so far as is relevant, of the 
history of writing and writing materials. The first and orig- 
inal copies of most of the New Testament writings were prob- 
ably written on papyri, each on an independent roll, in dif- 



1921.] THE TEXT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 357 

ferent times and places. Greek papyri (from papyrus, 
through the French, comes our paper) are found from the 
end of the fourth century B. C. down to the ninth century 
A. D. This writing material was manufactured from the pith 
of the papyrus-plant, which of old grew plentifully in the Nile 
and the adjacent marshes. The pith was cut into thin strips, 
which were placed side by side, while another layer of strips 
was laid at right angles to the first; the whole was then pressed 
and glued together. The sheets would be from six to fifteen 
inches high, and would practically never exceed thirty feet in 
length, while they might be much shorter. The writing would 
in the first instance be on the side on which the fibre followed 
the length of the roll, called the recto; at need the verso might 
also be used. 1 

Egypt was the chief centre of manufacture, and it is there 
that the papyri have survived, thanks to sand-burial and the 
very dry climate. Elsewhere they have almost wholly dis- 
appeared, the chief exception being offered by the calcined 
papyri of Herculaneum. Greek writing upon papyrus falls 
into two main classes: the literary or professional hand, for 
use in the transcription of books, and the non-literary hand, 
for use in business documents, private letters and what not. 
The distinction roughly corresponds to that between print and 
writing today. Literary papyri have a rudimentary equip- 
ment of accents, breathing and punctuation. The systematic 
study of papyri may be dated from the great find at Arsinoe 
in 1877 A. D. 

The papyri shed a great light on the New Testament from 
many points of view, most of all perhaps from that of lan- 
guage, for they show that, in the main, New Testament Greek 
was the common Hellenistic speech of the time, thus bringing 
it out of its former apparent isolation. But here we are only 
concerned with textual criticism. St. Luke's Gospel and Acts 
would both require a roll of the maximum length in use; but 
some of the shorter epistles may have come to be written on 
the same roll. Short epistles, at all events, may have been 
dictated to educated amateurs, and in general early Christian 
copying would mostly be in the non-literary hand, though St. 
John's Gospel might well have been taken down by a pro- 
fessional scribe. The early transmission was probably not 

1 Cf. Apocalypse v. 1. 



358 THE TEXT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE [Dec., 

of the best, not being carried on through the regular book- 
trade, but by private individuals. The best copies, too, would 
be most eagerly sought out by the persecutors. Much corrup- 
tion was inevitable, and this may well be one of the chief rea- 
sons of early divergences of text. In classical authors, similar 
private papyri have a worse text than vellum manuscripts of 
a thousand years later. 

Towards the beginning of the fourth century A. D. the 
conversion of Constantine led to Christianity being recog- 
nized as the more or less official religion of the Empire. The 
Scriptures were multiplied with all the usual resources of 
writing, Constantine himself ordering fifty vellum manu- 
scripts to be prepared, for the purpose of supplying his new 
churches with Bibles. It was, indeed, the Christian Church 
that made the vellum codex triumph over the papyrus, which 
now decline in number and quality, though still plentiful till 
the eighth century A. D. Vellum is skin prepared for writing 
on both sides, a far stronger material than papyrus. Hence it 
was far easier to bind it into a codex or book, even of a large 
size, and for this reason again the introduction of the codex 
probably contributed to the fixing of the canon of Scripture. 
It was now possible to include the whole Bible in one volume, 
and it therefore became an urgent necessity to decide what 
works should be included. Vellum also allowed of firmer 
writing, with thicker and heavier strokes, the more so because 
economy of room was no longer essential. Hence, the letters 
become larger, so as to be called "uncial" or "inch-long," 
although the term is in reality an exaggeration. The scribes 
go back for their models to the best ages of the papyrus hand, 
the first and second century A. D., not to that immediately 
preceding. Unfortunately, they practically drop punctuation 
and all other helps to reading, so that in this respect there is a 
complete break in the tradition. From now onwards the non- 
literary hand may be left out of account, being no longer a 
channel of transmission. 

The uncial period of vellum manuscripts extends into the 
tenth century, but the increasing demand for books led to the 
uncial hand being found too cumbrous, as requiring too much 
space and time. By the ninth century a modified form of the 
running hand of everyday use had become literary, of which 
we find all the elements in the non-literary papyri of the 



1921.] THE TEXT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 359 

period immediately preceding. This is the minuscule hand: 
it is also called the "cursive" or running hand, because the 
minuscule hand lent itself readily to ligatures, connecting 
strokes, and came to have them more and more, whereas they 
are not found in uncial writing on vellum, though sometimes 
employed in uncials written on papyrus. Paper is introduced 
in this period; it appears to have been first imported into 
Europe in the tenth century, and first manufactured there in 
the twelfth. The best work continues to be done on vellum; 
it was the introduction of printing that secured paper the 
victory. The earliest and most beautiful productions of the 
printing press were Bibles; during the fifteenth century more 
than ninety editions of the Latin Bible were printed. 

After this summary outline of the evolution of the writing 
process itself, it is needful to give another of the principles of 
textual criticism. The primary object of textual criticism is 
to discover what the original writer himself wrote or dictated, 
though in a wider sense the whole history of the text and 
everything that has immediate relation to the text falls within 
its province. The chief evidence consists of the various repro- 
ductions of the text, whether in whole or part, in the original 
language or in translations. Some accidental and preliminary 
processes must here be taken for granted. The scribe, for 
example, writes lab or ab or abas; we smile at his sleepiness, but 
accept him as a witness for laborabas. There are other kinds 
of mistakes equally superficial and easily verifiable, of which 
some amusing examples are given in Dr. Gow's Companion to 
School Classics. Spelling, again, is a study in itself, closely 
allied to that of pronunciation; but the spelling of a manu- 
script has little bearing upon its value for the reconstruction of 
the text. 

The three main processes or stages of textual induction, 
at all events where the evidence is so abundant as is that for 
the New Testament text, lie in the consideration of reading, 
manuscript and genealogy. That is to say, we first consider 
the relative probability of rival readings of the same passage: 
next, as far as possible, we assign a relative value to manu- 
scripts, according as they contain a larger or smaller percen- 
tage of readings in themselves more likely to be correct: 
thirdly, we endeavor to establish lines of descent and connec- 
tion between manuscripts themselves so as to be able to impute 



360 THE TEXT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE [Dec., 

a better or worse character to each of these very lines of 
descent, and thus judge of a manuscript in part from its 
genealogy. And at each stage we note whether our previous 
results are being confirmed or shaken. By this systematic in- 
vestigation the margin of uncertainty is reduced to a very 
small compass. The now famous dictum of Westcott and 
Hort that, mere trifles apart, the words still subject to doubt 
can hardly amount to more than a thousandth part of the 
whole New Testament, has never been seriously controverted, 
in spite of a fairly general feeling that they themselves have 
relied somewhat too exclusively upon a single manuscript, the 
Codex Vaticanus (B). 

The general tendency of textual criticism has been to 
bring order out of chaos; and indeed it was no small com- 
mendation that Pope Pius X. bestowed upon the modern 
elaboration of this science, when in his letter to Cardinal (then 
Abbot) Gasquet, intrusting him and his Order with the revision 
of the Latin Vulgate (1907), he remarked that "this praise is 
certainly to be paid to the genius of the present times, that 
such investigations are carried on in such a way that no pos- 
sible fault can be found with them." 2 The legitimate pro- 
cesses of textual criticism, based upon a scientific study of the 
documentary evidence, give no cause for anxiety; it is the 
vagaries of a so-called "higher" criticism that do the mischief, 
as the Providentissimus Deus itself points out. But to work 
out from one's own imagination and highly subjective pre- 
suppositions, without a shadow of support in the actual evi- 
dence, what must have been written first and what must be re- 
garded as a later addition, or rather as a whole series of later 
additions, with the when and wherefore of each all this is 
not textual criticism, but rather the unblushing and ostenta- 
tious disregard of it. 

However, we must retrace our steps. The three main pro- 
cesses or stages of textual induction have been said to lie in 
the consideration of reading, manuscript and genealogy. In 
the case of the first and third of these some further explanation 
may be called for. In judging between rival readings for the 
same word or passage, it is not intrinsic, but transcriptional, 

- The important words are, ingenium item horum temporum, quibus illml certe 
dandum est laudi, pervestigationes istiusmodi ita perflcere, ut nulla ex parte repre- 
hendendee videantur. 



1921.] THE TEXT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 361 

probability that matters; that is to say, our main care must be, 
not to select the reading that appears to us to give the best 
sense or the smoothest language or the like for in choices 
of this sort there is great danger of excessive subjectivity, and 
endless havoc has been wrought through them but rather 
to look for the reading which most easily would give rise to 
the others, and thus seems best to explain the present state of 
the textual evidence. For example, if we examine the parallel 
passages, Matthew 7 viii. 28, Mark v. 1, Luke viii. 26, 37, it is 
tolerably clear that the desire to reconcile these texts with 
each other and with the geography has affected the transmis- 
sion of the proper name in the manuscripts. Yet apart from 
the fact that the attempts at uniformity vary in their selection 
of the name in different types of text it must be evident that 
if this uniformity had existed at the outset, it would never 
have developed into the variant readings which are still ex- 
tant. To postulate or to produce such uniformity was tempt- 
ing to the scribe, and still at times proves tempting to the un- 
initiate, but its transcriptional probability is almost nil. 

On the subject of genealogy what remains to be said is 
this. If the scribes had been wont simply to keep to a single 
manuscript, so that we only had to reckon with that manu- 
script and with the copyist himself, then textual criticism 
would be immensely simplified. We should have a great 
genealogical tree, ever spreading outwards in its growth, the 
divisions and subdivisions representing the changes, inten- 
tional or no, made by successive copyists. On the hypothesis 
that each copyist was confining his attention to a single manu- 
script, these changes would, of course, be due purely to lack of 
skill or attention, or to preconceived ideas. But in practice a 
scribe usually bases his work upon two or more manuscripts, 
often from quite different parts of the genealogical tree, so that 
side by side with genealogical divergence we have the contrary 
and confusing phenomenon of genealogical convergence. 

This convergence is most easily detected in "conflate" 
readings, which are a fusion of two readings. Thus at the end 
of Mark ix. 38, one type of text is exemplified by the Codex 
Vaticanus, "and we hindered him, because he was not follow- 
ing us:" and another by the Codex Bezse, "who was not fol- 
lowing with us and we hindered him:" while the fusion of the 
two may be illustrated from the Codex Alexandrinns, "who 



THE TEXT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE [Dec., 

was not following us, and we hindered him, because he was not 
following us." Yet this glaring conflation was printed by 
Nestle in his small Greek Testament ! As a matter of fact, it is 
only very rarely that a manuscript can be put entirely out of 
court as the direct descendant of an extant manuscript, or as 
a conflation of two or more that are likewise extant. But the 
affinities of manuscripts, affinities both of the closer and more 
remote kind, may be noted, and these, as has been said above, 
must be taken into account in determining its general value. 

We may now come to the textual problem of the New 
Testament, confining ourselves to the Gospels and Acts, for 
fear of entangling ourselves in ulterior issues. At the best, but 
a summary sketch is possible. Three main types of text 
emerge, each marked by a series of variant readings peculiar 
to itself; for the sake of brevity such a type of text is itself 
called simply a "text." We may begin by rejecting the "Tra- 
ditional text," the so-called textus receptus, called by Westcott 
and Hort the "Syrian" text. But Westcott and Hort have not 
proved happy in their names, and Sir F. G. Kenyon prefers 
Greek letters, as committing to no theory; this type he calls 
the alpha-text. This type of text, after a long supremacy, is 
now discredited, because its distinctive readings cannot be 
traced further back than the fourth century. Its most typical 
representatives are the late uncial manuscripts, the great mass 
of minuscule manuscripts, the later Fathers and later versions, 
and the latest manuscripts of early versions. 

The second type of text we may call "Syro-Latin," as 
having its chief strength in the Latin pre- Vulgate and Syriac 
pre-Peshitta versions, the Peshitta being, as it were, the Syriac 
Vulgate, and written not long after the Latin Vulgate; this 
latter belongs to the end of the fourth century, the Peshitta 
probably to the early fifth. The early writers, also, such as 
St. Justin, martyr, and Tatian in the second century, strongly 
support this text: it is the "Western" text (an utterly mislead- 
ing name) of Westcott and Hort, the "delta-text" of Sir F. 
Kenyon. Significantly enough, the bilingual Codex Bezse (D) 
is the only Greek uncial manuscript that reproduces this kind 
of text, and the exception proves the rule, for Latin influence 
is certainly to be traced in the Greek text of this manuscript, 
though to what extent it is difficult to say with certainty. The 
skilled copyists, therefore, held out against this text, although 



1921.] THE TEXT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 363 

they were later engulfed by the "Traditional" text. But before 
we discuss the matter further we had best speak of the third 
textual family. 

This may be called the "Egyptian" type, as having Alex- 
andria for main stronghold. Westcott and Hort, supposing 
that in this group the true text was to be found, called what 
they considered the true text the "Neutral" text (Kenyon's 
"beta-text"), and the rest of the group, in so far as it differed 
from this, the "Alexandrian" type (Kenyon's "gamma-text"). 
But the distinction between the two is slight, and to emphasize 
it in this way has some appearance of begging the question, as 
indeed Westcott and Hort's title of "Neutral" does openly beg 
it, presupposing, as it does, the correctness of their whole 
theory. Yet for them this "Neutral" text is little more than the 
Codex Vaticanus, and there seems to be a fairly wide impres- 
sion that they have relied somewhat too exclusively upon this 
one manuscript. However, that is comparatively a minor 
point; what we have most to fear is a sort of textual bolshe- 
vism that would bring in the "Syro-Latin" texts as the su- 
premely reliable authorities. The chief "Egyptian" repre- 
sentatives are the Codex Vaticanus (B), the Codex Sinaiticus 
(represented by the Hebrew letter Aleph) , the Coptic versions 
and, in parts, Origen. 

The very fact that this type of text is definitely connected 
with Alexandria, from of old the home of textual criticism, 
tells heavily in its favor; thither we should naturally turn in 
any case for a scientific preservation of the text. And a careful 
examination of the distinctive readings of this type bears out 
this presumption. The Syro-Latin text is marked by many 
additions, great and small, to the Egyptian text, by many small 
and pointless variations, by frequent changes of order, and in 
the Gospels by frequent assimilations to the parallel narra- 
tives; these peculiarities, it may be remarked, are especially 
noticeable in St. Luke's works. The consideration of the 
nature of these differences leads to the conclusion that the 
Syro-Latin type has resulted from the free handling of an 
original text of the Egyptian character. Such free handling 
must in any case be postulated in the Codex Bez&, which 
carries the peculiarities of the Syro-Latin text farthest. Even 
apart from this, the type is far from being a simple unity, the 
Old Latin type, for example, differing from the Old Syriac. 



364 THE TEXT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE [Dec., 

Moreover, it is not difficult to see how historically the 
Syro-Latin type came into being; it is due to the inferior trans- 
mission of the papyrus period, when the best resources of the 
book trade were not at the disposal of the Christians, and 
when, even so, the best work was the most liable to destruc- 
tion. These disadvantages in the transmission have already 
been touched upon; we may also suppose that the preservation 
of the ipsissima verba would not be the object of the same 
meticulous care while there was still a vigorous living tradi- 
tion. Such is the usual tendency in things human; and it was 
not necessary that Divine Providence should completely over- 
rule and eliminate it. It was enough that there should be a 
great Christian centre with a high standard of textual trans- 
mission inherited from other days, which should be the chief 
repository of a more exact type of text. 

For the relation between living tradition and ipsissima 
verba, a parallel may be suggested from the Constitutions of 
the Society of Jesus, written by St. Ignatius. The first general 
congregation of the Society, held in 1558, two years after the 
Saint's death, made some minor changes in these Constitu- 
tions, putting Hebrew, for instance, on a level with Latin and 
Greek as a necessary language, instead of leaving it with 
Chaldee, Arabic and Indian as possibly useful. Such changes 
are still printed in the Constitutions, but with a reference to the 
decree that produced the change, in this case the twenty-ninth 
of the First Congregation. But, in 1573, the Third Congre- 
gation, held upon the death of St. Francis Borgia, in its twenty- 
third decree forbade any further changes; the Constitutions 
were to be handed down to posterity such as they had come 
from St. Ignatius, and other means were to be found of making 
known any decision of the Congregation against the observ- 
ance of any point. The change of attitude is significant; the 
generation that had known St. Ignatius well and learned his 
mind from him in person was dying out. 

The divergence of the Syro-Latin and Egyptian texts, as 
has been noted above, is especially noticeable in St. Luke's 
works; and they would be especially open to the influence 
spoken of above, because of their larger Gentile circulation. 
In the case of the Acts, indeed, there is reason to suspect that 
authentic touches of local detail were added by readers on the 
spot, such as the mention in the Codex Bezte (D) that St. Peter 



1921.] THE TEXT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 365 

and the angel, after passing through the outer door of the 
prison, "went down the seven steps" (Acts xii. 10). But this is 
not at all the same thing as saying that these glosses, often 
peculiar as they are to this manuscript, have any right to be 
looked upon as the original text. And if once we recognize 
how free in interpolation the Codex Bezse can be, either alone 
or occasionally with a few allied manuscripts, we shall feel 
little difficulty in crediting it with freedom in omission also. 
It is, in fact, no less remarkable for its omissions than for its 
additions, but the really noteworthy instances of the former 
are practically confined to the last three chapters of St. Luke's 
Gospel, and especially abound in the last chapter of all, as 
though the scribe had tired of his long task. Such vagaries we 
cannot discuss in detail; it may be enough to note that West- 
cott and Hort have such a leaning to the shortest reading avail- 
able that they even forsake their favorite Codex Vaticanus in 
favor of these startling omissions. 

Let us conclude our consideration of the New Testament 
text with a reassuring inference. The Syro-Latin type of text 
goes back to a very early date, being found, as has been said 
above, in St. Justin Martyr and Tatian. From the point of 
view of mere chronology, indeed, it finds earlier witness than 
the Egyptian text, which latter seems to be first clearly distin- 
guishable in the writings of Origen, who died in the middle of 
the third century. The Syro-Latin text is also the more wide- 
spread; it is, indeed, found everywhere, even in Egypt, and 
even in the larger part of Origen's work. On the other hand, 
the Egyptian text must not be regarded as confined to the 
region where it is strongest; it can itself be traced over a fairly 
extended area. Now, differences such as those between the 
two types of text do not quickly develop and harden; it must 
have taken considerable time for the Syro-Latin variations to 
establish themselves as they did. Even with the facts of the 
papyrus period before us, we find it difficult to imagine how 
such a divergence could come about so swiftly, how liberties 
taken by individual scribes could have been reproduced so 
soon all over the Church. But that very difficulty gives us the 
confidence that we know substantially all, the whole history of 
the text. There was certainly no considerable change or cor- 
ruption in the text previous to the divergence we know; it 
could not have happened in the time. 



366 THE TEXT Ob HOLY SCRIPTURE [Dec,, 

The history of the New Testament text is a crowded his- 
tory, even as it is; what we do know of it is more than sufficient 
to crowd out any imaginary anterior adventures, even if such 
were otherwise a tempting hypothesis. In a word, to the 
textual critic this twofold type of text, considered in the con- 
crete and in all the variety of extant testimony, is a solid guar- 
antee that we do indeed possess the genuine text; a guarantee 
that would not be nearly so solid did not the divergence exist. 

In the Old Testament for it is time to conclude with a 
few words about that this uniformity of text is complete, 
but it means, not greater certainty as to the text, but far less. 
For this uniformity was artificially induced by the rabbis, who 
fixed upon a single type of text in the main, it must be con- 
fessed a good type and allowed that type only to survive, so 
that now the uniformity in all Hebrew Bibles is practically 
absolute. Does such uniformity mean that throughout the 
ages there has never existed any but this single type of text? 
Far from it! No other type of text survives, it is true, in the 
original Hebrew; but it survives in some of the versions, and 
chiefly in the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate. 

The former translation was begun before the middle of the 
third century B. C., chiefly for the Jews in Egypt. It is very 
important in a number of ways, as giving us an insight into 
Jewish exegesis prior to the outbreak of anti-Christian con- 
troversy; as having been in the main (apart from a compar- 
atively small number of quotations taken directly from the 
Hebrew the original Aramaic of St. Matthew's Gospel, if 
recovered, would presumably swell the number considerably) , 
the Bible text used by the New Testament writers; as having 
been the official Bible text of Greek-speaking Christianity, 
both Catholic and schismatic, and also that from which most 
of the early versions in other languages were made; and, 
finally, not to dilate further upon the matter here, as being 
very important philologically, as a monument of Egyptian 
Greek, written though it be with a Hebrew bias. 

The Latin Vulgate, as has been said above, was written 
by St. Jerome about the end of the fourth century; perhaps it 
will be possible to say more about it at a future date. For the 
present, it must suffice to point out that these translations were 
both made prior to the rabbinical unification of the text; and 
in passages where it is evident that both were made from a 



1921.] THE TEXT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 367 

Hebrew reading different from that of the "Massoretic" or 
"traditional" text as it is today, the question arises whether 
this different reading may not be the correct one, rather than 
that of our present Hebrew Bibles. In some cases it is obvious 
that the latter are at fault, as for example in Genesis xlix. 10, 
the text and meaning of which I have discussed in my little 
book, Back to Christ. 3 An even more glaring instance, if pos- 
sible, is Genesis iv. 8, where the Hebrew itself requires that 
Cain's actual words should be given, though they have no place 
in the Massoretic text. In both these cases the Septuagint 
and Vulgate are supported by some other early authorities of 
no less weight. 

But the question as to how far we are to go in support of 
the traditional Hebrew text is a difficult one, and all the more 
difficult, as has been indicated above, because of the absence 
of variant readings in the Hebrew text itself. The present 
writer can only record a general impression that the textual 
critics of the Old Testament, even including some Catholic 
scholars, seem rather too ready to adopt readings for which 
there is absolutely no evidence whatever of a strictly textual 
kind. In the present state of the text, no doubt, we cannot 
wholly eschew conjecture; but our prevailing attitude towards 
it should be one of distrust. 

In dealing with the New Testament, we began with a brief 
sketch of the history of writing and writing materials, so far 
as it seemed relevant. In the case of the Old Testament we 
have to go much farther back. The date for the Exodus and 
for Moses which best seems to fit the sacred text is the middle 
of the fifteenth century B. C., though the general tendency out- 
side the Church is to put both more than two hundred years 
later. 4 But, in any case, the date is far earlier than the first 
known appearances of the Semitic letter-alphabet in the 
famous Moabite stone (about 850 B. C.) and in the Siloam in- 
scription at Jerusalem (probably eighth century B. C.) . 

It has, therefore, been suggested that Moses must have 
used the cuneiform syllabary of the earlier centuries, the 
various combinations of small wedges incised in clay, each 
combination signifying a syllable, which we find used, for 
example, in the Tell el-Amarna letters (about 1400 B. C.), 

3 Pages 73-77. 

* The present writer may perhaps refer to his article on "The Chronology of the 
Pentateuch" in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record for January, 1919. 



368 THE TEXT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE [Dec., 

constituting the archives, as we may say, of the Egyptian 
foreign office. The language of diplomacy and commerce in 
western Asia was then Babylonian, which was known and 
used even by the Egyptian officials. On the other hand, Dr. 
Burney, in his edition of The Book of Judges, 5 has made it 
plain that by the twelfth century B. C. papyrus was employed 
in Phoenicia as a writing material. Such a surface practically 
excludes the cuneiform script, and justifies us in supposing 
that the letter-alphabet, the so-called "Phoenician" script of 
the Moabite stone and Siloam inscription, was already in 
regular use. It would be very hazardous to deny that it might 
go back to Moses, in our present ignorance of its origin; no cer- 
tain conclusion can as yet be drawn, but it would be less sur- 
prising to find Moses writing in the "Phoenician" script than 
in cuneiform. If, however, it were proved that he did write 
in cuneiform, that would have an important bearing upon the 
textual criticism of the Pentateuch, and perhaps of the books 
of Josue and Judges also. 

The greater part of the Old Testament, however, would 
in any case be written in the older Hebrew writing, the 
"Phoenician" script. On their return from exile, the Jews 
picked up the Aramaic speech in use around them, and 
Hebrew as such gradually became a dead language, though 
the difference between the two is but slight. The Jews also 
came to adopt the Aramaic or "square" script, with which we 
are familiar today. The stages of transition in speech and 
writing largely elude us; by Our Lord's time, however, as we 
see from a passage in the Sermon on the Mount, the "square" 
writing was that with which the people were familiar. "One 
jot shall not pass from the Law" (Matthew v. 18) : by the word 
translated "jot" is meant the letter "yodh," very small in the 
"square" script, but large in the earlier writing. The allusion 
fits the newer alphabet, but would be pointless with the old 
one. Nevertheless, the older writing does turn up in various 
connections even at a later date. 

The last development of the Hebrew text was in a manner 
the most important of all. The letter-alphabet, unlike the 
earlier cuneiform syllabary represented (and still represents) 
in the main only the consonants, possessing but a very vague 
and defective system of indicating certain vowels (chiefly 

Page 258. 



1921.] THE TEXT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 369 

vowels "long by nature") and diphthongs; this peculiarity is 
common to the Semitic scripts. But in Hebrew, as in most of 
the Semitic scripts, this defect came by degrees to be remedied. 
After it had become a dead language, there was a danger that 
the correct pronunciation might be finally lost; hence, in the 
sixth and seventh centuries, A. D., the Jewish grammarians 
developed a system of vowel signs or points whereby to fix it. 
Signs were also invented for other purposes, and especially 
the complicated system of accents, designed at first, as it is 
thought, to regulate minutely the public reading of the text, 
and later to serve more or less as musical notes, when the 
reading had changed to chanting or singing. These accents 
are arranged, to some extent, according to sense, but there is 
no punctuation in the ordinary sense in our Hebrew Bibles. 

We may not linger upon this subject; what is important 
to note is that all this vast array of signs and points represents, 
not the original text, but the rabbinical interpretation of the 
original text, made many centuries after it. If, then, we keep 
the letters that have come down to us (mainly, as has been 
said, consonants) but, for example, read other vowels between 
them than those in our printed Bibles, that is in reality not an 
emendation of the traditional text, but of the rabbinical inter- 
pretation of it, which is a very different matter. A partial 
illustration of this may be seen in the discussion of Genesis 
xlix. 10, already referred to. Even apart from special cases 
of this kind, there is some reason to doubt whether the pro- 
nunciation stereotyped by the rabbis represented accurately 
that of a thousand or fifteen hundred years earlier. 

Such, in brief outline, is the study of the Biblical texts, 
the quest after the very message delivered of old by God Him- 
self. Copies and translations, even such hallowed translations 
as the Latin Vulgate and the Greek Septuagint, are to be 
valued chiefly as channels whereby these original texts have 
come down to us, but the texts themselves are to be valued for 
their own sake, that is to say, for the sake of Him Who spoke 
them. To listen to Him is the better part; to hear Him some- 
what more clearly, with somewhat less admixture of mere 
human stuff, is the reward exceeding great of a toil that itself 
is not lacking in interest and consolation. 



VOL. CX1V. 24 




A MODERN CRUSADER. 

BY P. W. BROWNE, D.D. 

t'TAlT un croise. 1 This expressive plirase epit- 
omizes the career of one who was the champion 
of the cause of the toiler, a distinguished par- 
liamentarian, a brave soldier, a great French- 
man, and a loyal son of the Church Albert de 
Mun, one-time ardent royalist who, in maturer years, in 
obedience to the wish of Leo XIIL, became a consistent sup- 
porter of Republican institutions. 

By the irony of fate, says an admirer of de Mun, the great- 
grandson of the materialist philosopher, Helvetius, who sowed 
the noisome seeds of anti-clericalism and infidelity in France 
which bore the fruit of lamentable horrors in the French Revo- 
lution, was to become in later days the right arm of the 
Church of France and the healer who poured balm upon the 
wounds of the nation in the days of a great national crisis. 
One of the daughters of Helvetius married, in 1772, Count de 
Mun, a distinguished soldier, who became a lieutenant-gen- 
eral in the army of Louis XVIII. The de Mun family were 
soldiers by heritage, of ancient and honorable lineage. An 
Astor de Mun took part in the Seventh Crusade and was with 
St. Louis at Damietta. Albert de Mun recalled this when as- 
sailed by a member of the Chamber of Deputies on a certain 
occasion, and said with pardonable pride: "Je suis le fils de 
ceux qui pendant de long siecles avaient trouve dans I'hon- 
neur de combattre et de verser leur sang pour la France, le 
fondement de leurs privileges." The family device is Servir. 
Albert de Mun, who was born in 1842, at the Castle of 
Lumingy, inherited from his mother, the saintly Eugenie de la 
Ferronays, the sterling religious qualities which characterized 
him during life. As a youth, he was not distinguished for 
either industry or scholarship, and failed to get his degree in 
letters, and only by persistent effort passed his baccalaureate 
in science at the Military School of St. Cyr. On receiving his 
commission in 1862, he became a lieutenant of African Chas- 

Victor Girmul, Un Grand Franfais, p. ">. 






1921.] A MODERN CRUSADER 371 

seurs and was drafted to Algeria. His African military expe- 
rience taught him the value of discipline and gave him an in- 
sight into colonial problems which, later, as a deputy in the 
Chamber of Deputies, served him in good stead. At the out- 
break of the Franco-Prussian War he was a lieutenant of 
cavalry, and this disastrous campaign made upon his soul, as 
he tells us in Ma Vocation Sociale, a profound impression: 
"Elle marqua dans ma vie Vheure decisive. 1 ' 

He had been attached to the army of Metz and won the 
Cross of the Legion of Honor on the battlefield of Gravelotte. 
At Rezonville, he came in contact with another ardent patriot, 
Rene de la Tour du Pin, whose influence molded de Mun's 
subsequent career. They were fellow-prisoners at Aix-la- 
Chapelle after the capitulation; and during their internment 
they outlined a programme which was to eventuate in the 
social regeneration of Catholic France and, singularly enough, 
their programme was initiated through the interest of a Jesuit, 
Father Eck, who made them read the little volume of Emile 
Keller, L'Encyclique du 8 Decembre, 1866, et les Principes de 
1789. A Dr. Lingens revealed to them the new programme 
which Kettler had outlined, and they became imbued with the 
idea of saving the proletariat through social organization on 
a Catholic basis. After their release came the Commune with 
its horrors. The tragedies of those two frightful months in the 
springtime of 1871 filled de Mun's soul with revulsion. He had 
witnessed the massacre of the hostages of la Roquette, had seen 
altars overthrown and profaned, crucifixes torn from the 
churches, the Tuilleries given to the flames, the rigorous re- 
prisals, and he asked himself: What had legally-constituted 
society done to form the popular conscience? Had not the 
State failed in its role as educator of the masses? It had sown 
the seeds of irreligion and moral indifference; was it not 
natural that it should reap revolution? De Mun then began to 
formulate his plans for the moral regeneration of France; but, 
as yet, they were vague and nebulous. He assimilated the pro- 
grammes of de Maistre, de Bonald, Balmez and Donoso 
Cortes; but his programme still lacked a solid fulcrum, a 
definite and concrete objective. Providence was soon to 
supply both. 

One day in November, 1871, a gray-haired, meanly-clad 
visitor was ushered into de Mun's room at the Louvre. This was 



372 A MODERN CRUSADER [Dec., 

a Brother of St. Vincent cle Paul, Maurice Maignen, director of 
a Cercle des jeunes Ouvriers, on the Boulevard Montparnasse. 
He told de Mun of his work, and with deep emotion and an 
eloquence that was contagious, he spoke of the needs and the 
sufferings of the working class, of the terrible responsibility 
of the ignorant or disdainful indifference of the well-to-do, 
and asked de Mun's assistance. This interview was the de- 
cisive moment, and de Mun's career as a moral crusader 
began. 

Immediately, he began to take part in the work of work- 
ingmen's circles and his first public utterance, written care- 
fully and learned by heart, was addressed to the circle on the 
Boulevard Montparnasse, and he terms it "Apostrophe emue 
d'un soldat a des travailleurs Chretiens comme lui." He was 
enthusiastically received, and then and there came an almost 
mystic revelation of his social and oratorical vocation. The 
path, however, was still strewn with anxieties, though the 
objective was as clear as noonday. His friend, La Tour du Pin, 
and others, became identified with him in the noble work he 
had undertaken; and they immediately drew up a Memorial 
to the Holy Father expressing absolute adhesion to the prin- 
ciples set forth in the Encyclical Quanta cura, and subscribed 
to a condemnation of the errors of the day. Through the pub- 
lic press, they issued a stirring Appel aux hommes de bonne 
volonte, definitely outlined the purpose of their work and the 
means of making it effective, and set forth its object as a 
"counter-revolution made in the name of the Syllabus and 
the means to accomplish it, V Association Catholique." 2 

Thoroughly organized and sustained by active sympathy, 
the work prospered from its inception. On April 7, 1872, de 
Mun inaugurated a Circle of Catholic Workingmen at Belle- 
ville, later, a second at Montmartre, and in the same year two 
circles were organized at Lyons. In May, 1873, the circles 
held their first general meeting, and two } r ears later, in 1875, 
when the third convention was held the (Euvre numbered 
one hundred and thirty committees, one hundred and fifty 
circles, and eighteen thousand members, of whom ten thou- 
sand were workingmen. 

Though actively engaged in the development of the social 
programme, Albert de Mun did not fail to discharge his pro- 

2 Ma Vocation Sociale, p. 289; Discours, t. i., "Questions Sodales," p. 11. 



1921.] A MODERN CRUSADER 373 

fessional duties as a soldier of France. Although he did not 
obtrude his political ideas into his conferences, he regarded 
the restoration of the monarchy as the salvation of the nation, 
and his royalist tendencies caused him to see in the Count de 
Chambord the needed antithesis of the revolutionary ideas 
which characterized the Third Republic. He felt his place to 
be in the political arena, and, resigning from the army towards 
the end of 1875, offered himself as a candidate for the Cham- 
ber of Deputies. He was elected for the arrondissement of 
Pontivy in 1876, on a strictly Catholic platform. 

But de Mun had not reckoned with the opposition he was 
to encounter from the Right in the Chamber, and he was de- 
barred from taking his seat by the influence of Gambetta. 
Finally, he succeeded in gaining a place in the Chamber of 
Deputies, and from 1881 to 1893 sat for Pontivy. He was de- 
feated in the elections of 1893, but in the following year he 
was returned for Morlaix, and represented Finisterre till his 
death in 1914. 

As a parliamentarian, Albert de Mun was a brilliant suc- 
cess. He possessed great oratorical ability, but his intense 
faith and his sterling honesty were even greater assets during 
his political career. As an illustration of his indomitable cour- 
age, his patriotism and his faith, the following excerpt from 
one of his many great speeches is sublime in its import: 

Ce que j'aime dans ma patrie, ce n'est pas settlement la 
lerre qui porte mes pas, c'est le clocher a I'ombre duquel je 
suis ne, Vautel oil j'ai fait ma premiere priere, la tombe oil 
reposent ceux que j'ai aimes, et tout cela, c'est la trace que 
Dieu a laisse du meme coup dans mon cceur et sur le sol de 
mon pays, en sorte que je ne saurais defendre Vun sans 
I'autre, ma religion et mon foyer. 5 

He was still bitterly anti-republican. In November, 1878, 
in defending his attitude, he says: "The revolution is neither 
an act nor a fact, it is a social doctrine, a political doctrine, 
which pretends to base the existence of society upon the work- 
ings of the human will rather than upon the Will of God, and 

3 "I love not only the earth I tread, but also the tower, under whose shadow 
I was born, the altar where I said my first prayer, the tomb where those I love 
rest. These are the marks God has left upon my heart and the face of my country. I 
cannot defend the one without defending the other, my religion and my country." 
Discours, t. ii., p. 186. 



374 A MODERN CRUSADER [Dec., 

it substitutes human reason for the Divine Law. Herein lies 
the great evil, and it cannot be remedied until we return to 
the opposite principles." This idea dominates the GEuvres des 
Cercles Catholiques d* Owners. His intimacy with the Count 
de Chambord was interpreted as evidence of a desire to restore 
the monarchy. Against this imputation he protests, however: 
"Nous ne voulons pas ni I'ancien regime ni la revolution." 
And soon his royalist predilections were to be set aside. In 
1892, Leo XIII., in his Encyclical of February 20th, called upon 
the Catholics of France to accept existing political conditions, 
and Albert de Mun bowed submissively to the Holy Father's 
command. 

His faith and his experiences during the frightful days of 
the Commune taught Albert de Mun that war on Christianity 
was undermining society; hence, at the outset of his political 
career he realized the urgent gravity of dealing with the social 
questions disturbing not only France, but the entire continent 
of Europe. As a solvent, he recommended Catholic organiza- 
tion and social legislation. In 1876 he wrote: 

We must oppose the Declaration of the Rights of Man, 
which is the basic principle of the Revolution by a Proc- 
lamation of the Rights of God, ignorance of which is the 
actual cause of the evils which are leading modern society 
to destruction. We must seek in absolute obedience to the 
principles of the Catholic Church and the infallible teach- 
ing of the Sovereign Pontiff all that necessarily comes to the 
social order with the full exercise of the Rights of God on 
societies. We must propagate by a public and unwearying 
apostolate the doctrine thus established; we must train men 
of strong calibre to adopt it in public and private life, and 
prove its application to the cause which we advocate by 
zeal on the part of the governing class for the welfare of 
the people. We must strive ceaselessly to inject these prin- 
ciples and teachings into conduct and create an organized 
force to bring them to a successful issue, so that they shall 
find expression in the laws and institutions of the nation. 4 

Thirty years later, Albert de Mun could say with all truth 
that this statement expressed the effort of a lifetime. 

The organization of associations for toilers had a twofold 
purpose: religious and social. By grouping Catholic working- 

Ma Vocation Sociale, p. 285. 



1921.] A MODERN CRUSADER 375 

men with representatives of other classes, the object was, pri- 
marily, to remove them from the dangers of the street and the 
wine shops by means of healthy amusement, and by affording 
them an opportunity for mental improvement, and, second- 
arily, by means of conferences, discussions and a popular ex- 
position of Catholic principles to give them correct views 
regarding the solution of labor problems. A review, I'Asso- 
ciation Catholique, was founded in 1876 to stimulate indi- 
vidual research and to encourage general studies. Numerous 
conferences, congresses and international reunions (the first 
being held at Fribourg) helped to bring about an exchange of 
ideas. Gradually, a new spirit began to appear in active and 
intelligent Catholic centres, and it was becoming apparent that 
even anti-clericals were beginning to realize that the Church 
was by no means as "reactionary" as they had believed. 

These activities, of which Albert de Mun was the guiding 
spirit, received an official endorsement in the Rerum novarum 
Encyclical of Leo XIII., which a brilliant French author terms : 
La Charte da Catholicisme Social. De Mun's programme is its 
best interpretation. But, something more was necessary in his 
propaganda: quid mores, sine legibus? Legislation was neces- 
sary to make it effective, and he brings it to the Chamber of 
Deputies. To Albert de Mun must be granted the distinction 
of initiating legislation regarding labor. Whilst it is true that 
an attempt to outline some such legislation was made in Swit- 
zerland in 1881, nothing definite had been effected. In 1889 
the Swiss Government invited all the European Governments 
to participate in a conference, whose purpose was to resolve 
upon certain basic principles of international legislation re- 
garding factory labor. Prior to this, Albert de Mun had pro- 
posed in the Chamber of Deputies a series of resolutions re- 
garding the regulation of industries, the protection of rural 
landowners and other economic and social measures which 
later were formulated into laws covering accidents to work- 
men, a minimum wage, the employment of young girls and 
women in factories, and arbitration between employers and 
workers. 

To him it was a Christian duty to interest himself in the 
temporal and moral well-being of his fellowman; and few men 
have so exemplified Our Lord's misereor super turbam. Pa- 
triot to the core, his ambition was to sec France more united, 



376 A MODERN CRUSADER [Dec,, 

more respected, more Christian. During one of the debates on 
a social measure in the Chamber of Deputies, he said : 

I do not bring to this debate either the science of the 
economist or the experience of the artisan. I have entered 
into this discussion . . . because I regard it my duty as a 
Christian . . . because I hear within me an insistent ap- 
peal which forces me to devote to the unfortunate every 
lesson, every principle, every hope with which my Faith 
inspires me. . . I have long been convinced that under- 
lying the demands of the people and in their vision of 
justice, which haunts them as an ideal, there is an uncon- 
scious groping towards that Christianity which they have 
forgotten. 

As a defender of the Faith, Albert de Mun was equally 
aggressive in the field of social action. Clemenceau, in the 
autumn of 1907, extolling the glories of France and her 
prowess, quoted Kenan's famous expression, c'est le miracle 
grec. Some days later, de Mun in an address at Bordeaux 
commenting upon Clemenceau's enthusiastic utterance, said: 

The seal of Christianity, which distinguishes our nation 
from all others, was by providential design indelibly im- 
printed upon the nation in her infancy, and she has borne 
it for fourteen centuries at every stage of her marvelous 
career from the battlefield of Tolbiac to the plains of 
Patay; from the conversion of Henry IV. to the great recon- 
ciliation by the Concordat astonishing the world, tottering 
on the abyss, by awakenings to freedom which, no matter 
how great her trials, how lamentable her failures, brought 
her back full of life and vigor to the path traced for her in 
the Divine plan. This is le miracle frangais.* 

Forced by ill health to abandon the platform soon after- 
wards, Albert de Mun did not abandon the struggle for the 
religious emancipation of France: he began to wield the pen 
as mightily as he had wielded the sword. During the 
troublous days, from 1898 to 1911, when France was nigh rent 
in twain by discordant factions, he was actively engaged in 
defending the nation against the sectaries who, during what 
lie terms the "affaire maudite," had made great onslaught on 

'Combats d'Hier et d'Aujonrd'hui, t. ii., p. 178. 



1921.] A MODERN CRUSADER 377 

the Church. He insists that the "question" is not a religious 
issue only, but a national one; it is a struggle for national 
existence. He saw in the Separation Law the prelude to re- 
ligious persecution, and, as a champion of the Faith, stood in 
the breach to defend the nation's spiritual birthright. He 
knew not discouragement, but he often drank to the dregs the 
cup of bitterness. At the beginning of January, 1908, in re- 
viewing past events, he tells us that he is making a melancholy 
examination of conscience. 

The Separation Law had begun to bear its fruits; he 
writes: "Not since Metz have I experienced more bitterly the 
shame of an inglorious defeat." He has been criticized, even 
by his admirers, for this seeming depression. They explain it 
by his absolute dependence upon the Holy See, to which he 
had been, from earliest years, unswervingly devoted. He him- 
self tells us that as a young man, when the question of Papal 
Infallibility was under discussion, he avoided Monseigneur 
Dupanloup, whose influence actually dominated every mem- 
ber of his family, and that he, by nature, was inclined to 
simple obedience. This was evidenced when Leo XIII. re- 
quested him to abandon the royalist programme, and later, 
the project to organize a Catholic party. Notwithstanding 
his "failures," de Mun was ever ready to venture forth to new 
conquests. Inspired by the zealous Bishop of Versailles, Mon- 
seigneur Gibier, who had said to him: "The people do not 
know the clergy of France: when will the latter realize that 
they can dominate the hearts of the people, if only they sin- 
cerely wish to do so," he set out on a new campaign. No 
longer able to participate in the discussions on social legisla- 
tion in the Chamber of Deputies (his health was badly im- 
paired), he supported them by virile articles in the press. He 
was even more influential than before. Finally, his pleadings 
met with response from his bitterest enemies, and support 
from many who had not been in sympathy with his "visions." 
His victory was decisive : no longer could it be said in France 
that the Church was not interested in the temporal welfare of 
the people. 

Albert de Mun's patriotism and his love for France aided 
him materially in the last years of his life. As a soldier, a 
gentleman and a Christian, he loved his country with undying 
affection, and in her hour of trial he manifested it with in- 



378 A MODERN CRUSADER (Dec., 

tense fervor and enthusiasm in word and deed. In the dark 
days before the outbreak of the Great War, he uttered many 
warnings. The army had fallen into disrepute by the repeated 
assaults of theoretical Socialists; pacificism was being 
preached by so-called patriots, some of whom have since been 
condemned as traitors; storm clouds were gathering beyond 
the Rhine; the future was menacing. He appealed to France 
to beware the obscnrite voulue et silencieuse of her foreign 
policy, and he denounced it in terms of unmistakable mean- 
ing. He believed that another war was inevitable, and that 
Germany was provoking it. Though a soldier, Albert de Mun 
hated war, yet admits that it is unavoidable: "Oui la guerre 
est horrible, source de larmes et douleurs, source aussi de 
grandeur et de prosperite: il y a pour les nations comme pour 
les hommes des epreuves necessaires a leur force."* 

These presages shocked the pacificists and diplomatists 
in 1910; but the Morocco incident revealed Germany's aims. 
De Mun uttered another statement: "There, as everywhere 
else, German pride wishes to dominate, and it is evidence of 
German pretentious to supremacy." He warned France that 
she must be prepared to face the inevitable; and the Tangier, 
Algeciras, Casablanca and Agadir incidents emphasized his 
attitude. France, at last, began to awaken from her death- 
like lethargy. In 1913 he saw : "Lines of transportation multi- 
plying on the Belgian and the Luxembourg frontiers, fleets of 
aeroplanes under construction, preparations for war being car- 
ried out on a vast scale," yet there were many who regarded 
him as an alarmist. Nevertheless, the French Government 
had been influenced by his insistent appeals to be prepared, 
and military matters began to occupy their attention. They 
were forced to this step by public opinion created and fos- 
tered by Albert de Mun. To him must be ascribed the fall of 
the Caillaux ministry and the reueil du pays. He was re- 
quested to reenter political life; but his answer was: "I 
cannot permit myself to be drawn into it I'heure est trop 
poignante." The war clouds were gathering ominously, and 
keen observer that he was, he signalized each etape with the 
vision of a seer. At last the nation realized the truth of his 
prognostications and admitted the gravity of the situation by 
electing Poincare President of the Republic "the impelling 

Ibid., t. v. s p. 216. 



1921.] A MODERN CRUSADER 379 

force which brought about military efficiency," of which de 
Mun was the persistent advocate in the public press. 

On July 28, 1914, de Mun was at Roscoff. For several 
days diplomacy had held the world in suspense following 
the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, and during this time he had 
published an article bearing the caption, "I'Heure a-t-elle 
sonne?" Ere he reached Paris, the hour had struck and the 
world was plunged into the most sanguinary conflict it had 
ever seen. In the early days of the War, de Mun's articles in 
the Echo de Paris were, as they were termed by Paul Bourget, 
"le battement meme da cceur da pays the pulse of the 
nation's heart." His three sons were at the front and, although 
seventy-two years old, enfeebled by serious illness, Albert de 
Mun seemed to take a new lease of life. His activities became 
ceaseless. Profoundly Christian, he revived in France the 
sentiments of Joan of Arc and preached daily to the people, 
through the Echo de Paris, peace, courage and hope. 

Now he stands forth the true crusader, the nation's herald. 
In one of his messages he writes: "This is no time for long 
articles; it is the time for action. Each day I shall note our 
heart beats. Alas! the old soldier cannot find a place on the 
battle-line a poignant sorrow, truly yet he can perhaps 
render service to his country with the only weapon his old 
arm can wield the pen." 7 

When Mulhausen was taken by the French on August 8th, 
he gave expression to his enthusiasm in an apostrophe to his 
old comrades-in-arms, which has been likened by literary 
Frenchmen, Victor Giraud, for instance, to the peroration of 
Bossuet's Funeral Oration on the Prince, which Chateaubriand 
calls "the height of human eloquence." When disaster came 
and defeat followed upon defeat, de Mun continued optimistic 
and exhorted bereaved mothers and sorrowing wives to bear 
their cross patiently, reminding them of France's providential 
mission : "// y a Dieu et Jeanne d'Arc." Not content with his 
messages to the civilian population, he regularly addressed the 
soldiers at the front, in the Bulletin des Armees, in language 
which the French soldier understood. The occupation of 
Brussels, the German invasion of the northwest of Belgium, 
Morhange, Charleroi, the retreat, were painful episodes that 
none had anticipated, yet de Mun's attitude was admirable. 

7 La Guerre fie 1914, p. S. 



380 A MODERN CRUSADER [Dec., 

In the gloomiest hour he never despaired. As the German 
menace became more and more formidable, his voice became 
more vibrant, and he urged, as did Wellington at Waterloo: 
"Hold fast, to death!" His eagle eye saw defeat for the Ger- 
man armies on the Somme, and he writes: "An army which 
should attempt such a movement as the taking of Paris by 
leaving its flank exposed to organized and powerful forces 
would commit an act of irreparable folly." He spoke truly. 
He lauded the splendid strategy of Joffre and extolled the in- 
domitable courage of the rank and file of the army, and when 
Joffre's victory at the Marne turned the tide, he sent this mes- 
sage to his "beloved children" at the front: 

"Hardi, les enfans! Poussez! Tout est votre comme criait 
Jeanne d'Arc aux siens le jour de Patay," and regrets that he 
one of the vanquished of an elder day could not be there to 
participate in the revanche, awaited these forty years! 

Shortly afterwards, the great crusader's health began to 
fail, but heedless of warnings, he continued his labors. He 
recked not of the danger of sudden death which menaced, and 
replied to those who begged him to conserve his strength : "If 
I cannot die on the field of battle, what more glorious death 
can an old soldier wish for than to die wielding the pen in his 
country's cause." One evening in October, 1914, just as he had 
finished an article for the morrow, he was seized with a sudden 
illness and passed away with a smile upon his lips. Sorrow 
for his passing was universal. He had no enemies now : those 
who fought him but yesterday were first to pay tribute to his 
memory. Everybody who loved France was represented at 
his obsequies; and everybody mourned the Christian knight 
whose life had been a ceaseless combat for the cause of God 
and country. His best epitaph is that pronounced by a soldier 
who was asked by a comrade in arms: "Who is the hero of 
this ovation of homage?" "C'est M. de Mun, celui qui consolait 
nos meres!" In the passing of Count Albert de Mun the 
Church in France lost her greatest champion. Such was the 
tribute to his memory uttered by the Holy Father. His spirit 
still lives; and the crusade initiated by this valiant soldier of 
the Cross gathers strength with the fleeting years. 



A LOAF AND A FISH. 

A CHRISTMAS FANTASIE. 
BY LAURA SIMMONS. 




HE man's existence had become utterty embit- 
tered; his debts, his wrongs, the thought of those 
former friends whose monstrous treachery had 
brought him to his ruin all morbidly obsessed 
him. 

And now he realized that his span of life must be all too 
short in which to gratify his revenge; for he was old, he was 
ill and, worse than all else, he was hopelessly, sordidly poor. 
Alas! but for that last blow of a malign fate, he might still 
hope to bring to ruin those names which haunted his nights 
and days with a consuming fury and despair. 

True, he had duped others wastrels like himself; at his 
own game had he been outwitted; yet, surely, this was penance 
enough this tragic secret bitterness that envenomed all his 
remaining days! 

It was Christmas Eve, and he made his way slowly and 
stumblingly along the dim embankment; a heavy storm was 
setting in from the north, and the fine, stinging sleet bore 
down upon him, fairly forcing him to the refuge of a nearby 
bench, whereon he sank numbed and hopeless from the misery 
of the body no less than the consuming agony of the soul. 

He had thought himself utterly alone; now he became 
aware that a Stranger had approached, and stood silently re- 
garding him. In the misty yellow light His face showed pale, 
grave, concerned; about it was a strange benignity a sweet- 
ness vaguely familiar, as of a vision long forgot, or in the 
fleeting memory of an old print. 

With muttered oaths, the man cursed Him for the intru- 
sion. 

"I can help you," said the Stranger mildly. 

"You can go Your way," was the sullen response; "none 
can help me." 

"I can give you all you need; all you ask!" There was a 



382 A LOAF AND A FISH [Dec., 

curious tenderness, a lifting compassion in both voice and 
look. 

With a fierce gesture, the man rose only to sink back again, 
battling between wrath and the mortal weariness of the flesh. 

"I tell You it is too late! too late, in either heaven or hell; 
and from You You!" glancing contemptuously at the Other's 
threadbare robe, and worn sandals. Then, with strength 
quite spent, he huddled down again. 

"To pay them out! only to pay them out before I died!" 
he moaned. 

"And so you shall pay them out; to the uttermost! Yours 
shall be the wealth of the world, I promise you!" 

From beneath His mantle, the Stranger drew a peasant's 
basket, such as are used by the fisher-folk on their rounds. 

"The wealth of the world!" with an exceeding bitterness 
the man laughed as he leaned over to peer within. A blasting 
oath of exasperation escaped him. 

"Fool! are You gone mad?" For at the bottom he descried 
two humble objects a small loaf of bread and a fish, fresh 
caught. 

There was a pause; then slowly the Stranger stooped and 
again drew something from beneath His cloak. 

"Since you do not understand," He said meekly, "tell me, 
how much will suffice?" and displayed a wallet bulging with 
golden coin. 

With a strangling sob of immense relief, the man snatched 
desperately at the glittering hoard. 

"Freely, I give it you, the treasure of earth your heart's 
desire, if you will partake." 

Incredulously, the man stared at the precious store; if he 
would partake! One thought possessed him the enemy at 
last delivered into his clutch! 

"Curse him!" he cried, half sobbing; "and may his soul 
shrivel through all eternities ! He who most wronged me, him 
shall I first destroy!" 

He had forgotten the gentle Stranger; now with face dis- 
torted in dreadful triumph, he glimpsed Him, enveloped in the 
mystic light, out of which His pale face shone gravely in in- 
finite sorrow and appeal. 

"He who most wronged you, whom you most hate, shall 
lie not need you most?" queried the Figure gently. 



1921. J A LOAF AND A FISH 383 

"Ho, ho! shall I not do as I like with my own?" jeered the 
man, scowling as he hugged his precious burden to his breast. 

"And so you shall; you shall overcome every foe; not a 
single enemy shall remain. But first you must make one sacri- 
fice for Me; for every golden piece you spend in wreaking 
your revenge, you must spend one in ministry for Me. To each 
upon your list of hate you must bring some help, some hope 
and benefaction. Then only shall I promise you so vast a 
reward; then only shall you receive riches beyond your 
dreams, and growing vaster day by day." 

And for the sake of that dazzling lure, the man obeyed. 
Hating, he was forced to cheer, to lift. Malignly, vindictively, 
lie, nevertheless, wrought in hidden channels to bestow alms 
and solace upon those his soul detested. 

For was he not thereby gaining further means to satisfy 
his own ends? 

Then one day the most dreaded event befell; the man was 
found out! His foe most execrated chanced to penetrate his 
secret, and recognized who it was that had saved him from 
despair. And so the word went abroad. 

Straightway, from countless mysterious sources, poured 
in letters of gratitude, of passionate remorse and pleas of 
forgiveness. Men, dying, blessed him with latest breath; in the 
street a woman knelt, at dark of night, to kiss his hand in 
wordless benediction. 

And always the shining Stranger kept His word, and paid 
in full. Soon, it would seem, the golden flood must overflow 
the treasure-vault into which the Man directed him to pour 
the precious hoard. 

But now oh, so strange and miraculous the event! the 
man no longer gave thought to his earnings; his malevolence 
had faded within him the poison died from his spirit. Never 
again could he look unmoved adown the abysses of human 
sorrows and despair. 

Hauntingly, the Stranger's prophecy would recur to him: 

"You shall vanquish every foe not a single enemy shall 
remain. Yours shall be the wealth of the world, even riches 
beyond measure." 

Peace settled upon his days; his wants became fewer; in- 
credibly meagre were the needs of his body. His love for his 
fellows became all-surpassing. 



384 A LOAF AND A FISH [Dec., 

Once in the bitter weather an evil-doer crept into his poor 
home and made off with his shabby coat. And the man has- 
tened to overtake him, crying: 

"My poor friend ! How chill must you be ! I pray you take 
my cloak as well! And would that my love might warm and 
shield you from the blast!" 

But, in shame and dismay, the thief drew near to him, 
shivering the more at his words. 

"My sins," he cried, brokenly; "ah it is they that have 
numbed me unto death; From loneliness and the scorn of 
men my heart was frozen and starved within me. Oh, give me 
of your blessed warmth your precious pity and goodness, 
for never have I chanced upon another like unto you!" 

And he begged to stay and serve him in his home. 

And now, once again, it came to be Christmas Eve; and 
again, as the man slowly traversed the embankment, he per- 
ceived the familiar Figure far ahead, and about It the soft, 
mystic radiance that at all times seemed to suffuse It as it 
moved. With heart a- thrill with joy, the man hastened after, 
calling loudly : 

"Wait, wait, my Friend! Return to me! I would speak 
with You!" for now he had missed Him these many days. 

Frowningly, the passers-by stared, and shook their heads. 

"He dreams there is no stranger nigh: his mind wan- 
ders!" they whispered. 

But steadily, laboriously, he proceeded : 

"I pray You, I beseech You, bring nothing more unto me!" 
he gasped. "It burdens me! How shameful a thing, indeed, 
that the more I give, the more shall I earn ! Take it, I implore, 
for Your almsgiving, or Your own need," he added, for the 
Other's garment was cruelly thin, His sandaled feet bare and 
bleeding. 

But at the words, the Stranger's face, infinitely worn and 
harassed, lighted into a great joy. 

"Now you can understand," He spoke, gravely, "now 
you know that it is I you have helped most of all." And once 
again the golden mist enveloped Him, seeming to brighten the 
man's faltering footsteps as he sought his own bare threshold. 

He was tired to death. Closing his eyes in utter exhaus- 
tion, he sank upon the rude couch that was his bed. 

"The wealth of the world," he murmured wearily; the 



1921.] THE LOVERS 385 

mere thought of that dazzling, iniquitous pile distressed him 
unspeakably. Thieves, he feared not, for no man was so safe 
as he, armored by the love and reverence of the poor folk 
about him. 

From afar off could be heard the caroling of the Christ- 
mas waits, as their vibrant, young voices rang clearly upon 
the starry twilight : 

Oh, come, all ye faithful! 
Joyful and triumphant! 

He was tired to death; with infinite effort he groped his 
way to the vault into which the shining, sorrowful Stranger 
had always promised to intrust the golden reward. 

"I needed it not!" he sighed. "Had I truly known, I needed 
nothing; and now it has become but a heavy cross a mockery 
to my soul!" Half resentful, half fearful, he glanced within. 

Then into his worn face leaped a look of swift delight 
and understanding. His dying eyes lighted with the glory and 
triumph of that moment of illumination. 

"Riches beyond the dreams of earth growing ever vaster 
and vaster," he breathed, with a smile of perfect content. 

For there was no treasure within; the chest was quite 
empty save that far yonder in its depths lay two humble 
objects simply a loaf and a fish! 



THE LOVERS. 

BY CHARLES J. QUIRK, S.J. 

"I LOVE the earth, the sky, the flowers," cried one. 

"And thou?" "My love is with my dead." 
"And thou?" (they turned to me), "What lovest thou?" 

"Him Who created love and died for it," I said. 

VOL. cxiv. 25 




ROMANCE. 

BY H. E. G. ROPE, M.A. 

OMANCE is one of those things difficult to define 
but not difficult to recognize. Objectively, it may 
be considered the quality of welcome strangeness, 
the quality that evokes both wonder and pleasure 
in a receptive mind; and subjectively as the 
wonder and pleasure of the recipient. It is not synonymous 
with medievalism, though eminently characteristic of ages 
that, with all their faults, were emphatically ages of Faith. 
Those ages themselves recognized it in Virgil. Strangely as 
they exaggerated this Virgilian quality, it is unmistakably 
present. Indeed, the antithesis of "classic" and "romantic" is 
inaccurate and misleading, for in a true sense the romantic 
Chanson de Roland and Malory's Morte d' Arthur are classics 
and the classical Mneid is a romance. Homer is full of ro- 
mance, also the grim Teutonic epics such as Beowulf, \vhile the 
neglected literature of early half-pagan Ireland is probably 
the most romantic of all. It is not lacking in the Mahabharata 
nor the Ramayana, and the Arabian Nights are romance itself. 
A living writer has happily described the character and 
the prevalence of romance under normal conditions of human 
life: "Primitive man, Homeric man, mediaeval man, man, in- 
deed, almost to our own day when the School Board (and 
other things) have got hold of him, had such an unconscious, 
but all-pervading, all-influencing, conviction that he was a 
wonderful being, descended of a wonderful ancestry, and sur- 
rounded by mysteries of all kinds, that even the smallest de- 
tails of his life partook of the ruling ecstacy; he was so sure he 
was miraculous that it seemed that no part of his life could 
escape from the miracle, so that to him every meal became a 
sacrament. It is the attitude of the primitive man, of the real 
man, of the child, always and everywhere; it may be briefly 
summed up in the phrase: all things are because they are 
wonderful. This is, of course, the atmosphere in which poets 
ought to live . . . Formerly, it was natural to all men or 
almost all." 1 

1 A. Machen, Hieroglyphics, pp. 176, 177. 



1921.] ROMANCE 387 

In one form or another homesickness would seem to be of 
the essence of romance. Canon Barry beautifully describes 
the Romantic Movement as a "homesickness for the Catholic 
Church," while in the great poets it looks regretfully back to 
Paradise Lost, and aspiringly onward to Paradise Regained. 
Is not the very strangeness of high and noble things due to our 
consciousness of exile from Paradise? We sense it even in 
that vague Wanderlust of early youth : 

And that desire that rippling water gives 
To youthful hearts to wander anywhere; 2 

in that pensive mood at nightfall also, to which Dante has 
given a deathless voice : 

Now was the hour that wakens fond desire 
In men at sea, and melts their thoughtful heart 
Who in the morn had bid sweet friends farewell; 
And pilgrim newly on his road with love 
Thrills, if he hear the vesper bell from far, 
That seems to mourn for the expiring day. 3 

In an exquisite poem, Belloc pictures the child praying 
"for men that lose their fairylands." In a true sense : "ignor- 
ance of fairyland is the punishment of intellectual vanity the 
vanity of the average pedagogue, who has forgotten that edu- 
cation means leading forth and not stuffing in. . . It is the 
vanity of the eugenist who believes he will improve upon 
those ancient ways of life which, for a few ages before Mendel 
and Weissmann, managed, all untutorted, to evolve a reverent 
man something more marvelous than these modern academic 
things who seem so ignorant of their native virtues." 4 

The dullness and tedium of modern life, which trench- 
warfare rather changes than effaces, betoken a grievous loss 
and certainly tend to deaden the imagination of "a people 
laboring and enjoying, more secure from plague, pestilence 
and famine than in former ages, so accustomed to carry out 
unimpeded the labors of the day as almost to have forgotten 
the experience of a time when life itself was precarious and 
hazardous, and every morning an adventure into the un- 

= W. Morris, Earthly Paradise, June. 3 Gary's version. 

* Greville MacDonald, "The Fairy Tale in Education" in The Contemporary 
Review, April, 1913 (ad flnem). 



388 ROMANCE [Dec., 

known." 5 The better instincts of mankind must always desire 
"the sense of the haphazard, which, ultimately, is a starry 
quality and the very essence of heroic living." 6 Such a qual- 
ity, touched by Divine Grace, may be the making of a saint: 

Verily, verily, I say unto you. Except a grain of wheat 
fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if 
it die, it beareth much fruit. 

He that loveth his life loseth it; and he that hateth his 
life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal- 7 

The romantic spirit, when baptized, becomes the childhood 
thirst of St. Teresa for martyrdom among the Moors. 

Even when it does not go beyond the natural, the roman- 
tic temperament is surely no more evil per se than the mathe- 
matical temperament. If the one easily diverges into wayward 
indiscipline, the other is as easily perverted to purblind selfish 
narrowness. A person of no imagination will hardly be a 
person of large or wide sympathy. A boy will scarcely take 
harm from Stevenson's "Song of the Road:" 

Then follow you, wherever hie 
The traveling mountains of the sky. 
Or let the streams in civil mode 
Direct your choice upon a road; 

For one and all, or high or low, 
Will lead you where you wish to go; 
And one and all go night and day 
Over the hills and far away! 

Or the fine "Reveille" of A. E. Housman: 

Wake: the silver dusk returning 
Up the beach of darkness brims, 
And the ship of sunrise burning 
Strands upon the eastern rims. 

Wake : the vaulted shadow shatters, 
Trampled to the floor it spanned, 
And the tent of night in tatters 
Straws the sky-pavilioned land. 

C. F. G. Masterman, The Condition of England (1909), ch. i., p. 2. 

The Irish Rosary, August, 1919. 7 St. John xli. 24. 



1921.] ROMANCE 389 

Up, lad up 'tis late for lying: 
Hear the drums of morning play; 
Hark, the empty highways crying 
"Who'll beyond the hills away?" 

Towns and Countries woo together, 
Forelands beacon, belfries call; 
Never lad that trod on leather 
Lived to feast his heart with all. 8 

This harmless, natural but undepraved romance recurs 
from time to time in Morris' rather melancholy Earthly Para- 
dise, melancholy because the consciousness of the skeleton in 
the cupboard, the fear of death, the known, but unacknowl- 
edged futility of all time-bounded efforts, pervades the book, 
which truly "cannot ... make quick-coming death a little 
thing." In the prologues to the months and in occasional pas- 
sages, we have entrancing pictures, also in his Jason: 

I know a little garden close 
Set thick with lily and red rose, 
Where I would wander if I might 
From dewy dawn to dewy night, 
And have one with me wandering. 
* * * * 

There comes a murmur from the shore 
And in the place two fair streams are, 
Drawn from the purple hills afar, 
Drawn down unto the restless sea; 
The hills where flowers ne'er fed the bee, 
The shore no ship has ever seen, 
Still beaten by the billows green, 
Whose murmur comes unceasingly 
Unto the place for which I cry. 9 

Sir Walter Scott is surely more wholesome fiction than 
Mr. Wells' "history" of early man. And yet the present age 
leaves neglected the works of Sir Walter and his school, im- 
mersed in morbid city-bred psychologies and problems and 
sensations. It is the age, writes Canon Barry, of "a new and 
baser Renaissance," and "every day its pagan color deepens 
and spreads." There are, however, some signs of a possibly 
near reaction. The Great War may haply serve to scatter the 

8 The Shropshire Lad: This could not be said of all the pieces in the book, some 
of which are morbid and agnostic. 9 Book iv. 



390 ROMANCE [Dec., 

fog of Prussian psychology in storm blasts from the everlast- 
ing mountains. Where the presence of death is constant, it 
is less easy to palter with the primal realities. Credo, at Intel- 
ligam will then become the watchword of men of good wilL 

Braving the curses of MacAndrew's Hymn, we may regret 
that of the many who pay their orisons to the "nine fifteen," 
which the Kipling romance "brought up," so few have read 
the Song of Roland. Who could remain unmoved could he be 
brought to read in the Song of Roland of the last stand of the 
Paladin and the summoning horn blast, the leal valor of Oliver 
and the love and faith stronger than death that are the soul of 
this Christian epic? Who among human beings could read 
unstirred the sorrow and penance of Lancelot and the radiant 
prowess of Galahad the pure, the Michael of the hosts of 
mortal chivalry? Or, leaving aside the sublime and peerless 
Latin hymns of the Church, let us ask in all seriousness what 
modern hymn, what post-mediaeval poem could surpass in life 
and inspiration the Quia amore langueo or "I sing of a 
Maiden?" The treasure of devout poetry, and prose, too, for 
that matter, enshrined in our salvage of mediaeval MSS. re- 
main, in spite of the Early English Text Society, not merely 
unread, but utterly unknown and unguessed, to most English 
readers as entirely undreamed of as the beautiful and racy 
Middle English speech, which is their vehicle. 10 

We must indeed deplore the antagonism, largely artificial, 
of the Renaissance and Mediaeval Schools. The Christian Ren- 
aissance neither made nor advocated a violent break with 
the past. It was that ignorant contempt for their predecessors 
which beset many of the Renaissance leaders, that gave the 
idea of a necessary and permanent division. Catholic wisdom 
is sj^nthetic, rigidly excluding falsehood, but including all 
truth. Pugin's well-meant and well-motived fanaticism can 
hardly be enough deplored, but it was merely a rejoinder to 
a fanaticism equally deplorable of the paganized humanists 
who reviled St. Jerome's Latin and "had under their eyes the 
radiant majesty of the portals of Rheims, of Paris and of 
Amiens and they despised them! One of the most enlight- 

10 E. g., "My streyngth full afte me drowe amys, 

And torned me, lorde, dene fro the. 
Now, kyng crouned in heuen blys, 
Parce michi, domine! 

Minor Poem from the Vernon MS. 



1921.] ROMANCE 391 

ened, and, certainly, one of the most sympathetic of the great 
writers of the seventeenth century our good Fenelon for- 
mulated against the art of our fathers a condemnation whose 
every line and whose every word is an outrage against truth, 
good taste and esthetic sense." 11 Both fanaticisms are really 
uncatholic and perverse. 

The attempt to identify medievalism with the Gothic 
architecture that eventually arose out of it has been fruitful 
of confusion. Nor was Gothic the only artistic expression of 
Christendom. In Italy, apart from French-built Cistercian 
abbeys like the noble piles of Casamari, Valvisciola, Fossa- 
nuova, there was very little true Gothic. (Apart from its 
screen-like facade, Orvieto is hardly Gothic at all. 12 ) It is 
very far from my wish to stint my homage to the superb 
Gothic achievement. Indeed, I reverence it as much as any, 
this side idolatry or injustice. "The ideas and feelings of 
man's moral nature have never found so perfect expression in 
form as they found in the noble cathedrals of Catholicism." 13 

Without faith, indeed, pagan romance is haunted with 
sadness when it touches or meditates upon the end of man, 
man "moon-and-star-hoping, doomed to low groping," seek- 
ing that happiness of which Phseacia was but a false mirage: 

Deep in the woods as the twilight darkens, 

Glades are red with the scented fire; 
Far in the dells the white maid hearkens 

Song and sigh of the heart's desire. 14 

A good example of natural romance is the finding of 
utterly unexpected associations and echoes of home in remote 
regions, as, for instance, Gothic in Moab! "Other ruins at 
Kerak are distinctly of the Roman Empire. On the southern 
side is a vast Crusaders' Castle, with a crypt chapel, having an 
apse ninety feet long. Here were seen lancet windows, frag- 
ments of Christian columns and inscriptions, and most touch- 
ing of all, one solitary head of a saint with its corona, still 

11 Kurth, The Church at the Turning Points of History, translated by the Rt. Rev. 
Victor Day, 1918, p. 123. 

12 This is the judgment of M. Ralph Adams Cram. (See The Catholic Encyclo- 
paedia, vol. vi., p. 678.) 

13 Comte quoted in F. Harrison, Choice of Books, p. 128. 

14 The Song of Phteacia, by Andrew Lang, International Library Famous Liter- 
ature, I., 277. 



392 ROMANCE [Dec., 

bearing its silent witness that Christians once worshipped 
here, and that God was once present on those ruined altars. 
The castle of Kerak is said to be altogether the finest monu- 
ment left by the Crusaders. It was built under King Fulk, or 
Folko, by a predecessor of Raymond of Chatillon, about A. D. 
1131. There is also at Kerak a ruined mosque, which was once 
a basilica, and where two chalices sculptured on the walls still 
remain witnesses of the presence of the true faith." 15 We find 
romance, too, in the cheek-by-jowl neighborhood of East and 
West in the little-traveled, beautiful Cyprus. 16 

The plague of industrialism either kills romance outright 
or stimulates it by way of reaction : 

In Perigord in haytime, 

The larks they sing all day, 

There are no city streets there 

So bitter and so gray, 

But there the folk are merry, 

The low-browed oxen sway, 

In Perigord, 

In haytime. . . , 17 

An unconscious yearning after the old monastic remote- 
ness often touches artistic souls. "It is too seldom that we, 
whose artificial lights divide our time artificially, know the 
mystery of dawn or submit to the majesty of night. Yet there 
is something very beautiful in the idea of God withdrawing 
the sun, as a mother her children's candle, and leaving the 
world to that sleep which is one of His choicest gifts. Surely, 
they must be blessed who, like these peasants, living far from 
the rush of cities, bow before the uprising and down-going 
sun as our fathers did, and, wearied with healthful work be- 
neath the open heavens, obey the rule of night. . . . 

"Ah, what an inestimable blessing is that of silence and 
solitude ! How great the relief of hearing no foolish nor bitter 
nor angry voices, but only the bird-songs, the music of running 
water, the dirges of the winds! There are some, condemned 
to live ever in noisy cities, who sigh in vain for this solace; 

"Review of H. B. Tristram's Land of Moab (1873, Murray), in The Month, April, 
1874, p. 488. 

18 See Mallock, In An Enchanted Island (third edition), \ii., pp. 98-100. 
17 B. H. Bashford, Vagabonds in Perigord (1914), ad inii. 






1921.] ROMANCE 393 

others who would never desire it even if it might be theirs; 
but those of us to whom life offers from time to time these 
spaces of quiet, with the soul to perceive their sweetness, may 
well be grateful; for . . . they soothe as a hand of healing 
laid on fretted nerves." 18 

Men drench the green earth and defile her streams 
With blood, and blast her very fields and hills 
With the mechanic iron of their wills, 
Yet in her sad heart still the spirit dreams. 19 

Natural romance leads a boy to run away to sea, the 
divine quest of perfection leads a Benedict, a Francis, 20 a 
Joseph Benedict Labre, a Grignon de Montfort, a Campion, a 
Henry Heath, through strange and unexpected ways Divinely 
willed. The baptism and direction of the romantic temper- 
ament is splendidly exampled in Julian Watts-Russell, of holy 
memory, and his wise father. After a description of Giulio 
Watts-Russell's boyish running away from Ushaw, we read: 
"The whole adventure ended in a little punishment; but it was 
oftentimes the cause of great amusement among his com- 
panions; and when, at last, the news of his glorious death 
reached Ushaw some of them said: 'Giulio ran away from 
Ushaw, but he did not fly before the muskets at Mentana.' 
His father, in a letter of correction, which he wrote to his son 
on the occasion of his running away, told him that if he so 
much loved adventure and romance, he must leave the Blessed 
Virgin to direct his life for him, instead of doing it for him- 
self, and then perhaps she would weave it into a more ro- 
mantic tale than he could possibly picture to himself." 21 

How lovingly wise and wisely loving this paternal coun- 
sel. A model surely for all who have under their charge the 
children of romance. 

18 Dorothy Neville Lees, Tuscan Feasts and Tuscan Friends, xii., pp. 195-197. 

19 Eva Gore-Booth, Broken Glory (1918), p. 20. 

20 See The Romanticism of St. Francis, by Father Cuthbert, O.S.F.C. 

21 William Tylee, translator of Father V. Cardella's Giulio Watts-Russell (1908), 
p. 27. 



Ulew Boohs. 



THE SOCIAL MISSION OF CHARITY. By William J. Kerby, 

Ph.D., LL.D. New York: The Macmillan Co. $2.25. 

The Social Mission of Charity appears as the second volume 
of the Social Action Series issued by the National Catholic Welfare 
Council. The work aims, in the words of its author, to present 
general points of view in Catholic charities. 

In the first portion of his work, Dr. Kerby analyzes the back- 
ground of poverty into the factors of human inequality, competi- 
tion among unequals, lack of State interference, and the break- 
down of the cultural forces supplied by the normal human 
agencies of home, Church, school and public opinion. He next 
outlines the problem of poverty in its relations to the individual, 
society, the State, and Christianity, and considers the social im- 
plications of poverty. The fundamental nature of justice and 
charity in our social relations is then analyzed in its theoretical 
aspects and in its practical application to the ever enduring, as 
well as to the specifically modern, problems created by human 
inequality and the institution of property. 

The second division of Dr. Kerby's work is devoted to the 
defining and fixing of our responsibility toward the poor, the 
formulation of certain primary principles of relief and an analytic 
study of tendencies and needs in Catholic charities. 

Certain thoughts are given special emphasis and recurrent 
treatment throughout the volume. The responsibility of all to 
participate in the service of the poor is insisted upon. "No one 
is required to do everything for the poor, but everyone is obliged 
to do something," the specific nature of the obligation being 
determined for each person by individual capacity for thought or 
action. The supernatural character of charity, its high mission to 
society in general and to the poor in particular, and the duty of 
Catholics to infuse this viewpoint into the modern, purely socio- 
logical attitude toward poverty are truths emphatically stated. 
The complexity of the problem of poverty requires, in the view 
of the author, that charity be scientific; that system and science 
be regarded as means through which supernaturalized love may 
find fuller and more adequate expression. Anything less than the 
most mature wisdom, the most patient research, the fullest appli- 
cation of careful methods and helpful resources to the solution 
of the problem, would be an affront offered to the high nature of 
charity. Organization, cooperation, expert training, and the de- 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 395 

velopment of a strong and extensive literature are fundamentals 
in the scientific approach to poverty, and as such must be dili- 
gently cultivated in the field of Catholic charities. 

The author presents a frank criticism of certain attitudes and 
tendencies in our charities; but in no instance does this criticism 
pass the bounds of fairness or fail to bestow just appreciation. 
Breadth and sanity of view, soundness of judgment, and a willing- 
ness to recognize and adopt true and helpful viewpoints and 
policies wherever found, are characteristic of the writer's attitude 
as they are characteristic of the new spirit which is at work in 
the Church seeking to combine the scattered strength and enlarge 
the scope and vision of our charities. 

The range of the work is definitely limited: it deals only 
with basic truths; it omits all consideration of conflicting problems 
and policies growing out of different fundamental viewpoints 
held by those within and those without the Church; it attempts 
merely to clear the ground and to lay solid foundations for future 
explanation and discussion. The programme is sufficiently com- 
prehensive for a single volume. Yet, we cannot but regret the 
limitations which deprive us of a treatment of these matters 
from one whose broad outlook and mature scholarship would 
undoubtedly have cast much light on difficult or disputed ques- 
tions. 

The importance of the subject-matter of the present work 
must not lead us to overlook the form of its presentation. Its 
style, which combines clarity, directness and vigor with aptness 
of diction and wealth of illustration, presents convincingly and 
delightfully the message of the book. 

That message will, we feel assured, reach its destination and 
arouse every Catholic, to a sense of the supreme importance of the 
"social mission of charity," and its claim upon his energy and 
thought. 

INSTITUTIONS THEOLOGIZE NATURALIS, ad usum scholarum 
accommodate. Auctore Gulielmo J. Brosnan, S.J., Theologiae 
Naturalis Professore in Collegio maximo SS. Cordis Jesu 
Woodstickii in Marylandia. Chicago: Typographia Loyolaea. 
$3.50. 

The Loyola University Press of Chicago must be congratulated 
on this excellent example of what can be done in the United States 
in the printing of books even in the Latin language. It had become 
almost an accepted maxim that only in Europe could Latin works 
be printed with success. Here is a volume, on choicest paper, in 
finest type, with titles and paragraphs well marked and differen- 



396 NEW BOOKS [Dec., 

tiated, and solidly bound in half-leather all of which make it 
quite attractive. Be the content what it may, either light or grave, 
the reader is prepossessed or prejudiced by first impressions. 
And a Latin work, by reason of its more serious subject matter 
and less familiar language, needs all the more to win the atten- 
tion at first glance. In this respect, the volume in review has its 
advantage. 

As regards the contents, Father Brosnan, who is professor of 
Theodicy at the Jesuit Scholasticate of Woodstock, Maryland, pre- 
sents, in simple and very readable Latin, as the ripe fruits of 
years of study and of experience in teaching his special subject, a 
valuable work on Natural Theology. Both in the presentation of 
his arguments, which are few, and in dealing with objections, 
which are many, the author is severely intellectual and Scholastic. 
Thereby, he emphasizes the falsity of modern philosophies 
fathered by Kant, which are at one in rejecting the faculty of 
reason as a basis of proof, while willing to maintain belief in 
some sort of God and religion on various subjective grounds, 
such as "faith, instinct, the subconscious, feeling, will, value- 
judgment, social sense, intuition, mystic reason, perhaps, Velan 
vital" 

An admirable feature is the apt, extensive and numerous 
quotations in English from modern philosophers and present-day 
writers of literary note whose minds, infected by Kantian agnos- 
ticism, are incapable of appreciating the rational arguments for 
Christian theism. In this manner is the student enabled, at first 
hand and with safety to himself, to make the acquaintance of the 
contemporary mind on the fundamental doctrine of all religion. 
This makes the issue for the apologist vital and concrete. 

In connection with each aspect of the problem, the author 
refers the student to recognized and reliable authorities who treat 
the matter more in extenso. The volume closes with a full alpha- 
betical Index Auctorum and Index Rerum. Available space for- 
bids offering some comment and criticism of the author's treat- 
ment of the question of God's prescience of free actions, and His 
manner of cooperation with these actions. The statement of the 
case for both Thomism and Molinism is full and fair : and, despite 
his able defence of the latter, one who is impartial may still re- 
main convinced that the reconciliation of free-will with the Divine 
cooperation involves a nodus insolubilis. This volume of Father 
Brosnan supplies to seminaries a treatise to fill the gap in the 
cursus of Father Tanquerey. With this added as a preamble to 
his three volumes, the professor and student possess a complete 
and satisfactory course on Apologetics and Dogmatic Theology. 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 397 

HISTORICAL RECORDS AND STUDIES. Vol. XV. New York: 

The United States Catholic Historical Society. 

Volume XV. of the Historical Records, with its ten essays, 
is indeed a worthy addition to American Catholic history. 

Maurice Francis Egan, late minister to Denmark and emeritus 
professor of the Catholic University, has contributed "An Appre- 
ciation of James A. McMaster," editor and publisher of the New 
York Freeman's Journal, with whom he was associated as as- 
sistant editor. McMaster was an interesting figure, a convert 
Scotchman, who never forgot his Union College Seminary train- 
ing, and as a Calvinist gloried in philosophical encounters with the 
hierarchy. This delightful sketch has much of Maurice Francis 
Egan in it, ancl a great deal of McMaster's virile personality. 

A study of John Rose Greene Hassard (1836-88), by Dr. 
Blanche M. Kelly, describes the life work of this convert-journalist, 
who left his stamp on the American Encyclopedia, aided Charles 
Dana on the Chicago Republican, Father Hecker in founding THE 
CATHOLIC WORLD, and, finally, Horace Greeley on the New York 
Tribune, of which he assumed editorship on Greeley's death. As 
special representative of the Tribune abroad on great occasions, 
he had the advantage of association with European personages, 
who appear intimately enough in the pages of his diary. Mr. 
Hassard will be remembered for his deciphered Tilden dispatches, 
w r hich caused such a furor in Democratic circles in the disputed 
election of 1876. However, Mr. Hassard was interested in politics 
only as an editor, and always as a reformer. 

Rev. J. D. Hannan has a short paper dealing with Prince 
Gallitzin's experience with quasi-spiritistic phenomena. Miss 
Elizabeth Finigan's article on "New York State Indians" will in- 
terest those who would know something of aboriginal life. Father 
Richard Tierney has contributed a homily on early Maryland, 
"Father Andrew White, S.J., and the Indians." Mr. George F. 
Dwyer writes of "Anna Glover, First Martyr to the Faith in New 
England," with the thesis that the witchcraft mania was essen- 
tially due to a wave of bigotry. Mr. Scannell O'Neil's list of con- 
verts among Mayflower descendants would astound and scandalize 
the Pilgrim worthies. Mrs. Margaret Downing writes of a pioneer 
Irish immigrant, James Gould Barry, who engaged in business in 
New York in 1784, as an associate with the merchant princes in 
shipping and Thomas Law in land speculation. Like Law, he lost 
heavily in District of Columbia real estate. Barry was a militant 
Catholic and church builder. 

Even greater as a land speculator and colonizer was the 
naturalized Frenchman, James Donatien Leroy de Chaumont 



398 NEW BOOKS [Dec., 

(1760-1840), of whom Father J. L. Tierney has written a splendid 
memorial. With holdings amounting to 348,200 acres, he laid 
the foundations of Jefferson County. Leroy was a Democrat and 
a thorough American. Unfortunately, his speculations brought 
ruin, but undaunted, Leroy, until his death in Paris, worked to 
pay his creditors in full and to interest French capital in Amer- 
ican investments. 

A scholarly article, replete with references, is that of Dr. 
Frederick Zwierlein of St. Bernard's Seminary, Rochester, on the 
"Catholic Contribution to Liberty in the United States." This 
completes a book, highly interesting to Catholics who would know 
something of their place in American development. 

OUT OF THEIR OWN MOUTHS. By Samuel Gompers and Wil- 
liam English Walling. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. $2.00 
net. 

The title of this indictment of Sovietism is peculiarly apt at 
this time of starvation in Russia, for, truly, out of their own 
mouths and the mouths of their people is the mad autocracy 
of Trotzky and Lenine being revealed. 

Sovietism has striven to produce the ideal state by methods 
far from ideal, methods that completely destroy the ideals they 
were intended to attain. The foundation of Bolshevism, as these 
two authorities trace it in Soviet documents, are laid in a whole- 
sale mendacity of propaganda. They have a studied contempt 
for truth. They have spread terror over a vast land. They have 
enslaved their people by compulsory labor, and have prosecuted 
organized labor in America and other countries as well as their 
own. The oppression of the agricultural population which com- 
prised before the War fully seventy-five per cent, of the Russian 
people has been brought about by raids, taxation and seizure of 
crops. Under this regime even the Bolshevik statistics admit it 
the agricultural productivity of Russia fell to less than fifty per 
cent, of the normal. The famine is a logical result of these 
methods. Equally tragic has been the economic collapse. Sup- 
pressed or controlled, the industries of Russia have no output, no 
goods to exchange. 

The maddest dream of all is the desire to engulf the whole 
world in the maelstrom in which Sovietism finds itself. The Third 
Internationale is the child of Bolshevism, and it is fairly safe to 
say that the labor of the world, once it understands what Bolshe- 
vism means, \vill repudiate that child. Even British labor, run- 
ning after false gods, has been unable to agree on an attitude 
toward Russia. 

The latest turn of Bolshevism is Lenine's "conversion" to 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 399 

capitalism and the principle of private property. Unable to make 
their machine work without the energy they have repudiated, the 
Soviet Government is now ready to discard its principles and 
embrace whatever economic style is within reach. But it will be 
embraced for but one purpose the maintenance of the dictator- 
ship of the Communistic Party. 

These are the bare outlines of a book that American Labor 
might do well to study and digest. Its authors are leaders of un- 
questioned standing in American life. They have collated an 
amazing indictment of this foe of Democracy. 

PREHISTORY. By M. C. Burkitt. Preface by the Abbe Breuil. 

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. 

We congratulate the author of this book and its publishers 
for having given us what is undoubtedly the best of the many 
books which have appeared on the prehistoric question, one likely 
to retain this preeminence for some time to come, in spite of the 
flood of new discoveries constantly washing away old ideas and 
casting up new facts. Its author has had very large experience 
in the field, and especially amongst those chambers of romance, 
the picture caves of Spain, and that he has had for his companion 
Abbe Breuil, an acknowledged past-master of the subject, is 
enough to prove that his studies have been carried out under the 
best conditions. 

The task of the prehistoric archaeologist is, he very accurately 
states, one of great difficulty, owing to the meagreness of the 
materials to hand and, as he adds, "allows only too much scope 
for hypothesis and speculation not properly founded on scien- 
tifically proved facts." An excellent remark, and one which the 
author has faithfully borne in mind save in one connection, 
namely, the origin of man. "Scientifically proved facts" teach us 
nothing conclusive about this, yet the author assumes the hypoth- 
esis of the development of man's body, by slow and minute 
changes, from that of some lower vertebrate. He even states that 
"pre-glacial man," as to whose existence there is still considerable 
doubt, may have been a kind of half-way house. "How human 
this man was, and how intelligent, is naturally a matter of specu- 
lation. The biologist is as yet uncertain whether specialism of the 
brain was the result of the erect posture, or vice versa. "Uncer- 
tain" seems to indicate that the solution lies between the two 
hypotheses, whereas the actual state of the case is that science is 
today unpossessed of any fragment of fact which suggests either 
of these explanations, let alone any which actually prove (though 
we may surmise as we choose) anything whatever as to the actual 
method of origin of man's bodily frame. 



400 NEW BOOKS [Dec., 

Again, he tells us, with the saving clause that "the imperfect 
nature of the remains makes precision impossible," that "the 
volume of the cranial cavity (of the Trinil skull) has been deter- 
mined at 850 cubic centimeters; while that of the higher apes is 
never known to exceed 600 cubic centimeters, and that of man 
never to fall below 880 cubic centimeters." The word "deter- 
mined" had been better abandoned and "guessed" substituted for 
it. For guess it certainly is, as those, who, like the present re- 
viewer, have had the opportunity of handling and examining the 
actual specimen itself, must needs admit, and how uncertain such 
guesses are, is surely proved by the startling differences between 
the estimates of different authorities as to the capacity of that 
other "bone of contention," the Piltdown skull. We have devoted 
space to the criticism of these matters because we believe that the 
statements, whilst in no way misleading to scientific readers, may 
well be so for the many who cannot thus be designated, who will 
also, we hope, to their own great benefit, be readers of this book. 
In every way, it is a most valuable work and, perhaps, especially 
in the accurate and detailed lists of finds of various kinds which 
reduce to order what was almost a chaos. The portion relating 
to prehistoric art could hardly be improved. Indeed, with the 
trifling exceptions to which we have alluded, the book is admir- 
able, and we can hardly speak too highly of it. 

THE RELIGION OF THE SCRIPTURES. Edited by the Rev. C. 

Lattey, S.J. (M. A. Oxon.) St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co. 

75 cents. 

This little volume comprises essays read at the Catholic Bible 
Congress, held at Cambridge in July of this year. The Congress 
was in the nature of a religious celebration in honor of the fif- 
teenth centenary of St. Jerome, the great Biblical scholar of the 
Western Church. The central theme chosen for these lectures has 
been the practical issue of Biblical religion. In these essays sub- 
jects of special interest are treated in a scholarly, yet popular 
manner. The writers of these papers are well known to Catholic 
readers. If we single out one of the essays for special commenda- 
tion, we do not thereby wish to detract from the high merit of 
the other papers. Dr. Arendzen's treatise on the difficult subject 
of Inspiration is one of the best statements of the Catholic doctrine 
on this point that we possess in Catholic Biblical literature. The 
negative and the positive aspects of the teaching are set forth 
with remarkable clearness, exactness and precision. The remain- 
ing essays deserve likewise the highest praise and commendation. 
The Catholic who wishes to inform himself on important Biblical 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 401 

questions will do well to read and study this little volume. In ad- 
dition to the lectures on inspiration, the volume comprises the 
following papers: "The Mosaic Law," by Dr. T. E. Bird; "The 
Prophets," by the Rev. C. Lattey, S.J.; "Christ in the New Testa- 
ment," by the Rev. C. C. Martindale, S.J.; "The Organized Church 
in the New Testament," by the Rev. R. A. Knox; "St. Jerome, the 
Interpreter," by the Canon William Barry, D.D.; "The Genesis of 
a Myth," by the Rt. Rev. R. C. Casarrelli, Bishop of Salford. 

THE LABOR MOVEMENT. Its Conservative Functions and Social 

Consequences. By Frank Tannenbaum. New York: G. P. 

Putnam's Sons. $2.00. 

This volume presents to the public a work of rare and con- 
densed value and of remarkable comprehension. It may aptly be 
described as the philosophy of the Labor movement. With a 
knowledge of the past that is intimate and a vision of the future 
that is attractive and persuasive, the author studies the movement 
in its origins and the industrial conditions that made its creation 
an imperative necessity; in the methods by which it pursues its 
purpose, and in the consequences of its growth and progress, 
which lead, consciously or unconsciously, to one inevitable goal 
the eventual mastery and control of all industry by Labor for the 
benefit of the community. This work ought to be read by the mul- 
titude both by Labor and Capital that the full implications and 
functions and purposes of the Labor movement might be appre- 
ciated. The laborers have found in the system of competitive 
Capitalism, whose dominant motivation is profit-making, an in- 
herent vice which no concessions in the form of improved con- 
ditions and increased wages can remedy. The entire system must 
change. As absolutism and autocracy in political government 
have been replaced by democracy, so autocratic Capitalism must 
surrender to the gradual advance and ultimate triumph of an 
industrial democracy wherein grinding competition for the profit 
of the few will be replaced by universal cooperation for the welfare 
of the many. In this cooperative commonwealth, entitled an in- 
dustrial democracy, the great motto and incentive to Labor is: 
the interest of one is the interest of all; and the interest of all the 
interest of each. 

Whether the consummation which Labor organizations are 
moving towards, and which Mr. Tannenbaum so devoutly wishes, 
is realizable, and for the best interests of mankind in view of 
certain well-known defects incidental to the Labor unions, and 
which the publisher points out in a preface to the volume, is a 
moot and debatable question. That the Labor movement has 

VOL. CXIV. 26 



402 NEW BOOKS [Dec,, 

accomplished great good for the working classes, and is still es- 
sential to protect and promote their interests against the exploita- 
tion of greedy capitalists, is undeniable. Whether the future 
State will be an industrial democracy where the various industrial 
units will cooperate for the common weal may be too good to be 
true; but none can fail to receive light and stimulation from the 
study of The Labor Movement by Mr. Tannenbaum. 

DANTE. Essays in Commemoration, 1321-1921. London: Uni- 
versity of London Press, Ltd. 12 s. 6 d. net. 
This scholarly and handsome volume, issued by the Univer- 
sity of London is one more evidence of the ever-widening appre- 
ciation of Dante which the sexcentenary celebration has at once 
fostered and focused. The chosen essays include some interest- 
ing "Thoughts on Dante in His Relation to Our Own Time," by 
Viscount Bryce, in which the poet is revealed as a pioneer of uni- 
versal peace also a very human and suggestive appreciation, by 
Professor Edmund Gardner, of "Dante as Literary Critic,*' wherein 
he takes his place as "the first romance philologist." Most of 
the other discussions "Dante and the Latin Poets," "Dante and 
the Troubadours," "The Italy of Dante and Virgil," "Oxford and 
Dante," et cetera are more technical and restricted in their 
appeal. By way of variety, two papers in Italian, by Professor 
Benedetto Croce and Professor Antonio Cippico, are inserted 
among these specimens of recent English scholarship; and the 
volume is further enriched by several rare reproductions of Botti- 
celli, Signorelli and Blake, with a most alluring page from a four- 
teenth century MS. of the Purgatorio. 

The book is a substantial and, obviously, a highly specialized 
addition to Dantean research, and its publication will doubtless 
point the way to other "local" collections in honor of the immortal 
Florentine. 

VIGILS. By Aline Kilmer. New York: George H. Doran Co. 

$1.25 net. 

Mrs. Kilmer is one of those rare poets who, by the exercise 
of patience and restraint, never give anything less than their best. 
Her work is always on a high level of predetermined excellence, 
marked by a delicacy and sureness of technique that places her 
quite definitely among the authentic artists. For sheer fineness of 
music, indeed, for subtle verbal effects and modulations there are 
few singers of the present day her equal. 

In Mrs. Kilmer's first book, Candles That Burn, the qual- 
ities just mentioned were shown in their fullness. Hence, to say, 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 403 

as we do say, that the present collection is on the same artistic 
plane as its predecessor is to give it very high praise, the praise 
of an unusually beautiful and satisfying art. Lyric poetry is a 
personal utterance, and we have in the present book the individual 
note that gives verse its chief power of appeal. These poems show 
strongly certain outstanding qualities that seem characteristic 
of their maker: simplicity, poignancy and a whimsicality now 
gay, now wistful that is often unexpected and altogether delight- 
ful. Anyone at all interested in contemporary poetry will find the 
present volume a distinct and distinguished achievement in a 
difficult art. 

OUR LORD'S DISCOURSES. By Abbe Nouvelle. Translated 
from the French. New York: Benziger Brothers. $2.00 net. 
Various types of souls need their respective aids. Even 
within types there is variety. Books which appeal to a class, 
oftentimes lack interest to many of that group. We have books in 
English similar, in many respects, to the one before us. We feel, 
however, that souls and they are not a few that cannot receive 
inspiration on re-reading their devotional books: souls that for 
profit must have the old and familiar in new form, will find these 
meditations on St. John's Gospel (chapter xiii. to xviii.) interest- 
ing, stimulating, instructive. The references show a wide range 
of choice reading. The footnotes are particularly excellent. 

THE STORY OF LOURDES. By Rose Lynch. St. Louis: B. 

Herder Book Co. $1.60. 

Special commendation is due to this little addition to Lourdes 
literature. It was written, the author tells us, in response to a 
suggestion made to her after a six months' visit to the hallowed 
spot, a period spent in close study of the history of Lourdes and of 
its people, some of whom were of the few remaining who had 
personally known Bernadette. The tone of loving, reverent inti- 
macy that runs throughout gives a touch of freshness to matter 
already familiar. Miss Lynch writes with a composure and sim- 
plicity that make for conciseness; therefore, though the letter- 
press covers only one hundred and eighty pages, the story is 
rounded and satisfying, including even an event so recent as the 
great procession to the Grotto in 1919, when the Archbishop of 
Auch removed the black crape from the banner of Alsace-Lorraine, 
to drape it once more with the French colors. 

More lhan half the content deals with the time preceding the 
death of Bernadette. A full account is given of the painful ex- 
periences endured by the favored child and her family from the 
severely cautious attitude of the Church authorities during their 



404 NEW BOOKS [Dec,, 

slow investigation, and from the active hostility of those of the 
State. By this means, an eminently serviceable character is im- 
parted to the book, as a manual wherewith to meet non-Catholic 
questions and cavillings. 

IN THE LAND OF THE KIKUYUS. By Rev. H. A. Gogarty, 

C.S.Sp. Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son. $1.10. 

The romance and adventure of a missionary life, the story of 
strange people and lands, is delightfully portrayed in this diary of 
a young Irish priest. Fresh from a French missionary centre, 
at the outbreak of the War, he thought that he was to leave 
Europe and the War for the outposts of Africa. But the latter 
traveled with him and he had experience as an Army Chaplain 
and on a Hospital Ship. But the main story is that of his mis- 
sionary life amongst the natives. He is an observant traveler, to 
whom the poetry of these strange peoples and lands appeal, and 
who never for an instant loses his gift of Irish humor. He is, at 
the same time, an historian, and very deftly weaves into his tale 
the narrative of deeds and men of long ago. But he does not gloss 
over that other phase of a missioner's life, the dangers from man 
and beast, the dread diseases that claim so many noble lives, the 
loneliness and, perhaps, apparent failures. It is a book, not only 
for those whose young eyes are fixed upon the mission fields as 
their life work, but for all who love adventurous sacrifice for 
God. 

AN ENTHUSIAST. By E. O. Somerville, in collaboration with 
Martin Ross. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. $2.00. 
Miss Edith Somerville possesses a deft knack of making us 
see what she wishes us to see. Whether it is a man or a woman, 
a horse or a dog, or only the casual aspect of a room, a few words 
suffice to hit off the object adequately. "In the corner by the 
door a few incurably crippled chairs were huddled, one on top of 
the other, as if in panic they had rushed into each other's arms." 
Her similes are almost invariably effective, a pleasant quality in a 
story-teller. 

An Enthusiast attempts to describe a comparatively quiet 
country district in Ireland in the fourth year of the Sinn Fein re- 
bellion. Dan Palliser, the hero, belonging to the Anglo-Irish gen- 
try, devotes himself to economic solutions of the Irish question. 
He is honest, generous and ardent; but in his effort to keep clear 
of politics falls foul of the two contending political forces. The 
logic of his character convinces us that he would have cast his lot 
eventually with Sinn Fein, if his creator had not involved him 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 405 

in an unfortunate infatuation with a beautiful lady, unhappily 
married. Dan's wild passion removes him from the rare re- 
gions of patriotism, and resigns us to his premature and tragic 
death. 

The author avows in the preface that her story is an effort to 
paint contemporary Irish life impartially. But she speaks dub- 
iously of her success. One must give her credit for her good in- 
tentions. It is not hard to conjecture her real attitude. It is 
that of the middle-aged and comfortable who do not like to have 
their peace disturbed by such fantastic things as patriotism, civil 
liberty and national ideals. If Miss Somerville is a non-Catholic 
writer, her sympathetic glimpses of Catholic life make her skill 
in the art of fiction all the more conspicuous. 

ORIGINALITY AND OTHER ESSAYS. By William H. Mc- 
Masters. Boston: The Four Seas Co. $2.00 net. 
If, as Webster tells us, the essay is "a literary composition 
. . . permitting a considerable freedom of style and method," 
then most decidedly "Originality" has a right to its title. That 
such a thoroughly "up-to-the-minute" collection should, or could, 
issue from the sacred precincts of Boston is proof positive that 
the democracy of letters has at last established itself in places 
heretofore hallowed by the presence of a less expansive Muse. 
In twenty pithy chapters Mr. McMasters discusses cleverly, and by 
no means thoughtlessly, our everyday life in its aspects both 
grave and gay. The valedictory, "On Why Not Worry?" is a 
cheerful foil to some of the white-corpuscled Pollyanna-ism that 
has been circulating riotously within the recent memory of man. 

THE CASE OF KOREA. By Henry Chung. New York: Fleming 

H. Revell Co. $3.00. 

The question of the Pacific, which more and more is occupy- 
ing the authorities at Washington, cannot be completely under- 
stood unless one also understands the problem of Korea what it 
was, what it is today. 

Its present role in the Far East is as a colony of Japan. Seek- 
ing a solution for her ever-increasing population, Japan assumed 
control over the Hermit Kingdom the same glittering plea that 
she uses for other expansion in the Far East. The methods by 
which she attained this control are a matter of history much of 
it unpleasant history. Japan's highest card, played upon all oc- 
casions, is that whatever she does in Korea is done for Korea's 
good, for her development and welfare. Mr. Chung, a Korean 
patriot, sets out to prove that this unctuous solicitude is simply 



406 NEW BOOKS [Dec., 

a cloak to hide injustice and the rankest of national oppression. 
He has made out a very convincing case both for his people and 
against Japan. His book does not make altogether pleasant read- 
ing, but the record of gross injustice is never pleasant. 

REBUILDING A LOST FAITH. By an American Agnostic, New 

York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons. $3.25. 

John L. Stoddard, the well known traveler and lecturer, has 
just written the story of his conversion. He was received into the 
Church three years ago after wandering in the desert of unbelief, 
as he says himself, for over forty years. He gives a very brief ac- 
count of his life in a Protestant seminary, and his loss of faith 
because of the inability of his professors to answer his theological 
difficulties. 

He has in mind especially those Protestants and unbelievers 
who have grown up like himself under modern skeptical and 
materialistic conditions, with little or no conception of eccle- 
siastical authority. In a score of chapters, he discusses the idea 
of God, the immortality of the soul, the concept of revelation, 
the moral law, the divinity of Christ, the Church, the infallibility 
of the Pope, purgatory, indulgences, prayers to the Blessed Virgin 
and the saints, persecutions for heresy. 

It is a good book for the non-Catholic who is studying the 
claims of the Catholic Church. 

LIFE IN A MEDIEVAL CITY. By Edwin Benson. London: So- 
ciety for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 
York is the city which the author takes to illustrate life in 
mediaeval English towns. Into the slim handbook of eighty-four 
pages he compresses a deal of information about its streets and 
buildings, its civic, parliamentary, business and religious life, its 
education, entertainments and social classes. Small as his scale 
is, Mr. Benson succeeds by deft selection and vivid touches to re- 
construct the general outline of the fifteenth century and to 
demonstrate that the "most attractive feature of the Middle Ages 
is that they were so intensely human." Of religious life, he 
necessarily has much to say. The organization of the Church, its 
supervision of education, monastic life, St. Mary's Abbey, par- 
doners, palmers and pilgrims these are some of the topics upon 
which he dwells. The Minster, with its shrine of St. William of 
York, attracted streams of pilgrims, whose donations helped the 
funds of erection and maintenance. This means of raising money 
was well established, we are told, and we agree; but in the next 
sentence, when Mr. Benson casually adds that "there was, also, the 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 407 

money from penances and indulgences," we protest. The book 
otherwise is accurate and fair, and will appeal to readers who 
must have a succinct account, or perhaps none at all. A drawing 
of York in the fifteenth century and several smaller illustrations 
increase the interest of the text. 

LARAMIE HOLDS THE RANGE. By Frank H. Spearman. New 

York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.75. 

Mr. Spearman is at his best in stories of adventure, in tales 
of the pioneer West where the wild life of plains and mountains 
brings out the best and the worst in the men who adopt it. 
Laramie Holds the Range deals with cattlemen and cattle-rustlers, 
and though the time is in post-pioneer days, when railroads, Pull- 
man cars, and bathtubs have invaded the Rockies, its actors have 
all the daring and dash of the first cowboys, their primitive faults, 
their primitive and splendidly worth-while virtues. Kate Double- 
day is a line heroine, Jim Laramie a noble hero, and when after 
thrilling dangers and escapes he wins out in the end, we are made 
happy in reading that "the old priest came down from the Res- 
ervation to perform the ceremony." 

HUMAN HEREDITY, by Casper L. Redfield (Chicago: Heredity Pub- 
lishing Co. $1.50). This book presents some new ideas on a 
hackneyed subject in a very unprejudiced manner. Many of the sta- 
tistics are very interesting perhaps, especially so those which relate to 
trotting horses, and show that such can go on improving and acquiring 
greater powers up to an age which the uninitiated would have sup- 
posed to be impossible. On this and other evidence, the author builds 
up his theory that the more distinguished members of a family are born 
low down in the list of that particular family, and that their distinction 
is due to the fact that they have inherited the additional experience 
and faculties acquired by their parents, which become greater as they 
pass through life. We can, therefore, fully agree that, if the modern 
eugenist and birth-controller had had their vicious way for the past 
couple of centuries, the world would have been immeasurably poorer 
in knowledge. But we must beware of the fallacy of selected instances. 
All geniuses do not come late in the family history. Although Mr. Red- 
field has provided a powerful argument against birth-controllers, 
when he comes to his explanation, we must part company with 
him. The segregated germ in the parental sex-gland can be affected by 
the state of health of the parent, by alcohol, where he is a drunkard, 
and so on. Lack of nutrition may also affect it. All these things can 
be explained on the lines of food absorption and similar well-known 
happenings. And we may admit that a healthy, strong couple are more 
likely to provide their child with a choice brain fabric through which 
the soul may exhibit itself, than a couple of moral and physical degen- 



408 NEW BOOKS [Dec., 

crates. But we are wholly unable to see how mental and spiritual 
experiences and growth in the parents can affect the germ at all. We 
understand Mr. Redfield to urge that "life" is a form of energy and may 
be transformed like other kinds of energy. Well, it certainly is, or was, 
a theory. Lodge discusses it in one of his books and declares that he 
himself disbelieves in it. Whether true or not, we do not see our way 
to accept the author's conclusions on this head, though we thank him 
for having given us real food for thought. 

BEATRICE NELL' ALLEGORIA ESTETIGA BELLA DIVINA COM- 
MEDIA, by Gsetano F. Lisani (New York: Bagnasco Press. 50 
cents). In this brief study of the Divina Commedia, the author under- 
takes to analyze the allegorical significance of the chief figures intro- 
duced by the poet. Perfect familiarity with his subject, a keen instinct 
for latent suggestions and a clear, sometimes an eloquent, style these 
qualifications for his task, Doctor Lisani possesses. Possibly, it would 
be too great a demand on his power of self-control, were he to attempt 
to write thirty pages without a fling or two at the Catholic Church 
so he lets himself become disrespectful as well as superficial. 

BABETTE BOMERLING'S BRIDEGROOMS, by Alice Berend, trans- 
lated by Margaret Nohowel (New York: Boni & Liveright. $2.00). 
This story is a clever, satirical skit upon the German nouveaux riches 
of the ante-bellum period. It describes in jocular fashion the many 
maneuvers of Mother Bomberling, the wife of a wealthy coffin-maker, 
to win a fitting bridegroom for her charming daughter, Babette. How 
the old lady is victimized by pseudo-Italian counts and swindling 
Polish baronesses how the many suitors press their claims only to go 
down to utter defeat at the hands of Bab's true lover, the much-despised 
Paul is told with inimitable humor. 

PEEPS AT MANY LANDS is the appropriate title of an attractive 
series of travel books which The Macmillan Company have brought 
out in an American edition ($1.50 per volume). These books are made 
attractive to young readers, for whom they are primarily intended, by 
ease of style and charm of illustration : many of them are by well- 
known authors. Among the Catholics who have contributed are Kath- 
arine Tynan and E. M. Wilmot-Buxton. The countries and noted 
places covered are: London and Paris, England and Wales, Scotland 
and Ireland, Canada and Newfoundland, Spain and Portugal, Sweden 
and Finland, Holland and Belgium, France and Alsace-Lorraine, China 
and Japan, Norway and Denmark, Italy and Greece, Egypt and the 
Holy Land, Australia and New Zealand, South America and Panama. 
From these peeps here and there may be gleaned a fair notion of the 
history, topography, customs, arts and industries of these varied lands. 
While the standard of the series is well sustained, the volumes are not 
entirely equal in merit, nor are all free from evidences of the too broad 



1921.] NEW BOOKS 409 

and the too narrow points of view. In Italy, and especially in Rome, 
we look for more adequate mention of the great Catholic monuments: 
the history of Sweden is presented with decided Protestant bias and 
the Christianizing of the country by the Catholic Church ignored: in 
Scotland, the Celtic Church is differentiated from the Catholic Church: 
a strained effort at fairness describes the religion of the Mahommedan 
in Egypt as "fine," and Mrs. Tynan's picture of Ireland is unfortunately 
capable of making an impression certainly not intended by that de- 
voted Irishwoman. Of unalloyed charm are the peeps at England and 
Wales, London and Paris, Canada and Newfoundland and Norway and 
Denmark. And when all is said and done, the series is well calculated 
to evoke interest and incite many a boy and girl to further study. 

THE KING OF THE GOLDEN CITY, by Mother Mary Loyola, with 
an introduction by Rev. Herbert Thurston, S.J. (New York: 
P. J. Kenedy & Sons. $2.50.) This charming allegory will bring 
to the heart of the child a deep love for Our Lord in the Blessed Sacra- 
ment and an understanding of the graces received in Holy Com- 
munion. We follow with delight the little Dilecta in her meetings 
with The King; her struggles against the evil influence of Malignus, 
in which she is so ably helped by the Prince Guardian; from the hut 
in which she lived, and where The King so often and so graciously 
visited her right into His Golden City. Aside from its religious and 
literary merit, the book is artistic in its make-up, and has eight full- 
page color illustrations by J. Watson Davis. 

AT GREENACRES is the first of a series of books for children 
from Marion Ames Taggart's facile pen (New York: George H. 
Doran Co. $1.50 each). She has called them the Jack-in-the-Box 
series, taking the name from the wholesome, yet fanciful, boy who is 
her hero. In this book, we are introduced to four children, Isabel, 
sweet, idealistic, weaving stories out of everything and living in a land 
of fancy; Prize, downright, practical and "straight" to the last degree; 
Poppy, plain, fiery, impulsive, but with a loving heart to guide her, 
and Mark, or "Jack-in-the-Box," who comes to them first as a boy of 
mystery. There is a delightful out-of-doors atmosphere about this 
story, and the children and grown-ups alike will fascinate the young 
readers. There is a distinct plot and an interesting one, too. To tell 
it would spoil the reading. The Queer Little Man and The Bottle 
Imp take these same children through a series of adventures, full of 
excitement and interest. 

Poppy's Pluck is the last of this jolly series, and shows espe- 
cially the development of Poppy in the atmosphere of love into which 
she has been fortunate enough to wander and, of course, of Isabel, 
Prue and Mark. It is interesting from cover to cover, and when the 
last page is reached the only regret of the reader will be that a "good- 
bye" must be said to these charming children. 



410 NEW BOOKS [Dec., 

'"pHE ANNES, by Marion Ames Taggart (Garden City, New York: 
I Doubleday, Page & Co. $1.75 net), is Miss Taggart's first full-fledged 
novel. It is the story of three Annes, aged severally : sixty-eight, twenty- 
two and seven years and the youngest Anne, though rather precocious 
to be quite lovable, is the one who most enlivens the story. Readers, 
old and young, of Miss Taggart's many tales for girls should be equally 
pleased with this, her first story for grown-ups. 

OTHER children's books recently issued are The Saviour's Foun- 
tains, by Michael Andrew Chapman (Huntington, Ind. : Our 
Sunday Visitor), a book for children on the Seven Sacraments, 
profusely illustrated; The Tree of Light, by James A. Scherer (New 
York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co. $1.35), the story of how Christmas came 
to old England and how the Oak, worshipped by the Druids, gave 
place to "The Tree of Light." Mostly Mary, by "Clementine" (Chicago : 
Matre & Co. $1.00). The influence of a truly Catholic home makes 
Mary the devout, honest and unselfish child we cannot help loving. 
How Lotys Had Tea With a Lion, by F. B. Kirkman, B.A. (New York : 
The Macmillan Co. $1.00). The story of a little English girl and her 
wonderful adventures with "Mr. Lion," which will fascinate the very 
little ones. Also from the Macmillan press we have The Windy Hill, 
by Cornelia Meigs ($1.75), in which Oliver Peyton meets the "Bee 
Man," listens to his enthralling stories, and later becomes a hero; and a 
new edition of Mrs. Molesworth's ever fresh and charming, though 
age-old stories, The Cuckoo Clock ($1.00) and Carrots ($1.00). The 
Girls of Highland Hall, by Carroll W. Rankin (New York: Henry Holt 
& Co. $1.75), is a story in which we meet again the four very 
real girls of Dandelion Cottage, in what we hope is a very unreal 
boarding school Highland Hall. These publishers have also put out a 
very delightful collection of stories in dialect, told by the negro "fo' 
de Wah," by John C. Branner, entitled How and Why Stories ($2.25). 
Of especial interest to boys are The Coral Islands, by R. M. Bal- 
lantyne ($1.75), The Lone Scout ($1.50) and A Marine, Sir! ($1.50), by 
Edward Champe Carter, all three published by The Cornhill Publishing 
Co., Boston, and all books of thrilling adventure. The Boy Who Came 
Back, by John Talbot Smith (New York: Blase Benziger & Co., Inc. 
$1.25), in which we are shown the good influence the Sisters can have 
over even the heart of a wayward boy; and Signals from the Bay Tree, 
by H. S. Spalding, S.J. (New York: Benziger Brothers. $1.50), which 
relates the thrilling adventures and narrow escapes of three boys in the 
Everglades of Florida. 

THE PRINT-COLLECTOR'S QUARTERLY, edited by Campbell 
Dodgson, C.B.E.; American Editor, Fitzroy Carrington, M.A. 
(London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd. American Agent, E. Weyhe, New 
York. $4.00 a year.) A periodical interesting to the art lover. The 
issue of April, 1921, treats of the Etchings of Forain, Tiepolo, Cozens 
and Lumsden, and is profusely illustrated. 






1921.] NEW BOOKS 411 

FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS. 

From the press of P. Tequi, Paris, we have received some very 
interesting books. Plans de Sermons Pour les Fetes de VAnnee, by Mon- 
seigneur Millot, is made up of skeleton sermons for the principal feasts 
of the Liturgical year. Any priest seriously interested in preparing his 
sermons will find in this work an inexhaustible mine of inspiration; 
La Bienheureuse Marguerite de Lorraine, Duchess d'Alencon and Poor 
Clare, by Canon Rene Guerin, is an interesting history as well as an 
edifying biography; Pensees Choisics de Pascal, by E. Crette, is a selec- 
tion of the "Thoughts of Pascal," the greatest of French thinkers, in- 
tended for popular use; Sanctifions Le Moment Present is a delicious 
little work of spirituality, consisting of thirty meditations by the Abbe 
Feige. This author has written similar works on the Sacred Heart and 
the Blessed Virgin, suitable for the months of May and June; and Jesus 
Vivant Dans Le Pretre, by Father Millet, S.J., is the fifth edition of this 
work, which is too well known from the excellent translation by Bishop 
Byrne of Nashville, Tenn., to need any commendation. 

Monsignor d'Hulst, Apologiste, by J. Bricourt (Paris: Ancienne 
Libraire Poussielgue), treats fully of the great work of Monsignor 
d'Hulst, the French apologist. It gives a character sketch of Mon- 
signor d'Hulst, his view of the period in which he lived and the 
spirit in which he went about his work, also his specific teachings. 
This work is evidently a labor of love, and forms a splendid companion 
volume to the Life of Monsignor d'Hulst, by Monsignor Baudrillart. 

La Philosophie Moderne Depuis Bacon Jusqu'a Leibniz, by Gaston 
Sortais, S.J. (Paris: P. Lethielleux.) Many have sought to appraise 
the life, work and character of the English statesman-philosopher; in 
the present scholarly study, Father Sortais has accomplished the work 
with a thoroughness and impartiality seldom surpassed in the whole 
range of Baconian literature. 

Pheniciens Essai de Contribution a VHistoire antique de la Medi- 
terrane, by C. Autran (Paris: Paul Geuthner. 30 /r.), is an interesting 
and erudite monograph which cannot be neglected either by anthro- 
pologists or by students of the Old Testament. It is the fashion to at- 
tribute that remarkable culture which grew up around the Mediter- 
ranean and bears its name, to the inhabitants of Egypt, and to a lesser 
extent to those of Mesopotamia races, as he says, which, during some 
three thousand years, exhibited, in all orders of ideas, very limited 
activities. The author will have none of this, but sets out to prove 
his thesis that the real originators of this culture were the ^Egean 
Phoenicians, whom he distinguishes sharply from the more frequently 
discussed Semitic Phoenicians. 

El Libro de la Mujer Espanola, by the Rev. Graciano Martinez, 
O. S. A. (Madrid: Asilo de Huerfanos.) This book is a small encyclo- 
pedia on feminism. Its thirteen chapters present the history of the 
feminist movement from the Greek and Romans till the present day. 
It supplies the reader with valuable information and reasons for and 
against women's exercise of rights, civil and political. Chapter VIII. 
presents a canvas of the intellectual development of the Spanish 
woman since early days, with Isabella of Castile and St. Teresa as the 
main figures. The author treats of the political rights of the Spanish 
women of our period, and while he criticizes the "hysteria" of the 
ultra-feminists, declares himself an advocate of the just claims of 
woman for participation in the Spanish Commonwealth. He mentions 
briefly the great social work undertaken by the association, called 
Accion Catolica de la Mujer, founded by His Eminence Cardinal Guisa- 
sola, in order to direct the feminist movement in Spain in right chan- 
nels within the bounds of Christian feminism. The style of this book 
is, unfortunately, emphatic and oratorical. 



IRecent Events, 



The chief topic of French discussion during 

France. the month has been the Conference on the 

Limitation of Armaments at Washington 

and the question whether Premier Briand would go as a delegate 
to it and even, for a time, whether his Government would survive 
the attacks of the opposition. Finally, after prolonged debate, 
both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, by a clear majority, 
gave the Premier the necessary vote of confidence, and he has 
since arrived in this country. The majority was won only after a 
hard up-hill fight and against severe counter-attacks, but it can be 
fairly taken to represent the national backing which the Premier 
has in the policy he has pursued since he took office, and will 
pursue at Washington. The opposition was in no way connected 
with the Premier's attendance at the Conference itself, or even 
with his conduct of foreign affairs, but was a matter of internal 
politics, pure and simple, the question involved being whether or 
not he was leaning too much for support on the Liberal Republican 
and Socialist side of the Chamber, to the detriment of the Na- 
tionalist group represented by M. Tardieu and ex-President Poin- 
care, which swept the country in the last election. 

The Conference opened on Saturday, November 12th, and on 
November 15th the real work begins. Besides the American 
representatives, there will be delegates from the four other prin- 
cipal Powers: Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan, who will 
take up all questions to be considered by the Conference and, in 
addition, there will be delegates from the Netherlands, Belgium, 
Portugal and China, who will participate in the deliberations 
respecting Far Eastern questions. 

All the Powers agree in principle in desiring to achieve three 
objects as fundamental purposes of the Conference: first, the re- 
duction and limitation of naval forces to the lowest point con- 
sistent with national security; second, to establish the peace of the 
world by removing the causes of political and economic rivalries 
in the Far East; and third, to guarantee the open door in China 
that is, equal commercial opportunity for all nations and to 
maintain the territorial integrity of China. 

In addition, the United States wishes to bring about the term- 



1921.] RECENT EVENTS 413 

ination of the Anglo-Japanese alliance. Neither France nor Italy 
is particularly interested in the alliance, as they do not regard it as 
either a military or an economic menace to the United States. 
According to American opinion, however, it is both, and it is the 
most delicate and difficult question for decision. 

On November 9th, the Council of Ambassadors met in Paris 
and signed a protocol setting forth the frontiers between Jugo- 
slavia and Albania. Up to the present, these boundaries have not 
been accurately defined, and by their action in thus delimiting the 
frontiers, the Council of Ambassadors have placed on a legal basis 
the issue which the Council of the League of Nations will discuss 
on November 18th, the issue, namely, of Serbia's frequent aggres- 
sions during the last few months against Albania. This meeting 
of the Council of the League of Nations has been called at the 
instance of the British Government, which has been watching 
Serbian military activities for some time with grave anxiety. It 
will be important as showing the power of the League to prevent 
an aggressive war for the territorial expansion of one of its mem- 
bers. Former representations to Serbia, concerning the invasion 
of Albanian territory, have been countered by assertions that only 
irregular bands, over which the Serbian Government had no 
control, were engaged in it, and by excuses founded upon doubts 
as to where the true boundary of Albania lay. 

A protest has been entered against the Wiesbaden agreement 
signed last month by French and German representatives, which 
provided for the delivery to France by the German Government of 
7,000,000,000 gold marks' worth of building materials in lieu of 
cash. The protest was made in a paper by Sir John Bradbury, 
British delegate to the Reparations Commission. His contention 
is that the broad result of the agreement will be that for the next 
fourteen years Germany will be able to count as payment under 
the Peace Treaty a maximum of 1,000,000,000 gold marks annually 
in respect to deliveries to France, whatever these deliveries may 
attain in fact, and that Germany will doubtless plead these ob- 
ligations to France as ground for consideration of her position in 
regard to reparations in general. He proposes, therefore, among 
other things, that France pay to the general reparations account 
any amounts necessary to insure that the other Allies shall receive 
their proper amounts due from Germany. The publication of the 
Bradbury report has aroused severe criticism by the French news- 
papers, which object not so much to the protest itself or its recom- 
mendation, as to the moment of its publication and its effect at this 
time in Germany, where the Reparations Commission is now 
starting its work. 



414 RECENT EVENTS [Dec., 

Meanwhile, a project to rebuild eleven villages in the Somme 
district with German material and by German labor has been sub- 
mitted to M. Loncheur, the Minister of Reconstruction, by French 
and German Labor organizations, acting through two groups of 
practical builders. The villages which have been selected are all 
near Chaulnes, in the Somme Department, and the Prefect of the 
Somme Department has informed M. Loncheur that the Mayors 
of all the villages and all the other local authorities favor the 
proposal. It has been decided, however, that before definite ap- 
proval is given to the scheme, all the property-holders and inhab- 
itants must have an opportunity of expressing their wishes. This 
will be done as soon as possible, and if the reply is favorable, the 
Government will certainly allow the project to be carried out as 
an experiment, which may have further development in the zone 
where the destruction was complete. It is proposed to complete 
the work within twelve months. 

According to the report of the Finance Commission of the 
Chamber of Deputies, there will be a deficit of 1,625,258,000 francs 
in the French budget for 1922. This will be made good by the 
issuance of Treasury bonds. The total expenditure for the year is 
estimated at just short of 25,000,000,000 francs and the total 
revenue at 23,327,000,000. The report says that the maximum 
which France can hope to recover from Germany is 68,000,000,000 
gold marks. For reconstruction between 60,000,000,000 and 80,- 
000,000,000 francs are still needed, and France will have to find 
between 6,000,000,000 and 8,000,000,000 francs for the next ten 
years. It will also be necessary to find 4,000,000,000 francs for 
pensions and 2,000,000,000 francs for interest on the sums already 
borrowed on this account. 

Under the direction of the League of Nations on October 22d, 
there was signed at the Headquarters of the League at Geneva a 
ten-power agreement for the neutralization of the Aland Islands. 
In its arbitration of the Aland dispute between Sweden and Fin- 
land, which gave the islands to Finland, with a degree of auton- 
omy, the League Council recommended that all the interested 
nations come to an agreement as to their military and naval 
neutrality. The ten nations thus invited Germany, Denmark, 
Esthonia, Finland, France, Great Britain, Italy, Lithuania, Poland 
and Sweden have now signed the agreement, whereby, under the 
supervision of the League, the neutrality of the islands is guar- 
anteed. 

The latest result of the Polish-Lithuanian dispute, which the 
League has been endeavoring to compose for several months, is 
the proffered resignation of General Joseph Pilsudski, President 






1921.] RECENT EVENTS 415 

of Poland. His action was based on the rejection by the Polish 
Cabinet of the plan for the creation of a middle Lithuanian State, 
the Ministers insisting upon the incorporation of Vilna with 
Poland. The President's resignation to date has not been ac- 
cepted, and the Ministers are seeking for a compromise. 

During the year 1922 the cost to Germany of the Allied and 
American armies of occupation will be 22,000,000 gold marks less 
than during the present year. This is the first and most outstand- 
ing result of the work that has been done at Paris during the last 
three weeks by the Inter-Allied Military Commission, appointed 
by the Supreme Council to examine questions of possible reduction 
and limitation of the cost of the Allied armies on the Rhine. A 
further saving to Germany, it is pointed out in the report, will 
result from the fact that a majority of the commissions set up by 
the Treaty will soon have completed their work. The commission 
suggests also that the Inter-Allied Rhine Commission, which is a 
civilian organization, shall be asked by the Supreme Council to 
meet and seek a way, as it has done, to reduce claims to the 
minimum. 

Towards the middle of October, the Council 
Germany. of the League of Nations announced its 

recommendation on the Upper Silesian 

question, and shortly thereafter the Allied Governments com- 
municated it to the Governments of Germany and Poland as the 
final decision in the fixation of the Upper Silesian boundary. The 
findings are in two parts. First, the line between Poland and Ger- 
many is laid down, whereby, roughly speaking, Germany is al- 
lowed two-thirds of the disputed area and Poland one-third; and 
second, provision is made for the establishment of a commission 
of Poles and Germans with a neutral Chairman to draw up a con- 
vention for the protection of the economic unity of the Silesian in- 
dustrial district. The Allies called on Germany and Poland to 
accept both parts of the League recommendations. 

Although by this decision Germany is awarded about two- 
thirds of the territory of the plebiscite area, in the portion going 
to Poland lies, it is estimated, two-thirds of the undeveloped 
mineral wealth of Silesia. The situation may be stated thus : Ger- 
many loses sixty-four per cent, of the Upper Silesia anthracite 
production, to wit, sixty-seven anthracite coal mines, which last 
year produced about 32,000,000 tons. She also loses all her Upper 
Silesian zinc production, or sixty per cent, of Germany's total zinc 
production. There is less statistical certainty regarding the in- 
dustrial loss, but it is believed to be about sixty-three per cent, of 



416 RECENT EVENTS [Dec., 

the Upper Silesian iron industries' production, or approximately 
1,500,000 tons of iron and steel products. 

As a result of the decision a wild outburst of disapproval 
swept over Germany and, on October 22d, Chancellor Wirth, whose 
reparations policy was largely built on the retention of Upper 
Silesia, and who had vigorously protested against its partition, 
handed his resignation to President Ebert with those of the entire 
Cabinet. Owing to the fact that Germany was obliged within the 
following week to send an economic commission to Upper Silesia 
to treat with a similar Polish commission, the Wirth Cabinet 
agreed to "conduct affairs" till a new Government was formed, 
but after several days' trial in other quarters, President Ebert was 
forced to ask Chancellor Wirth to form the new Cabinet, to which 
he agreed. Besides the post of Chancellor, Dr. Wirth took over 
the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, and with the changing about of 
several ministers from their former posts formed the new Cabinet 
practically out of the old. The office of Minister of Reconstruc- 
tion, formerly held by Dr. Walter Rathenau, was left unfilled for 
the present, as the Democratic Party, to which Dr. Rathenau 
belongs, objected to his acceptance of a post in the new Cabinet. 
He is expected, however, to join later. 

The Reichstag voted confidence in the new Ministry by a vote 
of 230 against 132, the majority of 98 being made up of Majority 
Socialists, Centrists, Independent Socialists and Democrats. The 
Majority Socialists and Centrists, will constitute the nucleus of the 
parliamentary support of the new Government. The Democrats 
and the Independent Socialists promise to stand by it, while the 
People's Party, representing the great industrial interests, again 
agrees to observe a benevolent neutrality. 

The new Ministry, though protesting in a formal note against 
the Allied decision, has sent in its formal acceptance to the Coun- 
cil of Ambassadors, and has appointed delegates to carry out, with 
the Polish representatives, the practical work of partition. The 
Polish Diet has also signified its assent, so that the Silesian ques- 
tion is now considered definitely settled, at least politically and, 
probably, economically also. 

At first, there were reports that the Germans would institute 
an economic boycott against the Polish part of Silesia, and even 
planned the systematic destruction of industrial plants, railways 
and bridges in that territory. This, however, proved false, and 
heavy buying of mines in Polish Silesia featured the first session 
of the Berlin Bourse after the Council's decision. In addition, the 
German concerns owning big industries in the region awarded to 
Poland, have decided to conduct their plants at their former high 



1921.] RECENT EVENTS 417 

state of efficiency. At present, Germany and Poland are endeav- 
oring to come to a complete understanding not only with regard to 
Upper Silesia, but on all political and economic questions at issue 
between the two countries. 

Coincident with the political crisis, and largely a cause of it, 
has been the internal economic situation, the mark steadily falling 
in value throughout the month till, on November 8th, it reached 
the unprecedented figure of three hundred and thirty for the dol- 
lar. This, of course, has played havoc with everything in prices, 
taxes, wages and budgets, and the Finance Minister says it is 
utterly impossible to balance the budget, the annual deficit 
amounting to 110,000,000,000 marks. 

The Government still adheres to its taxation scheme, but 
without much hope of success, and asserts that the country is on 
the verge of financial chaos. It is estimated that taxes in Germany 
amount to 22,000 marks yearly per family, of which 6,000 marks 
is for internal expenses. The fall of the mark, in the opinion of 
German bankers, was caused chiefly by the fact that the Govern- 
ment had to borrow twenty-seven per cent, of the last payment 
on reparations by means of short loans which had to be repaid, 
and payment as a whole had, of course, a cumulative effect. On 
the question of devising ways and means of meeting the country's 
international financial obligations, three bodies are now at work 
the Reichstag, the National Economic Council and the executive 
committee of the Association of German Industry. The latter is 
devoting its attention primarily to raising a credit of 2,000,000,000 
gold marks for the Government by combining the forces of Ger- 
man industry and agriculture. 

The tax bill has become the political centre of gravity and 
will probably determine the future of Chancellor Wirth's Cabinet. 
A bitter conflict is expected on this subject. The prevailing belief 
in Germany is that unless the whole reparations scheme is revised 
downward, the only feasible taxation programme is one that in- 
creases direct levies on large capital. This will amount to partial 
confiscation. 

On November 5th, it was announced that the entire Repar- 
ations Commission would soon go to Berlin for a stay of several 
weeks, in order to determine how far the fall of the mark and the 
disposition of the Silesian problem have affected Germany's ca- 
pacity to meet the payment of 500,000,000 gold marks due to the 
Allies on January 15, 1922. Another object of the Commission 
will be to obtain information which will lead to an adjustment of 
the disagreement of England and France over the Wiesbaden 
accord. In general, the Commission will endeavor to determine to 

VOL. OUV. 27 



418 RECENT EVENTS [Dec., 

what extent the conditions on which the London ultimatum was 
based have changed since last May. In this connection, many com- 
plex financial problems will be discussed. In a sense, the Repar- 
ations Commission may be considered to be moving toward a re- 
consideration of the whole reparations problem on a purely scien- 
tific basis. 

On October 18th, the United States Senate ratified the treaties 
negotiated by the Harding Administration with Germany, Austria 
and Hungary, and since then the formal exchange of the German 
and American ratifications has taken place in the respective 
capitals. A German envoy is at present on his way to this country 
to be succeeded later by an Ambassador not yet named. 

The United States Government has decided to retain approx- 
imately 5,600 officers and men of the army in the occupied region 
of Germany for an indefinite period, pending determination of 
whether the United States shall participate in the permanent occu- 
pation of German territory. The number of American soldiers 
now in Germany is 13,000, about 8,000 of whom are to be brought 
home, but as only two transports have been assigned to this duty, 
the reduction, which begins about the middle of November, will 
not be accomplished till March, 1922. 



The crisis of the Russian famine will be 
Russia. reached in January, and indications are 

that it will be accompanied by a big typhus 

epidemic, according to Colonel William L. Haskell, chief of the 
American Relief Administration in Russia. Fifteen million per- 
sons, he says, are more or less affected by the famine, which is 
most serious and widespread in the Volga Basin and to the east 
thereof. The famine is due, primarily, to the drought of last 
summer, in Colonel Haskell's opinion, and not due to the requisi- 
tions of the Soviet Government or of the Red or White armies. 
He estimates that fifty million dollars would save the bulk of the 
stricken people, as the population is not uniformly affected, and 
seventy-five per cent, of them can be reached by the transport 
available. The Soviet Government is unable to accomplish relief 
without outside aid. 

A new attempt to gain foreign recognition was made by the 
Soviet Government towards the end of October, when Foreign Min- 
ister Tchitcherin dispatched a note to the British, French, Amer- 
ican, Italian and Japanese Governments saying that the Soviet 
Government would agree to recognize the foreign debts of the old 
Imperial Russian Government, incurred up to 1914, under the con- 



1921.] RECENT EVENTS 419 

dition that "Russia be given certain privileges, making possible 
the practical fulfillment of those obligations," by the great Powers 
concluding final peace with and recognizing the Soviet Republic. 
The Foreign Minister proposed the immediate calling of an inter- 
national conference to consider the demands of all nations upon 
Russia and the Russian claims upon them, and to work out a final 
treaty of peace. Since the note was dispatched, the Russian 
Soviet Council of Commissars has appointed a special commission, 
headed by Maxim Litvinoff, chief of the Soviet legations abroad, 
to consider the question. 

To date, none of the Powers has replied to the note, though it 
has been authoritatively indicated that Great Britain will reply. 
The British note will point out that the Soviet's offer mentions only 
the Imperial State debts, and these only up to 1914, whereas ad- 
vances made to Russia by the Allies during the War aggregated 
between 400,000,000 and 800,000,000. The British reply will 
also set forth that the conference to establish peace, suggested by 
the Moscow Government, would be possible only after an Allied, 
or preferably an international, consensus of opinion was obtained 
regarding the policy to be pursued towards Russia's indebtedness. 
British public opinion looks on the offer from Moscow as merely 
another step in the steady progress towards the reestablishment 
of Anglo-Russian relations, which started with the signing of the 
trade agreement. 

The commercial treaty between Italy and Russia, negotiation 
of which was begun several months ago, has been put into draft 
form, and is now waiting the signatures of the Italian Foreign 
Minister and the Soviet representative in Italy. 

The fourth anniversary of the coup d'etat of Nikolai Lenine, 
which took place November 7, 1917, was celebrated very quietly 
this year, as the Moscow Government has let it be known that 
spectacular demonstrations, either in Russia or among Com- 
munists abroad, would be distasteful to it. Instead of vast man- 
ifestations, the waving of red flags and an outflow of world revolu- 
tion propaganda, which has characterized previous anniversaries, 
meetings were held in Petrograd designed to emphasize the need 
of a new economic policy and to influence the readmission of 
Russia to the official councils of the great nations. 

Meanwhile, Lenine has introduced into his economic policy 
certain modifications designed to meet unforeseen difficulties, and 
admitted by him to be an approach to capitalism. The changes are 
due to Lenine's recognition of the fact that Communism is at 
present inadequate to supply the peasants, on the one hand, with 
manufactured goods and the urban workers, on the other, with 



420 RECENT EVENTS [Dec., 

food, and though there has been some acrid criticism of the new 
policy by out-and-out Communists, Lenine has successfully van- 
quished all opposition. 

On the occasion of the Soviet anniversary, a general amnesty 
was declared for all private soldiers abroad who had fought 
against the Soviet Government. The amnesty has also been ex- 
tended to General Shashchoff and several other generals who 
fought under General Wrangel in the anti-Bolshevik campaign in 
the Crimea. 

The only force at present actively in operation against the 
Bolsheviki is that of the Ukrainian leader, General Petlura, who 
is reported to have captured several towns, including Kamneetz- 
Podolsk. It is reported that the Ruthenians, in Polish Galicia, 
are joining the Red Army opposing Petlura, and in official Allied 
circles it is believed that Petlura's new uprising can only be con- 
sidered a raid and will be easily suppressed by the Soviet forces. 

On October 26th, the Soviet Foreign Minister announced that 
negotiations had been opened in Moscow between the Soviet Gov- 
ernment and the new Mongolian Revolutionary Government of 
Urga, which cooperates with the Far Eastern Republic. Treaties 
also have been completed this year, M. Tchitcherin announced, 
with Persia, Afghanistan, Bokhara and Khiva. 



On October 22d, ex-Emperor Charles made 
Hungary. his second attempt within a year to regain 

the Hungarian throne. After a sensational 

flight from Switzerland by aeroplane, accompanied by the former 
Empress Zita, he landed near Oedenburg, where he received the 
allegiance of the troops gathered there. From there he and his 
army marched, on the following day, to Raab, occupying the town 
and sending out calls for various Hungarian leaders under the old 
regime and other royalist sympathizers. On the next day, how- 
ever, the Carlist forces were defeated in two engagements near 
Komorn (about forty miles northwest of Budapest) by Regent 
Horthy's troops, and Charles and his queen taken prisoner. 

Meanwhile, the governments of Czecho-Slovakia and Jugo- 
slavia sent an ultimatum to Hungary demanding the delivery to 
them of Charles and guarantees for the disarmament of Hungary, 
and for the reimbursement of the costs of mobilization and, in the 
event of refusal, threatening invasion. At this junction, however, 
the Allied Council of Ambassadors took charge of the situation 
and, after several days' deliberation, decided on the banishment 
of Charles and his family to the island of Madeira. The Council 



1921.] RECENT EVENTS 421 

issued a note calling on the Hungarian National Assembly to de- 
pose the former King and declare all other members of the Haps- 
burg family ineligible to the throne. 

Early in November, the Assembly complied with the Allied 
demands, and President Masaryk issued an order for the demo- 
bilization of the Czecho-Slovak forces. At present, the ex-Emperor 
and his consort are being conveyed to Madeira on board a British 
battle-cruiser, and this is considered the final act in the drama of 
attempted restoration. Admiral Horthy, the Hungarian Regent, 
has issued a decree granting amnesty to all participants in the 
Carlist movement except the leaders. 

Immediately before the royalist uprising, the controversy be- 
tween Austria and Hungary over Burgenland, the strip of West 
Hungarian territory awarded to Austria by the Allies, was settled 
by a compact between the two countries. By this agreement Hun- 
gary bound herself to clear Burgenland of insurrectionary Hun- 
garian bands and Austria accepted a plan for a plebiscite in certain 
towns of the district. Latest advices are to the effect that the 
insurgents are evacuating their position on the southern front of 
the area. In the north, Colonel Hyjas, commanding the insur- 
gents, has requested an armistice. 



An important step in the liquidation of 
Greece. affairs in Asia Minor was taken on October 

30th, when the French Government an- 
nounced its ratification of an agreement with the Turkish Nation- 
alist Government at Angora, declaring peace between the two Gov- 
ernments and providing for economic cooperation. By the terms 
of the agreement Cilicia is to be evacuated by the French, the 
boundary between Turkey and Syria, held by France, is drawn, 
and various economic advantages are granted to France, notable 
among which is a concession for the operation of the Bagdad rail- 
road from the Mediterranean to the Tigris River and a ninety-nine 
year lease on the iron, chrome and silver mines in the northern 
part of Anatolia, near the shores of the Black Sea. 

The political importance of this agreement is great. Not only 
is France on good terms with Mustapha Kemal, and hence will not 
help the Greeks in their war on him, but it is very likely that the 
weight of French diplomatic influence will be cast against the 
Greeks. The agreement also implies that France recognize the 
Angora Government as the ruling power in Turkey, and not the 
Constantinople Government, which is still treated by England as 
officially representing that country. 



422 RECENT EVENTS [Dec., 

Though the French Government pointed out that the Treaty 
concerned only affairs between France and Turkey, and hence did 
not need the approval of the Allied Powers, a protest has been 
raised against it by Great Britain. The French, in reply, state 
that the British Government has been in constant touch with the 
Franco-Turkish negotiations ever since they began in London on 
March 21st last, and that the present objections are very belated. 
The real cause of the dispute seems to be a clash of the two policies 
which France and England have pursued in the Near East ever 
since the end of the War. The French have constantly endeavored 
to obtain a settlement by what they call a positive policy dealing 
with the facts of the situation as they found them. The British 
policy, on the other hand, has been as constantly negative in its 
refusal to recognize the government of Mustapha Kemal as the 
de facto Government of Turkey with consequent admission of 
Turkish independence. 

Meanwhile, the Greco-Turkish front has remained inactive 
throughout the month, though diplomatic maneuvers have been 
made by both countries. The Turks, besides arranging the Treaty 
with France, have concluded an alliance with northern Persia, 
which, according to Mustapha Kemal, is the first step to unite the 
whole Mohammedan world. The Greeks have been less success- 
ful. Late in October, Premier Gounaris went first to Paris and 
later to London in an endeavor to obtain financial assistance and 
recognition of King Constantine, but failed in both objects, with 
the English as well as the French. It is understood that unless 
Greece soon obtains a considerable loan, it will be bankrupt. 



The Fascist! are still belligerently active in 
Italy. Italy, the month being marked by clashes 

between them and three other parties. The 

first occurred on October 21st at Venice when they attacked the 
Catholic Party in convention there, causing a riot call to be sent 
in and the dispatch of police reinforcements to the scene. On 
November 8th, sharp fighting between Fascisti and Communists 
occurred near Novi, in Alessandria Province, Northwestern Italy, 
in which most of the combatants were wounded, some seriously. 
The general strike of the railway workers in Rome was the occa- 
sion of the third conflict, when, on November 10th, the Fascisti 
attacked the workers and caused numerous disturbances through- 
out the city. 

The only other Italian news of moment was the solemn inter- 
ment, on November 4th, of the body of Italy's Unknown Soldier 



1921.] RECENT EVENTS 423 

under the Victor Emmanuel monument in Rome, and the purchase 
by the Italian Government of the majority ownership of the "Sud- 
bahn" Company of Vienna, a company controlling the principal 
trunk-line railway system of Austria-Hungary. The main line of 
the road connects Vienna with Trieste, Budapest and Prague and 
traverses what is considered one of the richest sections of Central 
Europe. 

A military revolt against the Portuguese 
Portugal. Government broke out in Lisbon on Oc- 

tober 20th, in which the Premier Antonio 

Granjo and several other officials, including Machado dos Santos, 
founder of the Portuguese Republic and once its President, were 
slain. The trouble seems to have been occasioned by the feeling 
that the Premier was not sufficiently severe towards the monarch- 
ists, who since the last election have taken a bolder stand. Since 
the beginning of the year, Portugal, which has been a republic 
since October 5, 1910, has had no less than seven Premiers, at 
least three of whom came into office after incipient revolutions. 
The present outburst had its inception in a less serious one last 
May when it was reported that Machado dos Santos had seized 
the Presidential power. Quiet has now been restored, and a new 
Cabinet under Senhor Pinta has been inducted into office. The 
new Government has started an investigation of the late revolt and 
has issued orders for the disarming of all civilians. 

November 14, 1921. 



With Our Readers 



AS the manifestation of a great hope, it is good to record the 
event which took place upon Armistice Day and the char- 
acteristic attitude of the whole country. There are moments in 
the life of a man when he is at his best. The whole nation was at 
its best in those two minutes at noontide of November llth, when, 
in silence, it paid its tribute to the Unknown Soldier and to all 
that was represented in him. It would be enlightening could we 
but pierce the walls and enter into the souls of all the people 
during that little space of time. But, of one thing we are con- 
vinced, that, in the majority of cases, not only thoughts of patriot- 
ism were aroused, but also thoughts of our reliance upon God. 
That same spirit which shone forth in the address of our Presi- 
dent and reached its climax in his recitation of the Our Father, 
which pulsated in the hearts of those who gathered in the churches 
of the land, seemed to animate the whole country and to raise it 
to the appreciation of its need of God. It was the manifestation 
of a great hope, the hope that, in spite of all contrary and un- 
seemly things in our civilization, the higher things, the substantial 
virtues, the fundamental principles of religion and morality will 
prevail. 

* * * * 

I^VEVELOPMENT is one of the signs of life. But development 
*-** does not mean revolution; it does not mean destruction and 
substitution. For if we are to have development, we must have 
something to develop, something of essence and substance that 
remains through all the accidental changes and improvements. 
Development, in other words, implies a definite subject matter 
and a determined law of action. The complement of the par- 
ticular is the universal. The complement of the dynamic is the 
static. The complement of the individual is the typical or the 
general. In meeting the problems of life, therefore, Catholic 
thought, which is capable of development, likewise has its static 
and immutable elements. The unchangeable facts of revelation 
and the unchangeable decrees of conscience form the fixed and 
determined foundations from which truth cannot vary, no matter 
what may be its development. Throughout all its progress, truth 
is essentially the same. 



1921.] WITH OUR READERS 425 

ON the other hand, the so-called modern thought is characteris- 
tically a matter of change and flux both in itself and in its 
view of the matters and problems of life. It flies often from one 
extreme to the other : it neglects the general for the particular and 
the common or typical for the individual. It abhors universal 
statements and fixed definitions. In all departments of knowl- 
edge and of action, it varies with the shifting opinions of the 
times, considering that every change is an advance and that every 
adaptation to the circumstances of the day is growth and progress. 
With two such differing fundamental positions, it can be seen 
that there must result very different attitudes towards the ethical 
conduct of life, as well as towards its theory. In fact, it is in this 
realm, the realm of moral behavior, that the difference is most 
vitally manifested and experienced. The result, in the one case, 
is definiteness of decision with the obligation of meeting and con- 
quering any difficulties that may be presented: and, in the other 
case, vagueness of principles, with no obligation of facing diffi- 
culties, but rather with the questionable privilege of obliterating 
difficulties by denying them. 

* # * * 

THE daily evidences of this latter state of mind are numerous 
and, sad to say, are destructive of ethical character and moral 
strength. Lately, for example, we had the pleasure for it was 
a pleasure of reading one of the few exceptionally good novels of 
the day, a pleasure which, however, was cut short in the con- 
veniently w r eak solution at the end of the story. Through the 
book was portrayed in excellent language and with understanding 
and imagination, the supreme effort of a human mind to fathom 
the meaning of life and to face its difficulties, bravely, with fixed 
moral principles, with candor, and with a real desire to reach 
reality. Then, suddenly, the wonderful edifice that has been 
erected, the strong and attractive character that has been built up, 
calling forth our admiration, collapses before all difficulties by 
adopting for them the easy solution of divorce. Of course, the 
worst feature of this is that the author would consider his solution 
to be legitimate. If it were so, it should have come much earlier 
in the story. If not, then it should not have entered at all. And 
there is always in the application of such a solution in our works 
of fiction, a sense which it would seem that the authors themselves 

dimly share, of the unseemliness of this way out of the difficulty. 

* * * * 

IN another matter of ethical import today, the same sort of 
tendency is evident; the readiness to solve the difficulties of life, 
not by facing them, but by annihilating them at any cost. No one 



-12(5 WITH OUR READERS [Dec., 

will question the fact that marriage frequently begets difficulties 
of one sort or another. No one will question the fact that even 
married people may find it hard to get along with one another. 
But is the very institution of marriage, therefore, to be destroyed? 
So, too, no one will deny that the begetting and rearing of chil- 
dren entail trial and inconvenience and suffering and difficulties 
of many sorts, but is the moral law to be set aside on account of 
these things, and practices approved and preached which are 
nothing less than serious violations of the laws of life and of God? 
It is, of course, the easiest way out. And even if it means the 
denial of moral obligations, and the destruction of purity, and the 
disintegration of character and physical and moral degeneration, 
the tendency of the so-called modern thought is to yield to the de- 
mands of the particular as against the universal, of individual 
selfishness as against the general good; and to advocate the un- 
seemly methods of birth-control. All reverence for fundamental 
law is lost. The most sacred precincts of life, where, if anywhere, 
law must reign, are invaded by a veritable demon of destruction 
and annihilation. 

# # # # 

NOR is this attitude confined to problems that are connected 
with marriage and the family. It invades many realms of 
ethical action and moral principle. For example, as evidenced 
recently in an address by the president of one of our woman's 
colleges and frequently exploited in our more or less radical press, 
the virtue of patriotism is treated with the same irreverence and 
ridicule. No one questions the fact that there are many things in 
our civic and political life crying out for change and betterment: 
no one would say that we should not labor for such improvement : 
no one, with an intelligent view 7 of our present conditions, would 
argue that things are altogether right because they are: no one 
would deny that there are difficulties in our political life to be met 
courageously and problems to be solved. But, on the other hand, 
are these troubles to be alleviated and are the deplored conditions 
to be remedied by casting ridicule upon our Constitution, by sneer- 
ing at our flag, and by decrying patriotism? Are there not, in all 
the branches of life, standards to be preserved, fundamental and 
essential principles that should not vary, no matter how many 
accidental changes and applied improvements of development 
may be desirable? 

* * * # 

FROM out all this stands forth the basic difference between what 
its votaries are pleased to call modern thought and that sum 
of teaching in regard to matters of faith and morals, which is 



1921.] WITH OUR READERS 427 

Catholic thought. In the one case there is vagueness, in the other 
definiteness; in one case constant change, in the other fixity; in 
one case a worship of the new because it is new, in the other 
reverence for the old because, while old, it is also true ; in the one 
case no possibility of attaining rest and satisfaction, in the other 
a certainty that, whatever the new conditions of life and whatever 
the ever-arising needs of life, whatever the problems that must be 
faced, there are standards and principles of an ethical nature that 
are as old as the human race, yea as eternal as God. Life is con- 
served and bettered, not by sacrificing these, not by annihilating 
them, but by building upon them. 



T? DUCATION presents many problems and one of these problems 
-- is just how and where this or that individual student is to 
secure the training necessary for his vocation in life. It would be 
a great blessing for American Catholic young men and young 
women if, in the realm of higher education, there were Catholic 
colleges and universities sufficient in number and adequately 
equipped to supply all the demands. Unfortunately, this is not so. 

That the Catholic Church in the United States has done a 
stupendous work in the field of education cannot be questioned. 
Considering all the obstacles and difficulties, this achievement is 
probably without parallel in history. A glance at a recent pub- 
lication, The Directory of Catholic Schools and Colleges, compiled 
by Rev. James Ryan, D.D., Secretary of the Education Department 
of the National Catholic Welfare Council, will show the magnitude 
of the Catholic educational work in the United States. 

With all that has been accomplished, however, it is quite 
evident that there are certain educational advantages that cannot 
always be obtained under Catholic auspices. It would be quite 
impossible, for example, for all Catholic students throughout this 
vast country who so desired, to obtain instruction in medicine in 
Catholic schools, for the simple reason that such schools are few 
and far between. The same, in a lesser degree, is true of courses 
in law and in many branches of physical science. Again, the ter- 
ritorial question creates a difficulty. Many students would have 
to travel far to a Catholic college or university, whereas well- 
equipped secular institutions are close at hand. The financial 
question, too, not infrequently is one that has to be considered 
by the student of small means. Many State universities offer free 
tuition, a consideration that often makes possible the obtaining of 
an education that otherwise would be impossible. 



428 WITH OUR READERS [Dec., 

AT any rate, it is quite true that, for one legitimate reason or 
another, there are thousands of Catholic students in America 
who are attending secular institutions of learning. It has been 
reckoned that the number of these today is between thirty and 
forty thousand. This is a great fact or condition that has to be 
admitted and faced. It carries with it a danger, no doubt, but it 
also carries with it a duty. The danger, of course, is that in such 
educational institutions there often exists not only a neglect of 
religion, but, sometimes among some of its professors, positive 
opposition to the teachings and principles of Christian Faith and 
even Christian morality. In the plastic years of college life the 
student, sometimes even unconsciously, is liable to suffer a weak- 
ening of faith because his faith is not nourished as it should be, 
and the reasons for his faith are not kept before his mind. The 
food of life is denied him. It was, no doubt, the realization of this 
fact and this danger that called forth one of the mandates of His 
Holiness Pope Pius X. in his Encyclical on Christian Doctrine, 
which reads as follows: "In large towns, and especially in those 
which contain universities, colleges and grammar schools, let 
religious classes be founded to instruct in the truths of faith and 
in the practice of Christian life the young people who frequent the 
public schools, from which all religious teaching is barred." 
* * * * 

FROM the fact and the danger there arises the duty. Many have 
realized this duty, notably the Archbishops and Bishops who 
have assigned priests for the spiritual care of the Catholic students 
attending secular universities within their respective dioceses. 
In the Directory referred to above there are listed no less than 
forty-seven universities, attached to which are Catholic chaplains 
or spiritual directors. No doubt, at present, among all these insti- 
tutions, the character and degree of the catechetical and spiritual 
work vary considerably. Perfection has not yet been attained in 
all cases. But there are instances in which the attention given to 
the students and to meeting their spiritual needs is quite adequate. 
This is the condition to be aimed at and, let us hope, soon to be 
attained in all such efforts. To draw upon a report, which is at 
hand, in one of the largest of our universities where the Catholic 
students are well supplied with a chapel, all their own, and a well- 
equipped clubhouse containing a splendid library and recreation 
facilities, there are no less than three Masses for them every Sun- 
day, a sermon preached at each Mass, and sermon and benediction 
of the Blessed Sacrament in the afternoon. Every year a mission 
is conducted, lasting a week, and in another part of the year a 
retreat of five days. Daily Mass is attended by a goodly number 



1921.] WITH OUR READERS 429 

of students and special lectures and sermons are given through- 
out the year. Classes in Christian Doctrine are held regularly. 
Perhaps, the most important feature of all is that the priests can 
always be consulted by the students and are sought out when 
difficulties present themselves to their minds, difficulties of a 
philosophical or religious nature. It may be well to note here that, 
through such consultations, thoughts of a vocation to the priest- 
hood and the religious life have been frequently awakened, later 
to flower, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, into realization. 

* * * * 

ONE of the first to reach out an assisting hand to Catholic 
students attending a State university was Archbishop Riordan. 
Shortly before his death, he wrote at considerable length about 
Newman Hall at the University of California; and it is not out of 
place to quote some of his words: "Since the establishment of 
this Hall the attitude of the University towards the Catholic 
Church has undergone a decided change. A friendly interest has 
been established. Many non-Catholic professors and students en- 
courage the work by attendance, not only at the lectures and con- 
ferences, but also at the religious services. The Fathers at the 
Hall devote much time to answering questions and correcting mis- 
understandings in regard to our Faith. Several non-Catholic 
students have been received into the Church and many Catholic 
students, who before were careless in the practice of their religion, 
now receive Holy Communion monthly. The frequent attendance 
at Mass and Communion, the interest that is manifested in the 
lectures and conferences both by Catholics and the University 
public generally the favorable change that has come over the 
University public mind in regard to the Catholic Church, all prove 

that Newman Hall is accomplishing its purpose." 

# # * * 

HPHE example of Archbishop Riordan has been followed by 
I others, and today there are many well-equipped establish- 
ments of a like nature throughout the country. Such as those, 
to name a few, at the University of Wisconsin, the University of 
Illinois, the University of Michigan, the University of Texas and, 
as soon will be the case, at Columbia University in New York 
City. Nor has our sister-country to the north been behindhand 
for, both at the University of Toronto and at McGill University at 
Montreal, there have been such establishments for years. The 
fact, the danger, the duty, all are apparent and all necessitate, 
on the part of those who have at heart the spiritual welfare of our 
children, devoted effort not only to keep them within the fold, but 
also to advance them in the knowledge and love of God. To say 



430 WITH OUR READERS [Dec., 

that the existence of such Catholic establishments at secular uni- 
versities tends to draw some students who would otherwise go to 
Catholic colleges or universities, is a contention which probably 
has in it some small measure of truth; but, on the other hand, that 
no special spiritual attention should be accorded these thousands 
of Catholic young men and women at our secular colleges and 
universities is unthinkable. 



AN article in the American Church Monthly (Anglican) for 
November dwells, at considerable length upon "The Problem 
of Reunion/* by Leslie J. Walker, S.J. Here are some of the things 
it says: 

"Yet, after all, it is our foremost need to face the actual facts, 
and for clear vision (of the facts of other Communions than his 
own) and for constructive statesmanship we must give a very high 
place to the book of the Jesuit, Father Walker, The Problem of 
Reunion. It does not give in large detail the interesting facts of 
our American movement towards cooperation and union; but it is 
of all these volumes the most masterly in setting out the world's 
need for a united Church and the most statesmanlike in its hand- 
ling of the constructive problem." 

Our readers who have followed Father Walker's articles on 
"Why God Became Man" will be glad not only to read these words, 
but also to know that his recent articles in THE CATHOLIC WORLD 
will soon be published in book form, making a notable contribu- 
tion to apologetic literature. 



ANEW experiment in mission preaching, soon to be made, is 
thus announced in the New York World: 

"For the first time in any Catholic church in the United States 
a wireless telephone will be installed in the pulpit of old St. 
Patrick's, Pittsburgh, Pa., during a mission to be held by the Paul- 
ist Fathers from November 27th to December 12th. 

"The wireless will be connected with the Westinghouse wire- 
less telephone station, and the sermons will go out every evening 
to all those who have wireless receiving attachments. The preach- 
ers will be the Rev. Bertrand L. Conway and the Rev. David W. 
Kennedy. 

"All questions asked by those of every creed will be answered 
over the wireless telephone. The question box will be placed 
near the door of the church and the questions and answers sent 
broadcast every evening." 



1921.] WITH OUR READERS 431 

IT is our hope to present to our readers in the next number a 
special article on a very important book recently published by 
The Macmillan Company, American Catholics in the War. It is 
the story of the work of the National Catholic War Council during 
the trying days of conflict, told with that literary charm always 
characteristic of the pen of its author, Mr. Michael Williams. 
Needless to say, the glorious substance of this record and the 
grace of its presentation combine to make a volume which every 
American, Catholic and non-Catholic, should read with profit and 
pleasure. 



E LECTURE GUILD" which was started a few years ago, 
has proved a useful agency for spreading Catholic ideals. It 
has just issued a new list of noted public speakers on Literature, 
Drama, Philosophy and Religion, Travel, Music and Art, Science, 
History, Sociology and Current Topics, which will enable Cath- 
olic schools, clubs, parishes and other bodies to arrange pro- 
grammes of lectures, and engage lecturers from among the best 
in the country on subjects which are well up-to-date. Among 
foreign lecturers listed by the Guild are Mr. Cathal O'Byrne, who 
comes to sing, as well as to talk, about the Folksongs of Ireland, 
and Miss Annie Christitch, whose Irish mother has long been a 
contributor to THE CATHOLIC WORLD. Miss Christitch, during the 
War, raised funds for eight hospitals in her native country, Serbia, 
and did valiant work at the International Congress of Women in 
Geneva. 

In this crucial period of readjustment it is scarcely necessary 
to accentuate the value of an organization whose purpose is to 
make available correct Catholic opinion. 

The Advisory Board of "The Lecture Guild" counts among its 
members the editors of America, THE CATHOLIC WORLD, The 
Rosary Magazine, The National Catholic War Council Bulletin, 
the assistant editor of the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Hon. Maurice 
Francis Egan and Mrs. Joyce Kilmer. 

"The Lecture Guild" will gladly send free its list of speakers, 
and any information desired in regard to lectures, their rates and 
dates, and to add to its lists the names of well recommended Cath- 
olic lecturers from any part of the country. 

For any information desired address, Secretary of "The Lec- 
ture Guild, 7 East 42d Street, New York City, N. Y. 



BOOKS RECEIVED. 

BENZIGER BBOTHERS, New York: 

Life's Lesson. By Father Garesche, S.J. $1.50. Sundays in the Garden of Easter. 
By E. Seton. $1.75. The Exercises of St. Gertrude. Translated by Thos. A. 
Pope, M.A., of the Oratory. 85 cents. Denys, the Dreamer. By K. T. Hinkson. 
$2.00 net. An Epitome of the Priestly Life. By Canon Arvisenet. $2.50 net. 
Jesus Christ, the King of Our Hearts. By V. Rev. A. Lepicier, O.S.M. $1.50 net. 
St. John Berchmans. By H. Delehaye, S.J. $1.50. 
THE MACMILLAN Co., New York: 

Their Friendly Enemy. By Gardner Hunting. $1.75. The Philippines, Past and 
Present. By Dean C. Worcester. $5.00. Dante, 1321-1921, Essays in Commem- 
oration. Issued by arrangement with the Dante Sexcentenary Committee. 
12 s. 6 d. net. Topless Towers. By Margaret Ashmun. $2.00. Eudocia. By 
Eden Phillpotts. $2.00. Reynard, the Fox. By John Masefleld. $5.00. 
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & Co., Garden City, New York: 

The Victory at Sea. By Rear Admiral W. Sims in collaboration with B. J. 
Hendrick. $5.00. McLoughlin and Old Oregon. By E. E. Dye. $1.75. Harbours 
of Memory. By William McFee. $1.75. 
DODD, MEAD & Co., New York: 

The Life of Jean Henri Fabre. By A. Fabre. The Passing of the Third Floor 
Back. Play Edition. By J. K. Jerome. The Folly of Nations. By F. Palmer. 
P. J. KENEDY & SONS, New York: 

The King of the Golden City. By Mother M. Loyola. $2.50. You and Yours. 
By Martin J. Scott, S.J. Excursions in Thought. By "Imaal." $1.50. St. John 
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Prostitution in the United States. By H. B. Woolston. $2.50. 
G. E. STECHERT & Co., New York: 

The Great Schoolmen of the Middle Ages. By W. J. Townsend. $4.00. 
THE JAMES A. McCANN Co., New York: 

On the Trail of the Pigmies. By Dr. Leonard J. V. Bergh. 
HARPER & BROTHERS, New York: 

Rich Relatives. By C. Mackenzie. $2.00. 
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Reviews and Critical Papers. By Lionel Johnson. Edited with an Introduction 

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Edge of the Jungle. By Wm. Beebe. $2.50. 
JOHN LANE Co., New York: 

Ireland Unfreed, Poems of 1921. By Sir W. Watson. 
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A Mender of Images. By Norma Lorimer. $2.00. 
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, New York: 

The Proceedings of The Hague Peace Conferences. Translation of Official Texts, 
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HOUGHTON MIFFLIN Co., Boston : 

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Psychological Studies from the Catholic University of America. Edited by E. 
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THE 



Catholic &{orld 



VOL. CXIV. 



JANUARY, 1922. 



No. 682. 




THE HUMAN RACE: ITS UNITY OF ORIGIN. 

BY J. ARTHUR M. RICKEY. 

RESIDENT HARDING'S notable speech in the 
South on the Race Question brings to a focus the 
basic principles on which racial and social differ- 
ence or inequality rest. This difference is deeper 
than the skin; it is found in the disposition, and is 
as apparent oftentimes among those of one household or 
among the peoples of one race as among those of different 
races. There are a great many things which are essentially 
human, and always have been. It is human to err; it is human 
to differ; it is human, under stress, to let passion get the better 
of reason, and so on. All these avenues of difference, on the 
other hand, encourage the affinity of kindred souls, the gather- 
ing into cliques, tribes and nations. We find plenty of evi- 
dence of this in the study of the Indian tribes and nations of 
former times in North America; we find it also in the organ- 
ization of the Feudal System in Europe which issued from that 
most militaristic of ages succeeding the fall of the Roman 
Empire. Out of the Feudal System were built up the nations 
of Europe, and while there was here and there, from older 
days, a nucleus which could be called a national entity in 
embryo, it was not the all-controlling factor in the erection of 
the nations of Europe. 

COPYRIGHT. 1921. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE 

IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 
VOL. cxiv. 28 



434 THE HUMAN RACE rjau ., 

Among democratic governments the people at large have 
a voice, as a rule, but no sane man will assert that universal 
suffrage conveys economic equality which is governed by 
other laws of intelligence, opportunity and initiative, in which 
any race may share in as far as it has ability to do so. Eco- 
nomic success leads very often to political prominence, so do 
marked success in educational, literary and other pursuits, 
and political or intellectual prestige is often the stepping- 
stone to that which approximates social "equality," conse- 
quently, we have seen an Israelite holding the premiership of 
England, a negro Master of Arts dining with the President in 
the White House and the "Lily of the Mohawks" canonized by 
the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, exceptions do not preempt 
the rule. It is difficult to say what constitutes social equality. 
In individual cases, it is largely a matter of personal choice; 
in a larger way, as in the case of many of our pioneers, it was 
the result of conditions; but social normalcy has a way of 
setting up its own barriers and establishing, to a large extent, 
its own standards of social equality, which are conditioned not 
only by the color line, but frequently by the degrees of one's 
wealth, education, tact, personal attractiveness and a host of 
other qualifications. The exceptions to the general rule, how- 
ever, are numerous and sufficient to establish the fact that, 
after all these ages which have passed over the human race 
and witnessed its divergences, it is still the human race with 
the same physical, mental and spiritual powers of functioning 
similarly under the same favorable conditions. This is proof 
enough of the essential unity of the human race as we find it 
today, and does not involve the accidental features of political, 
religious, educational, economic or social divergence. 

L 

There are two theories as to the origin of biologic species, 
the raonogenetic and the polygenetic. These two theories 
have been employed in the effort to work out the problem as 
to the various races of men. Because of certain superficial 
differences which appear more or less permanent, the poly- 
genetic theory, supposing different origins for the chief divi- 
sions of the human race, was adopted by some; the mono- 
genetic is the more generally accepted hypothesis. 

Brinton, who was both a biologist and Egyptologist of 



THE HUMAN RACE 435 

note, says concerning the origin of the races of men: "The 
theory of single origin is the simpler, and it is the rule in 
scientific reasoning always to adopt the simpler hypothesis 
when it explains the facts. From these considerations the 
majority of anthropologists, both in Europe and America, are 
inclined to favor the opinion that the human species arose in 
some one locality, and spread thence over the face of the 
earth." 

Darwin himself wrote, and I think it was one of the most 
rational things he ever said as to origin of species: "All the 
races of men agree in so many unimportant details of struc- 
ture, and in so many mental peculiarities, that they can be 
accounted for only through inheritance from a common pro- 
genitor." 

Neither of the two gentlemen quoted, perhaps, would be 
selected for the defence of "orthodox conceptions," but their 
statements are of especial value from the viewpoint of serious 
scientific investigation, and as representing the opinion of "the 
majority of anthropologists." And, as the evidential value of 
the Bible is recognized by practically all anthropologists and 
chronologists, it is interesting to note that the diagnosis of the 
two scientists quoted agrees substantially with the writer of 
the Acts of the Apostles that God "hath made of one, all man- 
kind to dwell upon the whole face of the earth." a The agree- 
ment of worthy witnesses, when separated by nearly two thou- 
sand years of time, affords evidence of unusual value, partic- 
ularly when the same conclusion is reached by different modes 
of reasoning, one biologic, another anthropologic and the re- 
maining, evidently, traditional. To further establish the value 
of the traditional method of reasoning, one may recall the 
nineteenth verse in the ninth chapter of Genesis, which says: 
"'These three are the sons of Noe; and from these was all 
mankind spread over the whole earth." This, at least, estab- 
lishes the antiquity of the traditional view, while the only 
antediluvian chronology which has come down to us traces 
its origin to Adam. The fact that no other chronology of any 
other people reaches that far back, is in itself a confirmation 
of the traditional view, and when Darwin practically estab- 
lishes the same fact along biologic processes and Brinton, from 
a host of witnesses, does the same through anthropological 



436 THE HUMAN RACE [Jan., 

argument, the value of traditional evidence is greatly en- 
hanced. Tradition was accepted on faith, but it is shown to 
have been confirmed by scientific investigations which did not 
seek to confirm it. But the first essential of Truth is that it be 
true, and its testing has been the chief incentive, pro or con, 
to the development of the natural sciences and higher 
learning. 

II. 

Brinton says the best scientific researches go to show that 
"the birthplace of man was somewhere on the southern slope 
of the vast mountain chain which extends in an almost un- 
broken line from the northern coast of Spain eastward to the 
Himalayas. . . . There is more to be said for that locality 
than for some sunken continent (the Atlantis, or Haeckel's 
Lemuria) ." 

The Himalayas form the southern rampart of the Tibetan 
tableland, separating it from the low-lying plains of Northern 
India. Just south of the Caucasus mountains would be mid- 
way between the two extremes allowed by Brinton and several 
others, and, as a matter of fact, this is the very section de- 
scribed in Genesis as the location of the "Garden of Eden." 
A luxurious growth in the salubrious climate south of the 
Caucasus, with the Caspian Sea to the east and the Black Sea 
to the west, certainly offered advantageous conditions for the 
advent of man. From the Bible account one does not gather 
that the "Garden" of Eden was the whole of Eden. The ac- 
count in the second chapter of Genesis, taken as a whole, pre- 
supposes an extensive territory, a dominion, as it were, pre- 
pared for man's rule. The first man is described as giving 
names to many beasts, cattle and fowl, all of which intimates 
an extensive reserve. Then, the river that went out of Eden "is 
divided into four heads," or sources. The names are given 
the Euphrates, the Tigris or Hiddekel, and the smaller tribu- 
taries, Gehon and Phison. These rivers become one, and enter 
the Persian Gulf at its northern extremity. The description in 
Genesis probably places Eden just west of the border between 
Persia and Turkey, near the confluence of the Tigris and 
Euphrates, about seventy-five miles northwest of the Persian 
Gulf and a few hundred miles south of the Caucasus moun- 
tains, but well within the extensive radius allowed by Brinton. 






1922.] THE HUMAN RACE 437 

It is now generally conceded that Babylonia has a more 
ancient history than Egypt, and Babylonia extended up along 
the Euphrates some hundreds of miles, Babylon itself being 
nearly half way between the Persian Gulf and Mount Ararat, 
where the Ark was said to have landed. All this goes to estab- 
lish the closest relationship between the earliest remains of 
man and that section of the Earth which the Bible geograph- 
ically ascribes to Eden. 

III. 

The chronology of the Bible, going, as it does, much 
further back than any other known chronology and, at the 
same time, having the ear-marks of authenticity, after allow- 
ing for some probable omissions, must, in all reason, take 
precedence of all other chronologies both for antiquity and 
accuracy; no Babylonian, Egyptian nor Chinese chronology of 
established merit can be compared with that of the Bible in 
these two respects. It is worth while, then, to refer to the 
Bible record in so far as it sheds light on the division of the 
earth, the dispersion of the people and the beginning of dif- 
ferent tongues; it will then be apropos to examine the relation 
of the most ancient peoples of the earth to such data as are 
thus supplied. 

In the first place, if it may be assumed that mankind had 
a common origin at a common centre, it will follow, for a con- 
siderable length of time, at least, that they had a common 
tongue. The eleventh chapter of Genesis opens with these 
words: "And the earth was of one tongue, and of the same 
speech." This was after the Flood. Prior to the Flood, we 
hear nothing of different languages or nations. Aside from 
genealogies and events related in those chapters which deal 
with the primordial history of primitive man, the substance 
of it all may be said to be embraced in the first four verses 
of Genesis vi. : "And after that men began to be multiplied 
upon the earth, and daughters were born to them. The sons 
of God seeing the daughters of men, that they were fair, took 
to themselves wives of all which they chose. And God said: 
My spirit shall not remain in man for ever, because he is 
flesh, and his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. 
Now giants were upon the earth in those days. For after the 
sons of God went into the daughters of men, and they 



438 THE HUMAN RACE Jan., 

brought forth children, these are the mighty men of old, men 
of renown." Then follows a very hrief account of the grow- 
ing wickedness of men, the preparation of the Ark, and the 
Deluge. As antediluvian men dwelt in the valley of the 
Euphrates, and are said to have invented the harp and organ 
and many devices in iron and brass, it is quite possible that 
some of the excavations in that region have unwittingly un- 
covered some remains of antediluvian man and erroneously 
attributed them to people of the land of Babylonia, which later 
covered the same region. As to the universality of the Flood, 
science has proved such an abundance of prehistoric crea- 
tures, physically fit to survive the struggle for existence, which 
have not done so, that some such cataclysm as the Flood is 
demanded to explain their wiping out, as well as the mythol- 
ogy common to the most ancient races regarding the "sons of 
the gods" and dragons and giants, the foundation of those 
fanciful tales which entranced our childhood, and which are 
corroborated by our men of science who have shown us that 
fact is stranger than fiction. 

Post-diluvian history began with the three sons of Noe, 
namely, Sem, Cham and Japheth, their wives and children. 
The tenth chapter of Genesis names the principal lines of 
their descendants for several generations, and concludes with 
these words: "These are the families of Noe according to 
their peoples and nations. By these were the nations divided 
on the earth after the flood." This division, according to the 
twenty-fifth verse, took place in the days of Phaleg, the fifth 
generation from Noe in the line of Sem; Sem was the father of 
the Semitic tribes or nations. 

It remains to establish the relationship between the 
descendants of Sem, Cham and Japeth and those ancient 
peoples, such as the Babylonians and Egyptians, which, ap- 
parently, were derived from them. But it is equally important 
to point out the probability that many omissions, of whole- 
generations, occur in the Bible chronology. In his Early His- 
tory of the Hebrews, 2 Professor Sayce points out that "son, 
in Semitic idiom, was frequently equivalent to descendant/' 
For example, Matthew i. 8 says : "Jorem begot Ozias," although 
between the two there intervened Ochozias, Joab and Amasias. 
Similar known omissions occur in 1 Paralipomenon vi. and 



144 



1922.] THE HUMAN RACE 

elsewhere. The older the chronology, the more probable would 
such omissions be. It is not, therefore, to be necessarily as- 
sumed that there were only five generations between Noe 
and the division of the earth above referred to. J. A. Hew- 
lett, a Catholic authority, who is probably conservative, points 
out the wide differences in the Hebrew, Samaritan and Sep- 
tuagint chronologies, and says: "It may be safely affirmed 
that the time has not yet come to fix an authoritative chronol- 
ogy of the Bible." The purpose here is to establish a sequence 
for the most ancient chronologies rather than attempt the im- 
possible task of supplying their omissions. We start then 
with the Semitic and Chamitic peoples as the oldest and 
propose to show that the peoples of Babylonia and Egypt were 
derived from them. 

Morris Jastrow does not hesitate to declare that the Baby- 
lonian language is a Semitic language and the Babylonian 
people a Semitic people, whom he traces to the Euphrates val- 
ley as the original home of the Semites. This is certainly the 
most logical view, although he does advance an alternative, 
giving Africa as a "starting-point" both of Semitic speech and 
migration. That seems far-fetched enough, but if he put the 
cart before the horse, he at least had them hitched, no doubt, 
when he said: "An important factor in this theory is the re- 
lationship that has been demonstrated to exist between Egyp- 
tian and the Semitic languages, a connection so close as to 
warrant the assumption of a common origin for the two, 
Egyptian itself being the result of a combination of a Semitic 
substratum with Ghamitic elements." If this proves anything, 
it proves that the Egyptian language was derived from the 
descendants of Sem and Cham, and that the starting-point of 
migration must have been those parts where the sons of Noe 
and their more immediate descendants had been established, 
namely in the Euphrates valley. 

From Japheth, the other of the three sons of Noe, the 
nations of Europe are usually deduced. The Hebrew spelling 
of Japheth is Yepheth, and he has generally been identified with 
lapetus, whom Greek mythology makes the ancestor of thi> 
human race. This would indicate that, with Mount Ararat as 
the common starting-point after the Flood, Japheth's descend- 
ants spread northeastward and northwestward, while those of 
Sem and Cham spread in southerly directions, through Baby- 



440 THE HUMAN RACE [Jan., 

Ionia, on both sides of the Persian Gulf, into Arabia and 
Egypt. 

The Hebrew tradition, well established before the days 
of King David, was that Egypt was the land of Cham. It is 
twice so described, as a matter of course, in the Psalms. Two 
of the sons of Cham were Chanaan and Mesram. From the 
region about Mount Ararat, it was but a journey of some few 
hundred miles to the Mediterranean Sea, where the Chanaan- 
ites came to be established, and two or three hundred miles 
more took one into the delta of the Nile, the passageway to 
the establishment of a new country which was not at first 
known as Egypt nor its people as Egyptians: among the 
Hebrews, it was known as Mesram, and among the Assyrians 
as Miisrii, or Misri, and as Mesram was the son of Cham, it was 
also called the land of Cham. The name "Egypt" came much 
later through the Greek ACTU^TCX;, which seems to be of un- 
certain origin. There is considerable evidence which points 
to original Semitic and Chamitic foundations in Assyria, 
Babylonia and Arabia. Sheba was a name found several 
times among the descendants of Cham, and at an early date a 
city by that name was established in Southern Arabia; it 
later became the capital of a Kingdom, across the Red Sea 
from Egypt, and the Queen of Sheba visited Solomon. But 
we are not now dealing with such recent connections. 

Everything points to an original Semitic foundation in 
the regions which later came to be known as Babylonia. 
Babel, very logically it would seem, has been identified w r ith 
Babylon. The Hebrew was Babel, probably from babili (gate 
of the gods); Babylon is the Greek form of the word Babel. 
Sir Henry Rawlinson identified Babel with the ruin now called 
Amran, within the city of Babylon itself, but it is more gener- 
ally identified with Birs Nimrud in Borsippa, which became 
a suburb of the greater city. However this may be, the earliest 
Babylonian records speak of the Semites, and prior to that 
the Semites speak for themselves in older records, handed 
down. 

When we come to the Mongolian division of the human 
race, we have to do with records less extensive, or at least 
less ancient than those of Babylonia and Egypt, but the con- 
nection of a common origin between the Chinese and Baby- 
lonian and Egyptian languages is also established. Lyon says : 



1922.] THE HUMAN RACE 441 

"The oldest forms of writing, like the seal of Sargon of Akkad 
and the inscriptions found by De Sarrec at Tello are read 
from above downward, the columns, however, advancing from 
right to left. By changing the columns or lines to horizontal, 
the writing in later times came to read from left to right, as 
in the English. Thus the Assyrian language, like the Ethiopic, 
came to differ from the other Semitic tongues, which read 
from right to left. The oldest specimens of Egyptian writing 
likewise read from above downward, as the Chinese still 
does." He says, further, "the use of many Chinese characters 
representing objects makes the Japanese writing precisely 
parallel to the Babylonian-Assyrian method." Robert Lilly 
says: "History shows that the people of China entered the 
country at a very early period as a band of immigrants from 
some place in central Asia, and recent researches seem to 
point to Babylonia as their original home." 

It is not my purpose here to enlarge, as one easily might, 
on the many and various connecting links between the most 
ancient peoples of the Earth; it is enough to have indicated 
with some measure of definiteness the convergence of all 
racial origins, in their retrospective, toward that place of the 
common origin of mankind which, by every sort of witness, 
seems to be fixed at that general centre which has Mount 
Ararat to the north of it and Eden to the south, Babel being 
the distributing point. 

IV. 

Having pointed out in a general way the relationship of 
the races of men, an examination of their chronologies should 
confirm this relationship, as I believe it does. 

The earliest chronologies of the human race, like Ein- 
stein's theory, are governed by relativity. Ussher's Biblical 
chronology supposed that no links were lacking in the geneo- 
logical chain, but over against his date for the creation of 
man, 4004 B. C., stands that of the Septuagint version which 
gives 5199 B. C. J. A. Hewlett, a Catholic chronologist, says: 
"At least two hundred dates have been suggested, varying 
from 3483 to 6934 years B. C., all based on the supposition 
that the Bible enables us to settle the point. But it does 
nothing of the sort." He says, further, "the Church does not 
interfere with the freedom of scientists to examine into this 



THE HUMAN HACK {Jan.. 

subject and form the best judgment they can with the aid of 
science. She evidently does not attach decisive influence 
to the chronology of the Vulgate, the official version of the 
Western Church, since in the Martyrology for Christinas Day. 
the creation of Adam is put down in the year 5199 B. C,, 
which is the reading of the Septuagint. It is, however, cer- 
tain that we cannot confine the years of man's sojourn on 
earth to that usually set down. But, on the other hand, we are 
by no means driven to accept the extravagant conclusions of 
some scientists." F. M. Colby says: "Before the eighth cen- 
tury B. C., dates of events are largely conjectural. The at- 
tempts to assign a precise date to the creation of the world 
occasioned much fruitless labor and led to the most diverse 
results." 

The glacial period, it is asserted by nearly all geologists, 
was the shortest geologic period. The Great Lakes and river 
basins of that region in North America are supposed to have 
been largely the work of the Pleistocene or glacial period. 
There is no authentic evidence which can place the origin of 
man prior to the close of the glacial period. It is also pre- 
sumed, very reasonably, that the Niagara Gorge had its incep- 
tion at the close of the glacial period; and, reckoning the age 
of the gorge by its present rate of erosion, it must be about 
7,000 years old or date back to 5079 B. C., which is a little 
more than a hundred years less than the Septuagint date for 
the creation of man. On the other hand, since we do not 
know the varying conditions which may have prevailed during 
that great torrential excavation, any estimate based on the 
depth of the gorge and its present rate of cutting-out must 
also, to some extent, be conjectural. The Encyclopedia Bri~ 
tannica a gives as "the probable real date" for the creation of 
man 7000 B. C. M. Guibert is of the opinion that, with our 
present knowledge, there is nothing compelling us to extend 
the period of man's existence beyond 10000, which would be 
8079 B. C. But why extend the time beyond the evidence and 
the needs of the case? 

Due to the tradition, common to the most ancient nations, 
which tells of a flood, we must either suppose that the Flood 
was universal, or that the tradition was carried by the differ- 
ent branches of humanity from its common starting-point of 

s Eleventh Edition, 1910. 



1922,] THE HUMAN RACE 443 

migration. The latter appears by far the more probable of 
the two, and, at the same time, does not involve the question 
of the universality of the Flood. If mankind had their incep- 
tion at a common centre, and dispersed from that common 
centre, it is much more reasonable to suppose that this dis- 
persion took place after the Flood than before it, and the 
similarity between the traditions as to a flood leads us to sup- 
pose that the story of the Deluge also issued from a common 
centre. If it were otherwise, we should have to account for 
the remarkable coincidence of distinct floods similarly de- 
scribed, and for the preservation of the races involved. The 
diverging traditions establish the fact without necessitating 
any such explanations. The logical presumption, therefore, 
is, that the Deluge antedated the dispersion of the people. 
Consequently, it becomes a matter of importance to fix ap- 
proximately the date of the Flood. 

If we adopt tentatively the Britanmca's "probable real 
date" for the creation of man, 7000 B. C., and deduct the 2,242 
years, from Adam to the Flood, given by the Septuagint, we 
shall have 4758 B. C. as the date of the Deluge. It is note- 
worthy, however, that while the Septuagint and Samaritan 
versions agree, against the Hebrew version, in largely extend- 
ing the dates between the Flood and the Call of Abraham, 
there is a variation of 940 years between the Septuagint and 
Samaritan versions, covering the time from the creation of 
man to the Flood. To meet the numerous circumstances of 
the case, many of which will easily suggest themselves, the 
date of the Flood, rather than of the creation of man, becomes 
the crucial factor in our reckoning; and the further extension 
of the time subsequent to the Flood, rather than before it, is 
not inconsistent with all the known facts, bearing in mind the 
acknowledged faultiness of chronologies, as well as parallel 
traditions of a deluge; so that it seems plausible to compro- 
mise on the 940- discrepancy noted and to place the date of the 
Flood about 5228 B. C. 

Reckoning the years from a given point of time, began in 
the eighth century B. C. In this way, Babylonian history is 
reckoned from 747 B. C., beginning with the so-called era of 
Nabonassar; Greek, from 776 B. C., when Corcebus was victor 
at the Olympic games; and Roman, from 753 B. C., the sup- 
posed date of the founding of Rome. As noted previously. 



444 THE HUMAN RACE [Jan., 

prior to the adoption of this system, dates were largely con- 
jectural, and the farther back they extended the less reliable 
they became. 

Hilprecht gives 4000 B. C. as the date of the Babylonish 
King of Uruk, which he identifies with the Arach of Genesis 
x. 10, which speaks of Nemrod, the mighty hunter, and says: 
"The beginning of his kingdom was Babylon and Arach, and 
Achad and Chalanne in the land of Sennaar." Sayce gives the 
date of Sargon of Agade as 3800 B. C., and tells of the success 
of his arms as far as the Mediterranean. D. G. Lyon says: 
"The oldest definite date takes us to North Babylonia to the 
time of Sargon I., and his son, Naram-Sin. On the authority 
of Nabu-na'id, the last native king of Babylon (B. C. 558-538), 
these two rulers belong to the first half of the thirty-eighth cen- 
tury B. C. Nabu-na'id relates that, while he was restoring the 
temple of the sun-god at Sippar, he found a record deposited 
in the foundation by Naram-Sin 3,200 years before the dis- 
covery. Inscriptions have reached us from both of these 
ancient kings. Sargon is called the King of Agade (which is 
the twin city of Sippar), and it seems certain that he erected 
buildings at Agade, Babylon and Nipur." 

Lyon, however, points out that information from the cen- 
turies preceding Hammurabi is scant. By the best of author- 
ities this Hammurabi is identified with Amraphel, King of 
Sennaar in Genesis xiv. 1., where, together with four other 
kings, he is described as making war on the Kmgs of Sodom, 
Gomorrha, Adama, Seboim and Bala in the vale of Sodom, 
which is the salt sea. These were small kings of small king- 
doms which, apparently, Hammurabi managed to unite even- 
tually into a more important realm. Of the times previous, 
Lyon writes : "The history of Babylonia after the time of Ham- 
murabi, about 2300 B. C., is intimately connected with that of 
Babylon. Of the centuries preceding this time our informa- 
tion is scant, and comes mainly from the very brief inscrip- 
tions of certain of the earlier kings, and from references in 
the writings of kings of later date. Successively or contem- 
poraneously, small kingdoms arose, with capitals at Ur, Nisin, 
Nipur (Niffer), Uruk (Arach, Warka), Larsa and other points. 
At times, several of these smaller kingdoms were united under 
a single sceptre." 

The smallness of these kingdoms, would be apparent from 



1922.] THE HUMAN RACE 445 

the limited territory which was divided among them and, 
going back a few generations, one would naturally expect to 
find them to be little more than tribes. Sargon I. seems to have 
been nothing more than the founder of a band of adventurous 
men at first. An Assyrian record has been preserved in which 
Sargon speaks in the first person and tells how, as a babe, he 
was rescued from exposure by a shepherd, chosen leader of a 
band in the mountains, and afterward crowned as king. All 
the evidence points to small beginnings around that time, and, 
considering that 1,700 years is allowed for development be- 
tween Sargon and Hammurabi, 4000 B. C. appears quite early 
enough for Sargon, if, indeed, it is not quite extreme. So far 
as the evidence goes, the account in Genesis x. would have 
supplied enough people to meet the necessities of the case as 
narrated in connection with Sargon I., especially when it is to 
be assumed, as has been indicated, that the Bible chronology 
of that time is not complete. And, in fact, if we accept tenta- 
tively, and as a compromise, 5228 B. C. as the date of the Flood, 
that leaves 1,228 years between the Flood and Sargon, which 
would be altogether much more than the populations and 
other evidence could warrant, unless there had been a great 
dispersion to other parts, leaving only a remnant in the valley 
of the Euphrates. 

As to any specious claim regarding the foundation of the 
temple of Bel, it is too isolated from all other data to demand 
credence. If not identical with the Tower of Babel or other 
buildings about it, whose ruins rise one hundred and fifty-four 
feet above the level of the plain, there is no evidence which 
establishes an earlier date for it than for them. But, apart 
from other evidence, the existence of such a temple could be 
assumed from the fact that sacrifices were offered to God from 
the days of Noe downward, and from the other fact that the 
worship of false gods is very ancient. Nevertheless, there is 
always the possibility, also, that buildings antedating the 
Flood and whose ruins, at least, would be expected to be 
found in that neighborhood, might account for the presence of 
remains not otherwise accounted for. In any case, the latest 
deduction is not necessarily the most true to fact. 

Egypt claims our attention next. 

Burmeister supposed Egypt to have been settled with a 
population 72,000 years ago, and G. de Mortellet attempted to 



446 THE HUMAN RACK Juu .. 

show that European man is more than 250,000 years old, but 
Guibert remarks concerning all such extravagant estimates: 
'These numbers have been built up on such arbitrary and 
fragile bases, that true science could not tolerate them long." 
Gillett says: "Of the development of the Egyptian kingdom 
and of the conditions which preceded the reign of Menes, the 
first king, the inscriptions tell nothing. Manetho speaks of 
gods, demigods and sovereigns from Thinis and Memphis, 
while the royal papyrus at Turin enumerates beings called 
'Followers of Horus,* as the precursors of Menes. These 
beings, of course, were mere myths. It has been claimed that 
traces of a stone age are found in Egypt, but proof is still 
lacking, since the remains thus far found can be assigned to 
historical times." 

The dates given for Menes, the first Egyptian king, vary 
enormously. Wilkinson places the date at 2320 B. C., Lepsius 
at 3124 B. C. and Brugsch at 4400 B. C. The Encyclopedia Bri- 
tannica gives 4777 B. C., quoting Petrie's former estimate and 
refusing to adopt his revised figure. The history by Manetho, 
the native historian, is highly colored with royal bombast and 
is only preserved in part. There are long intervals between 
the seventh and eleventh dynasties and the thirteenth and 
seventeenth dynasties, without monuments, inscriptions or 
other information, pointing, as several hold, to internal strife 
and the probability of conflicting dynasties. Then there are 
different versions of Manetho which vary as much as 300 
years for one dynasty. One mentions as a fact that in the 
seventh dynasty there were seventy kings in seventy days. 
Another allows 260 years for six kings in the fifteenth dynasty, 
while another gives 43 kings in 151 years for the seventeenth 
dynasty. The Turin papyrus and Manetho are often found 
to be in contradiction with the monuments, and it is known 
that many of the monuments were changed by the kings them- 
selves, who obliterated the names of other kings and substi- 
tuted their own. It is for the most part upon this sort of 
evidence that the framework of Egyptian history and chro- 
nology has been built up. It is also noticeable that Manetho 
allows just double the time for the first seventeen dynasties 
as for the last seventeen, there being thirty-four altogether; 
yet, it is generally admitted that extremely little reliable evi- 
dence has survived the first seventeen dynasties. 



1922.! THE HUMAN RACE 447 

Any one, therefore, can fix his own date with a good con- 
science, and the first question that seeks an answer is, why 
make the duration of the first seventeen dynasties twice that 
of the last seventeen? If reliable evidence existed, that would 
be the answer, but it does not. If it is claimed that there were 
more kings, the evidence on which that claim must rest also 
asserts that there were seventy kings in seventy days, and the 
vast majority of these kings (147) are assigned by Manetho 
to those dynasties, the seventh to the eleventh, of which we 
have practically no remains, while he gives 136 kings to the 
thirteenth and fourteenth dynasties, of which, also, we have 
practically no remains. Manetho evidently caught that spirit 
of self-exaltation common to such inscriptions as are extant, 
and reasoned that if Egypt was not the oldest country in the 
world, on general principles it ought to be, and proceeded to 
make it so. Working, in Alexandria, contemporaneously with 
the Seventy of the Septuagint, only over a much longer period 
and with their data at his command, he contrived to make the 
history of Egypt a trifle more ancient than the Seventy made 
the creation of man. Where the evidence is so conspicuously 
absent, it should be sufficient to make the first seventeen 
dynasties the same average length as the last seventeen con- 
cerning which we have contemporary and f airly reliable proof. 
This would place Menes, the first Egyptian king, at 4060 B. C., 
less than Petrie's and Brugsch's estimates, but considerably 
more than those of Lepsius and Wilkinson. This date is also 
in closer conformity with all the other facts set forth. As 
compared with the records of Babylonia, so evidently the 
general starting-point of migration, it gives Egypt its share in 
that dispersion a few generations after the Deluge, and a few 
hundred years in which the "Land of Cham" (Mesram or 
Mazor) had a chance to prepare for the setting up of its first 
dynasty. 

According to Chinese tradition, their race began with a 
great chieftain named Foh-hi, 2852 B. C. the first of the "Five 
Rulers." The history written by Confucius begins with Yao, 
2357 B. C. Anything beyond 2852 B. C. for the beginning of 
Chinese history is attributed to mythology. We have already 
quoted Robert Lilly as saying "recent researches seem to point 
to Babylonia as their original home." It hardly seems neces- 
sary to the present purpose to further amplify the ehrono- 



448 THE HUMAN RACE [Jan., 

logical relativity of the Chinese and other Mongolian peoples 
to the time of the general dispersion. They had a superabund- 
ance of time after the dispersion to expand and develop along 
their own lines. 

The only branch of humanity whose isolation demands 
linking up with the remainder of the race is the aboriginal 
American, on whom climate, disposition and habits have im- 
planted their racial marks. Darwin, whom we quoted at the 
beginning in favor of the single-origin theory for the human 
race, also maintains that the Indians both of North and South 
America afford evidence of a single derivation. He says that 
the physical type of the Yahgans of Terra del Fuego is iden- 
tical with that of the Botocudos of the forests of Brazil. A 
later authority, Dr. Popper, says the southern Patagonians 
present the same marked and peculiar traits as the Algonquins 
and Iroquois of Canada. Brinton goes further and says : "The 
nasal index of the Algonquins and Iroquois differs scarcely at 
all from that of the average Parisian of today." He enforces 
this when he says: "This is an important fact, as no other 
physical trait is more closely allied to a comparatively high 
mental endowment." 

The Indian languages do not tell much, for the tribes 
averaged from two hundred to five hundred persons, and 
wherever there was a tribe there was a dialect, the tribes 
usually being widely separated by intervening territory. It is 
true that cognate tribes sometimes formed confederacies and 
spoke the same language, but the fact remains that the lan- 
guages of North and South America were as great in number 
as those of all the rest of the world combined. These lan- 
guages were divided into stocks, and it has been said that a 
hundred different stocks were in use between the Arctic 
Circle and Central America, but the latest investigations have 
related them and claimed for them unity of origin. 

Among most of the Indian tribes existed traditions of 
other worlds or lands to the West and East. One might well 
judge that among the Indians in northwestern Canada and the 
islands off Alaska, this would amount to knowledge rather 
than tradition, for they could scarcely be ignorant of the pas- 
sageway between Asia and America. A few years ago, the 
Bering Sea controversy was a live topic among us. It was the 
Russian people from whom we obtained Alaska, and the Rus- 



1922.] THE HUMAN RACE 449 

sians at first reached Alaska in the same way, no doubt, as did 
earlier hordes in more primitive days when there were no 
national boundaries to stay their migration southward. There 
were two convenient passageways, Bering Strait, which was 
about forty miles across, and that more southern bridge work 
of islands which extend from Kamchatka in Russia to the 
Alaska Peninsula. 

Some are strongly of the opinion that the aboriginal 
American resulted from migrating Mongolian bands at an 
early date. On the other hand, great hordes of people used to 
invade China, and this is given as the reason for the building 
of the great wall around China by order of the celebrated 
Emperor, Shi-Hwang-Ti, the first universal emperor of China, 
who projected this vast work to protect the northern and 
northwestern frontier of his empire from the hordes of bar- 
barians who then swarmed in that part of Asia. This wall 
was completed in 211 B. C., but the reason for its erection 
existed long before that. It is most reasonable to con- 
clude that those roving hordes north of China were only part 
of other hordes which reached Bering Strait and Alaska, as 
the Russians did later. It is also worthy of note that the 
Yakouts in the cold, tundra region of Siberia have black, 
straight hair and high cheek bones similar to the American 
Indian. In fact, there is a point on the northeastern coast of 
Siberia which is called Indian Point, and it may have come to 
be so named from some tradition which connected the Indians 
originally with Asia. In any case, the logic of all the circum- 
stances suggests this solution, and this conclusion could be 
greatly emphasized if space permitted its further development. 

It was a long way from Bering Strait to Cape Horn, but 
so was it a long way from New York over the Sante Fe trail 
to California; and if our pioneers in a hundred years or less 
could build the framework of the United States afoot, or with 
the primitive aid of prairie schooners, much more readily 
could the Indians have occupied North and South America in 
two thousand years, and have developed those tribal differen- 
tiations which our European discoverers found. The latest 
investigations do not support a very ancient occupancy of this 
country by man. It is generally agreed that the Indians, for 
the most part, were still in the stone age at the time Colum- 
bus discovered America, although the use of metals, which 

VOL. cxiv. 29 



450 THE HUMAN RACE [Jan., 

showed advanced skill in workmanship, were common among 
the Peruvians, and metals were beginning lo be used by most 
of the tribes in both North and South America to some extent 
at that time. It is not likely that the foot of man ever trod 
American soil prior to 500 B. C, and it is highly probable that 
the expulsion of the aforesaid hordes northward and the build- 
ing of the great wall by the Chinese people in the years 221 
to 211 B. C. would about synchronize with the necessity of 
expansion by those "swarms of barbarians" in another direc- 
tion, and lead to their seeking and finding other and better 
happy hunting grounds on this continent by the simple method 
described above. 

V. 

The Great Spirit, tutelar gods and happy hunting ground 
of the Indians; the tradition which made the Emperor of the 
Celestial Empire "son and minister of Heaven;" the Scandi- 
navian mythology which made Odin the father of gods and 
men, with Valhalla awaiting those slain in battle; the Egyptian 
"Followers of Horus" with their gods and demigods, and the 
babili or gate of the gods with similar traditions among the 
Babylonians all point back in their diversified and corrupt 
fashion to their more ancient and original source in ante- 
diluvian days when it was said: "The sons of God seeing the 
daughters of men, that they were fair, took to themselves 
wives of all which they chose." As before noted, the third 
chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke carries this expression back 
to its ultimate source, when in tracing the genealogy of St. 
Joseph backward, he arrives at "Seth, who was of Adam, who 
was of God." If Adam was the son of God by creation, it fol- 
lowed that his descendants were "the sons of God" by descent, 
and that is, undoubtedly, the origin of all similar, if corrupted, 
traditions among men. 

By their own widely scattered testimony, the peoples of 
the earth declare their Divine origin and establish the unity 
of that origin. The implication, so far as one exists, is thai 
this came about by Divine choice rather than natural selec- 
tion; in other words, that God Himself had something, very 
directly, to do with it. If, then, men agree in finding their 
beginning in God, they shall also, ultimately, find their end in 
Him, also; and that spells the reunion of the human family. 
And the signs of the times point toward that terminus ad quern. 



H>22. THE HUMAN HACK -W 

The decision to engage in a disarmament conference was, 
theoretically at least, a move in the direction of this family 
reunion. The opposition which so quickly developed against 
Ku Klux Klan projects and methods, was another vindication 
of the fundamental solidarity of the human race. The fact, 
also, that in the past two thousand years, or as a result of the 
influences of the Christian era, practically all nations on the 
face of the earth have come to date their letterheads, state 
documents and business communications Anno Domini 1921, 
or whatever the year may be from the birth of Christ, indi- 
cates a passive or expedient unity at least, if not always an 
active unity of purpose. At the same time, we have lately 
emerged from the World War in which every race and color 
of man had a share white, black, yellow, copper all men, 
all fighters, all one in apparent purpose, moving shoulder to 
shoulder against the enemy. Did not that mammoth conflict, 
in which men fought out then* differences, at the same time 
establish the fact that they were and are one human family, 
notwithstanding their quarrel? 

The world has still large problems to solve, but it con- 
tinues to attempt then: solution, and every step does something 
toward reuniting the peoples of mankind. International re- 
lations, an association of nations, interdenominational rela- 
tions and the widespread prayer for unity "that all may be 
one" all the great world movements of the day indicate a 
prospective return, ultimately, to that unity which existed 
among the people of earth, those thousands of years ago in 
the valley of the Euphrates, before their dispersion, when 
they were all of one speech and all of one purpose in building 
a tower which would reach unto Heaven. If the whole world 
could reach that stage where it was divided into only two 
allied camps, is it not conceivable that, at some more or less 
distant date, the camp may be one, with one Fold and one 
Shepherd? 




A JACOBEAN CHATTERBOX. 

BY JOSEPH J. REILLY, PH.D. 

T is not given to every man to see a scion of 
royalty at close range, to recount his exploits 
when making love, and record how, forgetful of 
his royal dignity, he scaled a garden wall to 
catch a glimpse of the high born lady of his 
choice. It happened in that land of Romance, Spain, and the 
city of many a cavalier's song Madrid. The time, the sum- 
mer; the year, 1623. That canniest of Scots, James I., was 
on the English throne, and his son, the handsome and luckless 
lad who was afterwards to lose his head in the Puritan Revo- 
lution, was in the market for a bride. The diplomatic wise- 
acres thought they had solved the problem; wherefore Charles, 
accompanied by the brilliant rake, Buckingham, journeyed 
to Spain and the negotiations for the hand of the Infanta 
were on. 

In Madrid at the time was an Englishman of twenty-nine, 
whose ears were always open for gossip and who retailed it 
to innumerable correspondents in the chattiest letters in the 
world. Little did the young Prince of Wales suspect that even 
the adoring glances which he cast upon the Infanta would 
be handed down to immortality by the observant chatterbox, 
James Howell. "I have seen the Prince," he tattles, "have 
his eyes immovably fixed upon the Infanta half an hour to- 
gether in a thoughtful, speculative posture, which," continues 
the bachelor-philosopher gravely, "sure would needs be 
tedious, unless affection did sweeten it; it was no handsome 
comparison of Olivares, that he watched her as a cat doth a 
mouse. Not long since the Prince, understanding that the In- 
fanta was used to go some mornings to the Casa de Campo, 
a summer house the king hath on the other side of the river, 
to gather May dew, he did rise betimes and went thither, 
taking your brother with him. They were let into the house 
and into the garden, but the Infanta was in the orchard, and 
there being a high partition wall between and the door doubly 
bolted, the Prince got on the top of the wall and sprang down 



1922.] A JACOBEAN CHATTERBOX 453 

a great height, and so made towards her; but she, spying him 
first of all the rest, gave a shriek and ran back. The old 
marquis that was then her guardian came towards the Prince 
and fell on his knees, conjuring His Highness to retire, in re- 
gard he hazarded his head if he admitted any to her company. 
So the door was opened, and he came out under that wall 
over which he had got in." How that solemn old owl, King 
James, would have blinked his disapproval, had this tale of 
filial indiscretion met his eye! When Howell adds, "I have 
seen Prince Charles watch a long hour together in a close 
coach in the open street to see the Infanta as she went 
abroad," one might imitate the unhandsome comparison of 
Olivares by recalling that a "watched kettle never boils" and 
by understanding why the match with the Infanta fell through. 
Even royalty must have squirmed under the inquisitive eye 
of Madrid and James Howell. 

One of a large Welsh family, Howell was born in 1594 
and took his degree from Oxford at the age of nineteen. He 
then became steward in a glass manufactory, was later sent 
to study the business on the Continent, and passed through 
Holland, France, Spain and Italy, acquiring the language of 
each country with amazing facility. The warrant from the 
Council permitting him to travel, forbade visits either to Rome 
or to St. Omar, lest perchance the wiles of the Scarlet Woman 
should prove too much for his faith! This very contagion, 
however, greeted him on his return home in 1622, when he 
forsook business and was appointed tutor to the sons of the 
Catholic Lord Savage. Abandoning this post soon after, he 
remained for some years in touch with public affairs as secre- 
tary to men in high place, member of semi-diplomatic mis- 
sions, parliamentarian and, one suspects, man about town. 
He was a friend of Carew, an intimate of Ben Jonson, and a 
regular correspondent of Sir Kenelm Digby and Lord Herbert 
of Cherbury. He knew the ill-fated Buckingham and the no 
less ill-fated Strafford and had, it appears, a genius for making 
blue-blooded acquaintances and for retailing chatter. 

He made ventures in verse, long since forgotten, and he 
dabbled in politics to the extent of writing a political allegory 
and some tracts, a recklessness which perhaps helped to make 
him a marked man. Marked he was, though we know not 
whether for his debts or for his loyalty to the king, who no 



454 A JACOBEAN CHATTERBOX Man ,. 

longer scaled garden walls for a glimpse of his Spanish sweet 
heart, but, wed to H French Princess and seated upon the 
throne of his father, found himself a storm centre, betrayed 
by friends, hounded by enemies, his back to the wall, fighting 
for his life against the iron-fisted oligarchs of the Long Par- 
liament. Arrested by their order and his papers seized, our 
fascinating chatterbox was cast into the Fleet Prison, and 
although he addressed more than one remonstrance to the 
autocratic Parliament, he was compelled to remain for eight 
years in durance vile. 

Such a fate would have crushed a less serene soul than 
Howell, but he (blessings upon his chatty tongue) wrote 
pamphlet after pamphlet (who cares for them now?) and 
letter after letter addressed to old friends, a dear delight to 
later generations. They are not filled with importunities, or 
complaints against fate, or with details of the hardships by 
which prison life might be supposed to darken his days, but 
with fascinating odds and ends of knowledge picked up during 
joyous journeying on the continent. Now he chatters about 
the rise of the Netherlands, now of the origin of the tobacco 
habit, now of the history of religions, and now about the 
Copernican system. Many of these missives were essays in 
miniature rather than letters, but he writes them with un- 
failing zest, lightening them with countless human touches 
and good stories garnered in his travels seventeenth century 
drummers' yarns which, if they point no moral, certainly serve 
to adorn a tale. 

"A German gentleman," he tells us, "speaking one day to 
an Italian, said that the German tongue was the language of 
Paradise." 

"'Sure,' said the Italian (alluding to its roughness), 'then 
it was the tongue that God Almighty chid Adam in." 

" 'It may be so,' replied the German, 'but the devil tempted 
Eve in Italian before.' '' 

He tells us that perjurers in Bithynia betray themselves 
if they bathe in the waters of a certain river; and with a gusto 
quite forgivable in a bachelor, relates the story of a hen- 
pecked husband who refused to fear the devil "because," said 
he, " I have married his kinswoman." Who that loves Brown- 
ingand fairy tales can forget that Howell recounted in a 
letter from the Fleet, the tale of the "pied-coated piper ot 






1922.1 A JACOBEAN CHATTERBOX 455 

Hameien*' and the children, which our honest chatterbox 
would not relate, he protests, "were there not some ground 
of truth for it." 

Like most bachelors, he is fond of moralizing on matri- 
mony, and he essays now and then to advise his intimates with 
the air of a Solomon. In such a role, he writes to an old friend 
regarding his son : "I have observed that he is too much given 
to his study and self society, especially to converse with dead 
men, I mean books. Were I worthy to give you advice, I 
could wish he were well married, and it may wean him from 
that bookish and thoughtful humour. Women were created 
for the comfort of men, and I have known that to some they 
have proved the best helleborum against melancholy." What 
Howell's own helleborum was for he never married we can 
only surmise; perhaps, it was his unshakable serenity. One 
of his letters discusses the problem (unsettled until the advent 
of equal suffrage), whether women are inferior to men. With 
a magnanimity far in advance of his sex, Howell confesses, 
"I believe there are as many female saints in Heaven as male, 
unless you make me adhere to the opinion that women must 
be all masculine before they are capable to be made angels of." 
God save the mark ! 

It was when writing from prison in April, 1645, that 
Howell is moved to answer the most flattering of questions to 
a bachelor: "Why he does not marry." He will not wed for 
money, he avers, for while his purse is lean, yet "my genius 
prompts me that I was born under a planet not to die in a 
lazaretto." And he adds with tantalizing self-depreciation: 
"I have upon occasion of a sudden distemper, sometimes a 
madman, sometimes a fool, sometimes a melancholy old fel- 
low to deal with: I mean myself, for I have the humours 
within me that belong to all three; therefore, who will cast 
herself away upon such a one? Besides, I came tumbling out 
into the world a poor cadet, a true cosmopolite, not born to 
land, lease, house or office. It is true, I have purchased since 
a small spot of ground upon Parnassus which I hold in fee of 
the Muses, and I have endeavored to manure it as well as 1 
could, though I confess it hath yielded me little fruit hitherto. 
And what woman would be so mad as to take that only for 
her jointure?" 

In an earlier, but no less delightful, note, he muses over 



456 A JACOBEAN CHATTERBOX [Jan., 

various types of women with true bachelor detachment. "I 
confess," he writes solemnly, "such is the nature of love, and 
which is worse, the nature of women is such, that, like 
shadows, the more you follow them the faster they fly from 
you. It is all very well to lay siege to a beauty's heart, but," 
he adds, with that practical common sense which may have 
been the final explanation of his bachelorhood, "if you cannot 
win the fort, retire handsomely, for there is as much honor to 
be won at a handsome retreat as at a hot onset, it being the 
difficultest piece of war." 

Like us of today, he found his times sadly out of joint: 
"To take all the nations in a lump," he writes to the Earl of 
Dorset in 1646, "I think God Almighty hath a quarrel lately 
with all mankind and given the reins to the ill spirit to com- 
pass the whole earth, for within these twelve years there have 
been the strangest revolutions and horridest things happen, 
not only in Europe, but all the world over, that have befallen 
mankind, I dare boldly say, since Adam fell, in so short a 
revolution of time. ... It seems the whole earth is off the 
hinges." An apprehension which now, as then, we trust may 
prove groundless. 

Most of the letters written in prison lack the spontaneity 
and the zest of relation so characteristic of his earlier epistles. 
Yet they have the Howellian savor, and aided our irrepressible 
chatterbox to escape melancholia and writer's cramp. 

Of course, he was freed at last; of course, he dedicated 
a pamphlet to Cromwell; of course, he heralded the Stuart 
restoration with loud rejoicings; and, of course, he begged 
the generous Charles for a sinecure. What was not a matter 
of course was that he actually received a gift of two hundred 
pounds from the king (February, 1661), and an appointment 
at one hundred pounds a year as historiographer of England. 
Thus the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune finally 
ceased to assail him and the brief round of days which still 
were his, brought him the contentment of deserved and slip- 
pered ease. Five years later, he was dead, having left direc- 
tions, genial egotist as he was, that a tomb should be erected 
over him duly adorned with a Latin inscription. 

Today the newspapers regale us at breakfast with the 
latest scandal. It is touched up by "our special correspond- 
ent," with the aid of a perfervid imagination and a hectic 






1922.] A JACOBEAN CHATTERBOX 457 

rhetoric. But the prurient ear of HowelPs day had no such 
recourse. Lucky the correspondent of the indefatigable James, 
to whom was vouchsafed the choicest tidbits of news in a rela- 
tion vivid, satisfying, deliciously intime. Here is the story of 
that Buckingham's death, who, handsome and dissolute, had 
accompanied Prince Charles to Spain on his wooing and had 
wormed his way into the favor of two kings: 

"Upon Saturday last, the Duke did rise up in a well- 
disposed humour out of his bed, and cut a caper or two; and, 
being ready, and having been under the barber's hands (where 
the murderer had thought to have done the deed, for he was 
leaning upon the window all the while), he went to breakfast, 
attended by a great company of commanders, where Monsieur 
Soubize came unto him, and whispered him in the ear that 
Rochelle was relieved; the Duke seemed to slight the news, 
which made some think that Soubize went away discontented. 
After breakfast, the Duke, going out, Colonel Fryer stept 
before him, stopping him upon some business, and one Lieu- 
tenant Felton, being behind, made a thrust with a common ten- 
penny knife over Fryer's arm at the Duke, which lighted so 
fatally, that he slit his heart in two, leaving the knife sticking 
in the body. The Duke took out the knife and threw it away, 
and laying his hand on his sword, and drawing it half out, 
said: 'The villain hath killed me;' so reeling against a chimney, 
he fell down dead. The Duchess, hearing the noise below, 
came in her nightgears from her bedchamber, which was in 
an upper room, to a kind of rail, and thence beheld him wel- 
tering in his own blood. Felton had lost his hat in the crowd, 
wherein there was a paper sewed, wherein he declared that 
the reason which moved him to this act was no grudge of his 
own (though he had been far behind for his pay, and had been 
put by his captain's place twice), but in regard he thought 
the Duke an enemy to the State; therefore, what he did was 
for the public good of his country. Yet he got clearly down, 
and so might have gone to his horse, which was tied to a hedge 
hard by; but he was so amazed that he missed his way, and 
so struck into the pastry, where, though the cry went that 
some Frenchman had done it, he, thinking the word was 
Felton, boldly confessed it was he that had done the deed, and 
so he was in their hands. 

"Jack Stamford would have run at him, but he was kept 



458 A JACOBEAN CHATTERBOX [Jan., 

off by Mr. Nicholas; so being carried up to a tower. Captain 
Mince tore off his spurs, and asking how he durst attempt such 
an act, making him believe the Duke was not dead, he an- 
swered boldly that he knew he was dispatched, for it was not 
he, but the hand of heaven that gave the stroke; and though 
his whole body had been covered over with armour of proof, 
he could not have avoided it. Captain Charles Price went 
post presently to the King, four miles off, who being at prayers 
on his knees when it was told him, yet he never stirred, nor 
was he disturbed a whit till all Divine service was done. 

"This was the relation as far as my memory could bear, 
in my Lord of Rutland's letter, who willed me to remember 
him unto your ladyship, and tell you that he was going to 
comfort your niece (the Duchess) as fast as he could. So 1 
humbly take my leave and rest your ladyship's most dutiful 
servant, J. H." 

Fortunate, Countess of Sunderland, who got the news in 
this epistolary masterpiece! What could be finer than those 
intimate touches the Duke on arising "cutting a caper or 
two;" the murderer leaning upon the window as he watches 
his victim under the barber's hands; the wounded Duke pluck- 
ing the penknife from his heart and reeling against the chim- 
ney as he fell dead; the murderer in a daze missing his way; 
the King hearing the ghastly news at prayers, but maintaining 
an iron self-command. 

Small wonder that Thackeray loved James Howell ! True, 
he did not canonize him as he did Charles Lamb, but he kept 
the Epistles ever at his bedside with Elia and Montaigne, to 
render his pillowed ease delectable in the wee sma* hours. 
Verily, that were gallant company to keep; the genial James 
knew no courtlier when he was numbered among the quick. 
Nor in his fondest dreaming dared he to hope that in a later 
and less leisurely day, a fairer felicity might be his than the 
privilege of communion with the great W. M. T. when all th< i 
world else was silent. 




THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN. 



BY JOHN A. RYAN, D.D. 

HE obligations of the citizen to obey civil laws 
does not exhaust his duties to the State. So im- 
portant is the State and its functions that it gives 
rise to a special kind of justice. This is called by 
the moral theologians legal justice, and it is com- 
monly defined as that virtue which inclines the citizen to 
render to the community what is due it for the common good. ' 
This means not only obedience to the laws, but all those 
actions, political and social, which are necessary for the com- 
mon welfare. Legal justice binds both the ruler and the 
citizen. It obliges the former to make the common welfare 
the object of all his official acts. It obliges the citizen and the 
public official alike to comply with the laws, and to give due 
consideration to the needs of the State in all their actions 
and relationships. 

The particular duties imposed upon public officials by 
the virtue of legal justice, can be stated summarily in a few 
paragraphs. The general obligation of promoting the social 
good implies, obviously, that the executive, the judge, the 
lawmaker are bound to prefer that end to their private ad- 
vantage. The man who regards public office as an opportun- 
ity for private gain, except incidentally and as a necessary 
consequence of faithful public service, is false to his trust and 
violates legal justice. To accept a bribe for aid in the enact- 
ment of a bad law, for negligent or oppressive administration 
of the law, or for unjust judicial conduct, is an evident moral 
wrong. To obtain some advantage on the occasion of proper 
official actions, for example, through some form of "graft," 
is likewise a violation of legal justice. Such conduct is gen 
erally forbidden by the civil law; at any rate, it renders right 
judgment and adequate performance of official duties ex- 
tremely difficult. Public officials are not justified in exposing 
themselves to such a grave temptation. What is true of their 

1 Cf. Veiineeseh. Quesfitionex da .tustitta, pp. S9-4H. 



460 THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN [Jan., 

own private advantage applies likewise to that of their 
friends. In their enactment and administration of the law, 
they may not extend favors of any sort to any individual or 
class of individuals. The common good must be preferred to 
the good of individuals, and all individuals must be treated 
with exact justice. 

Public officials are not only bound to refrain from pro- 
moting the interests of individuals at the expense of the com- 
mon good, and to avoid favoritism toward certain individuals, 
but also to extend rigorous and proportionate justice to all 
social classes. This means that no class should be favored 
to the detriment of the general welfare, and that no class 
should receive less than its due proportion of public pro- 
tection and assistance. For example, it is wrong to permit 
an industrial group to exploit the national resources, such as 
coal mines and timber, in such a way that present or future 
generations will suffer unnecessary hardship. It is wrong to 
give certain industrial interests the benefit of a public subsidy 
or a protective tariff, the effect of which is to impose extor- 
tionate costs upon the great body of the consumers. The pos- 
session of unregulated monopoly power is likewise a cause 
of injury to the public welfare, which will not be tolerated 
by public officials who habitually fulfill their public obliga- 
tions. 

On the other hand, every social class has a just claim 
against the State and its officials for that measure of govern- 
mental protection and assistance which is necessary to pro- 
vide the conditions of right and reasonable life. Today, this 
principle receives its chief application in the weaker economic 
classes. As Pope Leo XIII. observed: "The richer classes 
have many ways of shielding themselves, and stand less in 
need of help from the State; whereas, those who are badly off 
have no resources of their own to fall back upon, and must 
chiefly depend upon the assistance of the State. And it is for 
this reason that wage earners, who are undoubtedly among 
the weak and necessitous, should be specially cared for and 
protected by the government." 2 Therefore, legislators are 
morally bound to provide for minimum decent standards of 
life and labor. This means legislation to prevent child labor, 
an excessively long working day, oppressive conditions in 

* Encyclical, On the Condition of Labor. 



1922.] THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 461 

work places, unduly low wages and the subjection of the 
workers to an inhumane insecurity as regards unemployment, 
sickness, accidents, invalidity and old age. Public officials are 
likewise under obligation to promote in due measure the pros- 
perity of industrial enterprise, to levy taxes in proportion to 
ability and sacrifice, and in general to deal with all classes 
according to their actual needs and deserts, not according to 
some doctrinaire theory of laissez-faire or of opposition to 
class legislation. In the words of Pope Leo XIII: "Among 
the many and grave duties of rulers who would do their best 
for the people, the first and chief is to act with strict justice 
with that justice which is called by the schoolmen distributive 
towards each and every class alike." 3 

One of the primary duties of public officials is to possess 
an adequate knowledge of what constitutes the common wel- 
fare; and of the means by which it is best promoted. This 
obligation is disregarded by a large proportion of those who 
seek public office. Men, who are otherwise conscientious, 
assume that good will and right motives are a sufficient equip- 
ment for public service. When we consider the enormously 
extended functions of the modern State, the numerous and 
profound ways in which its activities affect the welfare of all 
the people, and the consequent complexity of legislating and 
governing wisely, we see that this notion is utterly mistaken. 
Only in local governments and subordinate official positions 
is it true that common honesty plus common sense suffice for 
those who are charged with the duty of caring for the public 
welfare. In all the more important legislative and executive 
offices, a considerable amount of special knowledge is essen- 
tial to an adequate discharge of official obligations. 

So much for the nature and elements of the obligation 
resting upon public officials. The scope of their obligation is 
identical with the province of the State. This has been de- 
scribed in preceding articles 4 on the State's end and functions. 
All of these functions, intellectual, moral, religious, polit- 
ical, civic and economic, public officials are morally bound to 
perform in accordance with the principles of strict and pro- 
portionate justice. 

The statement is frequently made in the United States 

* Encyclical, On the Condition of Labor. 
THE CATHOLIC WORLD, March, April, May, 1921. 



462 THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN Jan.. 

that public officials are merely public servants. It is incor- 
rect. They are, indeed, the 8ervants of the people, but they 
are also something more. Inasmuch as their function is that 
of public service, they may properly be regarded as public 
servants; inasmuch as their position gives them the authority 
to enact laws which are morally binding on the people, they 
are not servants but masters. Their character as public serv- 
ants does not depend upon the fact that they are elected by 
the people; for hereditary kings are likewise bound to serve 
the common welfare. In a republic the members of legis- 
latures may, in a special sense, be regarded as servants of the 
people, whenever they are instructed by the electors to carry 
out certain political policies. Their promise to pursue this 
course creates a particular responsibility to the people, and 
renders their position analogous to that of servants, or agents. 
Nevertheless, they are masters and rulers when they enact 
the legislation necessary to carry out the policies to whicli 
they have committed themselves. 

The first duty of the citizen is obedience to law. It ex- 
tends to the ordinances of every jurisdiction in which the 
citizen finds himself, national, state and municipal. The basis, 
nature and limits of this duty have been described in a pre- 
vious article. 5 

A second duty is that of respect for public authority, and 
this means both public officials and their enactments. Of 
course, this duty can be exaggerated, but in our day and coun- 
try the opposite perversion is much more frequent. Through 
false inferences drawn from the principles of democracy, men 
are inclined to minimize, or even to reject entirely, this obli- 
gation. Conscious that elected officials are human beings of 
the same clay as himself, and dependent upon him for an ele- 
vation that is only temporary, the citizen easily assumes that 
to show them respect is undemocratic and unworthy. The 
Century Dictionary defines respect as, "the feeling of esteem, 
regard or consideration excited by the contemplation of per- 
sonal worth, dignity or power; also a similar feeling excited 
by corresponding attributes in things." While public officials 
are sometimes lacking in personal worth and dignity, they 
are always the possessors and custodians of political power, 
which of its nature demands esteem and consideration. Were 

* T*rr CATHOLIC. WORLD, October, 1921. 






1922.] THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 463 

this attitude habitually taken by the citizens, the problem of 
securing law observance would be greatly simplified. The 
man who refuses respect to civil authority because he fears 
that it would demean or degrade him, exhibits the slave mind 
and temper; for he has not sufficient confidence in his own 
worth to feel that he can afford to give honor where honor 
is due, or to recognize any kind of superiority. Such a man 
is not only a bad citizen, but a detriment to any social 
group. 

Closely connected with obedience is the duty of loyalty. 
In essence, loyalty means faithfulness and constancy in alle- 
giance and service. To the idea of obedience, which may be 
quite formal, mechanical, and even reluctant, it adds the no- 
tions of intensity, emotion, spontaneity and constancy. The 
genuinely loyal citizen is always ready and eager, not only to 
obey the laws, but to support and maintain the political in- 
stitutions of his country. If the citizen merely refrains from 
seditious or treasonable conduct, his loyalty is negative and 
imperfect. Whether positive or negative, loyalty always im- 
plies a certain habitual spirit and attitude toward laws and 
institutions. It habitually recognizes that a presumption 
exists in favor of organic and statutory enactments and prin- 
ciples. The loyal citizen is always disposed to give his govern- 
ment and his political institutions "the benefit of the doubt/' 
and to withhold obedience or support only when the doubt is 
converted into moral certainty that the laws or the govern- 
ment are in the wrong. In a word, the habitual attitude oi 
the loyal citizen is that of sympathetic faith, not that of crit- 
icality and distrust. 

The participation of the United States in the Great War 
made the subject of loyalty lively and very practical. As 
might have been expected, the discussion gave ignorant, prej- 
udiced and selfish men the opportunity to exploit perverted 
notions of loyalty. During and since the War, various groups 
and organizations endeavored with considerable success to 
fasten the stigma of disloyalty upon many of then* fellow 
citizens who were guilty of neither treason nor sedition. The 
conception of loyalty to the Constitution became perverted 
into the doctrine that any attempt to change the Constitution, 
even by legitimate means, is disloyal. Not only the method 
but the scope of loyalty was distorted. The demand was 



464 THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN [Jan., 

impudently and blatantly made that all citizens should show 
loyalty not only to our political and legal institutions, but also 
to our industrial institutions, specifically to the existing posi- 
tions and relations of Capital and Labor. Any theory or 
movement which aimed at essentially modifying the industrial 
system or diminishing the power of Capital, whether through 
Socialism, Guildism, or cooperative enterprise, was denounced 
as seditious and un-American. It is significant that both these 
forms of exaggeration were, in the main, committed by the 
same persons. They denounced any effort to change the Con- 
stitution because they dislike changes which would facilitate 
industrial reforms and social justice; they strove to place in- 
dustrial institutions on the same plane of authority as polit- 
ical institutions because they wish to perpetuate economic 
injustice. In short, the perversions and exaggerations of the 
notion and duty of loyalty were mainly determined by sordid 
economic motives. 

Those corruptions of a noble sentiment and doctrine do 
not merit a formal refutation. Loyalty to political institutions 
does not exclude the desire or the effort to modify or even to 
abolish them by orderly and reasonable process. Loyalty to 
the State, to one's country, to the public weal, does not include 
belief in, love of or defence of existing private institutions, 
industrial or other. The loyalty which is incumbent upon the 
citizen, as citizen, concerns only political institutions and re- 
lations. The organized attempt to make it apply to the eco- 
nomic order, is one of the most extraordinary and brazen per- 
formances in the history of human selfishness. It was pos- 
sible only in the vitiated atmosphere of war, and in the ab- 
normal psychology of the years immediately following. 

In his excellent brochure on Christian Citizenship, the 
Rev. Thomas Wright declares that obedience, respect and 
loyalty are the constituent elements of patriotism. 6 Probably, 
this is as satisfactory as any other analysis of the vague, 
though apparently elementary, sentiment that we call patriot- 
ism. The good citizen loves to be acclaimed a patriot, and the 
orator finds patriotism one of the most appealing and popular 
subjects. Nevertheless, it is very elusive. To the average 
man, it means love of country, but what does love of country 
mean? Not merely love of green fields, lofty mountains and 

Page 61. 



1922.] THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 465 

winding rivers; not always love of existing political institu- 
tions. In time of actual or threatened war, the idea of patriot- 
ism is very simple. It means support and defence of one's 
country against armed attack. 

In time of peace, the phrase, "love of country," means 
many things to many minds. The object of the love may be 
the physical characteristics of the country, or its economic and 
social opportunities, or its government, or its political ideals, 
or its history, or some combination of these entities. As com- 
monly used, the term patriotism has almost always an inter- 
national connotation. It appeals to the national conscious- 
ness. It brings before the mind the facts of national individ- 
uality, separateness, distinctness of interests. It lays stress 
upon the welfare of one's own country against the welfare of 
other countries. Too often, it takes the form of boasting, 
jingoism, contempt of foreign nations, and identifies the na- 
tional welfare with national power, imperialism and aggres- 
sion. The average citizen frequently confuses patriotism 
with national jealousy and provincialism. He does not 
regularly think of it as having anything to do with internal 
affairs. 

Adequate and rational patriotism should be quite as active 
in peace as in war, and it should extend to every matter that 
affects the common good. If patriotism is love of country, its 
only rational and concrete meaning is love of the people who 
inhabit the country and compose the State, in other words, 
love of one's fellow citizens. Therefore, its ultimate object is 
the same as that of the State, namely, the common good. In 
time of peace, the common good is much more dependent 
upon domestic legislation and administration than upon for- 
eign policies. The true patriot realizes this and strives to 
promote the common good in all his political activities. The 
man who participates in political corruption, or uses his po- 
litical position or influence for the undue advantage of any 
social group or for the oppression of any social class, is not a 
patriot, no matter how loudly he may acclaim the glories of 
his country or how truculently he may proclaim his willing- 
ness to fight foreigners. 

Taking up now the more specific duties of the citizen, we 
find that they may be conveniently grouped under two heads : 
those which are elementary and which exist under all forms 

VOL. CS.IV. 30 



466 THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN [Jan., 

of government; those which are complex and have place only 
in a State that possesses representative institutions. The most 
important of the specific elementary duties are concerned with 
taxation and military service. 

According to Catholic teaching, statutes imposing taxes 
bind in conscience. The general reason is the same as that 
which attaches moral obligation to other civil laws. That is 
the common welfare. Since government cannot maintain 
itself nor perform its functions without revenues, and since it 
has no other means of obtaining them than taxation, the citi- 
zens are morally bound to provide the necessary revenues in 
this manner. Moreover, the obligation is not merely one of 
legal justice, that justice which requires citizens to promote 
the common good, but also of strict justice, that justice which 
requires restitution to be made when it is violated. 7 If the 
citizens fail to pay taxes, they sometimes inflict injury upon 
the State, injury which can be measured in terms of money 
and repaired by payments of money. When the evasion does 
not produce such injury, owing to the fact that the authorities 
increase the tax rate, or devise other and more effective forms 
of taxation, the obligation of making restitution will have a 
different object. The real beneficiaries of restitution will 
then be those citizens who have acted conscientiously and 
paid the full measure of taxes levied upon them. 

Let us suppose that a tax rate of one and one-half per cent, 
will yield sufficient revenue for a city if all the citizens con- 
tribute their proportionate share. Through various devices 
very many of them evade a considerable part of their obliga- 
tion. In as far as the deficit is not made up through an in- 
crease in the tax rate, an injury is done the public welfare. 
If the rate is raised sufficiently to bring in all the necessary 
revenue, the conscientious taxpayers contribute more than 
their proper share, and, therefore, suffer injustice at the hands 
of the dishonest. If the evasions are so great as to require 
that the rate be raised to two per cent., it means that the 
honest citizens are paying one-third more than their fair 
quota. They pay one-third more than they would have to pay 
if all were as honest as they. The injustice done them by the 
evasive action of their fellow citizens is obvious. Hence, fol- 
lows the obligation of restitution. 

1 Cf. Bouquillon, Theologia Moralis Fundamentalist pp. 460-463. 



1922.] THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 467 

These are the general principles. Their application, how- 
ever, is not entirely simple, owing to the complexity and in- 
justice of our tax system, and the very large proportion of 
persons who habitually understate their taxable property. 
The principal form of taxation, at least in local and State 
jurisdictions, is what is known as the general property tax. 
Not only does this directly violate the ethical principle of 
taxation in proportion to ability to pay, as determined by com- 
parative sacrifices, but it is apportioned and administered 
most inequitably, and it is evaded in wholesale fashion. In 
the words of Professor Seligman: "The general property tax, 
as actually administered, is beyond doubt one of the worst 
taxes known in the civilized world." 8 In these circumstances, 
the conscientious citizen cannot be required to do more than 
pay that proportion of the full amount which is paid by the 
majority. If the prevailing understatement of taxable prop- 
erty amounts to twenty-five per cent., the citizen who pays on 
more than three-fourths of his goods, contributes more than 
his share. 9 This general rule of action may properly be ap- 
plied to other kinds of taxes where evasion is considerable and 
notorious. Of course, the conscientious citizen will not take 
advantage of it until he is morally certain of the facts. 

It is sometimes asserted that certain tax laws are purely 
penal, obliging the citizen only to submit to the penalty in 
case his evasion is detected. From our discussion on "The 
Moral Obligation of Civil Law," 10 it seems fairly clear that 
this theory must be applied with great caution, and that the 
tax laws which fall under it are exceptional. Tariff duties are 
the taxes most commonly adduced. Probably, the laws pre- 
scribing these are purely penal, not only because of the com- 
mon popular conviction, but because they are saturated with 
economic and ethical inequalities. 

As a rule, the citizen is not bound to pay taxes until the 
amount due from him has been defined by the fiscal author- 
ities. When he is legally required to furnish a statement of 
his property, he is obliged by legal justice to comply. Is he 
obliged to volunteer such information? For example, is a 
person morally bound to inform the authorities that his in- 
come is sufficiently large to subject him to the income tax? 

8 Essays in Taxation, p. 61. 9 Cf. Tanquerey, De Justitia, no. 597. 

10 THE CATHOLIC WORLD, October, 1921. 



468 THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN [Jan., 

If he does not give this spontaneous information, he will 
escape. The income tax law requires the citizens to make 
such a statement, and penalizes them for failure to do so when 
their evasion of the tax has been detected. It seems clear, 
therefore, that the citizen is bound by legal justice to provide 
a statement of his taxable property, not only in response to 
an official requisition, but sometimes in the absence of such a 
requisition. 

Another elementary obligation of the citizen is that of 
military service, when required by a law of conscription. 
The object of such a law is of the greatest importance to the 
public weal. As a rule, the obligation is gravely binding in 
conscience. Hence, all fraudulent methods of escaping its 
operation are a violation of legal justice. 

The second class of duties incumbent on the citizen results 
from his electoral functions. In a republic, legislation and 
administration depend finally upon the intelligence and mor- 
ality of the voters. They have it in their power to make the 
government a good one or a bad one. Whether the common 
good will be promoted or injured, depends upon the kind of 
laws enacted and the manner in which they are administered; 
but the character of the laws and the administration is pri- 
marily determined by the way in which the citizens discharge 
their function of choosing legislators and administrators. 
Therefore, this function is of the gravest importance and the 
obligation which it imposes is likewise grave. 

It must be admitted that the importance and gravity of 
this obligation is frequently ignored by Catholics, as well as 
by other citizens. Writing of Great Britain, the Rev. Thomas 
Wright declares: "There are large numbers of Catholics in 
this land with but little appreciation of the strong inter-rela- 
tion which exists between true citizenship and Christianity. 
. . . Many excuses, it must be owned, may be alleged in exten- 
uation of the apathy of Catholics towards their civic obliga- 
tions in these lands. Time, however, has undermined the 
substance of these apologetic pleas. Catholics are now able 
to appeal to no sufficient cause why they should stand aloof 
from public affairs, or why, participating in them, they need 
indiscriminately follow the policies of parties without thought 
or test of their moral justification." 11 

11 Christian Citizenship, pp. 17, 18. 



1922.] THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 469 

These observations may be applied in full measure to the 
Catholics of the United States. Like their co-religionists of 
Great Britain, they can show historical conditions to exten- 
uate, if not to justify, their neglect of political obligations. 
Very many, if not the majority, of them are persons, or the 
descendants of persons, who came from countries whose Gov- 
ernments treated Catholics unfairly and allowed them very 
little participation in public affairs. As a consequence, a large 
proportion of American Catholics have been, until quite re- 
cently, possessed by what has been happily characterized "the 
psychology of persecution." They have looked upon govern- 
ment with a certain measure of distrust, and, therefore, have 
been predisposed to ignore or to minimize their electoral 
responsibility. Many of them have easily and complacently 
accepted the cynical judgment that "politics is a rotten busi- 
ness," and have either held aloof or permitted their po- 
litical influence to be utilized by special and unworthy 
interests. 

The Catholic teaching on the duty of exercising the voting 
franchise, as stated in the authoritative manuals of moral 
theology, may be summed up as follows: 12 

The obligation of taking part in the election of candidates 
for civil offices is an obligation of legal justice. The citizens 
are bound to promote the common good in all reasonable 
ways. The franchise enables them to further or to hinder the 
common weal greatly and fundamentally, inasmuch as the 
quality of the government depends upon the kind of officials 
they elect. Not only questions of politics, but social, indus- 
trial, educational, moral and religious subjects are regulated 
by legislative bodies and administered by executives. There- 
fore, the matter is of grave importance, and the obligation of 
the citizen to participate in the election and to support fit 
candidates is correspondingly grave. According to Tanquerey, 
the elector cannot free himself from this obligation by any 
slight cause or reason, such as, going hunting, or criticism by 
his neighbors. The excusing cause needs to be of a grave 
nature, such as, loss of one's means of livelihood. A slight 
cause will relieve the citizen from the obligation of voting, 
only when he is morally certain that he cannot affect the 
immediate result. Even then, he ought to take part in the 

" Cf. Tanquerey, De Justitia, pp. 475-477; Noldin, De Prseceptis, pp. 336-339. 



470 THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN [Jan., 

election to show good example, and to hasten the day when 
the cause which he supports will command a majority of the 
voters. 13 

Just as the official is obliged to refrain from promoting 
the interests of individuals as against the common good, so 
the elector is morally bound to cast his vote for the common 
welfare, instead of for the benefit of private persons or groups. 
This principle is very often forgotten by well-meaning citizens; 
for example, by giving their political support to a friend, or 
to a member of their own race or religion, when he has not 
the required moral or intellectual equipment, or when he is 
the upholder of socially harmful policies. Too often, in such 
situations, the honest citizen salves his conscience with the 
excuse that the opposing candidate "is just as bad." Were 
this the fact, it would be legitimate to determine one's choice 
on the basis of personal friendship, or racial or religious af- 
filiation, or other extrinsic considerations; but the general 
fact is that voters who adopt this course do not take adequate 
care to find out whether the candidate of the opposition is in 
reality "just as bad." They too easily decide the question on 
the basis of their inclinations and predilections. 

Closely connected with this unjustifiable practice is that 
of ignoring principles and policies in the exercise of the fran- 
chise. "Vote for a good man, regardless of party," is a plaus- 
ible, but essentially inadequate, political rule. A distinction 
should be drawn between legislative positions and those which 
are merely administrative. In choosing a city treasurer or a 
county auditor, the only pertinent qualifications are honesty, 
intellectual capacity and technical equipment. There is in- 
volved no question of legislative policy. When the office to 
be filled is that of governor of a State, president of the United 
States, member of a State legislature or congressman, other 
qualifications are essential in addition to those just mentioned. 
The "good man" may have some very harmful views concern- 
ing political and industrial policies. He may sincerely favor 
national imperialism and jingoism, or legislation to promote 
the undue aggrandizement of one social class or the oppression 
of another social class. Obviously, the citizen does not fulfill 
his duty of promoting the common good when he votes for a 
"good man" of this sort. Sometimes the common welfare will 

"Loc. cit. 



1922.] THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 471 

suffer less through the election of a man whose political pol- 
icies are right, but whose moral or intellectual equipment is 
deficient, than through the elevation of a "good man" who 
gives his adhesion to wrong policies. 

It is sometimes said that the good man in other relations 
of life is always the best kind of a citizen. This statement is 
only a half truth. The unqualified propagation and accept- 
ance of it is a serious obstacle to the improvement of citizen- 
ship. Fidelity to one's duties as husband, father, son, brother, 
neighbor, employer, employee, buyer, seller, debtor, creditor, 
professional man and client does, indeed, contribute very 
greatly toward the common welfare. Actions performed 
under the direction of the domestic and social virtues neces- 
sarily promote individual and social happiness, just as the 
opposite actions are an injury to the commonwealth. Never- 
theless, these virtues are not a complete equipment for all 
the duties of citizenship. They do not of themselves provide 
the citizen with that specific knowledge which he requires as 
a voter, nor with that civic consciousness which is essential 
to good citizenship. 

An honest employer may treat his employees unjustly 
because he is unacquainted with those moral principles which 
apply specifically to industrial relations, or because he has 
an insufficient knowledge of the living conditions and needs 
of the workers, and the virtuous citizen may fail in his duties 
to the State because he does not realize the importance of 
this particular responsibility, or because he lacks the specific 
political knowledge which would enable him to exercise his 
suffrage for the best interests of the commonwealth. In this 
category are the man who does not realize how fundamentally 
good government depends upon the electors, the man who 
lazily assumes that politics is necessarily corrupt, and the 
man who thinks it sufficient to vote for good men, without 
any reference to the helpfulness or harmfulness of their po- 
litical principles and policies. 

In a word, the good man is not a good citizen unless he 
possesses the specific knowledge essential to good citizenship. 
This comprises adequate perception of the citizen's power 
and responsibility, and a reasonable degree of acquaintance 
with political institutions, personages and policies. The good 
citizen recognizes all these obligations and makes reasonable 



472 THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN [Jan., 

and continuous efforts to fulfill them. Such a man, and only 
such a man, possesses an adequate civic consciousness. 

Worth quoting, are the following extracts from a letter 
addressed to his people, in the year 1921, by the late Cardinal 
Amette, Archbishop of Paris: 

In the joint letter which they recently addressed to the 
French Catholics, the bishops of France said: "It is a duty 
of conscience for all citizens honored with the right of suf- 
frage to vote honestly and wisely with the sole aim of bene- 
fiting the country. The citizen is subject to the Divine 
law as is the Christian. Of our votes, as of all our actions, 
God will demand an account. The duty of voting is so much 
the more binding upon conscience because on its good or 
evil exercise depend the gravest interests of the country 
and of religion. 

"It is your duty to vote : to neglect to do so would be a 
culpable abdication of duty on your part. It is your duty 
to vote honestly; that is to say, for men worthy of your 
esteem and trust. It is your duty to vote wisely; that is 
to say, in such a way as not to waste your votes. It would 
be better to cast them for candidates who, although not 
giving complete satisfaction to all our legitimate demands, 
would lead us to expect from them a line of conduct useful 
to the country, rather than to keep your votes for others 
whose programme would indeed be more perfect, but whose 
almost certain defeat might open the door to the enemies 
of religion and of the social order." 

Tanquerey points out that, in order to be able to vote 
rightly and intelligently, in order to possess the specific knowl- 
edge requisite for this purpose, upright citizens should organ- 
ize and participate in political associations. 14 This is obvious. 
Men unite in trade unions, manufacturers' associations, cham- 
bers of commerce and professional societies of various kinds 
for the promotion of their economic interests. Hundreds of 
thousands of good men, thus occupationally organized, fail to 
see the necessity of organizing politically for the protection 
of their civic interests and the effective performance of their 
duties to the commonwealth. The conduct of political organ- 
izations they leave to professional politicians, who are usually 
in the service of selfish private interests. When the inactive 

"Loc. cit. 



1922.] THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 473 

citizens see the evil results of this arrangement, they attempt 
to justify their aloofness by the reflection that politics is essen- 
tially corrupt. This lazy pessimism is not warranted by any- 
thing inherent in political affairs. It represents a vain attempt 
to evade moral responsibility. If politics is rotten, a large 
part of the responsibility rests upon well-meaning, but indo- 
lent, citizens. 

In view of the fundamental and immense importance to 
the State of the voting function, and since the electors are in a 
practical sense the primary political authority, it would seem 
that the electoral duties of the citizens are not merely duties 
of legal justice. It would seem that, like the obligations of 
public officials, they also fall under the head of strict or com- 
mutative justice. A group of legislators inflict injury upon 
the community by a bad law, thereby violating strict justice: 
are not the citizens who elected them guilty of the same kind 
of injustice, in so far as they foresaw this possibility? The 
difference between their offence and that of the legislators 
seems to be one of degree, not one of kind. 

Among the electoral duties of the citizen is that of becom- 
ing a candidate for public office in some circumstances. Of 
course, this applies only to that small minority who are com- 
petent. In certain situations, says Noldin, an upright Catholic 
is bound by a grave obligation to become a candidate for an 
administrative or legislative office; that is, when his election 
is certain, when he is able to avert grave evils from the com- 
munity, when he can accept the office without grave incon- 
venience to himself, and when no other equally competent 
candidate is available. 15 Inasmuch as the issues involved in 
such a situation are of much graver consequence than those 
dependent upon the ballot of the private citizen, the man who 
refuses to become a candidate for office will need a much 
graver reason to excuse him than will the citizen who merely 
neglects to vote. 

"Loc. cit. 



BEHIND THE BARS. 

BY BRIAN PADRAIC o'SHASNAIN. 

SOMETIMES the soul, 

Moving through dim-lit corridors of self, 

Hears an old music underneath the tower 

Where from of old she doth endure 

The mystic paradox of life 

The penalty of sense its joy, its lure. 

Then, for a time, 

Through some forgotten casement gleams the sky, 

And hills of blue are visioned far away, 

While from the high 

Unvexed white beauty of the wandering clouds, 

A free bird's melody comes drifting down. 

Dreamlike, the vision fades; 

Only the tower is left. 

The castle walls are all about, 

Again the thralls of sense return 

But, inwardly, the soul doth burn 

That dear imprisonment to leave, 

And with unweighted wings to cleave 

Its wandering way over the purple hills 

And find a resting-place on some high peak 

Whose sharp and perilous top the slow clouds seek. 




"AMERICAN CATHOLICS IN THE WAR." 

BY THOMAS F. BURKE, C.S.P. 

HE modest claim made by Michael Williams, the 
author of the book, American Catholics in the 
War, 1 is one that should be kept in mind by those 
who read. He says in the introductory chapter: 
"This book is the simple story of that plain fact 
of magnificent service not the complete, statistical, histor- 
ical record, however of the fulfilling of the prediction of the 
Fathers of the Third Plenary Council : the short story of how 
our American Catholics fought and worked for God and for 
country during the Great War, and in the days of reconstruc- 
tion, under the direction of the National Catholic War Coun- 
cil. It will take many months, perhaps years more, of as- 
siduous labor before the full record can be gathered and 
made available. This book is the outline sketch of a vast 
literary canvas which some day must be painted: it is merely 
a running chronicle, a summary of a tremendous mass of 
material; but though it is suggestive and fragmentary rather 
than exhaustive and definite, nevertheless, it is based solidly 
upon documentary evidence: it is drawn from the archives of 
the department of historical records, which has been one of 
the chief labors of the National Catholic War Council to build 
up ever since that Council was created by the Hierarchy to 
serve as the mechanism through which that Episcopal author- 
ity, which alone was competent for the task, might guide, 
coordinate, and inspire the multitudinous, incessant and ex- 
ceedingly diversified activities of the nearly twenty millions 
of men, women and children who form the Catholic Church in 
the United States of America." 

I. 

With all these purposely imposed limitations, however, 
the book is still a record, and a record of no mean propor- 
tions. It will stand as such. The Chapters on "The National 
Catholic War Council," "The Mind of the Council," "The Or- 
ganizing of the Council," "The Committee on Special War 

New York: The Macmillan Co. $2.50. 



476 "AMERICAN CATHOLICS IN THE WAR" [Jan., 

Activities," tell a story of tremendous and enlightened action 
upon the part of the Hierarchy of the country that must be 
fully read to be at all appreciated. Within these pages, too, 
is found the explanation of the union of all Catholic lay 
activities with the Hierarchical Council and, notably, of the 
union of the Knights of Columbus, who entered the field of 
war activity even before the Council was formed. While 
this volume could not adequately record the work of the 
Knights of Columbus, and while it recognizes that a record of 
their work has been made and published by the Knights them- 
selves, still that work is fully understood as a great part of 
Catholic activity in the War. In regard to this matter, a 
statement of Bishop Muldoon, Chairman of the Administrative 
Committee of the National Catholic War Council, deserves to 
be cited: "Some people have said the Church has stepped in 
and tried to rob the Knights of Columbus of their glory. The 
Church, instead of absorbing them, has embraced them and 
held them up to the world as her adopted children. The 
Catholic Church by adopting the Knights of Columbus as her 
agent, has broadened the service of the Knights of Columbus. 
She stands behind them with all her power, and gives them 
the blessing of the Beloved One." 

Here, too, is the record of our chaplains, of our soldiers, 
of all our men and women outside the military forces, who 
gave service of one kind or another to our country in her time 
of trial. Every Catholic of America should familiarize him- 
self with this story, yea, every citizen of our land, non-Cath- 
olic as well as Catholic, should know it, for it forms an essen- 
tial part of one of the most important pages in our history. 

The book, while it is a record, is also an answer, a glor- 
ious, thrilling answer, written not only on these pages, but 
upon the heart of our country and upon the seared soil of 
France. Time and again, despite the facts to the contrary, 
fanatical opponents of Catholic Faith have dared to question 
the loyalty of Catholic citizens. Either through malice or 
through ignorance, forces have been organized which would, 
if they could, debar Catholics from even the ordinary rights 
of citizenship. The disingenuous contention has been made 
that since Catholics yield submission to a spiritual ruler who 
lives without the confines of America, therefore they can- 
not be true to their temporal rulers in the State or to the flag 



1922.] "AMERICAN CATHOLICS IN THE WAR" 477 

of the country under which they live. In the statement of 
Catholic principles, this charge has been met and answered 
again and again. This volume gives an answer that cannot 
be gainsaid, the answer that is made up of simple facts, so 
convincing, so utterly plain and clear, that America herself 
must rise in indignation against any that would ever again 
question the loyalty of her Catholic citizens. 

A record, an answer, the book is likewise a message. In 
placing thus before the public, the recorded accomplishment 
of the part which American Catholics played in the War, the 
motive manifest throughout the book would indicate that this 
is done in no boastful way, nor is it done for the sole purpose 
of establishing the claim of Catholics to due credit. Rather, 
beyond and above such purpose, the book speaks its message 
to American Catholics themselves. For the very fact that they 
so readily answered the call of country, and that they so 
quickly united for joint action under the banner of their 
spiritual leaders, and that they prosecuted so vigorously the 
work given to their hand, contains, by implication at least, the 
call to a like patriotism and a like earnestness of effort in times 
of peace. The problems of peace-time are just as serious, if 
not so instant, as those of war-time. The spirit that shines 
forth from this volume, asks from the Catholics of America 
an interest, at least equal to that displayed during the critical 
days of battle, in meeting the questions that tantalize the mind 
and trouble the heart of the nation in these days that have 
followed. 

Presented as these things are in the words of a literary 
master, in language calm, dignified and restrained; framed 
with the charm with which only study and style can surround 
the statement of facts, they form a piece of reading that is 
attractive in the highest sense. Its author's reputation in the 
field of letters and the public's recognition of his previous 
works, are things which commend the story to every lover of 
good writing, as well as to every lover of his country. 

II. 

Yet, were we to stop here we would have failed to grasp 
the full significance of the book, and we would have failed 
to understand the greater lesson that is contained in it. Its 
ipea carries it beyond the limits of a record, an answer or a 



478 "AMERICAN CATHOLICS IN THE WAR" [Jan., 

message. No doubt, it is with something beyond these in 
mind that the author goes back, in his story, even to the begin- 
nings of Catholicism in America, to recount its growth in step 
with the growth of the United States, and to retell, though in 
a limited measure, the part played by Catholics in the previous 
great crises of our country's birth and existence. 

From the preliminary study, contained in the first four 
chapters of the work, there stands forth very clearly the vital 
sympathy that has ever existed between Catholic Faith and 
the fundamental principles upon which our country is built. 
Lack of such sympathy might not, indeed, have prevented 
entirely the advance of the Catholic religion within our shores, 
for, in the testimony of history, the Faith has progressed under 
the most adverse conditions, but, on the other hand, nothing 
less than such a real sympathy could have accounted for the 
extraordinary growth and the steady advance of the Catholic 
Church in America. 

We of the present generation have seen, what later chap- 
ters record, the flowering of American Catholicism during the 
Great War; the surpassing vigor and the exceptional unan- 
imity with which our Catholic citizens came together, on the 
basis of love of country, as a united part of a mighty force to 
meet the exigencies of the time. But this phenomenon was 
not the result of merely momentary patriotism nor sudden 
recognition of duty. It was the fruitful product of a steadfast 
and definite religious force that has existed within our coun- 
try from its earliest days. Catholicism was small in its begin- 
nings. Spiritual forces, other than Catholicism, have sounded 
the dominant note in American civilization for many years, 
sometimes to the benefit, sometimes to the injury of American 
life. Nevertheless, intermingled with these, the Catholic spirit 
was ever present as a leaven, affecting in some degree the 
whole mass. Such words cited in the pages of this book, as 
those which came from the lips of men like Charles Carroll 
of Carrollton, Bishop John Carroll, Archbishop Hughes and 
as those put forth in the deliberations of the Third Plenary 
Council of Baltimore, express beyond quibble and doubt the 
essential sympathy existent between Catholic faith and Amer- 
ican ideals. 

In Catholicism, there is nothing anti-national. There is, 
if you will, something supra-national, which, in no way, inter- 



1922.] "AMERICAN CATHOLICS IN THE WAR" 479 

feres with the national love or patriotism, but rather brings to 
that love a higher sanction and strengthens it with a strength 
from above. May it not be that this is why though the reason 
has been generally unrecognized the Catholic spirit has grown 
and flourished in the land? An assembly of facts, in spite of 
which that spirit has maintained itself in vigor, would seem 
to show this. The minority of Catholic citizens, their conse- 
quent small degree of civic influence, the frequent bitter and 
fanatical attacks of sectarians against them; the general re- 
luctance of Catholics to enter the political arena for the reason 
that they saw in it slight prospects of success; the prevailing 
non-Catholic character of the literature of the country; these 
would seem to have been sufficient to have submerged, yea 
even to have slain the Catholic spirit in our land unless there 
were something common both to that spirit and the spirit of 
America itself. Supra-national, not anti-national, Catholicism 
on the divine level of authoritative revelation, parallels the 
essential elements of American civilization and, at the same 
time, adds to those elements the beauty and the force of 
divine sanction. If equality, and liberty and discipline, which 
supposes respect for law, are the constituents of American 
national life, that Faith which proclaims the equality of all 
before God, the liberty and the rights of conscience, the obe- 
dience which is due to all lawful authority, can find no place 
where it is more really at home than within the confines of 
our beloved land. 

And how wonderfully all this is evidenced in the heart 
of this book. For, after all, that heart is the series of chapters 
which record the birth, the organization and the completion 
of the National Catholic War Council. These chapters tell of 
a magnificent conception, a gigantic effort and a tremendous 
response. But not one of these could have been possible on 
any basis less real and less sterling than that outlined, the 
agreement of the Catholic spirit with the genius of America. 

Words seem almost futile when we attempt to express our 
admiration for the promptness of the Catholic Hierarchy in 
calling the Council into being, for the leadership which, with 
a vision that was not given to many, courageously presented 
and just as courageously made effective, the idea; for the 
patience with which difficulties were met and overcome; for 
the tact and generous diplomacy manifested in all relations 



480 "AMERICAN CATHOLICS IN THE WAR" [Jan., 

with the Government; for the patriotism that set aside all dif- 
ferences and cemented the various elements into one great 
whole. All these qualities show prominently in the great 
synthetic work accomplished by the Catholic Church in Amer- 
ica during the recent time of our country's trial. 

The Catholic spirit was ever there in strength and read- 
iness, but while it existed throughout the land, it was not co- 
ordinated for the work that demanded attention. In Catholics, 
as individual citizens, in parishes, in dioceses, in local and in 
nation-wide organizations, patriotism was present and showed 
itself immediately and abundantly. To bring all these man- 
ifestations together, to unite all these various Catholic forces 
so that they would have an influence, the greater because of 
their union, was the task set itself by the National Catholic 
War Council. And their work was successful in every way. 
Catholics from all parts of the land, the diversified units in 
city, state and nation, the clergy and the laity, men and women 
were joined into one Catholic American body, acting as never 
before, with one mind and speaking with one voice. This 
union brought about untold benefits for the members of the 
Army and Navy, in the cantonment, in the camp, in the field, 
in the various cities where they visited : it secured not only the 
recognition of the religious rights and needs of our soldiers 
and sailors, but also obtained for them an adequate supply of 
chaplains to give them religious care and attention; it secured 
the proper means of protection against moral disintegration; 
it showed to the whole country and to the world that there 
could be no slightest doubt of the patriotism of Catholics in 
America. The story of how this unification was realized is told 
graphically and sympathetically, with proportionate credit 
given to the prominent figures in the movement. The Cath- 
olic reader will be filled with a justifiable pride in his Church 
and in his Catholic fellow-citizens of the clergy and the laity 
who led the hosts to battle and service. 

III. 

Another feature in the work of the National Catholic War 
Council quite as outstanding as that of unification was coop- 
eration. That Council was thoroughly American. It did not 
isolate itself. It was a very part of the nation. It worked for 
no sectional purpose. It was in the Country, of the Country 



1922.] "AMERICAN CATHOLICS IN THE WAR' 481 

and for the Country. It realized that the Catholic spirit was 
in no way foreign to the American spirit, and that the things 
it worked for were American as well as Catholic. Therefore, 
its characteristic attitude was one of cooperation with all other 
bodies and forces that were operating for the health and well- 
being of the Republic. In the circumstances of war-time, the 
Church was given such an opportunity to show its mind as is 
not frequently, nor readily, afforded in time of peace. Under 
the stress of war, men became aware that all were compelled 
to work together if success were to crown their effort. As a 
consequence, they were all ready to receive, as well as to give, 
suggestions, to accept, as well as to offer, ways and means, to 
recognize, under the lurid light of battle, that, in spite of dif- 
ferences of belief, all were of a common citizenship. 

Read the story of the cooperation of the Council with the 
Government and with the officials of the Government, with the 
various religious organizations of other faiths, Protestant and 
Jewish, with individual representatives of these various 
bodies, and you will find proof upon proof that Catholicism in 
no way stood apart but, on the contrary, worked together with 
all who worked for good. As one of the striking evidences 
that this cooperation was mutual, we have the fact that in some 
of the committees formed of representatives of various creeds, 
the chairmanship was accorded the Catholic. Altogether, the 
deliberations of the Council in conjunction with other bodies 
were characterized by such understanding and consideration 
as can alone secure justice for all. 

Unification and cooperation these are the prominent 
words and ideas that, as it were, leap at us from the pages of 
this book. Such were the factors in the working of the Na- 
tional Catholic War Council and such were the reasons for its 
success. May we not suggest that in them is contained the 
supreme lesson which the Council has taught for the days 
that are to come. Into the broad light of day, into the arena 
of action, the Council brought that Catholic spirit which had 
been obscured, misunderstood, maligned and made it known, 
and appreciated and honored. Our thanks should go to 
Heaven for what it has accomplished; but those thanks would 
be little worth did we not at the same time learn the lesson 
for the future. 

Our Catholic soldiers who fought and died, our chaplains 

V0l GXIV. 31 



482 "AMERICAN CATHOLICS IN THE WAR" [Jan., 

who rendered such noble service, our men and women, at 
home and abroad, who in canteen and welfare houses, in 
chaplains' aid work, in visitors' and community houses, gave 
of their time and energy, all, individually and collectively, 
have taught one and the same lesson. 

It was natural that this lesson should find coordinated, 
immediate expression for the time of peace, and when the War 
ended, almost of itself, the National Catholic War Council 
became the National Catholic Welfare Council. As with its 
predecessor, unification and cooperation are its watchwords. 
In this continuation, by the Hierarchy, of an American Cath- 
olic organization we have the best proof that the effort which 
originated during the days of the War will extend with power 
into the future. We cannot dwell here upon the splendid 
programme which the Welfare Council has set for itself, but 
we can, at least, call attention to its general object. For the 
object of this latter union is akin to that of the former; to 
give national expression to the thought of American Catholics 
upon spiritual and moral matters that effect the welfare of 
the country. Unification is necessary that such thought may 
have concrete and weighty value as the expression of all Cath- 
olics; cooperation is necessary that it may be clearly seen 
that this Catholic thought is also truly American. 

We said in the beginning that this book, with its story, is 
a record, an answer, a message. Our further claim is that the 
book is much more; that it is an inspiration; an inspiration 
that bids us have courage and hope; that bids us look into 
the future with eyes to behold our country's high political 
and moral mission to the world. Not many years ago an 
English critic wrote, "America, though young, is dying." He 
believed that he saw elements of disintegration in this most 
youthful of the great nations. At about the same time, the 
Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church wrote the memorable 
words: "America is the future." With a full belief in the 
fundamental Tightness of the principles upon which our Re- 
public is built, and at the same time with skepticism as to the 
stability of anything human, I would, nevertheless, be inclined 
to accept the view of the Supreme Pontiff rather than that of 
the English critic. But further, with supreme confidence in 
the Divine character of Catholic faith, in the eminent reason- 
ableness of its philosophy of life, in its inherent power to 



1922.] RUYSBROECK 483 

attract the minds of thinking men, in its consoling ministration 
for every human need, in its fidelity to the Person of its Divine 
Founder; with this confidence and with the consciousness not 
only of the agreement of American ideals with the Catholic 
spirit, but also of the growth of that Catholic spirit in our 
country, which the record before us justifies, I do not see how 
America can die; I do not see how she can be other than what 
Leo XIII. prophesied she would be when he said: "America 
is the future." 



RUYSBROECK. 

BY ANNA MCCLURE SHOLL. 

IN the dark silence where all lovers will 
Themselves to lose; now come I to that Sea 
Whose quiet may no more disturbed be 

With things created. On His Holy Hill 

The Bridegroom waits: and at the dawn is still 
Waiting for one who unto Him must flee, 
Who, night-bewildered, weeping bitterly 

For ancient sins can never weep his fill. 

Pardoned, He draws me where the Morning Star 
Rises alone, and all earth's anguish hot 

Sinks into peace. And I will hear men's tales 
As the glad sailor, crossing the last bar, 

Hears voices from the land and heeds them not, 
But to eternal winds spreads out his sails. 




A FIGHTING PACIFIST. 

BY CHARLES PHILLIPS. 

T was in the office of the Polish Red Cross at 
Warsaw that I first heard the story of the death 
and burial of General Joseph Haller. I heard it 
from the lips of the General himself. 

.--^ The Haller funeral was held in the dusk of a 
soft May evening at the end of the second day's battle of 
Kaniow in the Ukraine, in 1918, following the victory of the 
Germans under Marshal Eichhorn's overwhelming numbers. 
The grave was dug in the black loam that borders the banks 
of the Dneiper, and into it the body was pitched with short 
shrift and scant trumpeting of the honors due to military 
rank and valor. Around the grave stood a group of captured 
Poles, who trembled while the nightingales sang over the dull 
swish of spades and sod. 

"No quarter," had been the Teuton cry against this "rebel" 
as the Germans called him, who already had nearly wrung 
from their grasp the freshly plucked fruits of their Brest- 
Litewski triumph. To make doubly sure of him, they had 
put a price on his head. "Haller, dead or alive ! One hundred 
thousand marks to the man who brings him in." 

Was it guilt that made those captive Poles blanch and 
shake around the new-made grave? Was there terror in their 
souls because they had branded themselves with the mark of 
traitor to win the award set for the capture of their leader? 
It was they who had brought the body in, a poor battered un- 
recognizable thing, its Polish uniform bloody and torn to 
shreds. The award was theirs and the favor of their captors. 
Yet they stood pale with fright; they scarcely breathed with 
suspense. 

No leader of soldiers in all the histories of war ever has 
been more loved or more ardently followed by his men than 
Joseph Haller. Yet if the Germans could have read the hearts 
of those legionaries who now beheld the body they had de- 
livered to their captors cast ignominiously into a ditch, they 
would not have found grief there, nor rage, but rather a wild 



1922.] A FIGHTING PACIFIST 485 

joy, an exultation that took all the will power of their beings 
to conceal. 

They were not traitors, but heroes; and it was this terrible 
joy of theirs that made their knees shake under them as the 
Haller grave was filled joy, and the fear that their joy would 
be discovered. For at that moment they knew that Haller, 
the leader whom they would indeed follow to the grave, was 
riding as that grave was dug, on to Kiev on to Moscow 
sweeping with a chosen band of his legionaries out of the 
German reach, into the Russian lines safe and sound, with 
the cause of Poland still on the cry. 

The escape of Haller from the Germans at Kaniow and 
the substitution of another body for his by a handful of his 
loyal legionaries, makes one of the most thrilling chapters in 
the history of the War. The whole story of Haller, in fact, 
runs on heroic lines, and is filled with the dash and daring, the 
peril and escape, the fight, defeat and victory, that give lustre 
and glory to war. Yet the hero of it all, who sits today in his 
office at the headquarters of the Polish Red Gross in Warsaw 
directing one of the giant tasks of his country's reconstruction, 
far from being a lover of camp or march or battle, is, by his 
own avowal, a hater of war and a pacifist. 

Such figures as Joseph Haller do not occur in history 
daily. He is a man surcharged with that quality which we 
call "personality." The ruggedness of the Tatras is in him 
the hill country that gave him birth. Rut in Poland that is 
likewise the south. And, happily, he was fostered far enough 
down the slopes of Zakopane to be spared any of its glacial 
aloofness in his make-up. Only the fervid sun and the strong 
winds of the foothills could breed this sort of man. His youth 
was spent in the free range of his father's estate in the Pod- 
gorze District, south of Krakow, learning to ride bareback 
like a cowboy when he was a mere tot. Patriotism, public 
duty, and hard work were traditions in the house where, on 
August 13, 1873, he was born. His mother, of French descent, 
daughter of one of the Polish heroes of 1831, was of the old 
genteel school of woman and lady who loves the life of house- 
wife, yet reigns in her home like a queen, worshipped by 
peasants and tenants the length and breadth of her estate. 
His father, Director of the Polish Landowners' Credit Society, 
was of the constructionist type of proprietor, a keen man of 



486 A FIGHTING PACIFIST [Jan., 

business, leading in the activities of his district. His father's 
father, likewise a landed farmer, had been President of the 
Republic of Krakow, the "Free State" erected in 1815 by the 
Treaty of Vienna (when Poland was divided among the 
Powers) but which, in 1846, was annexed to Austria. His 
uncle, Caesar Haller, had been a leader in the rebellions of 
1848 and 1863. 

It was in such an atmosphere that the young Joseph grew 
up, learning among his first lessons in life the responsibility 
of the landed proprietor upon whom hundreds of souls, and 
the trusteeship of vast acres of producing soil, depends. And 
it was not theory alone that he learned, but the practical work 
of the farmer and stock-breeder. 

Nevertheless, he was destined for a military career, and 
he passed quickly from his first schooling in Lwow (Lemberg) 
to the Military Academies at Koszyce and Hronice, and thence, 
soon afterwards, to the College of Arms at Vienna. In 1895, 
when only twenty-two, he graduated with the rank of First 
Lieutenant of Artillery. Next he was assigned as an instructor 
in Imperial technical schools; then he became commandant 
of one of these schools, with the rank of Captain. But a short 
time later he retired to private life, in which, as he says, the 
richest and happiest of his years were spent. 

All this time it must be remembered, Haller, Pole of the 
Poles, with a dream never dying in his heart of some day 
seeing his country freed and reunited, still remained legally 
an Austrian subject. Perhaps, he was able to half forget the 
fact at times, for Austria at that passage in her history was 
handling her share of proud Poland with a certain commend- 
able decency. But in 1912 who knows what smokes of war 
Vienna already sniffed on the wind! Haller, like many of 
his compatriots, was reminded of his forced allegiance. He 
was recalled to the army. 

Knowing well the game she played, Austria encouraged at 
this time the organization of native Polish military units. 
To Haller was now intrusted the establishment of schools 
for commissioned and non-commissioned Polish officers, and 
for these he personally drew up plans for a course of training, 
which is still regarded among European military experts as 
a model of its kind. From babyhood, he had watched the 
maneuvers of the Austrian forces, which were carried on in 



1922.] A FIGHTING PACIFIST 487 

the fields within stone's throw of the Haller home. One day, 
when he was four years old, the Prince of Wurttemberg, com- 
manding the troops, accosted the child with a wooden sword 
at his side. "Perhaps, you'd like to fight me?" said the Aus- 
trian prince; whereat the little fellow whipped out his wooden 
blade and parried every thrust of his Imperial challenger. 
"What are you going to be when you grow up?" asked the 
Prince. "A Polish soldier!" was little Haller's prompt answer. 
"A Polish soldier," was the answer; not merely a soldier, but 
"a Polish soldier." 

At this time also, during 1912, Haller's pen wrote the 
first regulations for the Polish army. What were the man's 
thoughts as he framed and worded these instructions for the 
mobilizing and drilling of a Polish force? What could they be 
but of the future? the future that somewhere behind the cur- 
tain hid a free, resurrected, reunited Poland. Would the 
swords of this hypothetical army of his, which sprang from 
pen to paper as he wrote, yet rend that curtain of the future? 

The second year of this eager activity of planning, organ- 
izing and instructing a large Polish military body had just 
touched its meridian when suddenly, in August, 1914, the War 
broke out. The next four years were crammed with action 
for Haller. First, he organized the Polish Legion of the East 
and led it to Lwow within a few weeks of the declaration of 
war Pilsudski, in the meantime, having advanced into Rus- 
sia with his regiments of Polish fusiliers. Then he organized 
the Third Legion and went with it to the Carpathian front. 
Later, he became commander of what was called the "Haller 
Group," and in the action which filled these quick-fire days 
was twice seriously wounded, the last time badly disabled. 
But by June, 1916, he was on his feet again "on one foot 
anyway," he laughs, describing himself at that time and took 
command of the famous "Iron Brigade" with which, from 
then on, he fought through all the campaigns against the Rus- 
sians until the treason of Lenine and Trotzky was achieved 
at Brest-Litewski, in February, 1918. 

No more tragic position could be imagined than that of the 
Poles, following the outbreak of the War. Split up under 
three sovereignties, they were now forced, by the fate of their 
ancient partition among the Powers, to a fratricidal division 
among themselves brother against brother; the Polish con- 



488 A FIGHTING PACIFIST [Jan., 

scripts of the German and Austrian armies fighting the Polish 
conscripts of Russia. But, in reality, there was a secret balm 
to heal the wound. Though the body of Poland was sundered 
and bleeding, the Polish soul remained indefectible. A tre- 
mendous elemental unity of interest bound these outwardly 
opposing forces together. In the back of everyone of these 
hosts of Polish heads was a common dream and a common 
purpose a liberated Poland. 

But there must first be a Polish army. "That, under our 
present dispensation," General Haller explains, "had to be 
inevitably the corner-stone of our national structure." So it 
was that, while in Austria, Pilsudski and Haller, taking every 
advantage of the chance their enemy at home gave them, 
mustered up their fusiliers and legionaries, in Russia at the 
same time another Polish patriot, General Dowbor Musnicki, 
had gathered the Poles of Muscovy into an army of their own. 
The aim of each of these separated Polish forces was one and 
the same the breaking down of their common enemies, one at 
a time. Thus, in fact though in secret, it was not Pole against 
Pole, but "Austrian" Pole against Russia, "Russian" Pole 
against the Teuton, and all Poles for Poland looking to the 
day when they could strike hands together on their own free 
soil over their frustrated conquerors. 

By this time, however, the Teuton was winning heavily, 
and the more victory was his the bolder he became in re- 
pudiating the promises he had made to Poland early in the 
War. That, of course, could not greatly surprise the Poles, 
but now it enraged them to see how quickly, with Russia's 
defeat, Poland was ground deeper and deeper under the heel 
of the German victor. He had entered shouting, "Liberty," 
but he stayed only as a new conqueror. 

When Lenine and Trotzky sold Russia to the Kaiser at 
Brest-Litewski in 1918, they delivered Poland into the hands 
of a worse tyrant than any Tsar had ever been. By one clause 
of the Brest-Litewski Treaty a large slice of Poland was 
handed over to the Ukraine; and by another, a secret clause, 
later brought to light, the remainder of Poland was abandoned 
to Germany. The protest of Haller and his legionaries was 
such a flaming up of the soul that it swept them over the crest 
of an adventure unique in the pages of military history. With 
one stride, they threw Austria and her forced allegiance be- 



1922.] A FIGHTING PACIFIST 489 

hind them, went smashing through her lines, and hurried into 
the Ukraine to join Dowbor Musnicki and his "Russian" Poles. 

Hot battles at Rarancza and Rotkitna saw Haller's legions 
pounding down the ranks of the very army they had been 
forced to follow a few days before. Then on to Soroki, on the 
Dniester, where in March Haller became commander of the 
Fifth Division of Engineers. Thence across country to the 
Dnieper, where his drama was to reach a sudden climax. 

Here at Kaniow it was no longer the Austrians Haller 
must fight, but the Germans the Prussian Marshal Eichhorn, 
drawn up with such overpowering force that a less daring 
commander would have halted and given up in the face of 
fate. It seemed a hopeless struggle, with the Poles caught 
squarely between two fires. But Haller was aiming at a bigger 
thing than the winning of a battle. His eyes were set ahead on 
the winning of a cause. To prolong the Eichhorn battle meant 
annihilation; and Haller saw a day coming when Poland 
would need every mother's son of these men who now stood 
back of him, ready to die at his command. . . . He gave the 
command of dispersal instead. He saved his men's lives. 
The Germans won the day. But it was an empty triumph that 
he handed to the angry Prussians. 

General Haller laughed as he told the story. "But my 
head isn't worth nearly as much as that today and it isn't on 
account of the rate of exchange, either. One hundred thou- 
sand marks, the Germans offered why, that would be half a 
million in Polish money! Yet the other day the ladies sold 
my head at a Warsaw Charity Bazaar for three thousand and 
it was autographed, too, to absolutely identify it." 

Following the escape at Kaniow, Haller and his band 
reached Kiev in safety; later Moscow. The work of raising 
more Polish troops was resumed. Two divisions the Odessa 
and the Siberian Chasseurs were recruited in short order. 
A forced advance was then made northward, Murman, with 
its railway and outlet to the west being the objective. At 
Murman he raised the Murman Detachment, and thence, with 
these forces, ventured on the long journey to France where 
Poland was to join hands with the Allies. The famous Haller 
Army, linked forever with the story of America in the great 
War, thus had its birth. 

The tireless work of Paderewski in the United States had 



490 A FIGHTING PACIFIST [Jan., 

by this time borne rich fruit. In the first place, before Amer- 
ica entered the War, thousands of Polish Americans, hearing 
the summons of their great compatriot, had rallied to the 
cause of democracy, going into Canada to enlist there with 
their Polish Canadian colleagues in the Dominion Army. 
Then came our own declaration of war, with veritable 
hosts of Poles rushing to the colors. Then came also Amer- 
ica's first recognition of the Polish nation, when, at Pade- 
rewski's request, the Poles of America were allowed to form 
a separate army of their own, the ranks of which were 
swelled by thousands of other Polish volunteers, whose 
age had excluded them from American service. When 
Haller, ready now to fight on the western front, the same Ger- 
many whose power he had challenged and whose clutches 
he had slipped in the east, began the organization in France 
of his army of legionaries, Poles from every land under the 
sun came streaming to his call; from France, from England, 
from Italy, from all the Americas. Over 25,000 of this force, 
one-fourth of the entire Haller Army, were from the United 
States. 

The Armistice of November 11, 1918, was the Gabriel 
cry for a resurrected Poland. But it signaled only the begin- 
ning of Poland's real fight for liberty and independence. 
Decrees of the Allies might set up a reunited state; but by the 
decree of Providence, Poland must seal her newly gained free- 
dom with travail and blood. Germany and Austria had fallen, 
and Pilsudski's young armies, springing up in the night out of 
the very soil of Poland, had cleared the land of the invaders. 
But the Teuton power was far from being laid. German in- 
trigue quickly raised a new enemy for Poland, in the Ukraine; 
and there was now a new and more terrible Bussia than that 
of the Tsars for Poland to fend from her borders the Bed 
Bussia of the Bolsheviki. 

So the time had come at last for Haller and his hundred 
thousand to stand on Polish soil, under the Polish flag, fight- 
ing freely and openly for their native land. Early in the 
spring of 1919, Haller brought this army with its twenty-five 
thousand "Yank" Poles, out of France, through Germany, into 
Poland. 

The heart of Poland fairly broke with joy at this home- 
coming of her own. Across the width of Poland, shouting and 






1922.] A FIGHTING PACIFIST 491 

weeping its joyous acclaim of him, Haller hurried on with his 
men to the Ukrainian front, and there plunged into the thick 
of the fight. One victory after another crowned the days that 
followed. He smashed the German conspiracy in the Ukraine, 
retook Lwow, retook Boryslaw with its rich oil wells, and 
cleaned all Malopolska of the enemy, Ukrainian and Bolshe- 
vik. His tasks in the southeast finished, commands followed 
on the western and northwestern fronts, where, during the 
winter and spring of 1919-1920, both Czechs and Germans were 
harrassing the new Republic. This chapter of Haller's mili- 
tary activities meant one lesson clearly read to Poland's 
enemies that, though young, weak and impoverished, she 
was ready and strong enough to defend her rights. 

No review of the career of Haller would be complete 
without some picture being given of that memorable March 
day in 1920 when, in the name of the Republic, he reclaimed 
those Baltic waters which for centuries had been counted 
among Poland's most cherished possessions. So great was the 
joy of the Poles at touching once more, independent and un- 
prohibited, the open Baltic wave that meant for them access 
to the outer world, they gave vent to their feelings in a cere- 
mony such as only a poetic and imaginative people could 
conceive. 

On his "wedding" finger, General Haller wears a curious 
ring which commemorates that ceremony. It is a mate to the 
ring with which Poland was wedded to the sea at Putsk. All 
the solemn ritual of the Church was invoked to beautify that 
marriage feast. On the beach an open air altar was erected, 
and there, with thousands of citizens marching out from the 
town singing anthems and national songs, with bands playing 
and flags flying, the historic nuptials were celebrated. 

When all the altar candles were lit and flickering in the 
wind, and all the singing populace had gathered around the 
officiating priests, the blare of bugles announced the approach 
of the Polish troops. In stately procession, they came march- 
ing down the sands, Haller, mounted on a white charger, lead- 
ing them. At the altar, he dismounted and knelt, receiving 
the two blessed rings. Then, while the bells of the town began 
to ring, while the priests' voices rose in the chant of the Mass, 
while the bands played the stirring hymn-like notes of "Poland 
Is Not Yet Dead," and the people sang in a chorus that swelled 



492 A FIGHTING PACIFIST [Jan., 

to the sky, the General, mounted again on his charger, rode 
into the tide. He drew his sword, saluted with it, and dipping 
its shining blade into the waters, cast the second wedding ring 
into the sea. The streaming amaranth and white of the Polish 
standard fluttered at that moment to the wind, hoisted on a 
staff set far out in the water. And the shouts of the people and 
the legionaries drowned the voice of their leader as he de- 
clared Poland and the Baltic once more united "in the name of 
God and the free Republic!" 

Days of quiet seemed ahead for Poland in the spring of 
1920. In the east, the Bolshevik invaders had been driven 
beyond the Dvina and the Dneiper. The western territories 
were cleared and busy with their rehabilitation. Haller, his 
martial tasks completed, resigned his command. His "Yanks" 
were chafing to get home to America. He himself was eager 
for the work of reconstruction which he kept steadily in view. 
He launched the demobilization of his army, shipping trans- 
port after transport of his men from Danzig to New York. 
But the dispersal of his forces was hardly completed before 
the cry of alarm rang in Poland's ears once more. The great 
counter-drive of Trotzky's Reds had begun, sweeping up from 
Kiev and down from Dvinsk, till the Republic shook with the 
thunder of their approach. Haller was immediately recalled 
and the task of raising an emergency army to back the re- 
treating regulars, was placed in his hands by the Council of 
National Defence. 

No democracy in peril can ever read that page of Polish 
history written by Haller and his "Miracle Army" without 
taking heart of courage. All doubts of the basic unity of the 
Polish people, who, forcibly partitioned for over a century, 
had only begun to learn the first lessons of national cooper- 
ation when this terrible crisis came upon them, vanished in 
the light of that mighty act of union. Within the space of six 
weeks, Haller rallied around him a force of seventy-five thou- 
sand volunteers, drilled them, armed them and led them vic- 
toriously through the defence of their capital. No army since 
the days of Lexington and Concord has gone to battle roused 
to such a pitch as this. Disaster was trampling the inner 
thresholds of their country. Hope seemed lost before the 
overpowering numbers of the enemy, whose Red hosts were 
rolling up the weary and disease stricken Polish regulars at 



1922.] A FIGHTING PACIFIST 493 

twenty miles a day. The dynamic personality of Haller elec- 
trified the Polish masses at that moment. He drew volunteers 
like a magnet, held them, molded them into an ordered mov- 
ing force, and swept them to an unbelievable, an impossible 
victory. In that blackest of all Poland's black hours, Joseph 
Haller, afire with purpose, quick and foreseeing in decision, 
strong in his faith in God, Whom he invoked daily in public 
as he knelt at his morning Mass, personified the deathless 
Poland of the ages, brave, patriotic and religious. It was 
these qualities in him that gave him such power over his 
people. When, in an official declaration at this time, he pro- 
claimed the Blessed Virgin the Queen of Poland, his popularity 
knew no bounds. 

Those were wonderful and terrible days! The streets of 
Warsaw, Lwow, Posnan, Krakow, streamed with volunteers, 
men and boys, old gray veterans and lads not out of school, 
women and girls. How they marched and sang, how they 
drilled and sweated, heartening the homekeepers, shaming 
into action whatever slackers might be standing by! Every 
open space, every vacant lot was a training ground. And the 
name of Haller was on every lip; at every turn his face and 
his figure beckoned from the recruiting posters, calling the 
nation to arms. 

Then the "miracle" happened. At the stroke of the hour 
set for the fall of Warsaw for the long prophesied spanning 
of Trotzky's "Red Bridge" that was to open the Western world 
to anarchy the miracle of the Vistula happened, that turning 
of the tide of war which baffles reason and is beyond human 
explanation. The Reds were within twelve miles of Warsaw 
(nearer than the Germans ever got to Paris) ; the capital was 
surrounded. In the north, the last hope was gone the Danzig 
railway line was cut; the Bolsheviki had penetrated clear to 
the Prussian frontier. They were coming in from the south, 
their guns within sight and hearing. They were closing around 
the city in a vast circling, "nut cracker" movement that had 
gained such momentum, disaster seemed absolutely inevitable. 
The Polish regular forces, ill fed and worn out by months of 
campaigning on that vast front that had broken Napoleon, had 
now almost gone to pieces, with a decimating wave of dysen- 
tery sweeping through their ranks to finish the job. They 
were dying by the thousands; pouring into Warsaw in long 



494 A FIGHTING PACIFIST [Jan., 

streams of box cars, where the living, the expiring and the 
dead were packed in fearful masses of agonized humanity. 
I stood in such cars as these, where the very silence of the 
corpses, covered and uncovered, seemed to be pierced by the 
delirious cries of the dying. It was a moment in the life of 
Poland that froze the heart of the nation to its core, and shook 
the world with threat. Yet the miracle happened thanks, 
as the Poles say, to God and His Mother, who gave them Wey- 
gand and his Fochian tactics; Pilsudski and his unconquerable 
will; Skorupka, the young hero priest who led the first vic- 
torious dash, last but not least, Haller and his volunteers. The 
tide was turned! It was red with the boy-blood of young 
Poland, following Haller to the Bug; retreating with him 
back to the gates of the Citadel; advancing again to the fiery 
field of Radzymin. It was all one tremendous chaos of flame 
and blood, of thunder and terror and smoke. But Poland and 
the world was saved! 

That is the story of Haller, the fighter. But to have told it 
so, is to have revealed only one side of the man. The other 
side shows us the pacifist, the constructionist, who sees, be- 
yond the travail of her fighting days, a Poland settled in quiet 
and contentment, her farms restored, her factories producing, 
her mission the cementing of East and West in peace and 
amity. 

When Haller had won his captainship under the Austrian 
regime, it will be remembered that he retired to private life. 
But not to ease or idleness. Betirement for him meant harder 
work and a bigger task than the military career offered him. 
He took charge of the family estate, began a thorough study of 
economics and agriculture, and thus commenced what he 
hoped was to be a lifetime career as a developer of Polish soil 
and resources. He went deeply into the questions of rural 
housing and sanitation, experimented with crops, stock, fer- 
tilizers and machinery working in the fields himself to learn 
first hand what the tiller of the soil must know. He was idol- 
ized by the "Gorali" or mountaineers, many of whom fought 
under him as legionaries. "That was one thing my military 
training taught me," he explains. "The man who would com- 
mand men and lead them must first be one of them." Haller 
had dreams and ideals for his farms and his tenants, but he 
knew well that to realize these dreams, or ever accomplish 



1922.] A FIGHTING PACIFIST 495 

anything in the way of leading his people ahead, he must 
begin by knowing all that they knew where they stood. 

It was from this absorbing work among his compatriot 
farmers and landsmen that the Austrian army had taken him 
in 1912. But through all the years that followed, the farmers 
and the farmers' cooperatives, the crops and the dairies, were 
always on the horizon of his mind. "For Poland," he tells us, 
"is first of all an agricultural country, and her soundest foun- 
dation lies in the welfare of her agriculturalists, who produce 
and supply her food, and make possible her widely awakening 
industrial development." He knew, too, by first-hand expe- 
rience, what disasters war brought to the farming people, for 
all of his own properties were lost. Financially, the War 
has ruined him. He has nothing left today but a little cottage 
in the Tatra mountains. 

When General Haller had completed his martial tasks in 
the Ukraine; when he had accomplished the reclamation of 
the western provinces, and had penetrated to the sea; when 
he resigned his command in the spring of 1920 and demobil- 
ized his army each of these times he had thought his soldier- 
ing done with and his "real" work to begin again. But each 
time new emergencies recalled him to the line. Then came 
Warsaw, the crowning climax of his military career, when, 
from early June, through all the strenuous midsummer days 
of recruiting, organizing, inspecting and fighting, he never 
rested. In the great seven-day strategic retreat from the River 
Bug, August 3d to 10th, and in the final engagements which 
began August 12th, he scarcely slept. Yet, with the danger 
past and the country once more secure, instead of turning at 
last to the respite he had so richly earned, we find him instead, 
within two weeks on August 25th plunged into a new and 
vaster work than any he had yet undertaken the direction 
and reorganization of the Polish Red Cross, which ranks today 
the second in the world, with over a million members. 

"This is the biggest army I've been given yet!" the General 
exclaimed, as he spread a mass of documents on the table 
before him to explain his work. "And the happiest army! 
a million fighting pacifists. Yes, we're all pacifists. But we 
have an awful fight on our hands a fight against disease, 
starvation, despair. The army? Yes, I remain on the active 
list, ready for any call. But we have disbanded our volunteers. 



496 A FIGHTING PACIFIST [Jan., 

We have sent our men and women back to work, our boys and 
girls back to school. They have fulfilled their duty. 

"Russia," General Haller continued, "will not always be 
our enemy only as long as she is leagued with Germany. 
But Germany, for a long time yet I am afraid, will threaten 
and make trouble not only for Poland, but for the whole 
world. From the day she sent Lenine to Brest-Litewski, Ger- 
many has been responsible for Poland's suffering and the 
world's danger. But peace, an entire peace for all of us will 
come at long last, and we are making ready for it throughout 
the country through our Red Cross work. . . . 

"During the critical months of 1920," General Haller ex- 
plains, "the Polish Red Cross spent twenty million marks in 
its work. Its entire administration costs ran less than five per 
cent. That means that for every mark spent, ninety-five per 
cent, went into actual relief." Assuredly, a record to be 
proud of! 

"We employ 4,000 nurses and are operating twenty hos- 
pitals, seven sanitariums, four sanitary trains, fifty-two dress- 
ing and first aid stations, twenty-nine disinfecting columns and 
various other health activities. Over six hundred of our 
nurses have already graduated from the course of training 
established for us by your American Red Cross and that es- 
tablishment, let me say, gives promise of being one of the 
most far-reaching works of philanthropy done in stricken 
Poland by generous America." 

Fifty-five libraries for sick soldiers, besides an ever-in- 
creasing number of elementary and trade schools for disabled 
men, are further items in the list of accomplished things. And 
this whole record, it should be remembered, is to be read in the 
light of such disaster and loss as no other country in the world 
has suffered since the War began. In the Bolshevik invasion 
of 1920 the Polish Red Cross lost heavily. A number of its 
workers were murdered by the Reds. Many hospitals and 
sanitary trains were destroyed. Nevertheless, most of these 
are already restored and again functioning. 

Besides being president of the Polish Red Cross, General 
Haller is also at the head of the Scout movement in Poland, of 
which his own fourteen-year-old son, Eric, was one of the most 
active workers at the front during the invasion of 1920. Boy 
Scouts and Girl Scouts are parochial organizations in Poland, 



1922.] A FIGHTING PACIFIST 497 

under the leadership of parish priests, and have played a vital 
part in Polish history since 1914. The first Polish volunteers 
in the present war were, in fact, recruited from the ranks of 
the Scouts; there are 3,000 of them still in the army. There are 
more than 21,000 Scouts and nearly 10,000 "Girl Guides" in 
Poland today. Not a few of the memorable heroes of the war 
in 1920 were Scouts, among them the heroic young Chaplain 
Skorupka, who fell at Radzymin, and Captain Sophie, "the 
Heroine of Plock," who died of wounds inflicted by Bolshevik 
sabres and the Cossack whip, with which she was brutally 
beaten after falling wounded on the field. 

To this army of Poland's youth, Haller is a veritable idol; 
and now, with his eye always on the future, he has rallied 
another young host about him in the Polish Junior Red Cross, 
which, just organized, already has 10,000 members. "Last year, 
in Warsaw alone," he told me, "these youngsters of ours raised 
about one hundred and fifty tons of foodstuffs in the civic 
gardens, which they themselves planted, cultivated and har- 
vested in the vacant lots around the city. This included forty 
tons of potatoes, besides beets, cabbage, carrots and so on 
a supply sufficient to feed a large number of families that 
would have gone hungry if it had not been for our Junior 
farmers." 

The glow of the countryman's pride kindled Mailer's 
eyes as he talked of his youthful farmers. "Of course," he 
said, "it is a mere platitude to say they are the hope of our 
country, our children. But when a man looks over the records 
of Poland's losses in child life 10,000 dead here in Warsaw, 
last year alone; a million of them tubercular throughout the 
country; over fifteen per cent, of all our children rickety, de- 
formed, defective then you understand what we mean when 
we talk about our children. We must save them. We cannot 
build a future on a foundation of broken humanity, nor offer 
a race of devitalized men for world citizenship." 



VOL. CXIV. 32 




SOME RECENT IRISH BOOKS. 

BY HENRY A. LAPPIN, LITT.D. 

HE compilation of a complete bibliography of the 
books produced in Ireland since the ever-memor- 
able Easter of 1916, is a task which ought soon to 
be undertaken by some competent student of 
modern Irish letters. There is surely no lack of 
material awaiting classification at the hands of such an one. 
Since the great upheaval of more than five years ago, hardly 
a month has passed in which volumes of essays and of verse, 
novels, histories, pamphlets and broadsheets have not been 
brought forth in ever-increasing numbers. And not a few 
new publishers those indispensable accoucheurs of literature 
have set up in business to cope with the extraordinary 
fluency and fertility of contemporary Irish writers. By the 
pen no less than by the sword, has the resurgent nationalism 
of Ireland sought expression. 

Of course, not all that proceeds from the Dublin presses is 
"literature" in the high sense of the term. The vicissitudes of 
imprisoned and interned Sinn Feiners, for example, have re- 
sulted in nothing that even remotely approximates to the 
literary quality of John Mitchel's immortal Jail Journal, which 
has been called, not unjustifiably, the greatest Irish prose-book 
of the nineteenth century. Stirring as are Louis J. Walsh's 
On My Keeping and in Theirs* and Darrell Figgis' A Chronicle 
of Jails, 2 these two books are obviously ephemeral, are quite 
without distinction as literature, and belong merely to what 
a native historian of former days called "the materials" of 
Irish history. 

Upon most of the fiction having for central theme the In- 
surrection of 1916, or the events which led up to, and followed 
upon it, much the same verdict may not unfairly be rendered. 
Altogether excessive praise was bestowed especially by 
American critics upon the facile Wellsianism of St. John 
Ervine's Changing Winds, 3 to the comparative neglect of Mr. 

1 Dublin: The Talbot Press, 1921. Dublin: The Talbot Press, 1919. 

"New York: The Macmillan Co., 1917. 



1922.] SOME RECENT IRISH BOOKS 499 

Douglas Goldring's much profounder interpretation of the In- 
surrection in the later pages of his fine novel, The Fortune. 4 
Eimar O'Duffy's The Wasted Island 5 was also absurdly over- 
rated. Here, too, Ireland is anatomized "through a temper- 
ament," astigmatically. Mr. O'Duffy is insistently and merci- 
lessly clever, and surveys his fellow-countrymen through very 
superior lenses. There is neither tenderness nor understand- 
ing in his observation. So busily is he engaged in reacting 
against the traditional reticences of Irish fiction, so certain is 
he that romantic Ireland is dead and gone, that he fails la- 
mentably "to capture and prison" in his novel the underlying 
spiritual realities of the life he sets out to interpret. 

More than a year ago, in an article 6 in this periodical, 
the present writer concurred in the opinion of an Irish critic 
that The Threshold of Quiet, 7 the second book of a new writer, 
Daniel Corkery, was the finest Irish novel that had ever been 
published. Mr. Corkery's pen has not lain idle in the mean- 
time. Since 1918, he has issued, under the same publisher's 
imprint, a volume of short stories and sketches, The Hounds 
of Banba; 8 two fine plays, The Labour Leader 8 and The Yellow 
Bittern, 8 and a remarkable book of lyrics, / Bhreasail? By 
virtue of the distinction and nobility no less than of the versa- 
tility of his achievement, Mr. Corkery's place among living 
Irish writers cannot now be far from the highest. 

The Hounds of Banba is unquestionably the finest literary 
fruit of the Rebellion. It is the epic of Sinn Fein. It explains 
Sinn Fein. It evokes, as does no other printed page, the soul 
of Sinn Fein, the soul of the New Ireland that is, after all, a 
very old Ireland. To read The Hounds of Banba is a discipline 
in courage and a rare spiritual experience. But, indeed, this 
is not a book merely; it is the tortured heart of a people. Here 
are ten stories and sketches, ten studies in the mournful pride 
and passionate exaltation of a great nation in its agony. The 
theme is always the rebel: the rebel in high-hearted and dis- 
dainful youth, the rebel grown old and remembering the frus- 
trated hope of his noon, carrying always with him the dream 
it has been left to his grandchildren to make real. Old 

*New York: Thos. Seltzer, Inc., 1919. "Dublin: Martin Lester, 1920. 

THE CATHOLIC WORLD, March, 1920, "Three New Irish Novels," by Henry A. 
Lappin. 

7 Dublin : The Talbot Press, 1918. 8 Dublin : The Talbot Press, 1920. 

8 London: Elkin Mathews, 1921. 



500 SOME RECENT IRISH BOOKS [Jan., 

Muirish, for instance, in "The Ember" to mention only one, 
but he the grandest and most impressive of all Mr. Corkery's 
aged Fenians. From the youth who is now "on his keeping" 
to use the consecrated Irish phrase among the windy moun- 
tain-heights of Northwest Cork, Muirish hears how the fight of 
Easter, 1916, had been fought: 

His grip relaxed, but not the force in his voice. 

"Then what was it?" 

"It was [says the youth] want of, want of ... every- 
thing ! Want of men, want of everything." 

"I suppose it was," he said, very quietly. " 5 Tis I should 
know." His face turned away from me, and I was glad for it. 

For one reader, at least, there is majestic pathos in the 
old man's word. And the closing page of "The Ember" is one of 
the things upon which modern literature may very well pride 
itself. Here is an ending to stir the soul: 

" 'Tis a great consolation ye're giving me. I was broken 
with thinking on it. I tell you, a man can be too wise and 
too careful and too mistrustful. And I was always like that. 
But 'tis in ease I'll lay my head down in my empty house 
this night. Good-night to ye." 

He had hobbled with me to the door. I paused. I looked 
up into his face; I suddenly thought of what I would say 
to him; I would hearten him with those four lines that 
were ever and always in our thoughts, of how decay would 
as surely come upon the English as it had come upon Alex- 
ander and Caesar: 

"Do threasgoir an saol is do sheid an ghaoth mar smdl 
Alastram, Caesar is an mheid do bhi 'na bpdirt; 
Td an Teamhair 'na fdar is feach an Traoi mar id, 
'S na Sasanaigh fein, dob' fheidir go bhfaighdis bds." 10 

He drank them in, he swallowed them with open mouth. 

"Again! Again!" he said; and again I repeated them, I 
knew he was making them his own. I knew, too, I had 
given him in perfect form the whole burden and pressure of 
his thoughts. He turned in, wondering how that could be 
wondering, yet comforted, comforted for ever." 

10 Here is Mr. Corkery's translation (Padraic Pearse's is even finer): 
Life conquereth still; as dust the whirlwinds blow 

Alexander, Caesar, and all their power and due! 
Tara is grass, and Troy itself lieth low 

It may be that Death will reach the English too. 



1922.] SOME RECENT IRISH BOOKS 501 

Every story in The Hounds of Banba is saturated with that 
appealing emotion which lives like a soul within the body of 
the Irish landscape. The glory of moon-blanched Irish nights, 
full of tenderness and breadth and distance: the winds that 
bluster up from Bantry Bay and roar upon the thatched roofs 
of mountain cabins: the great silence of chilly dawns: the 
blue Irish distances alive with bird-song. And the peaceful 
interiors of Holy Ireland how this writer can paint them! 
". . . the rich glow from the turf losing itself in the dark 
thatch and the dark roof-timbers, very warm and mellow." 
What a chiming music is made by words like these in an 
exiled reader's heart! 

It is, perhaps, premature to attempt to decide for what 
literary form Mr. Corkery's genius is best adapted. But so far, 
at any rate, he has shown himself at his greatest in meditative 
fiction. His dramatic work, however, has a fine distinction 
peculiarly its own. The Labour Leader, his "modern" play, 
is a study in the overthrow of the idealist leader, Lombard, 
by his disillusioned followers. It is difficult to avoid the con- 
clusion that Mr. Corkery had Larkin and Connolly in mind in 
writing this play. His command of construction and charac- 
terization is sure and thorough, and the play has stood the 
test of the actual stage. His second volume of drama con- 
tains three one-act plays, "King and Hermit," "Clan Falvey" 
and "The Yellow Bittern." The most impressive of the three is 
the last, which is full of mystical beauty. It is a dramatic set- 
ting of the old tale of the death of the poet, Cahal Bwee Mac- 
Elgunn, and how the Blessed Virgin came to succor him in the 
loneliness and desolation of his ending. Father Walsh, the 
priest of the play, is describing the apparition that met his 
eyes at the poet's bedside : 

A woman with a sweet face, going about making no noise, 
speaking no words; her hands were white, and her feet, I 
think, were bare; and the poet's eyes followed her, strug- 
gling through the dark; and when I was finished and the 
agony was come upon him, he groaned, and groped with 
his hand at the darkness, and she rose from her knees and 
went across the room and took his hand into hers; and then 
his eyes closed quietly. . . . 

The religious atmosphere is achieved tenderly and sensitively. 



502 SOME RECENT IRISH BOOKS [Jan., 

One shudders to think how Yeats would have handled such 
a setting. 

In I Bhreasail, Mr. Corkery's first book of lyrics, there is 
much to delight the reader. There is the poet's constant pre- 
occupation with the lovely southern Irish countryside and 
the surroundings of his native Cork. One of the three or four 
finest poems in the volume is that entitled "On the Lee at 
Cork:" 

She slips the jettyside at fall of night, 

For night she trims herself, her lamps are lit; 

Dark figures cross her deck and, grouping, fit 

Wedges and spars to make her hatchways tight. 

Huge, black, she swings and blots the sunset light 

And cuts the crimson flood; all heat and grit 

Her smoke swoops down and chokes me; then, a spit 

Of stifled steam, she shrieks ! trembling for might. 

And lonely on the windy throne of her, 

Wrapped in the thickening twilight, staunch and stern, 

The helmsman stands, his fixed eyes far away; 

His grip, oh what can loosen it, or stir 

The pillared feet, steeled in his one concern 

To beat the storm that lifts in Graball Bay ! 

This splendid sonnet is full of romantic atmosphere and 
vision. One can feel the sweep and surge of the Irish 
tides, and darkness coming down over the lonely sea as the 
winds of night arise. One of the most discerning prose trib- 
utes to the late Terence McSwiney God rest him! was Mr. 
Corkery's appreciation published in a recent number of the 
Irish quarterly review, Studies. Here is a wreath of verse 
which he lays on the great martyr's tomb : 

As you our life, spring hallows not the earth: 

Oh how, when springtime thrills its stubborn veins, 

Earth quickens, limb on limb, takes heart, regains 

The swallows' headlong liberty, the mirth 

Of new-dropt lambs, the ecstasy of birth 

On birth; till it would still its too-sweet pains 

In drowsy visions of fat harvest wains 

That crawl, afraid to break their swelling girth. 

The yield of fruit and corn and wine we know: 

The barns are there, the vats, that reckon them 



1922.] SOME RECENT IRISH BOOKS 503 

From year to year; but who can measure out 

The harvest when the winds of spirit blow 

And leave man's heart, cleansed of its coward phlegm, 

A star of morn, a tiptoe and a shout! 

One more quotation from these poems, before passing on 
to consider briefly some works of less significance. Mr. 
Corkery's "Ploughing Song" is, perhaps, the finest piece of pure 
lyric in the volume, and reminds one irresistibly of the splen- 
did soaring quality of some of James Stephen's best short 
poems. One can feel the whirr and beat of wings in these 
rapturous lines: 

O scream and fly, O scream and fly, 
O frost-crimsoned sun on the frosty-gray hill 

O wheel and cry, O wheel and cry, 
O rooks to your brushwood and frost-blackened trees; 

And, pacing their dream, like a cloud in the sky, 
Leave my horses at peace while the sun passes by. 

O sink and die, O sink and die, 
O frost-crimsoned sun on the frosty-grey hill 

And chilly and shy from their sleep in the sky 
Let the stars hitch their plough and the high heavens till; 

For weary my horses and weary am I, 
And the furrows are speaking, as if no one were by. 

One awaits with impatience the future work of a writer so 
richly and diversely gifted. It seems as if Mr. Corkery were 
the authentic spokesman of the New Ireland. 

Mr. Aodh de Blacam is a young Irish writer and publicist 
whose work well repays attention. His most considerable lit- 
erary production, so far, is his novel, Holy Romans. 11 He tells 
therein a first-rate story, although his manner of telling it 
betrays the unpractised amateur. Holy Romans is worth 
reading for the account he gives of the Gaelic League move- 
ment in London, of life in Donegal, and, later, of the Easter 
Rebellion. It is frankly a propaganda novel, but there are not 
a few pages in which the writer's sensitiveness to the beauty of 
the Irish scene finds happy expression. Here is one delightful 
Donegal landscape: 

"Dublin: Maunsel, 1920. 



504 SOME RECENT IRISH BOOKS [Jan., 

So at the end of a long day's travel, he came to the station 
of Portabeg Road, close under the mountains with the At- 
lantic in sight far beyond the heath and bog. The light- 
house flashed at intervals from Iris More far out at sea. A 
violent wind was blowing from the west, for even in the 
calmest summer weather there is wind here on the heights, 
and stupendous blue clouds from over the ocean were climb- 
ing a luminous green sky. The smell of turf-smoke in the 
damp, clear air was to Shane the most exquisite of scents. 
As he stood on the windy platform, he felt as though his 
body had been etherialized to the lightness of pure spirit. 

Mr. de Blacam has also, one may note in passing, pub- 
lished a remarkable study 12 of the new Irish movement, which 
deals in detail with the Irish Republican ideal and its origin 
and development, and which is a necessary complement to 
Professor R. M. Henry's able work on The Evolution of Sinn 
Fein. 

The present writer in an earlier article in this periodical 
discussed The Valley of Squinting Windows, by "Brinsley 
MacNamara." There has lately come to him for review a 
novel, published in England, entitled The Irishman, by 
"Oliver Blyth," which is apparently identical in contents with 
a later novel by "Brinsley MacNamara," published in Amer- 
ica by Brentano's under the title In Clay and Bronze. The 
changing alias of the pen is somewhat mystifying ! The Irish- 
man, however, be it! 

There was nothing to commend and much to censure in 
The Valley of Squinting Windows. The Irishman, by "Oliver 
Blyth," is, perhaps, a slightly less objectionable book. The 
author's eyesight is somewhat improved: his astigmatism is, 
perhaps, not quite so acute. And, for another thing, he writes 
a much mellower and easier English. Martin Duignan, the 
Irishman of the story, receives a hundred pounds from the 
seducer of his sister, and is thus enabled to leave his plough 
and go to a Dublin tutoring-school which prepares students 
for the Civil Service examinations. He undergoes many 
miseries of body and soul in Dublin, and, subsequently, travel- 
ing to America with his mistress a married woman expe- 
riences even more disastrous vicissitudes, sinking down finally 

"What Sinn Fein Stands For. Dublin: The Mellifont Press, 1921. 
"New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1920. "London: Eveleigh Nash, 1920. 



1922.] SOME RECENT IRISH BOOKS 505 

into the lowest degradation. Returning to Ireland, he recovers 
himself somewhat and writes a realistic novel, which is to 
make him "the Dostoievsky of Ireland." This is the author's 
view of Martin Duignan and his book : 

... he had merely filled his life with mud for the purpose 
of writing a muddy book in which he would show men who 
had sprung from the same clay as himself, crawling about 
dark places which were filled with a heavy stench of the 
soul. 

That perfectly expresses the character and quality of The 
Irishman. It is just one more exercise in the prevailing 
pseudo-realistic mode. We renew our gratitude for the beau- 
tiful and incorrupt art of Daniel Corkery. 

And we turn to the last book on our list : a new anthology 
of Irish poetry. 15 Mr. Walters has compiled, and his pub- 
lishers have produced an exceedingly attractive collection. It 
is a joy to see again Thomas Boyd's haunting verses, "To the 
Leanan Sidhe," which one comes upon but rarely. All the best- 
known poets are moderately well represented, but where is 
James Stephens' "The Fifteen Acres," one of the most exquisite 
"bird-poems" in the language. Joseph Campbell is most in- 
adequately represented by only one poem, even though that be 
"The Old Woman." Where, oh where, is Ethna Carbery ! Was 
there room for only one poem by Thomas McDonagh? one 
asks indignantly. And then one remembers the great truth, 
tot homines quot anthologica. "There is only one perfect 
anthology," Sylvia Lynd has declared, "and that is a perfect 
memory." 

10 Irish Poets of Today. Compiled by L. D'O. Walters. New York: E. P. Dutton 
& Co. 




THE RISE OF THE PEOPLE'S PARTY IN ITALY. 

BY GIUSEPPE QUIRICO, S.J. 

T is little more than three years since the People's 
Party was formed in Italy as a result of the efforts 
of a group of conscientious and courageous Cath- 
olics. In this short time, it has been able to im- 
press itself on the political life of Italy and has 
obtained a conspicuous group of one hundred and seven 
deputies in Parliament; three ministers in charge of important 
portfolios and five under-secretaries in the Cabinet, and an 
admirable organization of 4,176 sections with more than 
300,000 party adherents throughout the country. The appear- 
ance of the new party had an immediate effect on Italian 
politics: desire for anti-clerical legislation was arrested, and 
intense development was given to social legislation. The 
new party, a veritable giant from birth, is being watched with 
great interest by the Catholics of other nations, and there has 
become manifest a general desire to know something of its 
nature and its programme. It is to satisfy this just desire 
that we shall proceed to outline, in brief, the history and pro- 
gramme of the People's Party of Italy. 

The inception of the People's Party may be sought in the 
Catholic action which developed in Italy during the past fifty 
years, giving rise to numerous works, and preparing Cath- 
olics for public life. The foundation of the Association of 
Italian Catholic Youth, at Bologna, dates from 1868. This 
Association still remains intact in its typical organization of 
the most fervent and loyal spirit. From its heart, so to 
speak, came the men most courageous and most representative 
of Catholic action and Italian political action. 

The Association of Catholic Youth gave rise, in October, 
1871, to the great convention movement, which rapidly became 
the Operi dei Congressi e dei Comitati Cattolici (Organization 
of Conventions and of Catholic Committees) in Italy. This 
work, as is well known, soon became permanent, with a vast 
organization of parish, diocesan and district committees, all 



1922.] THE PEOPLE'S PARTY IN ITALY 507 

duly subordinated to the General Permanent Committee and 
the President-General. Among the various groups included in 
the development of Catholic action, one was concerned with 
the electoral movement in provinces and municipalities, the 
only political field in which the Catholics of Italy were then 
allowed to participate. In the limited field of municipal and 
provincial administration, the Catholics were free to take part 
in the most important problems of public life; alone, or more 
often in cooperation with moderate liberals, they had a major- 
ity in the greater number of municipalities, especially the 
larger ones. The Opera del Congressi, which was dissolved in 
1904, was succeeded by a new organization consisting of in- 
dependent National Unions. 

Besides the People's Union and the Social-Economic 
Union, there was the Electoral Union, whose task grew 
rapidly; for the Encyclical of Pius X., "// fermo proposito" 
published June 11, 1905, while giving a new bearing to Cath- 
olic action, gave permission, in specific cases, for the partic- 
ipation of Italian Catholics in political life. The breach thus 
legally opened in the barrier presented by the "non expedit" 
became wider and wider. 

Even before the appearance of the Encyclical, in fact, 
ever since November, 1904, there had been Catholic deputies 
in Parliament, for the Catholic Associations of Bergamo and 
some other districts had, with due permission, taken part in 
elections. After the appearance of the Encyclical, this course 
became more and more frequent, and the Electoral Union, by 
means of opportune alliances and agreements, succeeded in 
enhancing the value of the votes of Italian Catholics. 

The Gentiloni pact, subscribed to during the elections of 
1903 by hundreds of liberal deputies, and safeguarding some 
important demands of Catholics, has remained famous. At 
that time, a party of Catholic men was not yet desired; a few 
were, however, permitted in the Chamber as individuals, and 
the so-called "parties of order" which were essentially liberal, 
were supported by Catholic votes. But Catholics were pre- 
paring, in the political field, for early action by group and by 
party. As another remote preparation, we may recall the 
fervent Christian-Democratic movement which developed in 
Italy in 1898 in the field of theory and works. The principal 
deputies of today and, in fact, the Political Secretary of the 



508 THE PEOPLE'S PARTY IN ITALY [Jan., 

People's Party, Don Luigi Sturzo himself, were then fighting 
in the ranks of the Christian Democrats, and were proclaiming 
the necessity for a political movement of their own. 

It is historically interesting to recall an incident which 
occurred in Rome in 1897. A small but select company of 
men were in the habit of meeting in the house of Count di 
Campello. Among them were Cesare Cantu, Giovanni Bat- 
tista de Rossi and Augusto Conti. They were meditating a 
plan whereby Catholics might contribute directly to the polit- 
ical life of Italy. The Austrian and French Ambassadors hav- 
ing gotten wind of the plan, hastened to the Holy See, with 
threats, so it is said, and the movement remained without 
results. 

It was truly providential that the People's Party did not 
come into being until later, in answer to the aspirations of 
Italian Catholics. Had it been formed earlier, soon after the 
achievement of Italian unity, it would have been a legitimist 
party, favoring some fallen throne, or else a conservative party 
without great social value. Time matured the programme 
and prepared the men, and in the People's Party there has been 
formed a preeminently social party with a modern platform, 
inspired by the real welfare of the people and of the nation. 

It may be safely said that the more recent preparation of 
the Italian People's Party was the attitude necessarily adopted 
by Italian Catholics during the War. Although neutral before 
the War, once their country had entered the great arena, they 
naturally desired victory for Italy and the Allies, and co- 
operated in its achievement in the measure of their power. 

The Holy See, which, on account of its peculiar position, 
believed that its duty was to remain absolutely neutral, left 
the Italian Catholics entirely free to act as their conscience 
dictated. Reading the orders of the day of the various Cath- 
olic meetings and the circulars of the President of the People's 
Union, we have the distinct impression that the majority of 
organized Catholics, whatever their previous opinions may 
have been, cordially and vigorously supported the efforts of 
their country. 

Thus they accomplished an essentially public action which 
was to have immediate political results. When, after the 
brilliant victory of Vittorio Veneto, Austria was forced to de- 
mand an armistice and the Great War could be considered at 



1922.] THE PEOPLE'S PARTY IN ITALY 509 

an end, the Italian Catholics, or rather a group headed by the 
intelligent and active Don Luigi Sturzo, asked themselves 
whether it would not be advisable, for the good of the nation, 
to continue the enormous activity developed during the War, 
to reap the fruits thereof and extend it to the natural field of 
peace, which is the political field. 

Don Sturzo, of Rome, and Cavazzoni, of Milan, now the 
secretary of the Parliamentary Group, were the first to pro- 
claim the necessity for a new organization in articles dated 
November llth, 17th and 22d, 1918, published in the Corriere 
d'ltalia of Rome. The speech made by Don Sturzo at Milan 
on November 17th on "Problems of the After War" was like a 
bugle call, giving the signal for stronger and more decisive 
action. We can assure our readers in the most absolute man- 
ner that the Holy See, let the "non expedit" fall in abeyance, 
and granted to Italian Catholics ample freedom to form the 
political organization they judged most opportune. To assert, 
or even insinuate, the contrary is to be guilty of error and 
falsehood. 

Don Sturzo, who was at that time the General Secretary 
of the Italian Catholic People's Union, after reaching an agree- 
ment with the People's Union and with high ecclesiastical 
circles, called meetings on November 23d and 24th, of a small 
number of organized Catholics, eighteen in all, for a friendly 
discussion at the headquarters of the Roman Union. 

The outcome of those discussions was the calling of what 
was known as the Piccola Costituente, which met in Rome on 
the evenings of December 16th and 17th, 1918. Forty-two 
men were assembled from all parts of Italy, among them the 
best men from the provincial and municipal administrative 
field, high university circles, journalistic circles and from the 
syndical and economic movement. The Chairman was Count 
Santucci, but the soul of the meeting was, as ever, Don Luigi 
Sturzo who, on one of those memorable evenings, led all the 
men, at midnight, to the nearby church of the Holy Apostles 
where the Blessed Sacrament was exposed, and where he 
prayed long for the safety and exaltation of Italy. 

The discussions of the Piccola Costituente were rapid 
and conclusive. They drew up a programme in outline and 
decided upon methods for organizing the new party. An 
Executive Committee was formed which immediately sent out 



510 THE PEOPLE'S PARTY IN ITALY [Jan., 

a nation-wide appeal, an outline of the programme and the 
statutes. On January 20, 1919, the Osservatore Romano and 
the Corriere d'ltalia, of Rome, and the other great Catholic 
dailies, published the appeal, the outline of the programme 
and the statutes. The Italian People's Party was formed. 

The Italian People's Party is not an association of a re- 
ligious nature like Catholic organizations which are directly 
dependent upon the ecclesiastical authorities, with a pre- 
eminently religious object and recruiting their members 
among devout and practical Catholics. 

On the contrary, it is a party which, in its programme and 
action, is inspired wholly by Christian principles, but which, 
in intent, is directly political and social. It is autonomous, 
that is to say it is not directly dependent upon the ecclesias- 
tical authorities, and it receives as members any citizens who 
accept its programme. 

These are the characteristics which distinguish the Party 
from Catholic Associations. 

We are not of those who believe that a Catholic party is 
an absurdity in terms, since party signifies a part, while 
Catholic means universal. There would be contradiction only 
if the Church itself, which is essentially Catholic, that is to say 
universal, were to be reduced to a party, but we can see no 
contradiction in the fact that Catholics should unite in the 
political field, and that, in a parliament where they form a 
minority or a slight majority, they should dedicate themselves 
primarily to the triumph of Catholic principles in public life 
under the name of Catholic Party. The term party would 
apply to the assembly of such persons, whose number is 
necessarily limited in all nations. The title, Catholic, would 
apply to their aims, and we see no difficulty in coupling the 
two words. In Italy, it was considered best to omit the title of 
Catholic, which was proposed by some, and it must be ad- 
mitted the considerations were inspired by serious and pru- 
dent motives which may be easily surmised. Any form of con- 
fessionalism, as well as all direct dependence of the Party 
on the religious authorities, were rejected for grave reasons. 
Such dependence was absolutely to be avoided, especially in 
Italy, where a complete reconciliation of the Church and State 
has not yet been achieved. 

The name People's Party was taken from the Catholics 



1922.] THE PEOPLE'S PARTY IN ITALY 511 

of Trent, who gave it to their political organization. It ex- 
presses the social aims of the Party, and the addition of the 
term Italian constitutes an assertion of sane patriotism. 

The Party's form of organization is the simplest and most 
flexible possible. It is composed of Municipal Sections, which 
it is desired to establish in every municipality, a correspond- 
ent being appointed temporarily in communities where organ- 
ization is, as yet, impossible; Provincial Committees, with a 
minimum of seven and a maximum of twenty-one members, 
elected by the Municipal Sections; the National Council, at 
first composed of thirty-five and later of thirty-seven members, 
elected by the National Congress and, in part, by the Parlia- 
mentary Group, and lastly, the Party Directors, seven in num- 
ber, one of whom is the Political Secretary, who is appointed 
by the National Council. Every year, a National Convention 
is held to decide on the platform and tactics for the Party. 
Later, special rules will be laid down for the formation of 
women's groups and for propaganda sections. 

The Catholic daily press gave its prompt support to the 
Party. The Corriere dltalia of Rome was the first to give in 
its enthusiastic adherence, and in little more than twenty-four 
hours after the Party's birth, more than twenty other Catholic 
dailies fell into line. Among these, the most important were 
L'Avvenire d'ltalia, of Bologna; L 'Italia, of Milan; // Momenta, 
of Turin; L'Eco, of Bergamo; // Nuovo Trentino, of Trent; La 
Vita, of Palermo, and // Cittadino, of Brescia. 

A few days later, more than a hundred weeklies affirmed 
their solidarity with the Italian People's Party, and it may be 
said that the entire Italian Catholic Press received the consti- 
tution of the Party with enthusiasm. Of the two Pontifical 
organs, the Osservatore Romano of Rome and the Unita 
Cattolica of Florence, the first-mentioned published imme- 
diately everything concerning the fundamental documents of 
the new Party, and the Unita Cattolica explained in detail the 
opportuneness and character of the new movement, urgently 
recommending it. 

It was possible to constitute a parliamentary group with- 
out delay, as several deputies gave their personal adherence 
to the new Party. The task of still further strengthening the 
Parliamentary Group was intrusted to the Hon. Bertini, Hon. 
Longinotti and Hon. Rodino. 



512 THE PEOPLE'S PARTY IN ITALY [Jan., 

A wave of enthusiasm spread throughout Italy, and pro- 
vincial and temporary committees sprang up in Rome, Milan, 
Genoa, Turin, Naples, Palermo, Catania, Messina, Bergamo, 
Bologna, Brescia, Como, Cosenza, Ferrara, Florence, Pisa, 
Padua, Pavia, Rovigo and Verona. 

The main basis of organization was still the municipal 
sections, to which special attention was therefore devoted. 
The following figures show the growth of the Party as based 
on the number of its sections and members. The Party was 
formed January 18, 1919. On June 14th of that same year, 
the first convention assembled at Bologna, 756 sections with 
55,895 members being officially registered. The strength of 
the Party was really greater, for 150 other sections had already 
been formed, but the figures given here are based on official 
statistics. One year later, at the Naples convention, which 
opened April 8, 1920, the progress of organization was imme- 
diately obvious. The municipal sections numbered 3,173 and 
the number of adherents 255,000. On June 30, 1921, the num- 
ber of sections had reached the splendid total of 4,176 and 
the number of Party members certainly exceeds 300,000. Pro- 
vincial committees have now been established in every prov- 
ince of Italy, also in Fiume, Malta, Paris, Tripoli and in 
several countries in America. 

The examination of these figures affords an accurate idea 
of the development achieved: 4,176 sections and more than 
300,000 members in less than three years! Foreign readers 
will appreciate these results still more when they recall that 
in the Italian Liberal Party, even among its deputies, there are 
many who profess practical Catholicism, and hold that it is 
perfectly compatible with their moderate-liberal theories. 
Despite this fact, which has its natural echo in the majority 
of the liberal papers, the new political movement was formed 
rapidly and vigorously. 

The will of the immense majority was very clear. The 
Party wants to be Christian in spirit, and, at the same time, 
preserve its non-religious character. It does not wish to make 
religion a distinctive feature to differentiate it from other po- 
litical parties. In electoral tactics, it was decided to adopt 
the basis of intransigency; to have its own men and its own 
ballots. However, the policy of intransigency was not to be 
absolute, but would admit of exceptions of a local nature. It 



1922.] THE PEOPLE'S PARTY IN ITALY 513 

was also urged that efforts be made to win proportional repre- 
sentation in Parliament, which would enable each party to 
be equally represented. There were long discussions on the 
social programme of the Party, and the relations it should es- 
tablish with the white syndical and economic organizations 
inspired by Christian principles. There were many lively 
debates and assertions of various tendencies, but the Party 
emerged from the Convention of Bologna stronger and more 
vigorous than ever, ready to enter the arena in the elections 
of November, 1919. 

The second Convention, held in Naples April 8th, 9th, 
10th and llth was larger and more agitated. It was at- 
tended by more than 2,000 delegates, representing 175,000 
electors. The Party had at that time 255,000 electors in its 
3,173 sections. The deep interest felt in the Convention by 
Italy and foreign countries was demonstrated by the presence 
of about three hundred journalists, who followed the fa- 
tiguing days of the Convention with special attention. 

The Convention re-affirmed the organic unity of the Party, 
rejecting every attempt to form particular organized groups, 
and holding firm to the decision that the organization should 
include nothing but the Sections, the Provincial Committees, 
the Party Directors, the National Council, the Parliamentary 
Group and the Convention. The agrarian question, freedom 
of the schools, scholastic reform, customs policies, electoral, 
administrative and parliamentary tactics were discussed with 
great intensity. 

The first political elections in which the Party took part 
were those of November 16, 1919, which were held, for the 
first time, under the proportional system. The electoral cam- 
paign was naturally bitter and difficult for a party presenting 
itself for the first time in the electoral arena. There was a 
lack of funds, and enemies were both expert and powerful. 
These deficiencies were compensated for by more intensive 
propaganda, and the results exceeded expectation. The Italian 
People's Party obtained 1,167,354 votes, and sent one hundred 
of its own candidates to the Chamber of Deputies. The dep- 
uties included university and professional men, organizers 
and even workmen and peasants. 

It would be an easy task, by following the parliamentary 
proceedings, to demonstrate the effective influence of the 

VOL. cxiv. 33 



514 THE PEOPLE'S PARTY IN ITALY [Jan., 

People's Party in Parliament. The veto of the Party pre- 
vented a Freemason from being elected President of the 
Italian Chamber. Several of the Party's representatives were 
given important charges, and in the third Nitti Cabinet the 
Party had two Ministers, the Hon. Micheli as Minister of Agri- 
culture and Hon. Rodino as Minister of War; and four Under- 
secretaries, namely, Hon. Longinotti, first in the Ministry of 
Industry, then in the new Ministry of Labor; Hon. Pecoraro 
in the Ministry of Colonies; Hon. Bertini in the Ministry of 
Public Works, and Hon. Agnesi in the Ministry of Liberated 
Territories. 

The same men were in the Giolitti Cabinet with the ex- 
ception of Rodino; the Minister of the Treasury was Meda, a 
very competent man, esteemed by all parties and destined, 
in the not far distant future, to become President of the Coun- 
cil. As Meda was obliged to resign on account of his health, 
his place was taken by Bonomi, and Rodino went to the Min- 
istry of War. 

In the last months of 1920, the administrative elections 
were held, partially under the proportional system, certain 
concessions having been made in order to make its operation 
possible in municipalities where one or two lists include more 
than two, but less than three-fifths, of the candidates. In this 
case, the list obtaining the largest number of votes obtains 
three-fifths of the seats. The Popolari obtained the majority 
in 1,500 municipalities; they had a majority with a list com- 
bined with the Moderates in about two hundred municipalities, 
and they had an important minority in about 2,000 munic- 
ipalities and seven hundred provincial seats. They received 
a total of 1,700,000 votes. These results were consoling, when 
it is remembered that the various liberal groups, which 
were usually opposing each other, had formed a bloc to pre- 
vent the advent of the Popolari and Socialists. 

A still more important contest awaited the People's Party 
in the political elections of May 15, 1921. It was directed by 
Giolitti, President of the Council, the most expert statesman 
in Italy. The elections were held in the new provinces of 
Trent, Trieste, Gorizia and Zara, which have been annexed 
by Italy. At the direction of the Government, liberal blocs 
were formed everywhere for the purpose of preventing the 
reelection of the Socialists, and, in part, with the intention 



1922.] THE PEOPLE'S PARTY IN ITALY 515 

of diminishing the power of the People's Party in the Cham- 
ber. Many expected, even some of the Popolari, that the 
number of their deputies elected would be smaller. 

Notwithstanding the great difficulty of the struggle, the 
Popolari, who were fighting absolutely alone, on the basis of 
intransigency, obtained 1,345,305 votes, and elected one hun- 
dred and seven of their candidates. If the circumstances 
under which the elections were held are carefully weighed, 
the magnificent victory of the Popolari will be fully appre- 
ciated. 

Their Party is the most homogeneous in the Chamber, 
and has the best men. It is well disciplined and alert. The 
new Chamber immediately perceived the great importance 
assumed by the Popolari, and it is the universal opinion that 
without them no Government can endure. Giolitti having 
resigned from the Government on account of the lack of con- 
fidence demonstrated by the Chamber in the foreign policy of 
Count Sforza, his successor, Bonomi, gave three of the most 
important portfolios to the Popolari: Grace and Justice to 
Rodino, Public Works to Micheli, and Agriculture to Mauri. 
With the Hon. Anile as Under-Secretary of Public Instruction, 
the People's Party has penetrated what was formerly the 
stronghold of Masonry. The present Minister of Public In- 
struction is a Moderate, and a man of practical religious faith. 
Other Under-Secretaries selected from the People's Party are 
in the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of War, the Ministry of 
Liberated Territories and the Treasury. 

If the present is bright, in spite of the inevitable defects 
of human things, the future is brighter still. The People's 
Party may look toward the future with full confidence, since 
it derives its strength from the Cross which shines on its shield 
and is an unfailing sign of victory. In its social and Christian 
programme lies the secret of its victory. 




PREACHING THE GOSPEL BY WIRELESS. 1 

BY THOMAS F. COAKLEY, D.D. 

OR the first time in history, converts to the Cath- 
olic Church are being made by wireless tele- 
phone. The occasion was the employment of 
this most modern of inventions night after night 
in Old St. Patrick's Church, in the down town 
section of the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during a mis- 
sion by the Paulist Fathers, Rev. Bertrand L. Conway and 
Rev. David W. Kennedy, from November 27th to December 
llth, 1921. Those who are accustomed to record important 
facts for the observation of future ages should not overlook 
these dates. 

Through an arrangement with the Westinghouse Electric 
Company, Pittsburgh, their wireless broadcasting station, 
known internationally as K D K A, installed a wireless tele- 
phone in the pulpit of the Church. The installation itself is 
practically invisible. It is not apparent to those in church 
unless attention is especially directed to it, being no more than 
a very small transmitter, about the size of the mouthpiece of 
the modern telephone, suspended from the small lamp used to 
light the reading desk of the pulpit; hence, there is nothing 
spectacular or worldly about it. This is mentioned to forestall 
any objection upon the part of the devout, the ultra rubrical, 
or the meticulous that the pulpit is being used for something 
savoring of the theatrical. The few, and small, batteries and 
the wireless technicians were placed in a room back of the 
church, unseen and unknown to the congregation. 

On the second day after the use of the wireless telephone, 
inquiries began to come in to the Rector of the Church from 
very distant points. For instance, some persons forty miles 
away, who had "listened in," journeyed to Pittsburgh and 
sought out the Missionary Fathers for further personal in- 
struction preparatory to becoming converts; some careless 

1 It is significant of Apostolic times that one of the boldest ventures of faith 
in modern times has been pioneered by the oldest, smallest and poorest parish in 
the Diocese of Pittsburgh. EDITOR'S NOTE. 



1922.] PREACHING THE GOSPEL BY WIRELESS 517 

Catholics in far away towns outside the city, having heard the 
instruction on "Confession," were led to receive the Sacra- 
ments. Non-Catholics in cities four hundred miles away 
wrote in for literature bearing upon the doctrines of the 
Church. Comments and appreciations were received from 
Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, 
Florida, Texas and Canada. All told, twenty different States 
have indicated that they have heard the sermons every night 
and the answers to the questions deposited in the Question 
Box at the door of Old Saint Patrick's Church. The Mis- 
sionary Fathers night after night address their unseen wire- 
less audience, inviting them to send in questions by telegraph 
or mail, which they will answer the following evening by wire- 
less telephone ! One droll listener in Detroit heard everything 
except the passing of the collection plate, and he sent in his 
contribution by mail! 

Within the area reached by the Westinghouse broadcast- 
ing station, operating on a wave length of 330 meters, there 
are approximately 150,000 receiving instruments, and this 
number is being constantly increased. This means that more 
than 1,000,000 persons every night "listen in" to these mes- 
sages picked out of the air. Jules Verne, in his wildest 
dreams, never fancied an achievement such as this, and for 
the purpose of propagating the Gospel it well-nigh bewilders 
the imagination. 

Nothing of a special nature is required of the preacher; 
he uses his ordinary tone of voice; he can move about in the 
usual way, and provided he speaks slowly and clearly, and 
stops at the end of each sentence, for a second or so, he is 
distinctly heard wherever a wireless receiving instrument is 
set up, sufficiently powerful to receive what is sent. 

The thrilling importance of this new invention is that a 
receiving instrument can be installed almost anywhere, even 
by amateurs, and at a cost of but a few dollars. The receiv- 
ing apparatus can be purchased from any electrical supply 
house, although the transmission is controlled by the Westing- 
house Company. There is no telephone rent to pay, there is no 
upkeep worth mentioning, and the first cost is almost the last. 
The writer knows several hundreds of them in Pittsburgh 
in private houses which cost less than five dollars to 
erect. Others more elaborate, with an amplifier to increase 



518 PREACHING THE GOSPEL BY WIRELESS [Jan., 

the sound so that large numbers may hear, cost all the way 
up to $250.00. In this fashion, the whole world is brought 
to our very ears while we lounge at ease amid the comforts 
of our own drawing-rooms, libraries or bed-rooms. For hos- 
pitals its advantages are incalculable; the sick and those con- 
fined to the house need no longer feel lonely, or complain of 
tedium; it stretches far out to sea, and soon it will circle the 
earth, reaching to the farthest limits of the universe. Surely, 
it makes the communion of saints easier to grasp. 

In a few years, wireless telephone receiving instruments 
will be as common as victrolas or Ford cars. "Behold, now 
is the acceptable time" for the Catholic Church to rise to this 
great and unique occasion, before the privilege is entirely pre- 
empted by those outside the Faith, and not allow the wireless 
telephone, like the classics of the English language, to be used 
as the medium of heresy. The Catholic Church should erect a 
powerful central wireless telephone transmitting station, and 
give out to the listening world every night at regularly scheduled 
hours a sermon or an instruction on the truths of the Catholic 
Church. One person, in this manner, could reach untold mil- 
lions at the very poles of the world. It would be the super- 
International Catholic Truth Society. A swift reply could be 
made to every calumny against the Church; rural and outlying 
districts and distant missions could be put in touch with the 
intellectual claims and the moral grandeur of the Church in a 
way undreamed of hitherto, and independent of weather con- 
ditions and of transportation facilities, the seed of further 
conversions could be sown and scattered wherever human 
beings congregate. The missions in the Far East could be put 
in immediate contact with the pulsing heart of Christendom, 
and the Holy Father, from the Chair of Peter, could address 
all his faithful children spread over the world, using his own 
august voice, thus welding the Catholic body together in a 
more intimate unity than ever before in history. The burning 
sands of the Sahara, the frozen steppes of Alaska, the jungle 
fastnesses of India, the inaccessible gorges of the Himalayas, 
the serene calm of the mountain shepherd hut, as well as the 
far flung congregations aboard ocean liners, lashed by the 
angry seas, could all be put in touch with Christ's truth in- 
stantaneously and simultaneously since the wireless tele- 
phone leaps over all barriers of time and space. 



1922.] THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER 519 

By its use, fifty, five hundred or five thousand missions 
could be preached at one time by one preacher without addi- 
tional cost. It raises the potentiality of the missionary activity 
of the Church to the n th power. It appeals to the innate 
curiosity of the American mind, tempting millions of the un- 
churched and uninstructed to "listen in" on what is being 
broadcasted at a station a thousand miles away. It is an 
amazing adjunct to the Apostolate of the Press, vastly increas- 
ing its range and effectiveness. Indeed, the rise of the im- 
portance of the written word in recent years gave apparent 
foundation to the statement that the spoken word was dying, 
nay, even dead; that preaching was a lost art, and that the 
use of printer's ink had well-nigh stifled the command of 
Christ to "preach the Gospel to every creature." 2 And lo ! at 
the very moment when the spoken word seemed to have 
reached its lowest ebb, God's loving Providence allows a new 
marvel to be invented by the genius of man, and a new instru- 
ment becomes His witness "even to the uttermost parts of the 
earth," 3 and His agent for the propagation of the Gospel "for 
a testimony to all nations," 4 so that the faith of the Holy, 
Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church may be "spoken of in 
the whole world." 5 

2 Mark xvi. 15. 'Acts i. 8. MattheAV xxiv. 14. "Romans i. 8. 



THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER. 

BY MARTIN FRANCIS. 

UNKNOWN, yet known above, 
Beg thou the God of Love, 

Thy soul may find release 
To visit earth, and bring 
To the nations councilling, 

The eternal light of Peace. 




VIRGINIA, AGED TEN YEARS. 

BY MABEL FARNUM. 

N the low step of the town Almshouse, Uncle 
Peter Smalley sat hugging his old smutty pipe 
and indulging in a few trite remarks about the 
weather. 

"I reckon it will rain tomorrow!" he said 
aloud. "Although the clouds don't tell me nothing, one way 
or the other. But I reckon I can tell pretty near right by the 
feelin's in my joints!" 

The clouds told nothing tonight. They lay lightly pink 
and fair over the low hills to the southward, almost seeming 
to rest upon the tips of the scrubby firs that stretched away as 
far as the eye could see. The clouds told nothing but the 
stiff growing pains in the old limbs of Uncle Peter told a true 
tale of nature's tears about to fall. For nothing was always 
bright and cheerful in this valley here below not even 
nature. She, like men, had her perverse, her unhappy moods, 
in which she was wont at uncertain periods to indulge. 

Uncle Peter did not mind the condition of the weather 
very much except for the rheumatic pains. It was these 
which hemmed him in between these low-lying hills, in this 
pleasant bit of valley which was all too lovely to be meant for 
anything but joy and peace here, in the City of the For- 
saken, and just across the fields from the City of the Dead. 
The town cemetery lay just to the west of the Almshouse. 
Uncle Peter took a solemn pleasure in gazing across at the 
white tombstones in the first flush of morning when he went 
to milk old Sukey, the white cow or in the hush of the noon 
hour, when the old ladies and men slept after dinner, and for 
a few moments there were no more chores to be done. Or 
at evening, when tired nature wrapped herself in a soft, gray 
blanket and prepared to lie down to sleep. When all fair 
things of the landscape were blotted, one by one, from the 
vision then, like watchful sentinels, the white monuments of 
those who fought and laid down their arms, rose up 
like compass needles to point a way to the stars. 



1922.] VIRGINIA, AGED TEN YEARS 521 

Uncle Peter, old lover of all beautiful things, looked all 
through the hot and restless day to this evening hour when, 
no rude voice to call him from his reveries, he might stretch 
his worn limbs on the doorstep, and, steeped in the calm of 
repose, hug his beloved and gritty old pipe with its favored 
morsels of tobacco to his lips. He loved his pipe as if it were 
a living thing, and sometimes addressed to it his meditations : 
he called it "Old Girl." 

"It's just you and me, Old Girl," he would say when things 
had pressed a bit too hard, and when the day had been par- 
ticularly trying, "just you and me, and nobody cares 
much about us or knows we are here . . . But we take a sight 
of pleasure in one another, I calculate!" 

Sometimes, alas, there was not much fuel for the beloved 
companion. The tobacco supply would run short, or Mrs. 
Tooner would forget Uncle Peter because he happened to be 
away down at the end of the wood-lot when the allotment 
was given out. But if there was a shortage of anything, Uncle 
Peter would have wished to see everyone else supplied before 
himself. He would console himself on such occasions : "Never 
mind, Old Girl! There's another day . . . tomorrow, I cal- 
culate!" 

There was much discontent among the old people. For 
the most part, they lived in the past sometimes in a happy 
past. The loneliness of the present served to intensify their 
pains. There were those who had been budding belles and 
stalwart lovers in their day, which was, alas, long, long ago! 
Adversity, circumstance had intervened to cut short the pros- 
perity and the peace, and death had sometimes snatched away 
those to whom they had looked for support and consolation 
in the old days. Some had crossed the mighty ocean in the 
dateless past, in search of happiness and success to find, in 
the end, only disappointment, disillusionment and the dwell- 
ing-place of those who are a burden to the town. 

How Uncle Peter had finally arrived at this melancholy 
stage of his mortal journey, he himself could hardly have told. 
Once he had owned a little grocery store in the long ago. 
He had always been too generous with others, and too con- 
fiding in human nature. He had given candy to all the little 
children who chanced to stray by the door, looking in with 
grimy fingers in their mouths and big, hungry eyes fixed on 



522 VIRGINIA, AGED TEN YEARS [Jan., 

the glass showcase where the peppermints and chocolates 
gazed stolidly back in return. He had fed the widows who 
had nothing to give in return for the well-filled baskets. He 
had never required payment from those who professed their 
inability to pay. And, when his wife, who had been the back- 
bone of the little business, and who alone was responsible for 
Uncle Peter's ability to keep the shirt on his back, died, every- 
thing soon was lost. 

His married life had not been all sunshine, for Aunt 
Sarah's temper was not of the best. Uncle Peter was an ideal- 
ist, who never should have married, perhaps. As a priest, he 
would have been an apostle, one of the type who would wear 
himself out in long night vigils and take the discipline and 
carry the whole wide world in his heart. As a physician, he 
would have found a mighty mission in the slums of some vast 
seething city, until he dropped in his steps tending the poor 
and the miserable of earth. As a writer, he would have made 
mighty things of little words, he would have done dauntless 
deeds with a simple pen telling of the beauty and the purity 
and the holiness of the thoughts that dwelled within the 
mystic citadel of his soul. 

But, alas, Uncle Peter had never had the opportunity 
which so many others have cast aside. The big things had 
eluded him : while he ate his heart out in hunger for the beauty 
and the peace, he stood over the counter of the dingy, small 
grocery store and doled out charity to the worthy and the un- 
worthy alike. 

At an advanced age, he had attempted to be postoffice boy, 
and run with messages about the town or rather, hobble 
about but it was found that he was of little use. When 
things become of little use, they are cast aside, out of the 
routine of daily life, which is impetuous, which can brook no 
slowness. When Uncle Peter was found to be of not much use 
to anybody in the town, one day they brought him here for 
good. He had never forgotten the day when they set him 
down before the Almshouse gate, his old leather satchel in 
one hand, and a bundle done up in calico in the other. He 
had watched the cart which brought him disappear over the 
brow of the hill like the last hope of his manhood, it went 
from sight and left him behind. 

Then a sharp voice called to him : "Come right along. . . . 



1922.] VIRGINIA. AGED TEN YEARS 

This is the place. ... I don't suppose you see any other place 
about, do you T* 

There was no other place in sight save that over yonder, 
beyond the pasture bars, to the westward, where white shafts 
of marble glittered in the last rays of the sun. 

Uncle Peter had shouldered his shabby baggage and gone 
in at the door, stooping slightly, for he was a powerfully built 
man. Through an open door, he had caught the first glimpse 
of a row of patient old figures, sitting stupidly in a row, 
monotonously alike, although unlike each other. 

And a cold chill swept the very marrow ol his bones, 
beneath the poor, patched shirt, which he himself had patched 
with painstaking labor. He knew in a flash that he was 
useless to the world. They had found out that he was no 
longer a man, merely a piece of old and broken-down and 
rusty machinery, fit to be set aside in a back shed. And the 
young heart of Uncle Peter, the heart which knew the ways of 
fairies that children love, the chivalrous heart of the knight 
Peter, the stout heart of the man whose sturdy faith could 
brook no pain of discouragement or discontent, in that hour 
grew old. 

So he passed in, out of the flush of the dying sunset, into 
the town Almshouse, to go the way of all old and useless 
things. 

Uncle Peter had soon found peace, however, for his was 
one of the souls who cannot stay crushed to earth. He soon 
discovered that there was some work to be done before he 
joined the little army of soldiers who had laid down then* 
arms, and, in the pinnacled settlement of white stones yonder, 
slept, with their chevrons on their sleeves, the sleep of eternal 
youth. 

There were hearts to be cheered by a kindly word, by a 
bit of song, sung in quavering tones, yet with something of 
sweetness which penetrated the grim old walls of the Alms- 
house, by an old, old tale that Uncle Peter had heard over the 
counter of the little grocery store. There were blessings for 
which to be thankful, even here. For the clean bed, the whole- 
some food, the snug roof above one's head, which kept out the 
rain and the snow. Then, at evening, there was the quiet 
hour, all his own, of which no man might deprive him. The 
hour when the simple faith and hope and love of eternal youth 



524 VIRGINIA, AGED TEN YEARS [Jan., 

rose in the heart, bidding all distrust and suspicion forever 
hold their peace. Uncle Peter had never heard of Cicero, 
but in this hour he experienced in his soul the tremendous 
force of the truths which that immortal mind had conceived. 
He was not sorry to be old: "If you should advance into 
old age, you need no more grieve than farmers do when the 
loveliness of springtime hath passed, that summer and 
autumn have come. For spring represents the time of youth, 
and gives promise of future fruits." 

"I reckon it'll rain tomorrow!" reiterated Uncle Peter. 
He got up with difficulty from the low doorstep and limped 
slowly along over the brown fields to the edge of the wood-lot, 
to get a better view of the sky. 

"Yes, Old Girl, it's rain!" he said, nodding his head to the 
pipe in his hand. 

He lowered his dim eyes from the brightness of the 
sunset clouds, and rested them on the White City for a 
moment. They kept it very trim, so Uncle Peter thought, 
and he was pleased. "Not everybody forgets !" he said. 

Then he noticed something. Strange to say, he had 
never ventured beyond the pasture bars he had often meant 
to explore a bit, but the stiffness of his limbs had dissuaded 
him every time. However, the fence was low, and he saw 
something that called to him. 

In all this peace and beauty and order, the vivid green 
of the first spring grass, the first spring flowers, the perfect 
appointment of the spot, he saw that there was one mark 
of disorder, one flaw in the perfect outline of the City of the 
Dead. A little grave, all covered with weeds and choked 
with brambles, with no velvet grass above it, no velvet 
flower. Uncle Peter's soul waxed hotly indignant over this 
neglect on somebody's part. Forgetting all about the poor 
rheumatic legs, he scrambled over the fence with all the 
alacrity of a schoolboy disappearing from the scene of an 
apple raid. 

With remarkable agility, Uncle Peter hastened up one 
of the smooth walks "Willow Path" and sought the neg- 
lected spot. 

Forgetting that the earth is very damp in early spring, 
he dropped to his knees. He pushed aside the weeds and 
brambles, until he disclosed a little mound, perhaps not 



1922.] VIRGINIA, AGED TEN YEARS 525 

made a year. And, underneath the disorder that clung over 
the tiny white stone at the head of it, he read: 

VIRGINIA, AGED TEN YEARS. 

A little maiden, with golden hair and soft blue eyes, and 
with a wild rose tint on her brow that was what Uncle Peter 
saw. Soft, little hands, a dainty form clothed ever in white, 
virgin white, unfolding like a bud, and gathered by the angels 
before it was quite unclosed. 

Little Virginia. It was strange that so sweet a child should 
have been forgotten so soon ! Where were those who had 
loved this waxen flower why had the thorns and weeds been 
ruthlessly suffered to grow in this sacred spot at will? 

And Uncle Peter said aloud to his companion and friend : 
"Old Girl . . . this won't do! It's up to us! Little Virginia 
and nobody thinks of her and nobody thinks of us! So we 
sort of belong to one another, I calculate!" 

It was nearly dark when Uncle Peter finally finished his 
labor of love on the tiny grave. But, when at last he saw that 
the weeds had been torn quite away, and some semblance of 
grass appeared on the brown earth, and the stone had been 
carefully wiped off with his best bandana, moistened in a bit 
of a brook just back of the wood-lot, Uncle Peter rose very 
unsteadily, and dried his brow and brushed his poor garments 
free of the damp earth, and smiled. The glad, happy smile of 
a child who has just discovered the fairy palace of Alice In 
Wonderland. 

"Little Virginia! My little Virginia, I reckon!" he said. 

And it was almost as if, from the small mound, a soft, 
childish voice answered, calling him sweetly by name : "Uncle 
Peter!" it said. And yet Uncle Peter knew too well that it was 
his own heart which supplied the little voice, his own hungry 
old soul which created the fancy : Little Virginia, in the world 
beyond the stars! 

Uncle Peter walked slowly homeward. Strange to say, 
there were no pains in his worn limbs tonight, nor did he 
feel any ill effects of his labor. He closed the door softly as 
he went in, lest Mrs. Tooner should appear on the scene and 
rebuke him for his protracted absence. He felt that he could 
not tell anyone of what he had been doing the past hour. 



526 VIRGINIA. AGED TEN YEARS [Jan., 

As he passed through the upper hall, his shoes in his hand, 
he heard old Jennie Swanson's voice droning, as usual, the 
eternal theme which she sang morning, noon and night: "If 
I only had a cashmere shawl!" 

Uncle Peter used to wonder whether in the whole wide 
world beyond the Almshouse gates there lived any soul more 
uselessly unhappy than poor Jennie. Or if in the whole earth 
there burned a more feverish desire in any human breast than 
this of hers for a cashmere shawl. Shawls had long since 
ceased to be worn in the outer world, but Jennie lived in the 
past, and if the fashions changed, she never realized it. They 
said that she was nearly a hundred years old. 

Mrs. Tooner's little girl, Effie, was waiting on the landing 
for Uncle Peter to come and put her to bed, entertaining her 
the while with one of his own inimitable tales of goblins and 
ghosts and wood fairies. So now, having tucked the little one 
snugly between warm blankets and received her lingering kiss, 
the old man sat down on the foot of the tiny cot and continued 
his narrative from the place where they had left off the night 
before, reciting over and over again "The Walrus and the 
Carpenter" and "An Aged, Aged Man A-Sitting on a Gate." 
The child lived in a dream world, all unknown to her very 
practical mother, who did not approve of Uncle Peter's va- 
garies. And the old man, looking into the eager, wistful, little 
face among the pillows, wondered a bit, after the manner of 
old men, what life held in store for this sweet blossom; 
whether she would be carefully shielded from the cold, un- 
kind blasts of the world, or whether, like poor Jennie Swan- 
son, some day she, too, would be sitting rocking to and fro in 
the town Almshouse, bemoaning the fact of having no cash- 
mere shawl! 

And Uncle Peter sighed heavily, and shook his head. No- 
body knew. 

When the child had fallen asleep, her tiny brain revolving 
the pretty fancies of the Red and White Queens, Uncle Peter 
hobbled to his own room, scarcely more than a closet, and, 
lighting the gas, drew out from beneath his pillow one of the 
few treasures he possessed a ragged book. He had been 
reading for the past weeks, painfully and laboriously, from 
The Last Days of a Condemned Man. He had thought that he 
himself was in a position not quite unlike this poor unfor- 



1922.] VIRGINIA, AGED TEN YEARS 527 

tunate condemned to run his days out here in this isolated 
and forsaken spot with the forsaken of the world. 

But tonight he found that he had no relish for the book. 
Life looked strangely bright he was no longer alone. For, 
into his narrow life had come a little face and figure, a little 
maid with winsome face and golden tresses, with bright, blue 
eyes and a smile of gold. She had come softly up the path to 
meet him and had placed a confiding little hand in his. Vir- 
ginia had stolen her way into the strong, lonely heart and he 
was no longer lonely. And he wished for the morrow to come, 
with its tasks, ill-repaid, and evening, when he might be free 
once again to steal away to her. 

He sometimes talked to her, fancying her near, although 
he knew that she was with God : "Little Virginia, things didn't 
seem to go right today, somehow. I feel all sort of tuckered 
out. It didn't seem to pay to take things as they come. I 
sort of wanted to growl, just to ease up my feelings a bit. 
But then I thought of you, Little One, and there was sunshine 
again in my poor, old, worn-out heart. My Little Virginia 
that came into my old, useless life just in time before things 
got too dull!" 

Too dull that was what life was to most of the old, worn- 
out machines in the human network of flesh and weary bones 
that inhabited the place. Although a smile, a pleasant word, 
the gift of an apple or a handful of raisins or a second-hand 
magazine would have made the world seem very bright. But 
when visitors came to the Almshouse, they stared at the old 
people as if they were curiosities, spoke about the view from 
the pantry windows, asked a few inane questions, and went 
their way. Sometimes, you read the name of these people in 
the papers when there was an account of a Charity Bazaar. 

People did not find time to be kind to one another, Uncle 
Peter thought. Because they lived just a little ahead of the 
present hour. They were always pushing ahead to the next 
hour, the next day, and the things of the present remained 
unseen, or, in passing, they stumbled over them and hurried 
on their way. 

Uncle Peter was deeply pained at the knowledge. He 
spoke o it to his dream child: "Little Virginia, I wish I could 
be of use to some one unhappy soul!" 

One day toward evening, Uncle Peter hobbled off over 



528 VIRGINIA, AGED TEN YEARS [Jan., 

the emerald fields and through his favorite spot in the hedge 
to the little burying ground. And he sat down beside the grave 
of his child, and began to prune with eager, sensitive fingers 
the tender blades of green, to wean from the dull sod, as it 
were, the summer flowers. And he saw that a tall, dark 
stranger stood just across from him on the Willow Path. The 
man was gazing fixedly at Uncle Peter. He had a restless, 
handsome face, which told a tale of suppressed bitterness and, 
perchance, hate. 

Uncle Peter, chagrined that anyone should discover his 
secret, rose unsteadily to his feet. 

The stranger spoke first: 

"It is your child?" he asked, in smooth, musical tones. 

"Y-Yes!" But Uncle Peter knew that he did not speak the 
exact truth. "Or . . . not my own child . . . but I ... that 
is ... she is very dear to me!" 

"Is?" The stranger lifted the slight cynical eyebrows in 
rather amused fashion. "Is ... or do you mean was?" 

"Is!" asserted the old man stoutly, while a swift color 
swept into his old cheek bones. "Is . . . she is very near to me !" 

"Oh ! Then I presume you think that . . . the child lying 
under the sod there beside you still lives?" 

"Still lives!" asseverated Uncle Peter bravely. "I know, 
of course, that she is not here although I like to fancy that 
she speaks to me sometimes. And I converse with her! See 
. . . she was ... is ... but ten years old!" 

The stranger shook his head, while his face expressed 
most eloquently his incredulity. 

"My friend," he said evenly, "I regret to disillusion you, 
but you speak a dream. There is no life beyond that little 
mound. The child, whom you say was not yours, but whom 
you love or rather loved is as if she had never been. I am 
sorry for you if you cherish an empty delusion." 

Uncle Peter was trembling with excitement. He said: 

"Sir . . . tell me . . . have you never loved and lost in 
death one whom you loved?" 

"Once, twice, I loved and lost." 

"And you can say that never once has the thought come 
to you that your beloved still live in a better and brighter 
world?" 

"I cannot say that I have never been assailed by empty 



1922.] VIRGINIA, AGED TEN YEARS 529 

hallucinations, because it is the way of our human nature to 
be weak and fail itself. But these passing fancies never 
proved themselves to me, and I prefer to deal with the cold, 
stern facts of actuality. My dead are no more!" 

"I am sorry for you!" Uncle Peter could find no more 
arguments, for he was unlearned in the things of books. 

Then the tall, dark stranger confided to him that he was 
about to compose a treatise on the futility of belief in an after 
life, which he meant to disseminate all over the world. Some 
day, perhaps, Uncle Peter might read for himself and be- 
lieve ! 

When the stranger had gone away down the Willow Path 
and had disappeared beyond the turn of the road, Uncle 
Peter bent very low over the tiny mound and spoke very close 
to the ear of his little child, caressing with his sensitive lover's 
lips the tiny, living things of green and blue and pink that 
grew above her breast: 

"Little Virginia," he said, "little maiden, do not forget 
this poor soul drifting in the dark night of error! Intercede 
for him with the Sacred Heart of Christ Who loved little 
children so!" 

And in that moment the poor old man could refute every 
argument of the philosopher: "I do not need any learned 
discourse or any book to convince me of the truth. My own 
heart tells me that we live beyond the grave!" 

The summer days waned. Precious blossoms bloomed 
on a little mound in Willow Path. Flowers of every conceiv- 
able form and color, trained by the painstaking hand of the 
old man. The trees in full leaf whispered things out of 
nature's secret book to little Virginia, and the brook babbled 
its appreciation of the beauties of God. 

Just once the tall, dark stranger came back it was at the 
very end of summer. He stood very still for a long time on 
the path, and watched Uncle Peter trimming the grass and 
watering the blossoms from an old, cracked teapot, which Mrs. 
Tooner had cast aside. And he said just once: 

"And you still think . . . that the child lives?" 

Summer faded into autumn. Automobilists on pleasure 
tours about the beautiful country passed along the road beside 
the Almshouse, stopping sometimes for a glass of pure, rich 
milk, shuddering when they saw the drooping figures of the 

VOL. cxiv. 34 



530 VIRGINIA, AGED TEN YEARS [Jan., 

inmates, and passing quickly on their way. Uncle Peter, 
watching them disappearing over the brow of the hill, no 
longer asked to go with them. He was content to remain 
where he could be near his child. A radiant hope burned in 
his breast, not unlike the fire which had glowed in the boy's 
heart long ago. The hope of the future near at hand, when, 
all the pains of soul and body over, he would have passed 
forever from the place of old and broken-down and useless 
things. Where, ever young and joyous, he would walk with 
the little child of his mystical adoption. And with One Who, 
from a bruised and pain-racked Body and a forsaken Soul, 
had entered into His glory, having first shown us the way! 

In the Communion of Saints, Uncle Peter felt that Vir- 
ginia was very near him, whom she had never known on earth. 
She prayed for him, watched over him and brought solace to 
his days, now declining fast. 

And then one day when the old temptation to desolation 
came strongly over Uncle Peter, and he sat trying to solace 
himself with his beloved pipe the postman came down the 
country road waving a white missive in his hand. And it was 
addressed to Uncle Peter in a strange, aristocratic hand. 

Uncle Peter hobbled quickly into the house to find Mrs. 
Tooner, for his sight was now too dim to read. 

Within the envelope was a check sufficiently large to pro- 
vide many comforts for him, should he live for some years to 
come. And the check was enclosed in a piece of white paper, 
which said: "From Virginia, Aged Ten Years." 

Uncle Peter listened as in a dream while Mrs. Tooner read. 

"Then my wife died, leaving me with a little babe but a 
few days old. I cursed God and asked Him to take the child, 
too. He punished me sorely. He did not take the child then. 
She lived to be ten years old, the light of my life, the joy of my 
soul. In the perfect bloom of childhood, Virginia died. I 
swore never to speak His Name again, or hear of Him. I told 
myself that death was the end of all, and I buried my child in 
a strange cemetery where the shadow of the cross might not 
fall. I told myself that she was forever gone. But I was not 
convinced, else why did I seek out her little grave after a year 
had gone by? Heartsore and weary, and with a flame of hate 
in my heart, I came up the path in search of the grave of my 
child. Just then a new fierce resentment against the Almighty 



1922.] VIRGINIA, AGED TEN YEARS 531 

rose anew in my soul. I would have looked on her grave 
and gone away forever, to curse Him anew! 

"You know the rest. ... I found that, in the long year 
that I had wandered over the face of the earth an alien, neg- 
lecting to visit this sacred spot, another had taken my place. 
Had taken my little Virginia into his heart. Had you been 
a younger man, perhaps, I should have been jealous of you. 
But you were pardon me old and apparently worn out! To 
me she was dead, but to you she lived ! I tried to convince you 
that you were in error, with no success. 

"I went away to wrestle with my problem, and my heart 
told me the truth. She lives! She has never ceased to live, 
and my sole ambition is now to regain her some day. This can 
only be attained in one way. What that way is, you, as a 
fervent believer, must know. So to you I intrust my child's 
last resting place while afar off, in penance and prayer, I strive 
to atone for the past." 

Uncle Peter sat dazed the while Mrs. Tooner disclosed the 
astonishing news. For some time, he could not speak. 

He went out to the doorstep in the cool of the evening. 
He was thinking of all that he could do with the check and 
first on the list came an item: one cashmere shawl. There 
were sundry other items, but Uncle Peter's name did not ap- 
pear on the list. 

The sun sank gloriously in a bed of fire. The white stones 
of the little graveyard were steeped in a flood of rose pink. 

Uncle Peter felt that he was strangely stiff tonight; it was 
almost as if his old heart was too tired to pump any longer. 
But he felt that he did not care just how long. 

How wonderful it was . . . that he had come to the Alms- 
house to save a human soul! 

A chill wind sprang up just as the sun disappeared behind 
the fir trees. 

He rose stiffly to go in, turning first for one lingering look 
toward a little white stone gleaming across the twilight fields. 

"Good-night, Little Virginia!" he said. 




A JESUIT HIGHER SCHOOL OF COMMERCE AND FINANCE. 

BY J. THEYSKENS, S.J. 

HE knowledge of what Catholics have done, and 
are still doing, in Belgium may be to their fellow- 
Catholics abroad a cause for lawful pride. To 
some, it may serve as a stimulus, and a suggestion 
as well. It may be of interest, therefore, to the 
readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD to know something of that 
very efficient public service conducted by the Jesuit Fathers 
in Antwerp, known as the Ecole Superieure de Commerce et 
de Finance, St. Ignace. 

The Institute is thoroughly up-to-date. Situated in the 
busiest part of the commercial metropolis of Belgium, five 
minutes distant from the river Scheldt, it extends practically 
the whole length of the courte rue neuve, towering above all 
the surrounding buildings. The interior, bright and airy, 
meets the most exacting demands of modern hygiene and mod- 
ern methods. Radiators and electricity abound. The library 
of commercial, financial and consular books ranks with the 
best. A reading-room offers the student the latest blue-books, 
consular reports of the whole world, reviews, annuals and 
periodicals in several languages. A commercial museum 
shows a most valuable and complete collection of raw ma- 
terials and manufactured articles: ivory and rubber from the 
Congo; cotton from the United States; wool from Australia 
and the Argentine Republic; coffees from Brazil and the East 
Indies; cereals from Russia, the Danube, North and South 
America, Australia and India; tea from India, Ceylon, China 
and Japan; tobacco, home-grown and imported, from coun- 
tries near and far, from Turkey, Egypt, the East and West 
Indies, Manila, Mexico, Virginia and Florida; mineral ores: 
iron, copper, tin, lead, cobalt; oils of every description: animal, 
vegetable and mineral; coal, wood, glass, patterns of fabrics, 
woolen and cotton stuffs. The maritime museum exhibits 
one hundred and twenty detailed maps of ports and harbors. 
A commercial bureau, physical and chemical laboratories are 
provided, and every modern mechanical device to facilitate 



1922.] A SCHOOL OF COMMERCE AND FINANCE 533 

business, and a large and beautiful hall, where special lectures 
are delivered by explorers, consuls, economists, business men 
and financiers on subjects of interest related to the courses of 
the Institute. 

Formerly, no very high type of education was required 
for commercial purposes. Under the old regime, business in- 
terests passed from father to son and from son to grandson. 
This policy may have sufficed to promote the interests of the 
individual trader; it could never have been adequate from 
the national standpoint, for the direction of a nation's policy 
in respect of trade, industry, commerce and finance has always 
required a wider outlook than is found in those who have 
learned their business by rule-of-thumb. Today, even the 
management of private concerns calls for faculties of a far 
higher order than obtained when competition had not yet 
become world-wide and gigantic combines had not overshad- 
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sion, fostered by freedom and invention, has revolutionized 
business traditions. The modern manager, to hold his place, 
must exercise general supervision over his department, 
analyze results, put new problems before his men for their 
consideration, advice and action; criticize subordinates when 
results are not forthcoming, showing the reasons why and 
maintaining his standard. Formerly, it may have sufficed to 
keep records of costs of production and of costs of doing busi- 
ness and to make occasional comparisons; today, thorough 
investigation has to be made of every detail : of men, methods, 
materials, machinery, markets and profits. Nothing should 
be left to chance, all must be carefully planned in advance. 
Errors are to be prevented, not corrected; calculation is to be 
substituted for guess, demonstration for opinions. 

The Antwerp St. Ignatius' Institute, since its founda- 
tion in 1852, and more especially during the last twenty years, 
under the direction of Father de Gleyn, S.J., has aimed to fit 
men for control. Recording and crystallizing the experiences 
of thousands of successful business men and financiers, it im- 
parts a training, direct, scientific and economic, the more valu- 
able as it broadens the outlook, affords an opportunity of 
studying the way business is created, not from below, but from 
above, and trains the creative and directive mind. 

Today it confers four different diplomas, duly recognized 



534 A SCHOOL OF COMMERCE AND FINANCE [Jan., 

by the Belgian Government: the diplomas of "Licentiate in 
Commercial Sciences," "Licentiate in Commercial and Finan- 
cial Sciences," "Licentiate in Commercial Sciences of the 
Superior Degree" and "Licentiate in Commercial and Con- 
sular Sciences." 

Students already in possession of a certificate of second- 
ary studies: commercial, scientific, Latin or Greek, are ad- 
mitted without any previous examination. Others have to 
pass an entrance examination in the English, French and Ger- 
man languages, physical geography, universal history, the 
principles of commerce, mathematics, physics and chemistry. 
Special facilities are given to the bearer of a diploma of doctor- 
in-law. Scholarships are awarded by the Belgian Ministries 
of Industry and Labor and of Foreign Affairs. 

At the end of their first year, the students pass an oral 
and a written examination in philosophy (chiefly moral phil- 
osophy), commerce, mathematics, industrial and commercial 
geography, the history of industry and commerce, the trade 
routes of the world, political economy, civil law, commercial 
products and the English, French, German, Spanish and Ital- 
ian languages. The second year leads directly to the degree 
of licentiate in commercial sciences: the examination at the 
end of this year is held before a board composed of the not- 
ables of Antwerp, the President of the Chamber of Com- 
merce, the professors of the Institute and a delegate from 
the Government; it is both oral and written, and covers 
the subjects mentioned above, plus commercial law. The 
third and last year comprises three different sections: the 
financial and actuarial section, the commercial section of the 
superior degree and the consular section. The first of these 
deals with financial and actuarial mathematics, law and juris- 
prudence, financial economics, financial statistics, compar- 
ative colonization, public finance and modern languages; the 
second with commerce, maritime, industrial and constitutional 
law, financial mathematics, comparative colonization, parlia- 
mentary history and modern languages; the third with indus- 
trial and maritime law, comparative colonization, constitu- 
tional law, parliamentary history, consular legislation, the 
elements of private international law, customs legislation, 
commercial politics and modern languages. Each of these 
three sections leads up to its respective sciences, "Licentiate 



1922.] A SCHOOL OF COMMERCE AND FINANCE 535 

in Commercial Sciences of the Superior Degree" and "Licen- 
tiate in Consular Sciences." 

The efficiency of the training given at the Institute is at- 
tested by the standing of the Jesuit Fathers, comprising the 
teaching staff, several of whom are well known in financial, 
economic and geographical circles by the works they have 
published. The Institute numbers, also, among its professors 
some of the finest lawyers, financiers and business men of 
Antwerp, doctors in political and sociological sciences, doc- 
tors in commercial science and doctors in diplomatic and 
administrative science. 

Another tribute to the efficient training of St. Ignace is 
the fact that students crowd to the Institute not only from all 
parts of Belgium, but also from Great Britain, Spain, Luxem- 
bourg, France, Germany, Holland and Iceland. Immediately 
after the armistice, in November, 1918, more than four hundred 
soldiers : officers, non-commissioned officers and privates, men 
of all ranks and regiments, entered the Institute, believing the 
education to be obtained there would prove a sure means to 
success. Today, hundreds of its graduates form the directive 
force in modern commerce, industry and finance all over the 
world : in the chief centres of Belgium, in New York, London, 
Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid, Coblenz, Bilbao, Metz, Rejkjavik, 
Le Havre, Buenos-Aires, Elisabethville, etc. The functioning 
consul-general of Belgium at Montreal, the Belgian charge 
d'affaires at Varsory, the Belgian consul at New Orleans, the 
vice-consul at Regina in Canada, not to mention others, were 
students at the Ecole Superieure de Commerce et de Finance, 
St. Ignace. 

Reverend Father de Cleyn, S.J., the soul of the establish- 
ment, his fellow-priests and lay-collaborators, deserve and 
receive their country's gratitude for this body of highly trained 
and liberally educated business men, financiers and consuls. 
They merit, furthermore, the admiration and emulation of the 
Catholic world at large for having shown that, whatever peo- 
ple may say to the contrary, Catholic principles may hold good 
even in highly efficient business life. 



Ulew Books* 



THE ECONOMIC HISTORY OF IRELAND FROM THE UNION 

TO THE FAMINE. By George O'Brien, Litt.D. New York: 

Longmans, Green & Co. $7.50. 

Here is history, exact, unimpassioned, buttressed by extracts 
from blue books and stabilized by statistics. Yet here, also, is 
drama, poignantly pervasive, of a people rendered more patriotic 
by persecution. 

It is possible to evaluate fully the historical austerity which 
presents facts with seeming detachment, and at the same time 
be moved to the depths by these very facts made more damnable 
by their stark nakedness. Dr. O'Brien has written as an historian, 
and because he has, he has produced a document much more 
potent than any piece of propaganda, more final than the findings 
of the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland. 

For here is disclosed the root cause of these conditions the 
passionate love of an agricultural people for the land, the struggles 
and the sacrifices made to possess a portion, however tiny, of a 
soil regarded as sacred, and the steady determination of the 
oppressor to strangle every effort to realize this ambition. 

The economic history of Ireland in the first half of the nine- 
teenth century is a study in starvation, the high spot of which is 
reached when the Famine of '47 is recorded. Starvation of body, 
which but intensified sturdiness of the soul and love for native 
land. It was in these days of drought, that might well have 
been expected to develop despair days described with appalling 
preeiseness by Dr. O'Brien that the seed was sown for Sinn Fein. 
As the bodies of Irish men and Irish women slowly starved, the 
Irish soul, that grew in steadfastness, sought to express itself. 
The soil might be filched, but the religion, the language, the grand 
heritage of saintliness and scholarship could not be stolen. The 
strivings of those days have since found expression; they have 
been made articulate to the world. In the days which Dr. O'Brien 
describes, martyrs were not lacking, but they spoke only the one 
to the other as they passed on the torch of patriotism. Then, in 
our own days, Padraic Pearse and Terence MacSwiney spoke in 
death, and the whole world listened, admiring the nobility of these 
heroes, but scarce comprehending its source. 

That source would be better understood if all the world could 
read The Economic History of Ireland from the Union to the 
Famine. 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 537 

YOU AND YOURS. Practical Talks on Family Life. By Rev. 

Martin J. Scott, S.J. New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons. Cloth, 

$1.50; paper, 35 cents. 

Father Scott's several contributions to practical apologetics 
have proven how alive he is to the needs of the times, and how 
aptly he can meet them. Timeliness is again characteristic of his 
latest publication which, along other lines than his previous con- 
siderations of the credentials and applications of Christianity, is 
one with them in its shrewd insight into human nature. Father 
Scott understands thoroughly the value of the policy which, during 
the late reign of Mars, we learned to call "consolidating an ob- 
jective." Only when he may reasonably feel that he has secured 
conviction and persuasion on one point, does he pass to the next, 
and each successive point is on a higher level than its predecessor, 
rising, for instance, from natural to supernatural motives. In 
these familiar talks, he gives good advice to all the members 
of the household, father and mother, son and daughter, the 
younger generation coming in for the lion's share of attention and 
the more direct hits. Such headings of chapters as these tell their 
own story : Women and Dress, Young Men and Courtship, Dangers 
to Young Men, Amusements. The concluding chapters are on the 
call to the religious life. Containing good sound ethics, familiar 
in style, open and frank in method, this book is one for which we 
can heartily subscribe to the conventional recommendation: it 
has a place in every home. 

THE PSALMS. A Study of the Vulgate Psalter in the Light of the 
Hebrew Text. By Rev. Patrick Boylan, M.A. Vol. I. Psalms 
I.-LXXI. St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co. $5.50. 
Those who use the Vulgate Psalter have long felt the need of 
some work which will make the Psalms intelligible to readers who 
do not care, or have not time nor opportunity, to learn Hebrew 
and read commentaries in three or four languages. They want a 
work which will treat the Psalms, not as material for scientific, 
theological or historical study, but as religious poems as prayers. 
In order that one may read the psalms digne, attente, ac devote, 
certain obstacles have to be removed; a different mentality, a 
different civilization, a different religious outlook separate the 
Psalmist from the modern reader. These obstacles, it is the busi- 
ness of the commentator to remove. He must be a sort of liaison 
officer for the twentieth-century Westerner to enable him to enter 
into the thoughts of the oriental writer of pre-Christian times. 

This work has been admirably done for English-speaking 
students by Father Boylan. His commentary does not presuppose 



538 NEW BOOKS [Jan., 

any other knowledge than that of the English language, and of 
Latin if one wishes to use the Latin Psalter: and it leaves no 
genuine difficulty unanswered. It does not purport to be written 
for specialists: but the specialist may profit by it, for Father 
Boylan has approached the Psalms with a complete knowledge of 
what criticism, ancient and modern, has done to make them 
intelligible, and his equally complete knowledge of Hebrew, 
Aramaic and Greek has enabled him to make the work in spite of 
its modest appearance, a real contribution to the literature of the 
Psalter. 

The history of the Psalter its authorship and growth is 
briefly sketched. The purpose of the Psalms, classification and 
poetical form can be grasped from another section: and the 
ancient versions are dealt with in a section which is of very special 
value, for it contains the key to most of the obscurities of the 
Latin Psalter. Each Psalm is preceded by a short introduction, 
which indicates the principal ideas and the sequence of thought. 
Such data as point to a date for the Psalm are noted: but specu- 
lations are generally excluded. Then, in parallel columns with 
the Latin, comes an original translation "in the light of the 
Hebrew text." Of this translation it is impossible to speak too 
highly. It is infinitely superior to the Douay version in its accur- 
acy; and in the stately, dignified, rhythmical character of its 
English it scarcely yields to the Authorized Version. 

The present volume deals with Psalms I.-LXXI. It is to be 
hoped that the second volume will soon appear, and that Father 
Boylan will add to the list of Catholic works on Sacred Scripture 
many volumes of the same high standard of learning, clearness 
and style as his commentary on the Psalms. 

FAMOUS CHEMISTS. By Sir William Tilden, F.R.S. New York; 

E. P. Button & Co. $5.00 net. 

In some sense, this book is a complement to its author's 
previous and most interesting work on Chemical Discovery and 
Invention in the Twentieth Century, which appeared a few years 
ago. In the present volume, the reader will find the history of 
modern chemistry detailed in the lives of those who have made 
it and need, in no wise, be deterred from setting out on its 
perusal by any fear that his ignorance of the science with which 
it deals will render his task difficult, for, as in the previous book, 
the author's style and his successful attempt to convey his in- 
formation in language, comprehensible by all, make his book 
most easy, as well as pleasant, reading. We can only find space 
for two observations on it. How has the vast edifice of modern 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 539 

chemistry been built up? Let Sir William tell us: "Science rests 
only on observation and experiment, and whatever hypothesis 
or theory is adopted in order to classify or explain the phenomena 
observed, it ought to be received only as a temporary expedient 
necessary for the assistance of the mind, and liable to be super- 
seded when the state of knowledge has advanced far enough." 
And he supplements this by a statement from the works of the 
Father of Modern Chemistry, Lavoisier: "II n'est jamais permis, 
en physique et en chimie, de supposer ce qu'on peut determiner 
par des experiences direct es." How excellent it would be if writers, 
especially on biological topics, where far the greater sinners are 
to be found, would remember that an unproved theory may be 
highly seductive, but that it is not, and should not, be spoken of 
as a fact. The name of Lavoisier brings us to our second observa- 
tion, which is as to the great names associated with chemistry, 
whose owners were fervent members of the Catholic Church. The 
writer just named, slain by the ruffians of the Terror on the plea 
that France did not want savants, was one and, to mention no 
others, Dumas, whose life is given in this book. In connection 
with his life, we note that Sir William, perhaps the most eminent 
living organic chemist, gives it as his opinion that "it is improb- 
able that the origin of life and of the differences between living 
and dead matter will ever be determined." 
? 
APOLOGETICA quam in usum Auditorum suorum concinnavit. 

Auctore Joanne T. Langan, S.J., Apologeticae in Collegio 

Maximo Woodstockiensi Professor. Chicago: Typographia 

Loyolaea. $3.50. 

Father Langan's Apologetica is a companion volume to Insti- 
tutiones Theologize Naturalis of Father Brosnan, recently re- 
viewed in THE CATHOLIC WORLD. Both volumes issue from the 
expert pens of professors of the Jesuit Scholasticate of Woodstock, 
Maryland, and are printed by the Loyola University Press of 
Chicago. A volume of similar excellence on the Church from the 
same source would furnish a trilogy capable of satisfying the 
most exacting demands of the student or professor of the theo- 
logical department of Christian Apologetics. 

The work under review covers the part of Apologetics com- 
prised within the treatise usually designated De Revelatione. It 
contains three sections the philosophic, which establishes the 
possibility and discernibility of Divine revelation; the critical, 
which proves how perfectly reliable and credible are the chief 
sources of the Christian religion, and the historical, which demon- 
strates by an accumulation of arguments, overwhelming in their 



540 NEW BOOKS [Jan., 

conviction for the sincere mind, that Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of 
Mary, is the Christ of Jewish expectation, the eternal Son of God 
made manifest in human flesh. In the progress of his presenta- 
tion of this paramount proposition, Father Langan advances with 
the steady strength of an inexorable logic. Not a link in the 
chain of proof is weak, not a problem that has the least pertinency 
to the subject overlooked. How such extensive scholarship could 
be compressed within the scope of one volume of some four hun- 
dred pages, causes the reader to marvel. It is possible only be- 
cause the author pursues the text-book method of indicating the 
line of argument and the evidence, while leaving it to the living 
voice of the professor to develop at length in accord with his 
individuality and purpose. While Apologetica retains all that is 
best in the traditional defence of the Christian revelation, it im- 
presses into the service of the Faith the best results of modern 
scholarship. The extensive acquaintance with up-to-date liter- 
ature on the subject, whether hostile or friendly, and the masterly 
manner in which the materials are handled, are delightfully satis- 
fying. No serious problem presented by modern criticism within 
the scope of this all-important theme of supernatural revelation is 
ignored, or denied its due consideration. One of the many excel- 
lent features is the complete and discriminating bibliography, as 
well as the Index Rerum given at the close of the volume. The 
Latin, while pure and elevated, is not difficult; and the book is 
perfectly bound in half-leather. We enthusiastically recommend 
this work. 

DANTE'S MYSTIC LOVE. By Marianne Kavanagh. St. Louis: 

B. Herder Book Co. $1.50. 

This book is well worth reading apart from its point of view. 
Yet the point of view also is profound, spiritually educating and 
impressive, even if one cannot relinquish the equally possible 
idea of a human and inspiring Beatrice. Scartazzini had already 
annihilated Beatrice Portinari, leaving her place unfilled and the 
whole idea hanging midair : Miss Kavanagh has constructed, from 
out the chaos left by Scartazzini, a lucid and scholarly interpre- 
tation supported by able reasoning and plentiful illustration from 
the text itself. The theory may be a little stressed, but it grows 
more and more possible, as one puts aside the distaste for allegory, 
so natural to the modern mind. The writer has come to her work 
fully equipped for spiritual insight by a sound knowledge of 
mystical theology. Certainly it is the most profound judgment 
ever pronounced upon Dante and one more witness to the depth, 
variety and immensity of the poet's genius. 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 541 

The book invites an opposing interpretation, also supported 
by quotation and that may be forthcoming. The troppo fiso, for 
instance, in Canto XXXII. of the Purgatorio, could hardly apply 
to Contemplation; neither does it signify that Dante's love for 
Beatrice was other than spiritual, but it certainly refers to a per- 
son for whom even his supernatural affection must submit to some 
finally detaching, though delicate, rebuke. Yet there is no reason 
why any spiritual interpretation of Dante may not be true. We 
are very mixed beings, and the real truth may lie in a combination 
of theories. Dante's experiences may not have been altogether 
clear to himself in the time of the Vita Nuova, whatever he said 
about it later, and we are free to think what we like as long as our 
judgment is on supernatural lines. Miss Kavanagh's book is one 
more proof of the hitherto neglected importance of the Vita 
Nuova. It is far more subtle and difficult than the Commedia, of 
which, indeed, it is the mysterious Proem. 

EXCURSIONS IN THOUGHT. By "Imaal." New York: P. J. 

Kenedy & Sons. $1.50. 

The author of this book, we make a guess, is an Irish layman. 
We have no need to guess at its merits which, if limited, are dis- 
tinct. "Imaal's" chief strength his fund of allusion and illustra- 
tion is, in some ways, a weakness, as it makes the reader expe- 
rience a little difficulty in following the argument. The four essays 
the volume contains : "What Is Genius?" "The Century of Progress," 
"The Mother of the Arts," "Christianity and Its Critics," have each 
ransacked the ages and their immortals for texts. An incon- 
gruous juxtaposition of these is sometimes confusing, if at other 
times illuminating. An example of "Imaal's" method is a com- 
parison he draws between Plato's modest incognito at the Olympic 
Games and Baudelaire's flaunted green-dyed hair. This was un- 
expected and telling. In another place, he asks: "Was Homer 
fond of epigrams? Shakespeare of paradoxes? Was Isaiah 
'clever?' or Plato smart?" And he is fond of asking such ques- 
tions, because they provide their own annihilating answer. Against 
the self-conscious art and the soulless materialism of our time, 

he opposes Christianity, "the fairest thing men had ever seen 

Truth with love in her eyes." 

"Imaal" seems to have read all the books, seen all the pic- 
tures, and heard all the music of the world; and he refers them 
all back to lovely Truth from whom they derive the glory they 
contain. It is significant that out of disturbed Ireland has come 
this product of profound culture, which possesses its soul in 
peace. It is significant, too, that these beautiful essays are dedi- 



542 NEW BOOKS [Jan., 

cated to the author of that beautiful novel, The Threshold of 
Quiet. Both of these writers have passed through the same thres- 
hold and have gained the same reward. 

ADVENTURES IN THE ARTS. By Marsden Hartley. New York: 

Boni & Liveright. $3.00. 

The sub-title of this book runs thus: Informal Chapters on 
Painters, Vaudeville and Poets. The first and third sections on 
painters and poets are of real interest. In the first section, Mr. 
Hartley discusses impressionism in general and the modern Amer- 
ican School. He aims professedly merely to record his own 
personal reactions; he wishes these papers to be viewed in the light 
of entertaining conversations and not as professional treatises. 
Now conversations, at least if they are to be entertaining, will in- 
evitably be haphazard and desultory in regard to the matters taken 
up; one thing will lead to another with little or no regard for 
logical construction. Surely, no one may reasonably object if 
an author does no more than he sets out to do. Yet, if these 
papers were arranged according to some definite plan, they could 
have served for instruction no less than for entertainment. There 
is certainly room for an introduction to modern American art 
addressed to the general reading public rather than to profes- 
sionals; and, with some reordering of material, the first section 
of this book more than half of its contents could answer ad- 
mirably to the present need. 

Mr. Hartley's arrangement now presupposes some acquaint- 
ance with the men and matters under consideration. He begins, 
for instance, with some comment on Cezanne, who is entitled to 
first place as long as Claude Monet was not selected for detailed 
discussion. Albert Ryder follows, and here, too, Mr. Hartley is 
clearly within his rights, holding, as he does, that Ryder is our 
most original painter as Poe is our most original poet. But Rous- 
seau, who would naturally be expected to stand with Cezanne, is 
the last in the section; Odelon Redon comes between a chapter 
on some modern women artists and one on the virtues of amateur 
painting; chapters on the dearth of art critics and on Dadaism, 
the latest phase of modernism in painting, are the very last in the 
book, after the sections on vaudeville and poets. Moreover, the 
fitness of things would seem to demand that essays on mod- 
ern American painting, the Imaginatives, the Imagists, should 
precede the treatment of individuals. The essays are far from un- 
instructive as they stand, but, with a more logical order, would 
appeal to a larger public. 

The literary section contains some very sympathetic, but very 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 543 

sane and very shrewd criticism on Emily Dickinson, Francis 
Thompson, Adelaide Crapsey, Ernest Dowson and Rupert Brooke. 
On Thompson, the author has a tendency to be all but dithy- 
rambic; for instance: "Thompson has scaled the white rainbow 
of the night and sits in radiant company among the first planetary 
strummers of song." Yet, his concluding judgment, deliberately 
and calmly expressed, is that, in the sense of lyrical fervor, the 
last great poet was Francis Thompson. Of Brooke, also, his 
appraisal is just and likely to be confirmed by time. Brooke, like 
Seegar and others who perished in the throes of heroism, was on 
the way to becoming a good poet, but he must rest his early dis- 
tinction, perhaps, upon the "If I should die" sonnet alone. A 
little time, and we might have learned his real distinction; but, 
Mr. Hartley concludes, "we must accept him more for his finer 
indications and less for his sense of mastery." The third section 
has many such aphorisms in critique, but we cannot help feeling 
that the first section is the more valuable. There is no dearth of 
literary critics, whereas Mr. Hartley himself complains of the 
noticeable absence of critics in the field of painting, and he does 
a great deal to meet the need. 

THE NEW STONE AGE IN NORTHERN EUROPE. By John M. 

Tyler, Professor Emeritus in Amherst College. New York: 

Charles Scribner's Sons. $3.00. 

There is much that is very useful and interesting in this book, 
and it will well repay the reader who is studying the subject of 
Prehistoric Archaeology, more especially because it deals with a 
period which is generally looked upon as rather dull and lacking 
in the romance of the earlier Palaeolithic epoch. We have, how- 
ever, to warn the unsophisticated reader that he will find the 
usual statements we have protested against a hundred times, in 
which theories, probable or improbable, but all the while theories, 
are set down just as if they were established fact. The Professor 
knows as well as the reviewer that all his talk about the "ape- 
man" is mere talk. He must know very well that Branco, one of 
the most noted Palaeontologists of the day, has told us that 
"science knows nothing of any ancestor of man." Why then does 
he not give some warning to his readers, who cannot be expected 
to know what he and well-instructed people know about these 
matters. It is the same thing in other cases "one hundred thou- 
sand years of human life in Europe produced nothing higher than 
Neanderthal man." He might be giving the date of the Declar- 
ation of Independence, so assured is his statement. Yet he must 
know perfectly well (though his readers cannot all be expected 



544 NEW BOOKS [Jan., 

to know) that all these dates in connection with prehistory 
are mere guesses, and some of them (like this one, for example) 
very wild guesses, in the opinion of many scholars. It is too bad 
that a useful book should be rendered misleading to the general 
reader by flaws like those we have pointed out. An occasional 
"I think" instead of "it is" would be a great improvement. 

ROVING EAST AND ROVING WEST. By E. V. Lucas. New 
York: George H. Doran Co. $2.00 net. 

It is a pleasure to record that Mr. Lucas' shrewd, yet agree- 
able, observations are quite free from the dogmatism to which we 
have become accustomed in comments made upon us by travelers 
from overseas. The genial English man of letters has given us a 
series of chapters, scarcely long enough to be called chapters, that 
suggest the vignette rather than the clear-cut outlines of the 
cameo. The life of the Orient, as one sees it in the Indian bazaar 
or the clattering streets of old Japan, is portrayed in a way that is, 
in spirit at least, Stevensonian. 

America, too, has fared well at Mr. Lucas' hands. He is 
neither fulsome in his praise nor ill-mannered in his blame; and 
such criticism as he offers, is of the sort long since made of us by 
ourselves. Through the pages there ripples a gentle humor, 
calculated to cheer one after a hard day's work, changing 
wrinkles of care into mirthful smiles and helping one to forget 
the problems of the past in the mental comfort of the present. 
We hope that the author will take more foreign flights, and that 
he will allow us to accompany him in the journey, if only between 
the covers of a book. 

j 

ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF RE- 
LIGION. By Baron Friedrich von Hugel. New York: E. P. 
Button & Co. $6.00. 

This book seeks to probe the very foundations of belief and 
justify the ways of God to man. The author has a decided leaning 
towards German and non-Catholic authorities, some of whom are 
already quite old. He rarely quotes any of the modern Catholic 
writers, who have handled these themes in a masterly manner. 
In the paper on the "Apocalyptic Element in the Teaching of 
Jesus," one is surprised to find Mr. Glutton Brock cited, but 
never a mention of Batiffol's Enseignement de Jdsus. On page 
137, it is stated that St. Augustine inclines to hold that the soul 
sleeps from death till the day of Judgment. If this really be the 
Saint's opinion, would it not be wise to state that such is not the 
Catholic doctrine, for, as far back as 1336, Benedict XII. laid it 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 545 

down that the Blessed enjoy the Beatific Vision immediately after 
death, and the reprobate endure the pains of Hell? 

From his heterdox authorities, the author has accepted state- 
ments that need serious qualification. We are told that St. Paul 
was deeply indebted to the Greek mysteries. The laborious inves- 
tigations of modern scholars among inscriptions and papyri have 
reconstructed for us what Reitzenstein calls "Hellenistic Theol- 
ogy." It is the strangest jumble of astrology, superstition and 
magic. Who will believe that a mind, so intensely virile and indi- 
vidual as St. Paul's, would be imposed upon for a moment by such 
absurdities and that abstracting completely from his super- 
natural and mystical supremacy? Again, the Book of Daniel is 
attributed in its entirety to 165-163 before Christ. A recent con- 
sultation by Brassac in Apologetique, September 1, 1915, p. 569, 
et seq., states that this theory may not be taught in Catholic 
schools, and further, that the authenticity of the proto-canonical 
parts is the commonly received doctrine. The Baron, also, seems 
to have accepted too easily and freely German theories on the 
various strata of different authors and ages to be discerned in the 
Pentateuch. Baron von Hugel affirms himself more than once a 
convinced and stanch Catholic layman. Is it not de rigeur for a 
Catholic writing on theology and Scripture to submit his writings 
before publication to episcopal approval and imprimatur? These 
essays are fit reading only for those who have a keenly developed 
critical sense, and sufficient knowledge to discriminate between 
what is German theory or guess-work and established science. 

HIGH SCHOOL CATECHISM, or The Baltimore Catechism Ex- 
plained. By Monsignor P. J. Stockman. St. Louis: America 
Press. 

Monsignor Stockman has given us an admirable manual of 
Christian Doctrine. To judge from the thoroughness of exposition 
and unction of treatment, the writing of this handbook must have 
been a labor of love. His work may best be described as an elab- 
orate compendium in eight hundred pages of Dogmatic and 
Moral Theology. Written with fine discernment in a simple, lucid 
style, it is admirably adapted to meet the needs of high school and 
college students. There is no schoolbook at all comparable with 
it in exhaustiveiiess of presentation. Furthermore, its sphere of 
usefulness ought not to be confined to the classroom, but should 
extend to the education of the average layman in the fundamentals 
of Catholic belief and practice. So effectively has the work been 
done as to compel the suggestion that a companion volume of Bible 
History of similar excellence is greatly to be desired. 

VOL. cxiv. 35 



546 NEW BOOKS [Jan., 

THE NEW TESTAMENT. Volume III. St. Paul's Epistles to the 

Churches. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. $2.50. 

Archbishop Goodier of Bombay and other Jesuits : Fathers A. 
Keogh, C. Lattey and Joseph Rickaby, are the contributors to the 
third volume of the Westminster Version of the New Testament, 
which comprises ten epistles of St. Paul, viz., 1 and 2 Thessa- 
lonians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Romans, Ephesians, 
Colossians, Philemon and Philippians. 

The editors, undoubtedly, deserve the praise of every Biblical 
scholar for their daring and most successful attempt to give us a 
new and accurate version of the most difficult of all the writers of 
Sacred Scriptures, St. Paul. We may not agree with every change 
they make or suggest, but they always give their reasons and 
make out a very fair case for their alterations. It is at the very 
least a most readable translation, and lays a most solid foundation 
for the final text that one day will be approved by all the Bishops 
of the English-speaking world. 

The notes accompanying the text are most suggestive and 
helpful in telling us the mind of St. Paul, e. g., 1 Thessalonians 
iv. 11, Romans v. 7, 12-14; vi. 23; 1 Corinthians x. 21; vii. 15, 32, 
36; 2 Corinthians iii. 5, 6, 10, 17; Galatians iv. 17; iii. 25; Philip- 
pians ii. 6, 7; Colossians ii. 18; Ephesians iii. 12. A brief intro- 
duction gives us a historical sketch of the city the Apostle ad- 
dresses and the founding of the Church there, the reasons that 
prompted St. Paul to write and the date of his writing, the unity 
and integrity of the Epistle, and a summary of its contents. Four 
appendices discuss the Vulgate reading in 1 Corinthians xv. 51, 
the ministry in the Apostolic Church, St. Paul's doctrine of jus- 
tification and the Biblical Commission on St. Paul's eschatology. 

A GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE BIBLE. By the Rt. Rev. 

Charles P. Grannan, D.D., Ph.D. In four volumes. St. Louis : 

B. Herder Book Co. $2.00 each. 

His former students and the clergy at large will greet en- 
thusiastically these volumes from the pen of the well-known pro- 
fessor of the Catholic University of Washington. Monsignor Gran- 
nan needs no introduction to the Catholic reading public. The 
long expected four volumes just published, represent the mature 
and finished product of his learning and scholarship. The intro- 
duction is the summing up, the creme, of his work as Professor 
of Sacred Scripture at the Catholic University. His influence in 
Catholic Bible studies is thus continued, although he severed his 
connection with that institution some years ago. 

There breathes forth in these volumes the true spirit of 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 547 

respect and reverence, which the inspired writings deserve. Un- 
yielding, uncompromising, but scholarly conservatism permeates 
the entire work. Clearness, precision, definiteness are its marked 
characteristics. Definitions, divisions and subdivisions of the 
various topics will make the work serviceable for seminaries 
and for Biblical study in general. Especially noteworthy is the 
treatise on Inspiration. The author has evidently specialized on 
this intricate subject. 

The first volume deals with definitions, the original lan- 
guages, texts and ancient versions of the Bible. Textual criti- 
cism, higher criticism, Biblical Archaeology constitute the subject 
matter of the second volume. In the third volume, the reader will 
find an exhaustive study of Inspiration and the History of the 
Canon. The author treats of Biblical Hermeneutics and Exegesis 
in the last volume. The bibliography is well chosen, but it could, 
with profit, be amplified by the addition of more recent and de- 
serving works. The neat, handy volumes are a credit to the 
publishers. Catholic scholarship owes a debt of gratitude to 
Monsignor Grannan for this splendid addition to our Biblical 
literature. 

THE LABOR PROBLEM AND THE SOCIAL CATHOLIC MOVE- 
MENT IN FRANCE. By Parker Thomas Moon. New York: 
The Macmillan Co. $3.25. 

To undertake a recondite review of the content, the value and 
the prognostic influence of this handy volume would require the 
writing of another book and not that alone it would demand 
that the work be undertaken by one whose analytical acumen 
and whose politico-sociological observations are proportionate 
to and co-extensive with the power and the opportunities of the 
author. This statement carries with it no implication that the 
volume will reach its proper destiny by finding a dusty resting- 
place among the technical tomes devoted to a science which 
is frequently dismissed as "dismal." It is, on the contrary, a 
sincere compliment to both the matter and the form of a treatise 
that has been so skillfully written as to be equally at home in 
the hands of the general reader and the specialist. 

The book is a study in the History of Social Politics. Gener- 
ically, it undertakes an analysis of forces which give momentum 
to contemporary movements toward the solution of the insistent 
problem of labor unrest. Specifically, it starts the interesting un- 
raveling of the Social Catholic Movement. Since such a study is 
still too broad to result in anything more than blurred pictures 
if forced within the confines of two covers, the focus has beer 



548 NEW BOOKS [Jan., 

narrowed so as to produce the sharp and proportionate outlines 
of this same activity as excitingly manifested in one country, 
France. 

The Industrial and Political Revolutions are the upheavals 
set down as the parent forces of the economic, political and social 
disturbances, which are historically delineated. Monarchism is 
seen suing Republicanism for damages, Socialism drags Indi- 
vidualism to court, and the Democratic Social Programme puts in 
its appearance as a peacemaker among conflicting forces. In 
tracing the introduction, the modification, the development and 
the popularization of this movement, the reader is given the posi- 
tion of judge and jury. One listens with attention to the pre- 
cursors of Social Catholicism. Cardinal Croi, in his Lenten Pas- 
toral of 1828, makes his tender plea in behalf of the children, 
"these young plants," from whom "parents and employers de- 
manded fruit in the season of flowers." Frederic Ozanam and St. 
Vincent de Paul exert their devout influence as heralds of ap- 
proaching reform. Melun, as far back as 1849, steps forward to 
advocate social legislation in his pamphlet on "The Intervention 
of Society to Prevent and Alleviate Poverty." The confusion aris- 
ing from the Commune and resultant reactions are indicated 
rather than described. Count Albert de Mun argues his case with 
the introduction of Catholic Workingmen's Clubs, giving a prac- 
tical answer to the angry interjections of the anti-clericals. En- 
couragement comes from abroad in the form of social successes 
enjoyed by neighboring nations, who were reverting to pro- 
grammes built upon the bed-rock of Scholasticism. Papal appro- 
bation gives new vigor to the Social Catholic Movement, not only 
through an Encyclical condemnation of Socialism and other errors 
by Leo XIII., but also by a positive endorsement of the philosophy 
of St. Thomas. The Encyclical of preeminent social significance 
is Leo XIII.'s Rerum Novarum, issued in 1891. It contains both 
the rejection of Economic Liberalism and Socialism, and the en- 
couragement of Social Catholicism through the promotion of 
stated definite principles for a programme of social reform. The 
remainder of the book is given over largely to an analysis of the 
Popular Liberal Party, "the most influential political organ of the 
Social Catholic Movement in France." Its organization, literature, 
political theories and legislative enactments are clearly presented. 
The accuracy of the account has elicited favorable comment in 
the Party's official publication. 

Since no adequate general history of the Social Catholic Move- 
ment has yet been published in any language, the author deserves 
much credit for producing in English at least a portion of this 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 549 

work. It is a pioneer volume of real scientific worth. To the 
prospective reader, who fears the almost inevitable doldrums of 
analytical research, it may be well to mention that this book is 
not only enlivened by a style that carries one along without 
fatigue, but even when there is a tendency for the mind to become 
slightly bewildered in attempting to retain all the threads of the 
development, the author has introduced convenient little resting 
places in the form of recapitulations. The seeming weakness of 
the book is a decided reticence on the part of the writer to draw 
conclusions. In view of the fact that the work is meant to be 
neither controversial nor apologetic, but rather a parallel place- 
ment of historical facts, this seeming weakness may be a sign of 
substantial strength. The fact that favorable comment has been 
aroused on both sides of the Atlantic from publications of oppos- 
ing policies, is proof positive that the author has succeeded in 
giving his data an impartial presentation. 

Professor Moon became a convert to the Faith in 1915, the 
study of history and intellectualism prompting him to investigate 
the claims of the Catholic Church. At present, he is the Editor 
of the Political Science Quarterly, Instructor in History at Colum- 
bia and Secretary of the Academy of Political Science. He was 
one of the experts chosen to attend the Peace Conference with ex- 
President Wilson. While in France, he interviewed a number 
of the leaders about whom he writes. As a consequence, his words 
are not merely the fruition of academic research, but are enriched 
with what personal contact and direct observation alone can give. 
The scope of the author's investigations is indicated by the appen- 
dix, which contains more than a thousand references to books, 
speeches and incidents, something more than a bibliography be- 
cause of instructive amplifications. Professor Moon, having the 
weight of less than three decades on his shoulders, bids fair to 
step forward as an outstanding exponent of the movement which 
he so ably describes. The book was given in part-payment for a 
degree at Columbia University, and its general circulation will 
produce an influence both powerful and salutary. Substantially, 
it represents a sound reaction against all those social welfare dis- 
sertations, many of them presumably historical, wherein the 
authors thought they could lay no claim to scholarship unless 
they built their books upon the biological analogy, masking their 
inconsistencies under the disparagement of logic and the eschew- 
ing of the Scholastic System of Philosophy. This book is bound 
to be well thumbed. In the class-room, in college debates and in 
other public discussions of economic problems, and as a depend- 
able work of reference in many other fields, it must eventually win 



550 NEW BOOKS [Jan., 

a proper place. Already, it has been used to form the foundation 
of talks before a Newman Club. Not long ago, it was seen in the 
hand of a priest who was returning from a monthly meeting 
of the Holy Name Society, where he had imparted the implied 
spiritual and social message of its illuminating pages. It seems 
almost as patriotic as pledging our allegiance to the Stars and 
Stripes to impress upon the mind of the public that this book 
should be made to serve the double mission of rebuking radicalism 
in all its forms, and of confirming the confidence of those who 
already have faith in the stabilizing and progressive influence of 
the Social Catholic Movement. 

LE DARWINISME AU POINT DE VUE DE L'ORTHODOXIE 
CATHOLIQUE. ler. vol. "L'Origine des especes." Collec- 
tio Lovanium. By Henry de Dorlodot, Professor at Louvain. 
Bruxelles: Vromant et Cie. 

The ordinary non-Catholic scientific reader would rub his 
eyes if he could be induced to read this, the most important book 
on scientific topics which has appeared from a Catholic writer of 
note, such as is the Professor of Palaeontology at the University of 
Louvain, for many a day. With every formality of Imprimatur, we 
have a book in which the transformist theory is warmly upheld 
and its prophet, Charles Darwin, placed beside Isaac Newton 
amongst the heralds sent forth by science to proclaim the great- 
ness of the Creator of the world. Not the least admirable part of 
the book is the introductory treatise on the attitude of the Church 
as to the interpretation of Sacred Scripture and, of course, in 
particular that part which deals with the history of Creation. In 
fact, to our mind, this is the most important part of the book. 
Other matters, such as the attitude of St. Augustine and other 
Fathers of the Church to the transformist theory, have been 
treated by quite a number of Catholic writers from Mivart down 
to our own times. But the preliminary matter has never, to our 
knowledge, been so well put, and we most earnestly trust that, if 
for this alone, the book may be translated as soon as possible into 
English and made available for those who cannot or will not take 
the trouble to read it in French. 

We must not omit to call attention to the philosophical proofs 
for Transformism, which we have not met with before in such 
comprehensible guise. With regard to the origin of life from 
brute matter, which was believed in by all the Catholic Fathers 
who concerned themselves with the question, e. g., SS. Augustine, 
Gregory of Nyssa and Thomas Aquinas, the author regretfully 
admits, as Darwin did, that there is no evidence of anything of 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 551 

the kind. He says that he wishes that someone would give him 
such evidence as would enable him here to abandon Darwin and 
follow Augustine and Gregory. So does the present reviewer, but 
the evidence is not to hand, nor is there any sign of it. Such is 
the Catholic view, yet hundreds of apparently educated persons 
fully believe that the discovery of Spontaneous Generation would 
knock the bottom out of not only the Catholic Church, but of all 
religion. 

REYNARD THE FOX, or The Ghost Heath Run. By John Mase- 
field. With sixteen plates by G. D. Armour and many illus- 
trations by Carton Moorepark. New York: The Macmillan 
Co. $5.00. 

Little need be said at this late date of Mr. Masefield's nar- 
rative masterpiece, Reynard the Fox, save to announce that those 
who have already enjoyed it will enjoy it the more in this new 
de luxe edition, with characterful illustrations and an explanatory 
preface by the author. In this preface, the poet remarks that 
"hunting makes more people happy than anything I know" a 
belief which is likely to find scant echo in contemporary American 
minds and hearts. No, it is not because the spectacle of the hard- 
pressed fox with pursuing hounds and men gives any happiness 
whatever that this book will be welcomed here in the States. It is 
simply because John Masefield has contrived to write a narrative 
poem of extraordinary vividness and suspense and because the 
fox hunt presents opportunity for an admirable series of English 
portraits, since in it, as he himself points out, "you see the whole 
of the land's society brought together, focussed for the observer, 
as the Canterbury pilgrims were for Chaucer." 

REVIEWS AND CRITICAL PAPERS. By Lionel Johnson. Edited 
with an Introduction by Robert Shafer. New York: E. P. 
Dutton & Co. $1.25. 

A book such as this brings at once happiness and humiliation 
to its reviewer, since it exemplifies so perfectly how his own work 
should be done. However hurried and harried he must often have 
been, Lionel Johnson seems to have been proof against the slight- 
est haste in judgment or diction; and in these fugitive papers, re- 
captured from various London reviews, one finds the same serene, 
matured and spiritual criticism which more ambitious work has 
forever associated with his name. Here he is seen passing in 
brief, contemporaneous review the earlier work of Kipling, whom 
he finds "before all else an observer, not a thinker" of Mrs. 
Humphrey Ward, of George Meredith and of Stevenson, with his 



552 NEW BOOKS [Jan., 

"fine anxiety not to play life false by using inaccurate expres- 
sions." It is very human, as well as very scholarly, criticism, with 
its passion for the highest things and its scorn of the "abominable 
amateur of cleverness." And everywhere it is impressed with 
that exquisite spiritual insight, which shines alike in the dis- 
cussion of Richard Le Gallienne and of holy old Nicholas 
Caussin. 

Altogether, this is a little book which all Johnsonians will 
want to supplement the larger volume of Post Liminium Essays, 
published a few years back while its modest size and price fit it 
admirably for use in English classes of our high schools and col- 
leges. Not the least of its merits is the sympathetic introduction 
by Professor Shafer of Wells College, with its distinguished and 
generous tribute to the Catholic note in criticism. 

LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI. By Father Cuthbert, O.S.F.C. 

New revised edition. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. 

$4.00 net. 

It is most fitting that the year, in which Franciscan tertiaries 
celebrate the seventh centenary of their foundation, sees a new 
edition of Father Cuthbert's admirable biography of St. Francis, 
most loving and best beloved of mediaeval saints. The field of 
scientific hagiography in English is largely virgin soil. To work 
it properly demands a combination of broad literary vision and 
exact scholarship with a profound and sympathetic knowledge of 
the principles of asceticism, and, until quite recently, duly 
equipped and willing workers in it have been all too few. To 
meet one with the qualifications of Father Cuthbert, is to feel, 
with Keats, like some watcher of the skies when a new planet 
swims into his ken. 

In its evidences of scholarly research and in its well-docu- 
mented conclusions, Father Cuthbert's essay leaves nothing to be 
desired; and, if one may be inclined to differ with him once or 
twice in the later chapters, it will be solely because, on a few moot 
points of Franciscan history, the last word is yet to be said. In 
the preface to his first edition, in 1912, Father Cuthbert modestly 
remarked that he did not presume to think his was to be the final 
biography; and, as with the years modern Franciscan research 
develops so many ramifications, it becomes increasingly difficult 
to maintain a comprehensive viewpoint. One cannot, so to speak, 
see the woods for the trees; and certain knotty problems which 
have successfully defied solution through seven centuries of in- 
tensive study, are likely to remain unsolved until the end. 

Father Cuthbert's * views are as commonly acceptable and 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 553 

satisfactory as the nature of these special difficulties permit, and 
his work measures up in every way to the very high standard 
which readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, from long experience, 
expect him consistently to maintain. The frontispiece deserves 
to have attention called to it. It is a portrait from a thirteenth 
century painting at Christ Church, Oxford, presumably by Mar- 
gitone, and is quite different in conception from the better known 
paintings by Spagnoletto and Cimabue, or the della Robbia 
statue. 

VADE MECUM THEOLOGIZE MORALIS. By D. M. Prummer, 
O.P. St. Louis : B. Herder Book Co. $2.50 net. 
Father Prummer, Professor of Moral Theology at the Uni- 
versity of Freiburg, Switzerland, has written an excellent com- 
pendium of his three volume moral theology. It is brief, clear 
and complete, and takes accurate account of all the changes 
brought about by the new code of canon law. Confessors will 
find it very helpful in reviewing the principles of morals, and the 
younger clergy will find it invaluable as a preparation for their 
annual examination. 

AN EPITOME OF THE PRIESTLY LIFE. By Canon Arvisenet. 

Adapted from the Latin Original by the Rev. F. J. O'Sullivan. 

New York: Benziger Brothers. $1.50. 

Claude Arvisenet, the author of this book, was Canon of 
Troyes during the latter part of the eighteenth century; and 
after the Revolution, while a refugee in Switzerland, devoted his 
time to the writing of religious works. To his exile, therefore, 
we owe his Memoriale Vitae Sacerdotalis. We are not acquainted 
with the original Latin text; but Father O'Sullivan's translation 
bears every indication of being an exact rendering of its tone and 
temper, as well as its matter. 

The avowed model for the book is The Imitation of Christ. 
From it has been borrowed not only the literary style, but the 
design of the work. This gives it a friendly and familiar appear- 
ance, if it also challenges a comparison which, inevitably, is not 
to its advantage. An attempt to imitate, in 1794, the sweet art- 
lessness of the Middle Ages was ill advised especially when it is 
an attempt to deal with practicalities in precisely the same way as 
a Kempis dealt with spiritualities. By which we do not mean that 
the Memoriale. is without devotion, but that its devotion is on a 
lower plane, and concerns itself largely with ecclesiastical domes- 
ticities. It may be unfair to quarrel with it on that account. 
What the author intended to do, he has done; he has provided a 



554 NEW BOOKS [Jan., 

convenient blend of pastoral and ascetic theology for the busy 
priest. As such, it deserves a welcome, which we have no doubt 
it will receive. 

nPHE GLORIES OF MARY IN ROSTON, by Rev. John F. Byrne, C.SS.R. 
1 (Boston: Mission Church Press.) This handsomely bound and 
profusely illustrated volume is published as a memorial for the golden 
jubilee of the famous Redemptorist parish of Our Lady of Perpetual 
Help, more familiarly and affectionately known as the Mission Church, 
of Roxbury, Mass. The author has most worthily fulfilled a most 
worthy task, for anyone with the least experience in gathering statis- 
tical data, can estimate the cost, in time and patience, of this labor of 
love. About half the book is devoted to a history of the parish, includ- 
ing a general sketch of Catholicism in New England as the incidental 
historical background. Then follow certain special topics of even 
wider interest, particularly to those who know not Boston nor New 
England. The first of these is an account of the miraculous shrine 
to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, which the New York Herald once 
called a Lourdes in the land of the Puritan. On the day after the 
sacred image, a copy of the famous original in the Church of St. 
Alphonsus at Rome, was exposed for public veneration, a series of 
miracles began which still continue. 

Second only in interest to the story of the shrine, are the pages of 
amazing statistics on all phases of parish life, exterior and interior. 
A parish, which has a boys' band of one hundred members touring the 
country, or which can point with pride to 1,800 of its men marching 
in a Holy Name parade, or has a service flag with 1,057 stars, twenty- 
nine of them gold, is extraordinary. But even more extraordinary is 
one which can administer Holy Communion to 5,000 on a single day, 
and the Mission Church can count many such days. Most extraordinary 
of all, perhaps, is the long catalogue of consecrated sons and daughters 
given to the service of Christ. It is an inspiring record to the greater 
glory of God and greater honor of Mary. 

WATER COLORS, by Susan Farley Nichols. (Boston: The Four 
Seas Co.) These sketches have been drawn from the experience 
of the author as nurse in a French military hospital at Cannes. Most 
of them portray French Colonials from Tahiti, one of those "mystic 
isles" about which Frederick O'Brien, following Stoddard, has woven 
a magic spell. Miss Nichols has done her best to strengthen the roman- 
tic tradition which more prosaic and matter-of-fact tourists than 
O'Brien have recently attacked; she has also drawn, in her opening 
paragraphs, a prose pastel in the manner of Stoddard. The sketches 
are of no great interest, except the very last, "The Poilu's Books," a 
record of the French common soldier's tastes in reading. Available 
translations of Roosevelt, it seems, ranked with Hugo and Dumas in 
popularity. 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 555 

GOLD, by Eugene O'Neill (New York: Boni & Liveright. $1.50). 
This four-act play on the face of it is the story in dramatic form 
of Captain Bartlett and his crew who, on being wrecked on a desert 
island, come upon a chest full of trinkets, which they believe to be gold. 
Bartlett permits the murder of two of his men whose insistence that 
the trinkets are only brass makes him believe that they intend to steal 
the treasure trove for themselves. He buries the chest, is later rescued 
from the island, and on reaching home fits out a ship to return and 
secure the treasure. The result of the murders, of which he has morally 
been guilty, and of his blind insistence that he has discovered gold 
and not brass, is the theme of the remaining three acts. He becomes a 
victim of his lust for gold and his remorse of conscience, dying at the 
end, but only after he has destroyed his wife's happiness, his daugh- 
ter's peace of mind and driven his son almost to madness. The play 
may be taken as an allegory, satirizing in powerful fashion the stupid- 
ity of those who seek worthless treasure at the ends of the world and 
ignore the real beauty and value of life as they exist all about them. 
The play has more dramatic than literary value. The characterizations 
are good, the dialect forceful and the situations well handled. Mr. 
O'Neill's thoughts are always centred on the tragedy of life. He has no 
time for its comedies. There is not a single alleviating gleam of 
humor in the four acts of Gold. 

A FLOWER OF MONTEREY, by Katherine B. Hamill (Boston: The 
Page Co.). Pajarita, the "Flower of Monterey," is an American 
waif, abandoned by the sailors of her father's ship on the shores of 
Monterey, in the days when Spain ruled California. The author at- 
tempts to give us a picture of old California, but only succeeds in 
describing the dress parades of the soldiers and the lace mantillas of 
the women. As an outsider, she cannot understand the soul or religion 
of the Spaniard. How utterly unfair to write in this manner of the 
conversion of the Indians: "Many were brought to the fold through 
mesmeric influence, some through fear or superstition, but none 
through faith or understanding, for the Californian Indian totally 
lacked mental or spiritual insight or intuition." 

We would request Mrs. Hamill to read Father Englehardt's The 
Missions and Missionaries of California before writing another novel 
on this theme. 

/BARMEN CAVANAGH, by Annie M. P. Smithson (Dublin: The Talbot 
V-x Press. 6s. net). Carmen Cavanagh half Spanish, half Irish is a 
district nurse working among the poor peasants of Donegal. Although 
a Catholic by birth and training, she is not a "bigoted" Catholic, as her 
Protestant friends, in unconscious sarcasm, put it. The crisis of her 
life comes when she has to choose between her Catholic faith and her 
love for a divorced man. She succumbs for a time to her great tempta- 
tion, but is won back again by the influence of the Blessed Sacrament 
kept in the house of a parish priest who had been most kind to her. 



556 NEW BOOKS [Jan., 

The story is well told, but the writer, as an outsider, fails to grasp the 
true spirit of the Irish priest and the Irish people. 

IRELAND UNFREED: POEMS OF 1921, by Sir William Watson (New 
York: John Lane Co. $1.00). Greater poems on Ireland than those 
contained within the covers of this thin volume have been written in 
the last twelve months, but none more charged with scorn for oppor- 
tunists and informed with indignation for ineptitude masquerading as 
the majestic. 

There is a felicity of characterization which equals the contempt 
for the person portrayed in the poem addressed to Sir Hamar Green- 
wood : 

No thin, pale fame, no brief and poor renown, 
Were thy just due. Of thee shall wise Time say: 
"Chartered for havoc, 'neath his rule were they 
Whose chastisement of guilt was to burn down 
The house of innocence, in fear-crazed town 
And trembling hamlet. While he had his way, 
Converts untold did this man make each day 
To savage hate of Law and King and Crown." 
Great propagandist of the rebel creed! 
Proselytizer without living peer! 
If thou stand fast if thou but persevere 
'Twill be thy glory to complete indeed 
Valera's work, that doth e'en now so need 
Thy mellow art's last touches, large and clear! 

A favorite theme of poets generally young poets of all times, 
the wooing of death as a mistress, is utilized to advantage in the verses 
written on receiving news of the execution of a young boy, who had 
delighted in the opportunity to give his life for his country. 

AUTUMN, by Robert Nathan (New York: Robert M. McRride & Co.), 
is not a story. It may be said to be a series of slight opportunities 
for Schoolmaster Jeminy to deliver himself of paradoxes and other 
words of wisdom. We say "slight" opportunities advisedly, for the 
lifting of a finger is enough to stimulate Mr. Jeminy to monologue. 
Early in the book, the schoolmaster won our heart by quoting apprecia- 
tively from a certain Canticle of the Sun, composed by one Francis the 
Happy. Many of Mr. Jeminy's utterances are beautiful, consoling and 
profound, so many that it was with regret we gradually found him 
lapse into negations, and we finally read with a sense of shock and 
disgust the apostrophe to his Maker which forced ineffective protest 
from Mrs. Brumble's dying lips. Happily, the book is entirely uncon- 
vincing, unreal as a dream, and its conclusion is unsatisfactory and 
inartistic. 

HANDBOOK OF SOCIAL RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES, 
by Genevieve Poyneer Hendricks (Washington, D. C. : The Amer- 
ican Red Cross. $1.00). An excellent reference book for social work- 
ers, put out in a most convenient form, the loose leaf, which permits of 
additions being made as desired. 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 557 

READING FOR THE WORKERS, An Undelivered Lecture, by B. F. 
Page, S.J. (New York: Benziger Brothers. Paper; 35 cents net.) 
Father Page's purpose is to encourage working people to read, to warn 
them against certain dangers in reading, and to provide substantial, 
though necessarily incomplete, lists to serve as guides in their choice 
of books. He makes the distinction between why we should read, 
theoretically, and why we do read, practically; and he uses Bacon's 
"Studies serve for delight, for ornament and for ability," as his plan. 
That is to say, we may read merely for recreation or to improve our 
style, or to acquire knowledge, either of the material order, as a power- 
ful weapon in the battle of life, or of the spiritual, to prepare us for 
eternity. An appendix contains lists of indications as to where cheap 
books on various subjects may be procured. As only English and Irish 
publishers are mentioned, these lists are practically useless, for Amer- 
icans of the class addressed know nothing of the processes of ordering 
books from abroad. A similar list, from American sources, is needed 
to make this booklet worth while. 

A WEEK-END RETREAT, by Charles Plater, S.J. (St. Louis: B. 
Herder Book Co. 75 cents net.) The week-end retreat has be- 
come a firmly established practice among devout lay people, greatly to 
their spiritual enjoyment and benefit. In this small volume of sixty 
pages, Father Plater, S.J., has gathered together a series of consider- 
ations for the benefit of those who wish to make a week-end retreat. 
The book will be found especially helpful to beginners in this laudable 
practice, and also to those who cannot attend the exercises of a regu- 
larly conducted retreat. Even these latter humans will find in this 
volume much to stimulate and assist them. 

PAMPHLET PUBLICATIONS. 

Pamphlets and small devotional books received are: The Rosary, 
Its History and Use, by Rev. E. J. McGuinness (Chicago: The Extension 
Press. $75.00 a thousand, $9.00 a hundred and 15 cents each) ; from 
the Catholic Instruction League, Chicago: Leading Features of the 
Practical Plan of the Catholic Instruction League, by Rev. John M. 
Lyons, S.J. (5 cents each), and a Catechism for First Communion, by 
Rev. Francis Cassilly, S.J. ($3.00 a hundred, 45 cents a dozen); from 
the International Catholic Truth Society, Brooklyn, How Catholics Get 
Married, by Thomas F. Coakley, D.D. (5 cents), which sets forth the 
important marriage regulations, the Law of the Church regarding mar- 
riage and the ritual for the celebration of the Sacrament, and What 
the Protestant Bible Says About the Catholic Church, by Josephine 
MacLeod Patterson; the Catholic Truth Society, London, offers Family 
Life, by Joseph Rickaby, S.J., St. John Berchmans, by C. C. Martindale, 
S.J., and The Institute of the Good Shepherd, Its Origin and Object, at 
twopence each. A small, paper-bound book of prayers, most of them 
being in verse, entitled The Loving Adorer of Jesus, comes from the 
Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, Dublin, and from the Extension 
Print, Toronto, we have Columbus and the Sons of Our Lady of Mercy, 
by Rev. Raymond B. Carter. 



IRecent Events. 



France, in common with the rest of the 
France. world, has during the month directed her 

chief attention to the Conference on the 

Limitation of Armament at Washington, to which she sent as 
her principal delegate her Premier, Aristide Briand. To date, the 
outstanding features of the Conference have been as follows: 

At the opening session on November 12th, Secretary of State 
Hughes proposed a ten-year naval holiday, with the three largest 
naval powers, the United States, Great Britain and Japan, scrap- 
ping at once sixty-six capital ships, aggregating 1,878,043 tons. 
The plan specifically named the ships to be destroyed in the re- 
spective navies, and during the term of the agreement, it was pro- 
posed that no capital ship should be laid down except under a 
detailed replacement scheme, which would provide for ultimate 
equality of the British and American fleets and for a Japanese 
force at sixty per cent, of the strength of either of the others. 
Around this proposal, which was at once agreed to "in principle" 
by the countries concerned, most of the discussion of the month 
revolved. The chief objector was Japan, who wished her ratio 
to be raised to seventy per cent., while Great Britain desired the cut 
to extend also to submarines. The American delegation firmly 
opposed the Japanese demand, and France, contending that the 
submarine was the legitimate weapon of a navally weak country, 
opposed the British. No agreement has yet been reached on this 
proposal, but the indications are that the plan will eventually be 
accepted before the end of the Conference, perhaps on Christmas. 
Greater success attended the other chief topics of the Confer- 
ence, the islands of the Pacific and questions regarding China and 
the Far East. On December 10th, a compact was agreed to by the 
United States, Great Britain, France and Japan "with a view to the 
preservation of the general peace and the maintenance of their 
rights in relation to their insular possessions and insular do- 
minions in the regions of the Pacific Ocean." One of the im- 
portant consequences of this four-power agreement is the term- 
ination of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty, which was a source of dis- 
quiet to the United States and of embarrassment to Great Britain, 
anxious, on the one hand, to allay American suspicion and, on the 
other, not to offend her ally. 

With regard to China and the Far East, a nine-power agree- 
ment has been drawn up and will, in all probability, soon be 



1922.] RECENT EVENTS 559 

signed by the United States, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, 
Holland, Belgium, Portugal and China. By this agreement, among 
other things, the sovereignty, the independence and the territorial 
and administrative integrity of China are assured protection, and 
the signatories agree to establish and maintain the principal of 
equal opportunity for the commerce and industry of all nations 
throughout Chinese territory. As a result of these two treaties, 
many vexing questions are expected to be laid, and the success of 
their negotiation has cleared away several obstacles to the signing 
of the naval limitation proposal. 

In a speech at the Conference dealing with the question of 
land disarmament, Premier Briand declared that France intended 
to follow out her plan of reducing her present army fifty per cent, 
with a term of enlistment of eighteen months instead of three 
years, and that this was the utmost to which she could go in the 
absence of specific treaties guaranteeing her integrity against 
German attack. This, for the time being, blocked the Italian 
proposal for the consideration of a plan of land disarmament. 
Immediately after his speech before the Conference, the French 
Premier sailed for home, and since then he has been given a vote 
of confidence by the Senate. The Chamber of Deputies agreed to 
postpone the foreign policy debate until after the close of the 
Washington Conference. 

Differences between the French and English viewpoints were 
accentuated during the month, especially by two speeches of Lord 
Curzon, the British Foreign Minister, who took France to task for 
her refusal to cooperate with other nations in land disarmament 
and for her Treaty with Mustapha Kemal, the Turkish Nationalist 
leader. This and the moratorium proposal of Germany, treated 
elsewhere in this section, aroused much bad feeling throughout 
France. The latest development in the situation is Premier 
Briand's acceptance of Lloyd George's invitation to a London con- 
ference on the matters in dispute. With regard to the Angora 
Treaty, the British position is that the French, aside from dealing 
a severe blow to Allied solidarity by negotiating a treaty with 
Mustapha Kemal, have caused the Turks to assume a highly un- 
compromising attitude, which is likely to render extremely diffi- 
cult any mediation with the Greeks on moderate terms. 

It has been estimated that a billion francs annually would be 
saved through the reduction of military service in France to 
eighteen months. Five hundred million francs was considered as 
the cost of maintaining the soldiers for the period after eighteen 
months' service, while an equal amount was lost on account of the 
presence of young workers in the army. The law now under 



560 RECENT EVENTS [Jan., 

| 
consideration would reduce the army to half that of 1913, or about 

170,000 men. It stipulates that the Government may maintain 
troops in service beyond the regular period when exceptional cir- 
cumstances require it, but as soon as these circumstances dis- 
appear, the number must be reduced to that which two-year serv- 
ice would yield. Reductions in the army already have begun with 
the disbanding of certain regiments and the liberation of certain 
categories of soldiers. 

The great strike of French textile workers, which has been in 
progress in the Lille district for eleven weeks, was brought to a 
close early in November. Many of the strikers had returned to 
work a week or more earlier, in spite of intimidation and the des- 
perate efforts of their leaders to induce them to continue the 
struggle. The dispute arose in consequence of the employers 
having decided, following the general fall in commodity prices, 
to cease the payment of part of the extra money allowed in respect 
of the high cost of living. Most of the strikers, in spite of their 
leaders' appeals, accepted, as a compromise, a reduction of this 
allowance by fifteen centimes an hour. 

The first referendum among the inhabitants of the Somme 
district, in which it is proposed to rebuild eleven villages with 
German labor, has resulted in a favorable vote for the experiment. 
There appears, however, to be some doubt as to whether all the 
people involved fully understood what was proposed, and a new 
vote is to be taken before M. Loncheur, Minister of Reconstruction, 
makes a final decision to put the plan in operation. 

After a number of sessions, the Council of the League of Na- 
tions at Paris, on November 18th, finally settled the dispute which 
has been going on for four months between Jugo-Slavia and Al- 
bania. Both countries agreed to desist from military aggression 
and to accept the decision of the Allied Council of Ambassadors 
delimiting the boundary line between them. 

The Polish-Lithuanian dispute over Vilna was apparently 
settled on November 16th, when the Polish Assembly, by a small 
majority, voted to adopt President Pilsudski's plan, providing for 
the incorporation of Vilna into a Middle-Lithuanian State. The 
Government won only after a hard fight on the threatened crisis 
which would be brought upon the country by the resignation of 
President Pilsudski, in the event his plan was not adopted. Presi- 
dent Pilsudski actually did hand in his resignation last month 
because of opposition to his plan, but it was not accepted. He 
thereupon decided not to press the bill for the time being, allow- 
ing it to go on the Diet's calendar, subject to ordinary procedure. 

The League of Nations Secretariat at Geneva has issued a call 



1922.J RECENT EVENTS 561 

for the members of the International Court of Justice to meet at 
The Hague on January 30th. Formal opening of the Court is ex- 
pected in February. 

The chief German news of the month con- 
Germany, cerns the bad financial situation and the 
untiring, but fruitless, efforts of the Gov- 
ernment to obtain from the Allies easier terms of payment on the 
reparation account. The Guarantees Commission, the sub-com- 
mittee of the Reparations Commission, which went to Berlin the 
middle of last month, remained till the end of November and 
gathered a vast mass of data on German raw materials, produc- 
tivity, labor, wages and the country's financial status. One of 
the most important phases of the investigation had to do with 
currency inflation and the decline of the mark. It is interesting to 
note that since the reparations payments began last May, the out- 
standing paper money circulation in Germany jumped from 
69,724,403,000 marks to 91,347,101,000 marks for the week ending 
October 31st. A comparison with pre-war issues shows even more 
pronouncedly the extent of inflation. For instance, in the week 
ending July 25, 1912, the paper money issue aggregated only 
1,004,260,000 marks. The same week of 1913 it was 1,826,920,000 
marks and in 1914 it was 1,890,893,000. The week of November 6, 
1916, it had jumped to 7,246,260,000. The same week, a year later, 
it was 10,403,740,000 marks, and two years later it had gone to 
16,959,260,000. The week of May 24, 1919, it was 27,280,480,000, 
and the same week in 1920 it reached 49,127,540,000 marks. 

On the return of the sub-committee to Paris, the Reparations 
Commission telegraphed the German Government its unanimous 
decision on the January and February installments of the indem- 
nity, aggregating 775,000,000 gold marks, failure to pay which will 
entail grave results to Germany. The Commission urged that the 
Government either obtain necessary funds from its own nationals 
who possess foreign moneys, or negotiate with foreign lenders. 
The opinion was expressed that the fall of the mark was due to the 
Government's failure to take steps to balance the budget, increas- 
ing internal expenditures and the issuance of unnecessary paper. 

The Commission also decided to appoint an international com- 
mittee of bankers to advise the Commission on the best means of 
preventing future reparation payments from disastrously affecting 
international exchange. This Committee will consist of exchange 
experts from the banks of France, England and Belgium, as well 
as bankers from other European countries. 

The need for the new Committee was demonstrated when the 
first billion of the indemnity was paid, on which occasion the ex- 

VOL. cxiv. 36 



562 RECENT EVENTS [Jan., 

change markets of the world simply "went to pieces." It was 
foreseen that succeeding payments might cause even more harm 
unless some scheme was devised which would prevent the normal 
markets from being disturbed. The experts will determine this 
scheme, and it is said that every effort will be directed to keep the 
payments from being made in the currency of any one country. 

In her attempt to secure a modification of the indemnity 
terms, Germany, during the month, sent to London two of her 
chief men, Herr Stinnes, the industrial magnate, and Dr. Walter 
Rathenau, the former German Minister of Reconstruction. To 
Germany's plea for a moratorium, France has offered strong oppo- 
sition, while England seems more favorably disposed to lighten the 
burden. Negotiations are now going on between the reparations 
officials of France and Great Britain, and the responsible author- 
ities of both countries virtually agree that Germany must be 
given some sort of breathing spell. While Germany will be re- 
quired to meet the January and February payments, a plan is 
now being worked out which will grant an extension of time on 
subsequent payments, probably for a period of at least three years. 
During that time, it is proposed that Germany pay for the raw 
materials she buys from the proceeds of the foreign loans in con- 
templation. The proceeds of these foreign German loans, which 
are expected to find a ready market because they will carry the 
indorsement of the Allied Governments, will be split up between 
the Allies and Germany. Three-fourths of the money raised, will 
be paid to the Allies on the war bill. One-fourth, which goes to 
Germany, is expected to be enough to help Germany put her finan- 
cial house in order. 

Discussion has begun in the Reichstag of the new Wirth tax 
programme, which is calculated to yield 95,000,000,000 marks an- 
nually, about the same amount as Germany's total war debt. 
The new programme, if it is adopted, and if its yield reaches ex- 
pectations, will impose an additional annual tax burden of nearly 
1,600 marks on each German, which today is somewhat more 
than the average month's wages of a skilled mechanic. Partic- 
ularly interesting is the attempt at a compromise between capital 
and the consuming masses. It is calculated that approximately 
52,000,000,000 marks is to be extracted from property in the form 
of direct taxation, and the other 43,000,000,000 marks is to be 
taken from consumers in the form of indirect taxes. The pro- 
gramme apparently overlooks no opportunity in the way of old 
and new schemes for raising money, short of confiscation. 

The preliminary negotiations between the Government and 
the League of Exporters and Importers has resulted in an agree- 



1922.] RECENT EVENTS 563 

ment under which the League will place at the disposal of the 
Reichsbank sixty per cent, of foreign drafts received in payment 
for exports. The present arrangement is considered the first in- 
dication that the Government has succeeded in arriving at an 
understanding with the industrial and commercial interests. 
While the latter are fundamentally opposed to a sixty per cent, as- 
sessment, they have given their promise to this effect. The rating 
is interpreted as being sufficiently liberal to prevent proving un- 
profitable or inimical to their interests. 

The German foreign trade report for September, which has 
just reached this country, shows exports of 7,519,000,000 valued 
in paper marks, against 6,683,000,000 in August, whereas imports 
were 10,668,000,000 in September as against 9,418,000,000 in 
August. Although 40,000 tons more chemicals and dyes were 
exported in September than in August, the import surpluses are 
increasing. The May import surplus was 928,000,000 in paper 
marks; in June it was 976,000,000, in July 1,372,000,000, in August 
2,734,000,000, in September 3,149,000,000. The fall in the mark 
between June and November caused no increase of German com- 
petition, because the home market was able to absorb more than 
was produced. Even the iron industry union strictly rationed the 
export of pig iron, steel plates and wire. For the same reasons, 
export of textiles was prohibited last week. It is the opinion of 
economists that the result of a lasting recovery in the mark would 
be an increase in German competition, because recovery would 
stop the panicky home buying and release exportable goods. On 
December 4th, prices for iron rose to a point between seventy and 
eighty times higher than the pre-war level. 

On November 21st, the shields of the American Consular of- 
fices in Germany were set up outside the buildings for the first 
time since relations were broken off between Germany and the 
United States. The consuls are now ready to carry on official 
business. The German Government has been requested to recog- 
nize thirteen Consuls provisionally, all of whom have taken up 
their duties, despite the fact that the Spanish consuls, who have 
been looking after American interests, have received no instruc- 
tions to turn over the equipment to the Americans. The follow- 
ing are the Consulates that have re-opened : Berlin, Munich, Ham- 
burg, Frankfort-on-the-Main, Dresden, Leipsic, Stuttgart, Bremen, 
Coblenz, Cologne, Stetten, Breslau and Konigsberg. The change 
of the former American mission at Berlin into a full-fledged em- 
bassy has also been accomplished, Ellis Loring Dresel, the former 
Commissioner, now being Charge d' Affaires. The American Am- 
bassador has not yet been appointed. 



564 RECENT EVENTS [Jan., 

The attention of the political world in Rus- 

Russia* sia is being concentrated on the all-Soviet 

Congress, which will convene December 

20th. At this writing, delegates are already arriving and the 
Commissars are preparing their reports. Party machinery also is 
working to determine whether the Government shall continue to 
swing toward the Right. There are many rumors of violent dif- 
ferences among the political leaders. Premier Lenine is said to 
be determined to brave the opposition of the Left to the Govern- 
ment's new economic policy, and during a closed sitting of the 
Secretaries of the Communist Committees, he declared that there 
must be a strict fulfillment of the new scheme. He is expected to 
make, before the all-Soviet Congress, an announcement of new 
foreign commercial concessions. Semi-official advices from Mos- 
cow indicate that the convocation of a constituent assembly is a 
possible, though not probable, outgrowth of the Soviet Congress. 
If Lenine finds it absolutely necessary to improve Russia's foreign 
and economic relations, it is said that he is ready to call the as- 
sembly, in which he feels certain he can maintain control. 

Full payment of the food tax was declared to be a question of 
life or death for the Republic, in an order issued by Lenine early 
in December. The Executive Committees of all the provincial 
Soviets are instructed to begin a vigorous campaign for collection 
of arrears of the tax. The arrears are estimated to amount to 
about 100,000,000 poods of grain 140,000,000 having already 
been paid on a total amount of 240,000,000. If the balance is 
not forthcoming willingly, the order commands that force is to be 
employed and the recalcitrants are to be punished. The an- 
nouncement of this strong programme is the Government's reply 
to the critics who said the authorities would never dare to put 
pressure on the peasants for collection of the tax, and coming as 
as it does on the eve of the assembly of the Soviet Congress, is 
proof of the confidence of the Government, as well as of the 
country's urgent need. 

A new State bank, paying interest on deposits and operated 
on a capitalistic plan, was opened in Moscow on November 18th. 
This marks a decided step in the Government's changed economic 
policy, as the bank advertises that it will make loans to corpora- 
tions and individuals, deal in exchange and handle accounts, guar- 
anteeing them free from confiscation by the Government. Branch 
banks will be opened in Siberian and other commercial centres. 

Typhus fever is sweeping Russia with increasing violence, 
especially in the Odessa, Baku, Turkestan and Volga regions, 
where the famine is especially severe. On December 2d more than 



1922.] RECENT EVENTS 565 

2,000 typhus cases were reported in the hospitals of Moscow, and 
a more recent dispatch states that 3,000 additional beds have been 
provided to accommodate new typhus patients. Deaths are re- 
ported increasing in the famine districts, due to the food shortage. 
Advices from Astrakhan state that typhus, small-pox, cholera and 
the "black death" have appeared there, and in Galicia entire vil- 
lages are suffering from trachoma and other terrible diseases. 

From a recent report made to Secretary Hoover by James P. 
Goodrich, former Governor of Indiana, who has just completed a 
six weeks' survey in the famine area in the lower Volga Valley, 
it appears that "on account of the drought and the almost total 
failure of the wheat and rye crops in the lower Volga Valley, 
25,000,000 Russian farmers are faced with famine, and many hun- 
dreds of thousands of them will starve to death unless help is 
extended to them at a very early date." The only bright ray in 
the situation is the announcement that the American Relief Ad- 
ministration is now feeding 500,000 children. By Christmas, it is 
estimated that a total of 800,000 will be reached, and 1,000,000 
early in the new year, with a further prospect of feeding 1,200,000 
from January to August. Fridtjof Nansen, High Commissioner of 
the International Committee for Russian Relief, in a wireless dis- 
patch sent from Saratov, Russia, on December 7th, says the situa- 
tion there is growing worse owing to the exhaustion of provisions, 
but that the American Relief Administration and the "save the 
children" fund have obtained marvelous results in their work. 
Previously, says the dispatch, from thirty to forty children died 
daily in Saratov, while now the average is three or four weekly. 

The Ukrainian movement against the Russian Soviet Govern- 
ment, under General Petlura, which began last spring has 
come to an end, General Petlura, with his forces, having abandoned 
I he campaign. On the other hand, the situation in Karelia is char- 
acterized as a calm before a storm, and both Russian and Finnish 
troops are concentrating at strategic points. In Finland, a "Kare- 
lian week" is being planned in aid of the Karelians. On December 
5th, M. Tchitcherin, the Russian Soviet Foreign Minister, sent a 
sharp note to the Finnish Government demanding the liquidation 
of all Karelian insurgent organizations on Finnish territory, the 
cessation of Finnish financial, military and moral support of the 
"mutineers," and the expulsion from Finland of all Russian 
counter-revolutionists actively working against the Soviet regime. 

Recent dispatches report that the Bolsheviki have suppressed 
the independence of the three Caucasus republics of Georgia, Azer- 
baijan and Transcaucasia. This follows closely on an announce- 
ment that a conference was held early in November at Baku, and 



566 RECENT EVENTS [Jan., 

that it was decided that there should be a political and economic 
union of the Caucasus with Russia. 

The submission to the Soviet Government of General Slasheff, 
former commander of the Wrangel forces in the Crimea, and of 
other officers of the Wrangel Army is looked upon with great 
satisfaction by the Bolsheviki. This is held by them to substan- 
tiate the claim of the Soviet Government to be considered a 
genuine Government of Russia rather than the tyranny of a band 
of usurpers, as most of the outer world maintains. Moreover, 
there is considerable need at present of trained soldiers of higher 
grades to assist in the reorganization of the Red Army on a peace 
basis, which is now being carried out. In a statement, published 
three months ago, the ex-Tsarist, General Brussiloff, declared that 
he was actively cooperating in the army reorganization, and men- 
tioned the need of technical assistance, which Slasheff and his 
companions are in a position to give. 

Anti-French demonstrations, which broke 

Italy. out at Turin on November 25th, quickly 

spread to Naples and other cities, following 

publication of dispatches from Washington reporting a clash of 
words between Premier Briand of France and Senator Schanzer, 
head of the Italian delegation in America, in which the former 
was supposed to have referred to the Italian Army as "a moral 
wreck." Large crowds of demonstrators, consisting mostly of 
students and Fascisti, paraded the streets of Naples, and then 
proceeded to attack the French consulate. The most serious 
incident in connection with the demonstration at Naples occurred 
when the mob found a French flag and burned it publicly amidst 
hostile exclamations against France. At Turin, the French Vice- 
Consul was beaten by the mob, from whom he was rescued by 
consulate clerks armed with pistols. Rome and Genoa were also 
the scenes of disorder, with protests directed against the French. 
At this juncture, a printers' strike was declared, which lasted 
for three days, during which the public was deprived of daily 
news. The period of quiet served to calm those minds agitated by 
the Briand-Schanzer incident, and at the end of the strike the 
newspapers finally accepted the explicit denial of Premier 
Briand, Senator Schanzer and Secretary Hughes that any dis- 
courteous words had been uttered against Italy or the Italian 
army. As a result of the incident, the Senate Foreign Affairs Com- 
mittee is considering measures to control incoming and outgoing 
news in Italy "to prevent disastrous turbulence in public opinion, 
and also to prevent detriment to national prestige." 



1922.] RECENT EVENTS 567 

Earlier in November, severe fighting occurred first at Rome 
between the Fascisti and striking railway workers, and later at 
Milan, Bologna, Trieste and other places between the Fascisti and 
the Communists, the result of the original outbreak at Rome hav- 
ing led the Fascisti to a declaration of war against all radicals. 
Deputy Mussolini, the leader of the Fascisti, announced that the 
armistice concluded by the Fascisti last August with the Socialists 
was considered dead. Thereupon, Premier Bonomi gave extra- 
ordinary powers to the prefect of Bologna, where the situation was 
most threatening, to obtain maintenance of order, authorizing 
the use of troops. At Trieste, late in November, bombs were ex- 
ploded in various parts of the city, and revolver duels occurred 
between the Fascisti and Communists. Business men formed a 
Committee to quell disorders and operate public services. 

On December 6th, Foreign Minister della Torretta announced 
in the Chamber of Deputies that Italy had refused to sign a com- 
mercial agreement with Soviet Russia, because of the insistence of 
the Soviet representative that political questions be included. Out- 
lining the negotiations, Marchese della Torretta said that when 
Italy insisted on certain clauses identical with those in the British- 
Soviet trade agreement, the Soviet representative at Rome de- 
manded in return that Italy guarantee not to recognize the Em- 
bassy and consulates of the former Russian Government. To this 
Italy replied by expressing willingness to sign a commercial, but 
not a political agreement. 

On November 25th, Herr von Beerenberg Gossler handed in 
his resignation as German Minister to Rome, because of his failure 
to protect Germany's important pre-war interests in Italy. His 
last disappointment came when the Italian Government put into 
effect its long suspended decision to seize the former Kaiser's 
splendid villa, Falconieri at Frascati, near Rome. This, follow- 
ing the Government's decree that all remaining German property 
interests must be auctioned, persuaded the Minister that Italy 
had abandoned any idea of leniency toward Germany. The failure 
of the Italian Government to exercise more pressure favorable 
to Germany in the Silesian settlement, also contributed to his 
decision to leave. 

December 13, 1921. 



With Our Readers 



AS we are about to go to press, the prospects are that both 
the British Parliament and the Dail Eireann will vote to ac- 
cept the Treaty which recognizes the Irish Free State. 

With the acceptance of this Treaty, Ireland will be a nation 
reborn. For such a consummation, our congratulations should go 
to those who labored so strenuously and zealously to bring about 
the freedom of Ireland. Nor should we forget that the present suc- 
cess is due in large measure to those who w r orked for the liberty of 
Ireland in days long passed. Again and again, as the recent nego- 
tiations proceeded, doubts were entertained as to a satisfactory out- 
come; but suddenly the sun shone through the clouds, and our 
hopes were revived. The settlement reached is indeed a compro- 
mise, but it is a noble compromise and one that surely amounts to 
a victory for the leaders and people of Ireland. Did Ireland obtain 
all that she sought and all that she fought for? To this question 
we would have to answer: No. Did England yield only what she 
was at first willing to concede? Again our answer would have to 
be: No. Consequently, in reaching the settlement that has been 
reached, a compromise has been made, and this, no doubt, was 
the only way out of the difficulty, considering all the elements in 
that difficulty and all the interests at stake. 

What is the nature of the compromise? On the one hand, 
Ireland remains as a State within the British Empire, upon the 
same level and to the same extent as, for example, Canada or 
Australia. On the other hand, Ireland is free to govern herself, 
making her own laws, conducting her own business, having her 
own parliament, running her own schools, developing her own 
nationality, thus realizing the aspirations that have been fruitless 
for ages past. We, of America, should be able to realize prac- 
tically what this new condition of Ireland means, from our knowl- 
edge of our neighbor to the north, Canada. Anyone who has 
lived in that country or who has acquainted himself fully with 
the conditions prevailing there, knows that the Canadians consider 
themselves a distinct national body, possessing true freedom, 
claiming and exercising the full prerogatives of a State. There is 
among them a consciousness of a dignity, of a spirit, of a destiny, 
all their own. And this has resulted in the development of their 
country along successful lines so that the nation is prosperous 
and the people contented. 



1922.] WITH OUR READERS 569 

BECAUSE the solution is a compromise, it is not strange to find 
that some people, both in Ireland and England, are not satis- 
fied. These, however, are apparently the few rather than the 
many. In the. minds of some Englishmen, it is a disgrace to their 
country that she should have yielded at all to the claims of Ire- 
land, or negotiated at all with the Irish representatives. Some 
have gone so far as to say that the day of the signing of the Treaty 
was "the day of England's greatest humiliation." Among Irish- 
men, there are some who are dissatisfied because the Treaty falls 
short in its concessions and of their hopes for an Irish Republic. 
This sentiment we can understand, and we can understand that 
it is not to be attributed to mere obstinacy, but the fact that both in 
Ireland and England some are not satisfied would indicate that 
either side yielded something and that the negotiations, which 
finally resulted in the formulation of this Treaty, could have been 
conducted and put through successfully only by men who were 
possessed of honest purpose, broad vision, enduring patience and 
a love of peace. 



FROM the shores of America, there go to Ireland the sym- 
pathetic good wishes of millions who have been with her in 
her moral struggle, and who felt that they were the better Amer- 
icans because they did sympathize with a people fighting for 
liberty. The good wishes from America to Ireland are for her 
success as a nation, for her prosperity in the field of business, 
for her integrity as a true democracy, for peace within her own 
shores, for her continued fidelity to the God of nations, for her 
loyalty to the high principles that have inspired her throughout 
her struggles, so that, now the struggle is over, she may put forth 
equal effort in behalf of her own development in her own way. 
If we ever should wander in a little churchyard some eighteen 
miles from Dublin, our hearts would guide our feet until we 
should stand by the grave of one of Ireland's heroes, Wolfe Tone. 
There we would read upon the slab that marks his grave the sen- 
timent that was ever the inspiration of his life: "God bless Ire- 
land." That word expresses the passion of the Irish soul, the 
strong prayer of the Irish heart. May we not today invoke the 
blessing of God? 

* * * * 

IRELAND, for thy past, God bless thee. Thy history declares 
A the living kinship of Patriotism and Faith: thy endurance 
teaches the vitality of liberty: thy struggles impress upon man- 
kind the value of the spiritual: thy victories and thy defeats bid 



570 WITH OUR READERS [Jan., 

all men lift their eyes and hearts to the God of freedom, Who has 
decreed that the soul of a nation shall not die. 

Ireland, for thy future, God bless thee. God bless thee with 
a return of the prosperity of thine ancient days : God give thee all 
the glory of resurrection into the life of liberty: God give thee 
again the intellectual power of thy former institutions of learning : 
God give thee unity and peace at home: God heal thy wounded 
heart and comfort thy troubled soul with the triumphant fruits of 
faith, of honor, of justice and of freedom. Ireland, now and 
forever, God bless thee. 



A LTHOUGH the Daily Press and the Catholic Press have al- 
* ready given prominence to the splendid statement against 
birth control put out by His Grace, Archbishop Hayes of New 
York, we feel that our readers will be glad to have this expression 
of the Catholic position upon the question in a more permanent 
form. In these days of much distorted thinking and oblique 
views on morality, this clear-cut and definite declaration upon a 
matter that is being widely discussed is of the greatest value. We 
feel that it will be productive of great good. The statement fol- 

lows: 

* * * * 

" A S a citizen and a churchman, deeply concerned with the 
** moral well-being of our city, I feel it a public duty to pro- 
test against the use of the open forum for the propaganda of 
birth control. This I do in no sectarian spirit, but in the broader 
one of the common weal. 

"My protest is made in the name of ten national organiza- 
tions of women with a combined membership of nearly a mil- 
lion, as well as in the interest of thousands of other indignant 
women and distressed mothers who are alarmed at the daring of 
the advocates of birth control in bringing out into an open, unre- 
stricted, free meeting a discussion of a subject that simple 
prudence and decency, if not the spirit of the law, should keep 
within the walls of a clinic, or only for the ears of the mature and 
the experienced. 



Federal law excluding birth control literature from the 
mails, and the New York Penal Law making it unlawful to 
disseminate information on the subject, reflect the will of the 
people most emphatically. The latter law was enacted 'under 
the police power of the Legislature for the benefit of the morals 
and health of the community.' I submit that illegal information 



1922.] WITH OUR READERS 571 

was given and the law made a mockery of by clever evasion at the 
meeting held in the Town Hall, October 27th, under the auspices of 
the Voluntary Parenthood League. The holding of this meeting 
evidently has been lost sight of by the public. The stenographic 
report of that meeting disclosed to me illegal information on the 
subject that I never had before. Representative women of this 
city, all citizens and working for the social welfare of the com- 
munity, have requested me to endorse their protest against such 
future public expressions. I do so now publicly. 

* * * * 

law of God and man, science, public policy, human expe- 
rience are all condemnatory of birth control as preached by 
a few irresponsible individuals, without endorsement or approval, 
as far as I know, of a reputable body of physicians or medical 
society whose province it is to advise the public on such matters. 

"The tenets of birth control are in direct opposition to the 
opinion of most distinguished scientists of the world, who have 
been aroused to make a serious study of the causes of the impend- 
ing deterioration of the race as foreseen by well-known biologists. 

"At the recent international Congress of Eugenics held in 
New York last September, prominent scientists in attendance em- 
phasized the necessity, if the race was to be better born, of the 
protection of monogamous marriage with limitation of divorce; 
more children in the families of the well-to-do as a moral duty, 
earlier marriages, a more sheltered life for mothers, better safe- 
guards against the marriage of imbeciles and insane, and unselfish 
devotion to the family as a patriotic duty. Major Leonard Darwin 
stated advisedly that 'there ought to be a great moral campaign 
against the exaggerated regard for personal comfort and social 
advancement, which now dictates the limitation of families.' 

* * * * 

"T TUMAN experience confirms all this: physicians have found 
*1 that, on the average, successive children in a family are 
stronger and healthier up to the fifth or sixth in succession; and 
that those marked with special genius are very often born after 
the fifth in the family. The seventh child has been regarded 
traditionally with some peoples as the most favored by nature. 
Benjamin Franklin was the fifteenth child; John Wesley, the 
eighteenth; Ignatius Loyola, the eighth; Catherine of Siena, one 
of the greatest intellectual women that ever lived, was the twenty- 
fourth. It has been suggested that one of the reasons for the lack 
of genius in our day is that we are not getting the ends of the 
families. Moreover, vital statistics of New South Wales show 
that mothers of five to seven children live longest, while Alexander 



572 WITH OUR READERS [Jan., 

Graham Bell asserts that the greatest longevity occurred in fam- 
ilies of ten or more children. The voice of Theodore Roosevelt 
still echoes throughout the world in his strong denunciation of 
race suicide and the sins against the cradle. His love of family 
life remains one of the most wholesome memories of his noble 
character. 

# * * * 

R public policy, in the spirit of 'safety first/ must set its 
face against the methods of birth control propaganda, just 
because this movement as conducted is one of the serious dangers 
of our disordered times. This month's issue of a current review 
carries an indictment which states: There is something almost 
terrifying in some of the criticisms now being passed on American 
life by American thinkers.' James M. Beck, Solicitor General of 
the United States; Owen Johnson, the novelist, and Mary Roberts 
Rinehart, the writer, warn against the lawlessness and the irre- 
sponsibility of our day with the new 'freedom and changing 
standards.' (Current Opinion, p. 617.) 

"Confronted with such social problems as the gangster, the 
drug addict, girl traffic and the like, our welfare agencies, public 
and private, are sadly depressed to see tolerated for a moment the 
danger of spreading, among our unmarried youth of both sexes, 
the immoral lure of passion and irresponsibility lurking in the 
present birth control advocacy that aims at making the marriage 
relation more lustful and less fruitful. Social evils hardly imag- 
inable will follow in quick order and with terrible consequences. 

* * * * 

ur T^HE Catholic Church's condemnation of birth control (except 
it be self-control) is based on the natural law, which is the 
eternal law of God applied to man, and commanding the preserva- 
tion of moral order and forbidding its disturbance. Therefore, 
the Church has but one possible thing to do, namely, to accept 
and obey the will of the Supreme Lawgiver. 

"May Divine Providence inspire America to fix its canon 
against self-slaughter at the very source of human life, lest the 
sacred and highest end of the family mother and child vanish 
from our homes, and the stranger, alien to the American ideal, 
who, however, obeyed God's command to increase and multiply, 
will enter to possess the land." 



LATELY, and principally through the activity of the National 
Educational Association and the National Americanism Com- 
mission of the American Legion, a week was set aside for the con- 



1922.] WITH OUR READERS 573 

sideration, throughout the country, of educational questions. A 
statement from the heads of these two organizations declared: 
"The attention of the public should be centred upon educational 
problems. It should be concentrated upon the need of better 
buildings, libraries and equipment, playgrounds, better school at- 
tendance, better paid teachers, longer school terms, better voca- 
tional education; better understanding of the form and funda- 
mental principles of our Government, and better and universal use 
of the English language. Special emphasis should be placed on 
the singing of patriotic songs, salutes to the flag, the flying of 
the flag from every schoolhouse, every school day the weather 
permits, and upon short interesting accounts of essential facts in 
American history." 

This is quite an extensive programme of reform that is at 
once an encouragement and a rebuke; an encouragement in that 
thought is being given to these things and a rebuke in that, in our 
enlightened country, emphasis should need to be placed upon these 
necessities. Yet comprehensive as the programme is, it fails to 
give place to the most important topic for consideration in the 
education of our children, namely, their religious and moral 
development. 

* * * * 

NOR is there reason why this question should have been omitted 
if the choice of subjects was made according to the amount 
of interest displayed in them at the present time. For, among 
many of different religious denominations, the educational ques- 
tion, which is at present to the fore, is just this one of the religious 
training of children. The mind of the country has been somewhat 
rudely awakened to the necessity of more training along religious 
lines than is given in the average home or than can be given in the 
Sunday School. For example, in the Reformed Church Review 
for October, 1921, there is an article on Week-Day Religious Edu- 
cation, which advocates the establishment of church schools for 
the purpose of supplying, after ordinary school hours, or during 
them, where such arrangements can be made, the necessary 
training in religion. We mention the article as one evidence of 
the interest that is being taken in this matter. The writer, in this 
long article, dismisses in a paragraph the parochial school as a 
possible solution to the difficulty. He writes: 

"The parochial school system does not answer the purpose. 
If all denominations should follow this course, we would destroy 
the public school and we would be without an agency that teaches 
the ideals necessary for the social solidarity of our democracy. 
The parochial school system is unpatriotic and undemocratic in 



574 WITH OUR READERS [Jan., 

principle, but nevertheless these schools stand out as an eloquent 
testimony to the sincerity of religious purpose with which the 

members of these communions regard their children." 

* * * * 

IT seems to us that it is hardly fair to dismiss in such a summary 
manner a system of schools and, naturally, the reference is 
principally to Catholic schools which does secure just what the 
writer of the article is so strongly demanding, namely, religious 
education. May it not be in place to suggest that the remedy he 
himself advocates is lacking in that very quality which the pro- 
gramme, above cited, would seem to require for the inculcation of 
patriotism, namely continuousness, daily reference to love of coun- 
try and daily acts that express such love. The philosophy of this 
is that devotion to our country should be recognized as a part of 
our daily existence, an essential feature of our life. Are we going 
to put God and religion below love of country? If so, then we 
have not realized the place of religion in education. 

* * * * 

/CONSIDERING the fact that we pay for the parochial schools 
Sr^ without any assistance from the State and do our share in 
paying for the public schools as well, they are indeed an "eloquent 
testimony to the sincerity of religious purpose" with which we 
regard our children. We do recognize the need of religion in the 
training of the young, and we feel further that any sacrifice made 
to secure that training is also made for the production of better 
manhood and womanhood and better citizenship, too. 

Is it fair to say that the parochial schools are "unpatriotic" 
and "undemocratic?" If they teach things opposed to democracy 
and patriotism, they are. But, on the contrary, if they are quite 
as active as any other schools in imparting principles of American 
patriotism, love of country, respect for the flag, regard for law, 
knowledge of the fundamentals of our Constitution and our Gov- 
ernment, then no man has the right to say they are unpatriotic 
and undemocratic. A few visits to our schools would convince 
the author that these things are not neglected. We would ask 
the author to read such a book as American Catholics in the War, 
and then we would ask him whether or not those educated under 
the parochial school system have proved themselvess less patriotic 
than their fellow-citizens in the recent critical time of war. No, 
these old charges against the parochial school are without founda- 
tion and would not deserve notice here, only that they are made 
in an article that recognizes the evil which does exist in regard 
to many children of America, namely, lack of religious education, 
yet refuses to recognize the merits of a system in which this 



1922.] WITH OUR READERS 575 

need is adequately supplied and in which, at the same time, Amer- 
ican patriotism is fully conserved. 

* * * * 

APROPOS of this subject, it would seem in place to call attention 
to a recent publication by the Education Department of the 
National Catholic Welfare Council. This is the Directory of Cath- 
olic Colleges and Schools. In a most orderly way, this volume 
of a thousand pages gives information in regard to all the Catholic 
educational institutions in the country. The first thought, at 
finding all these statistics gathered together in one volume is 
naturally one of wonder at the magnitude of Catholic educational 
effort throughout the land. Something like this was needed to 
impress the fact upon us. The second thought is also one of 
wonder at the magnitude of the task of compilation. Dr. James 
H. Ryan, who achieved this work, is deserving of the highest 
praise for the form, the order, the accuracy and completeness of 
the book; and he is deserving of the gratitude of all who are in- 
terested in educational matters for the results he has obtained 
and the untold labor expended in obtaining them. Here is a 
handy book of reference for anyone who wishes to secure data in 
regard to any Catholic school, college, university or seminary in 
all the country. Here, too, is an eloquent story of that "sincerity 
of religious purpose," which has always animated the Church and 
Catholic people to put forth their best efforts towards securing 
education that is complete in character. Much is yet to be done, 
but what has been done redounds greatly to the credit of a gen- 
erous Catholic people. Here, too, is one more evidence of the 
superior and useful work being accomplished by the National 
Catholic Welfare Council. 



HPO provide safely and economically for the residence of young 
A women coming as strangers to our great cities for purposes 
of study or business, is a work of importance. While, in many 
places, there are special homes carried on exclusively for this pur- 
pose, accommodations in these are not sufficient for all who 
apply. As a consequence, it is necessary for many to locate in 
rooming houses that are privately conducted. To meet this situa- 
tion in New York City, the League of Catholic Women established 
a Catholic Room Registry at their Headquarters, 371 Lexington 
Avenue, two years ago, and have found that it has been of great 
advantage in arranging for the proper housing of the newcomers. 



fiOOKS RECEIVED. 

THE MACMILLAN Co., New York: 

The Glands Regulating Personality. By Louis Berman, M.D. The Word of God. 
By Msgr. F. Borgongini Duca. Translated by Rev. F. J. Spellman. $2.00. 
Louise Imogen Guiney. By Alice Brown. $1.50. The Hound of Heaven. An 
Interpretation by Bev. F. P. Le Buffe, S.J. $1.25. Gray Wolf Stories. By 
Bernard Sexton. $1.75. Our Hellenic Heritage. By H. R. James, M.A. 6s. 
net. Great Penitents. By Rev. Hugh Blunt. The Catholic Citizen. By John 
A. Lapp. The Golden Fleece. By Padraic Colum. $2.00. The Secret Way. 
By Zona Gale. $1.50. 
P. J. KENEDY & SONS, New York: 

American Catholic Hymnal. By the Marist Brothers. $1.50. The Story 0f St. 
John Baptist de La Salle. By Brother Leo. $1.50. The Sisters of the I. H. M. 
By a member of the Scranton Community. $5.00. 
LONGMANS, GBEEN & Co., New York: 

Lotze's Theory of Reality. By Rev. E. E. Thomas. $5.00 net. Ortus Christi, 
Meditations for Advent. By Mother St. Paul. $1.75 net. The Comfort of the 
Catholic Faith. By Rev. F. M. Clendenien. $1.50 net. 
E. P. BUTTON & Co., New York: 

A Traveler in Little Things. By W. H. Hudson. $3.00. Brass, A Novel of Mar- 
riage. By Charles G. Norris. $2.00. Andivius Hedulio. By E. L. White. $2.00. 
IRISH PUBLISHING Co., New York: 

The Story of the Irish Race. By Seumas MacManus. $6.00. 
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, New Haven: 

Songs for Parents. By John Farrar. The Medical Attitude Toward Astrology. By T. 
Wedel. The Captive Lion and Other Poems. By W. H. Davies, The Journey, 
Odes and Sonnets. By G. Gould. $1.50. The Chronicles of America: Wash- 
ington and His Comrades in Arms, by G. M. Wrong; The Fathers of the Con- 
stitution, by M. Farrand; Jefferson and His Colleagues, by A. Johnson; The 
Spanish Border Lands, by H. E. Bolton; Texas and the Mexican War, by N. W. 
Stephenson; Captains of the Civil War, by W. Wood; The American Spirit in 
Education, by E. Slosson; The Age of Invention, by H. Thompson; Theodore 
Roosevelt and His Times, by H. Howland; Woodrow Wilson and the World 
War, by C. Seymour. 50 volumes. $3.50 per volume. 
THE COHNHILL PUBLISHING Co., Boston: 

Poems. By Louise Hart. $1.50. On the Sidewalk. By Roland Corthell. $1.25 

net. The Hope of the Future. By E. E. Eagle. $2.00 net. 
THE FOUR SEAS Co., Boston: 

Children of God and Winged Things. By Anne Moore. $2.00 net. Willow Pollen. 

By Jeanette Marks. 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS, Cambridge, Mass.: 

Immortality and Theism. By Win. W. Fenn. $1.00 net. 
THE MAGNIFICAT PRESS, Manchester, N. H. : 

My Own People. By Rev. Hugh Blunt. $1.50. 
PETER REILLY, Philadelphia: 

Human Destiny and the New Psychology. By J. G. Raupert. $1.25. 
JOHN JOSEPH McVEY, Philadelphia: 

Dante's Attitude Toward the Church and the Clergy of His Times. By Rt. Rev. 

J. T. Slattery. Pamphlet 
THE ALDINE PRESS, Pittsburgh: 

Of the Chivalry of Christ. By John O'Connor, Jr. Pamphlet. 
MATRE & Co., Chicago: 

Work, Wealth and Wages. By Joseph Husslein, S.J. $1.00. 
THE NEW WORLD PUBLISHING Co., Chicago: 

Hammers of Hell. By W. E. Trautmann and Peter Hagboldt. 
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, Chicago: 

Dante: Poet and Apostle. By Ernest H. Wilkins. $1.25 net. 
B. HERDER BOOK Co., St. Louis: 

Pope Pius IX. By J. H. Williams. 60 cents. Gildersleeves. By E. M. Wilmot- 
Buxton. $2.00 net. The Divine Motherhood. By Anscar Vonier, O.S.B. $1.00. 
The Formation of Character. By E. R. Hull, S.J. 50 cents. NOVK Rubricec 
in Missali. Auctore Dr. J. Machens. 50 cents. The Station Platform and 
Other Verses. By Margaret Mackenzie. 60 cents net. The Founding of a 
Northern University. By F. A. Forbes. $1.75 net. My Master's Business. By 
Rev. David L. Scully. $2.00 net. Abandonment of Divine Providence. By 
Rev. T. P. De Caussade. $3.50 net. 
GEORGE BANTA PUBLISHING Co., Menasha, Wis.: 

Source Book and Bibliographical Guide for American Church History. By Peter 
G. Mode. 



THE 




jatholie &(orld 

VOL. CXIV. FEBRUARY, 1922. No. 683. 



FATHER ZAHM. 

BY JOHN CAVANAUGH, G.S.C. 

HEN Father John Augustine Zahm, C.S.C., passed 
away in Munich, Bavaria, early in the morning of 
November 10th, his friends felt that his death 
was premature despite his Scriptural three score 
years and ten. Wise men say that stature and 
longevity are among the qualities most surely inherited, and 
Father Zahm came of a long-lived family. He once told me 
of a grandfather of his who died at the age of one hundred 
and five under interesting conditions. He had walked fasting to 
church one Sunday morning, according to his custom, received 
Holy Communion, and then walked home. While waiting for 
hreakfast, he lay down as usual on a sofa to rest, and when 
they came to call him shortly afterwards, ** zy found he had 
passed away without sound or sign. It is probable that Father 
Zahm, under ordinary circumstances, would have lived into 
venerable years for, though his life was the most laborious I 
have ever known, it was also extremely abstemious and reg- 
ular. But years ago his heart had been strained by physical 
over-exertion, and when pneumonia attacked him, he had not 
the machinery with which to fight back. 

Piety was another inheritance of his. The Zahms came 
from Alsace and were of the German rather than the French 
flavor among that mixed people. Rugged faith, hardy char- 

COPYBIGHT. 1922. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE 

IN THE STATE OF NEW YOHK. 
VOL. cxrv. 37 



578 FATHER ZAHM [Feb., 

acter, dogged persistence, honest thrift, were their charac- 
teristics. His mother, Mary Ellen Braddock, came of the 
same stock as General Braddock, famous in early history in 
America. She was of strong Irish quality pious, intelligent, 
beautiful, idealistic. I have often noted that the children of 
mixed German and Irish parentage have more than their fair 
share of mental and moral power. An aunt of Father Zahm's 
was a distinguished Superior among the Sisters of the Holy 
Cross, and three of his sisters became members of the same 
community. One died a few years ago in heroic sanctity. A 
brother, Dr. Albert F. Zahm, is chief advisor to the United 
States Government in aviation, and had a large part if not 
the very largest part after the Wright brothers in the inven- 
tion of the aeroplane. 

Father Zahm was born in the village of New Lexington, 
Perry Co., Ohio, June 14, 1851. Among his boyhood friends 
was Januarius Aloysius McGahan, the most distinguished 
newspaper correspondent of his time, whose revelations of 
the Bulgarian atrocities stirred the wrath and eloquence of 
Gladstone and awoke the conscience of the world. McGahan 
and Zahm sat on the same bench in the little log school, where 
began the preparation for their distinguished careers. When 
Father Zahm came to Notre Dame to begin his college work in 
1867, the venerable founder, Father Sorin, was Provincial 
Superior (next year to be elected Superior General), and the 
famous war chaplain, Father Corby, was President. The rec- 
ords show that John Zahm was exceptionally studious and 
successful, and he graduated with honors in 1871. Shortly 
after he entered the Novitiate of the Congregation of the Holy 
Cross, and at the end of the usual theological studies was or- 
dained in 1875, Father D. E. Hudson, C.S.C., for nearly half a 
century editor of the Ave Maria, being the only other member 
of the class. It was an auspicious day that gave to the young 
community and to the Church in America two such brilliant 
and zealous priests. 

Father Zahm's earliest tastes were distinctly for literature, 
and he had pursued the course in arts and letters; but there 
was need of a science teacher in the University of Notre Dame, 
and following the general and seemingly necessary way of that 
time, his superiors appointed the young priest Professor of 
Chemistry and Physics. The work was distasteful and his 



1922.] FATHER ZAHM 579 

preparation for it had been only ordinary, but without de- 
murring Father Zahm stepped into the breach. Undoubtedly 
neither he nor his superiors realized that upon that moment 
of necessity hung a decision that was to mean much to the 
Catholic Church, especially in our country. As time went on, 
he had to master and, occasionally, to teach geology and other 
sciences. Thus was providentially prepared the background 
for his future work. One great technical work came out of 
his laboratory experiments during his teaching days, the ex- 
haustive text on Sound and Music, since used as a book of 
reference in many State universities. 

Even in his seminarian days, he had given public lectures, 
and as a young professor he frequently published substan- 
tial and readable papers on interesting aspects of science or 
travel. These papers, while scholarly and valuable, were not 
distinguished in expression. He had not yet developed a per- 
sonal style. 

About the time his powers were maturing, the world was 
almost mad with tumultuous and angry discussion. Darwin 
had started the strife by his revolutionary doctrines concern- 
ing evolution. Many men of science outside of the Church 
had little or no Christian faith to give up, and all of them 
welcomed what seemed an exploding bomb in the camp of 
those whom they called obscurantists and reactionaries. 
Brilliant expositors of the new doctrine arose on all sides, the 
most distinguished being Huxley and Tyndall. Herbert 
Spencer, by an effort of genius, almost equal to Kant's, built 
up a philosophic system in defence of it, only to find that when 
his gigantic work was concluded after many years, the world 
had very largely abandoned his fundamental principles. 

Needless to say, both the sacrilegious delight of the scien- 
tists and the alarm felt by timid Christians were equally with- 
out foundation. As the truism universally adopted at the time 
expressed it, God is equally the author of scientific and re- 
vealed truth, and there can be no contradiction between 
science and religion, both rightly understood. It is a fact that 
some religious writers had pushed the outposts of Faith very 
much farther than Catholic doctrine demanded or justified a 
very natural outcome of the state of general knowledge then 
and theretofore. On the other hand, the scientists, bewildered 
by what seemed a fresh vision of universal principles, and in- 



580 FATHER ZAHM [Feb., 

toxicated by the rich liquor of partisanship and controversy, 
had undoubtedly advanced the outposts of science to absurd 
lengths. Between these extremists lay the field of battle, 
No Man's Land. There were sturdy champions on the side 
of Christianity, men of prodigious learning and giant intellect, 
but their path was not easy; it took time to clear the atmos- 
phere and evaluate data and strip principles bare; and mean- 
time the merry war went on. 

Into this situation Father Zahm stepped at a curiously 
felicitous moment. The best men on the side of the icon- 
oclasts had began to lose the zest of attack and slaughter. 
Moreover, they themselves were beginning to see that in their 
mad fury against dogma and traditionalism, they had set up 
an intolerable dogmatism of their own. At the same time 
the theologians were acquiring poise, had emerged from their 
first confusion and were beginning to reply vigorously with 
their big guns. 

Father Zahm's general background of scientific prepara- 
tion, together with his theological training and his taste for 
literary expression made him an ideal protagonist of faith. 
His earliest essays as a Catholic apologist were contributions 
to the Ave Maria and the American Catholic Quarterly and to 
THE CATHOLIC WORLD, and had for their general thesis the 
harmony between what he called "the sciences of faith and the 
sciences of reason." Only a quarter of a century has passed 
since that time, and anyone who should now write on the sub- 
ject would be tolerantly regarded as an old-fashioned gentle- 
man employed in executing a corpse. But it was a lively 
corpse in the days when Andrew D. White, a man of reputa- 
tion and nimble mind, a distinguished diplomat and President 
of Cornell, was writing interminably on The Warfare Be- 
tween Religion and Science, and when J. W. Draper was pro- 
ducing his popular History of the Conflict Between Science 
and Religion. Besides establishing his thesis, these early 
brochures 1 of Father Zahm's bristled with valuable and in- 
teresting facts about Catholic men of science of the past, and 
constituted a magazine of ammunition for busy controversial- 
ists. Of the same tenor and quality was an impressive volume 
(1893) entitled, Catholic Science and Catholic Scientists, ex- 

1 What the Church Has Done for Science, and The Catholic Church and Modern 
Science. Notre Dame, Ind.: Ave Maria Co. 



1922.] FATHER ZAHM 581 

cept that problems were beginning to assume more impor- 
tance in his work and persons less. This volume, though 
much surpassed by the quality of his later work, is still of 
value and importance. 

Up to this point, Father Zahm had a united Catholic back- 
ing to support him. As long as he stayed within the old for- 
tresses and ventured not into fresh battlefields nor used strange 
weapons, he enjoyed not only a growing fame among the 
faithful, but the marked approval of all Catholic scholars as 
well. But at this time there sprung up in our country the in- 
teresting movement which produced the still vigorous Cath- 
olic Summer School at Plattsburg, the Western Catholic Sum- 
mer School (now defunct) at Madison, Wisconsin, and the 
Catholic Winter School (never vigorous) at New Orleans. At 
all of these Father Zahm was invited to lecture, and he some- 
what audaciously chose for his subject the most difficult, deli- 
cate and dangerous topics a Catholic apologist could elect. 
There can be no doubt about his honesty, his zeal or his lofty 
motives in selecting these themes. His ruling passion in all 
his priestly work was an intense zeal for the glory of God and 
the triumph of the Church. He felt that too many Catholic 
scholars in defending the Church had displayed a timidity 
which seemed almost to argue feebleness of faith. He found, 
as he went into the work of the old theologians and apologists, 
and especially the broad and profound writings of the great 
Fathers of the Church, a sweep, a power and a liberty which 
seemed equally necessary to establish in their full strength 
the truths of Christianity in our day. The problems he at- 
tacked had, through newspapers and magazines as well as 
books, sifted into the general consciousness, so that he felt 
sure an audience like that of a summer school would be both 
interested and intelligent enough to receive his message. The 
newspapers played up his lectures somewhat sensationally, 
with the good result that everybody read them, and talked 
about them; and without doubt many who considered the 
Church as obsolete as pagan mythology, were constrained to 
revise their views, while Catholics generally felt that a new 
and lusty champion had entered the lists for them. 

A result not so good was that certain Catholic scholars 
took alarm, and felt that the Church might need a defender 
against some of her defenders. Father Zahm immediately 



582 FATHER ZAHM [Feb., 

became a storm-centre of controversy within the Church; one 
influential and brilliant party attacking him with spirit, while 
another, not so large, but probably more brilliant, as ardently 
defended him. The volume which contains the earliest of 
these lectures is entitled, Bible, Science and Faith, and deals 
with such problems as the days of Genesis, the universality of 
the deluge and the age of the human race. That volume still 
remains the best statement on these subjects in English from 
a Catholic scholar. Of the same period is Scientific Theory 
and Catholic Doctrine, which focused itself more particularly 
on the subject of evolution, the head and front of the phalanx 
of scientific difficulties. Father Zahm was evidently crystal- 
lizing into the mental attitude which was soon to produce the 
greatest of his apologetic works, the climax of this period of 
his life, Evolution and Dogma. 

It required the courage of a superman for a priest to at- 
tack this question with the plainness and freedom of the 
ancient Fathers. Theology has become a highly organized 
science since their time, and there is a natural tendency in 
any ancient human thing to mistake ruts for roots and prej- 
udices for principles. One considerable group of learned and 
well-meaning men was sure to be affronted by the boldness 
of this modern knight. More than that. Those who think 
theologians are a pacific, esoteric, compact and always har- 
monious group of thinkers know little of the tribe. That 
would be true if the Church were what some of her critics 
proclaim her to be, a purely human institution, dealing in 
quackery and deception, and with an astute and avaricious 
priesthood profiting by the credulity of the faithful. But the 
passion of the Catholic theologian is for truth. And he is 
seemingly just as delighted to catch a fellow- theologian nap- 
ping, in order that he may especially if he belongs to a dif- 
ferent religious Order acquire heavenly merit and perform 
an act of fraternal charity by giving a brotherly correction in 
clear and vigorous terms, as a football player is to recover the 
ball when his adversary fumbles it. If people only under- 
stood the vigilance theologians have exercised against each 
other through all the centuries from the earliest days of the 
Church, there would be less talk about innovations of doctrine 
and accretions and corruption of primitive Christianity. 
Father Zahm's position regarding evolution was clearly within 



1922.] FATHER ZAHM 583 

the limits of regular Christian hermeneutics. He was as far 
from the materialistic theories associated with the modern 
anti-Christian movement as the drowsiest or most inquisitorial 
of his critics. But the controversy soon passed beyond the 
limits of America. His works were translated into French, 
Italian and Spanish, and he was as widely read in Europe 
and South America as he was in the United States. Non- 
Catholic scholars wrote of them in magazines and heterodox 
divines discussed them in university lectures. Controversy 
waxed furious and sometimes frenzied. One great Catholic 
publicist of international repute and of terrible that is just 
the right word influence in Rome, wrote a series of articles, 
proving to his own satisfaction that Father Zahm was an 
"atheist, a Materialist and a Modernist." Meantime, the gentle 
priest, whose heroic militancy for Christ was the cause of all 
this clamor, remained placid and pacific among his books. 
He knew how high was his purpose, how pure his intentions, 
and he was content to leave the result to the infallible arbiter 
of Faith. Beyond doubt, there was a large and clamorous 
party demanding that Evolution and Dogma should be placed 
on the Index. It was a close call, but it was never 
placed there; 2 and Father Zahm had the serene satisfaction 
before his life closed of finding the views he so courageously 
and clearly defended, accepted as the commonplaces of Cath- 
olic controversy by many of the same school of apologists 
who hurled theological brickbats at his devoted head a quar- 
ter century ago. 

Most of us who knew Father Zahm intimately, believed 
that he had prophetic instincts. He was a real seer, and 
people who see, always look ahead. Among other enthu- 
siasms of his from his youth was a burning zeal for the higher 
education of women. He did more than his share locally at 
Notre Dame to promote it, and with voice and pen labored 
incessantly to arouse a similar enthusiasm in others. Women 
and Science was a passionate defiance of the general belief 

1 Americans learned how reasonable and necessary is the function of the Index 
during the recent War, when anything likely to weaken morale or provoke dissension 
was vigorously suppressed. The distinguished Dominican, Father Esser, an official 
of the Index, once told me, in speaking of Father Zahm, that among the functions 
of the Congregation is the suppression of books calculated to arouse undue contro- 
versy among Catholics. The Italian translation of Evolution and Dogma seemed 
likely to do that, so Father Zahm, to use his own words, "voluntarily withdrew" it 
in 1900. 



584 FATHER ZAHM [Feb., 

that women are, by divine arrangement, incapable of orig- 
inal or creative mental work. Similarly, Great Inspirers was 
the story of the inspirational power of Beatrice as revealed in 
Dante, and of the holy women who labored with St. Jerome 
in Rome and Bethlehem. Both volumes are written with elo- 
quence and fervor. Few men that ever lived had a more ex- 
alted conception of Christian womanhood. It was partly the 
result of a beautiful idealism that ran through all his life and 
work and thought and speech. It was partly a spiritual re- 
finement which came to him from his intense love of Our 
Lady, and it was partly a flowering of his sensitive and deli- 
cate purity of mind. He shrank from any suggestion of 
coarseness of thought, word or behavior as from a blow. This 
strong man, who recoiled not from battle nor from labor, was 
as delicate-minded as a girl. But he went beyond that and 
believed in the power as well as the beauty of woman's mind. 
He has undoubtedly written greater books, but none more 
pleasing and inspiring than these two which deal with the 
soul of woman. 

Another phase of his work yielded a cycle of books so 
different and so brilliant as to make one marvel they could 
come from the same mind. In 1906 Father Zahm, long famil- 
iar with Mexico, made his first trip to South America. Four 
years later, the Appletons published the first of a series of 
delightful and universally admired works from the pen of 
"Dr. H. J. Mozans." The general title of the trilogy was Fol- 
lowing the Conquistador es, and the special titles were Up the 
Orinoco and Down the Magdalena (1910), Along the Andes 
and Down the Amazon (1912), and In South America's South- 
land (1916). American book reviewers were startled out of 
their usual perfunctory praise to exclamations of enthusiasm 
and rapture. The most frigid and parsimonious critics in 
England, with startling unanimity, used the words delightful, 
amazing, eloquent, erudite. The jaded palates of fastidious 
readers found a curiously piquant flavor in these books. 
Catholic editors and scholars wrote in superlative praise of 
this fresh discoverer of the continent of South America. But 
who was H. J. Mozans? One day Monsignor Joseph H. Mc- 
Mahon of New York, a scholar of taste and culture, wrote to 
the Appletons, asking for information about him for the pur- 
pose of preparing a literary appreciation of the books. The 



1922.] FATHER ZAHM 585 

Appletons replied that the identity of the author must remain 
a secret by his own desire, but they courteously offered to 
send a photograph, and the Monsignor at once recognized the 
familiar features of his old friend. Father Zahm told me that 
in his youth he always signed his name Jno. S. 3 Zahm, and H. 
J. Mozans is merely a transliteration of that form. 

What induced an author who had already attained world- 
wide fame for writings published under his own name, to 
relinquish that great advantage and challenge destiny afresh 
under a pseudonym? I happen to know that Father Zahm 
had sound personal reasons for wishing to keep his first jour- 
ney to South America a secret for a time. But the explana- 
tion he himself gave was that these books, if presented frankly 
as the work of a priest, would not appeal so convincingly to 
the non-Catholic public, since they were so completely a 
glorification of the Church in South America, a vindication of 
the clergy through their works, and a sympathetic portrait of 
Catholic Latin-Americans. No one will question the wisdom 
of his course, as none can doubt the thoroughness of his 
success. 

Here again, Father Zahm's scientific background did him 
excellent service. Not alone cathedrals, churches, convents, 
monasteries and schools, but the fauna and flora of the conti- 
nent, the museums and scientific establishments, the intel- 
lectual movements among the clergy especially, the natural 
richness of mines and agriculture, and particularly the 
romance and heroism of missionaries and explorers, received 
full justice in his sparkling and flashing pages. Colonel 
Roosevelt, who wrote an enthusiastic introduction to the sec- 
ond volume of the trilogy, expresses astonishment at his 
scientific and historical knowledge, but especially at his amaz- 
ing richness of literary allusion and poetic quotation from 
writers in many languages. In these three books, Father 
Zahm reached the perfect flowering of his literary style. His 
admirers had watched it grow from his earliest works, wherein 
it showed the unflavored dryness and correctness of a com- 
mercial document, into the habit of picturesque thinking and 
colorful phrasing, unto a richness and a pageantry of glorious 
words, a rhetorical costuming which clothed remote, abstract 
and scholarly things with beauty and splendor. From a 

* Stanislaus, an abandoned middle name. 



586 FATHER ZAHM [Feb., 

purely literary point of view, these books marked the peak 
of his large and variegated life work. Seemingly as a pastime 
and between whiles, he published The Quest of El Dorado, in 
which he made complete and final disposition of one of the 
most fascinating and elusive themes connected with the earliest 
exploration days. 

He was an enthusiastic student of Dante, and for more 
than thirty years it was one of his daily pieties to read a 
canto of the Divine Comedy in the original. He assembled at 
Notre Dame one of the three largest (probably the most rare 
and valuable) of the Dante libraries in America. He rum- 
maged through every second-hand bookstore in Italy to make 
this collection, and one of his unfulfilled plans was to write 
the definitive Life of the great Florentine in English. 

During the past six years, Father Zahm was occupied with 
a volume which he frequently assured me was to be his best 
performance. Though living intimately with him in com- 
munity life, walking and talking with him every day, I never 
could learn from him just what was the subject of this great 
final effort. Nearly every day a large parcel of books would 
be delivered at his room from the Congressional Library, and 
I knew in a general way that he was writing on some such 
subject as the present-day status of Christians in Bible lands. 
The manuscript was ready for the publishers two months ago, 
but he wanted to visit the Levant again to freshen his eyes 
with local color and to verify intimate and important data and 
bring them up-to-date He enjoyed a delightful and reju- 
venating journey from Washington to Munich, visiting old 
friends and familiar haunts on the way. At Dresden, in a cold 
hotel, he contracted laryngitis, and shortly after he reached 
Munich, pneumonia set in. Father Zahm's health had been 
failing for three or four years. A famous specialist in New 
York had said his heart must have undergone a severe strain, 
and attributed it to the superhuman effort he made thirty-five 
years earlier in climbing the Mexican volcano, Popocatepetl. 
It had seldom, or perhaps never, been done by any traveler be- 
fore, but that was only another reason why Father Zahm wanted 
to do it. And now, thirty five years later, Popocatepetl, with 
the relentlessness of material nature, was having his revenge. 
On November 10th, after only a few days of serious illness, 
Father Zahm passed away with all the rich consolations of 



1922.] FATHER ZAHM 587 

that Faith which, throughout life, he had tenderly loved 
and to the defence of which he had dedicated his brilliant 
mind. 

His personal characteristics were interesting. A spare 
hardy frame of middle stature had been disciplined to an 
iron toughness by a love of adventure, by travel in hard 
places and among primitive peoples. Few men ever squan- 
dered less energy on even the innocent "dissipations" of life. 
Though he spent many years in wine-drinking countries, he 
was almost ascetic in that matter, and he could never endure 
the smell of a pipe or cigar. He was the closest approach to 
pure intellect I have known in a reasonably long experience 
of great men. Despite his very quiet manner, he was a dar- 
ing and courageous spirit, physically as well as mentally, and 
had in his life experienced some desperate situations in the 
course of travel. Few men of his period had so much energy, 
and none had more initiative. There was about him an inno- 
cent secretiveness regarding his works and his movements, 
and he liked to surprise his friends by unexpected achieve- 
ments. His large, blue, innocent eyes bespoke the idealist. 
With strangers or others in whom his interest had not been 
aroused, he showed a sphinx-like reticence and a severely 
cold and polite manner; but as often happens, his frigid ex- 
terior was a sort of asbestos cloak to cover an unusually warm 
and affectionate nature. He easily forgave offences against 
himself, great or little, and in all ways he was remarkably 
charitable in speech and act. He loved to look at a baby, 
especially in his later years, and he had a beautiful sympathy 
with all young people. He never missed an opportunity of 
pouring his own burning love of scholarship and achievement 
into the hearts of seminarians and young priests. He him- 
self was a great inspirer. 

I have lived at Notre Dame University during nearly half 
the eighty years of its existence. I knew nearly all the great 
figures who in countless numbers, it seems to me have 
moved in and out of the campus during that long space. I 
regard Father Zahm as the greatest mind produced by the 
University in its long career, and perhaps the greatest man in 
all respects developed within the Congregation of the Holy 
Cross since its foundation. Maybe Father Zahm could not 
have laid the foundation of Notre Dame, but undoubtedly 



588 FATHER ZAHM [Feb., 

Father Sorin never could have built upon it as Father Zahm 
did. 

To the rank and file of his brethren in the community, he 
was always a prophet as well as a leader. He was Vice- 
President of Notre Dame at twenty-five, and held the office 
nine years. He was Father Sorin's intimate friend, his trusted 
counselor; I saw him hold the venerable founder in his arms 
as he lay a-dying. In 1896 he was sent to Rome as Procurator- 
General of the community, and in cooperation with the 
mightiest leaders of the Church in America, he helped (some- 
times not without peril to himself) to solve great problems 
and to direct large movements. While there he was asked to 
accept an appointment to a western bishopric, but he pleaded 
distaste and preoccupation with other work, and his plea was 
respected. Leo XIII., with whom he often talked freely, be- 
stowed on hun in 1895 the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 
In 1898 he returned as Provincial of the community in the 
United States, and for eight years labored with such energy 
and success for its upbuilding and for the pursuit of higher 
studies as to inaugurate a new and brilliant era. At the end 
of his term as Provincial he retired to Holy Cross College in 
Washington, chiefly because he enjoyed there unparalleled 
library facilities. He never wasted an hour of time, and re- 
mained to the very end a miracle of industry, enthusiasm and 
zeal. His faith was of an apostolic simplicity and strength. 
He was scrupulous, especially in his later years, about reli- 
gious exercises, and there was a beautiful note of tenderness 
in his personal piety. He knew and mingled with many of the 
greatest men of his period Popes, prelates, the lights of lit- 
erature, the savants of science. But those to whom he most 
generously gave his heart and from whom he received the 
most beautiful affection and the strongest loyalty, were the 
religious brethren whom he inspired and guided by word and 
work for half a century. 



THE COUNCIL OF TRENT UNDER PIUS IV. 3 

BY BERTRAND L. CONWAY, G.S.P. 




BOUT twenty-five years ago the Gorres Society of 
Germany began the monumental work of pub- 
lishing, in twelve quarto volumes of about one 
thousand pages each, the complete series of docu- 
ments relating to the Council of Trent. These 
volumes are to contain the Diaries of Severolo, Massarelli and 
Seripando (three volumes), the Ada of the Council (six vol- 
umes) , the letters of the Popes, legates, bishops and theologians 
interested in the Council (two volumes), and the various treat- 
ises of the theologians written on occasion of the Council (one 
volume). Six of these volumes have already appeared, and 
now that the Great War is over the other six will follow 
shortly. 

A new edition of the Ada was absolutely necessary, for 
Father Theiner's arbitrary editing rendered his edition prac- 
tically useless from the standpoint of scholarship. Besides 
he knew nothing of the Ada of Massarelli, the Secretary-Gen- 
eral of the Council, which recorded the vota of the various 
congregations and the speeches made at every session. 

The present volume Volume VIII. deals with the first 
period of the concluding sessions of the Council held during 
the Pontificate of Pope Pius IV. It comprises Sessions XVII.- 
XXII., from January 18 to September 17, 1562. Luckily, the 
editor, Monsignor Ehses, had most of the present volume com- 
piled before the late war compelled him to leave Rome (1915). 
His enforced exile in Germany, instead of hindering his work, 
gave him an opportunity of consulting many manuscripts of 
importance in the libraries of Berlin and Munich. 

The first part of this volume (pages 1-286), styled Ada 
ante Concilium, records the efforts of Pius IV. to bring about 
a reassembling of the Council of Trent, which, for political 
reasons, had not met since January 25, 1552 ten years before. 

l Concilti Tridentini Actorum Pars Quinta. Complectens acta ad praeparandum 
concilium, et sessiones Anni 1562 a prima (XVII.) ad sextam (XXII.). Colleglt, edidit, 
illustravit Stephanus Ehses. Freiburg: Herder. $26.00. 



590 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT UNDER PIUS IV. [Feb., 

The Pope wrote letter after letter to the Catholic princes 
Ferdinand I. of Austria, Philip II. of Spain, Sebastian of Por- 
tugal, Francis II. and his successor, Charles IX. of France and 
Mary, Queen of Scots urging their hearty cooperation in 
making the Council a success. He sent two special nuncios 
Commendone and Delphino to Germany, inviting the Luth- 
eran princes to attend the Council, and promising them an 
ample safe-conduct. England, Sweden and Denmark were 
not forgotten, although, as events soon proved, there was never 
the slightest chance of any Protestant prince accepting the 
Pope's sincere and well-meant invitation. 

The German princes, in their reply to the Papal nuncios at 
Naumberg, February 6, 1561, declared that they would attend 
if the Pope consented to certain impossible conditions, viz., 
that the Council be held in Germany entirely independent of 
the Pope; that the Holy See would absolve all archbishops, 
bishops and prelates from their oath of allegiance; that the 
Bible and ancient, approved customs, "most of which were op- 
posed to the Roman Church," were made the norm of all con- 
ciliar decisions ; that the Lutheran theologians were to be given 
a decisive vote in all the deliberations; that all previous de- 
crees of the Council were to be declared null and void. 

The greatest diplomacy was exercised by the Pope in deal- 
ing with the Catholic princes, who wrote him letter after letter 
arguing about the place of meeting, discussing the wording 
of the Bull of Convocation, and demanding certain concessions 
for their subjects before they would promise their cooperation. 

The Emperor, for example, earnestly wished the Prot- 
estants to attend the Council, and for that reason objected 
to the Pope's calling it "a continuation" of the Council of 
Trent, held under Pope Julius III. Philip II., on the contrary, 
wanted this expressly mentioned at the outset, for, as he rightly 
contended, the Protestants might otherwise argue that the 
decrees and canons enacted in previous sessions could be re- 
considered a view plainly contrary to the teaching of the 
Church. Again, the Emperor strongly advised the abolition of 
the celibacy of the clergy and the granting of Communion 
under both kinds for Germany, Bohemia and Hungary con- 
cessions utterly alien to the mind of France and Spain. 

There were many long, drawn-out discussions about the 
meeting place of the Council, France objecting to the city of 



1922.] THE COUNCIL OF TRENT UNDER PIUS IV. 591 

Trent on the plea that its accommodations for the bishops 
were very poor and the food most miserable. Many cities 
were proposed in turn, Constance, Innsbruck, Trier, Spire, 
Vercelli, but after nine months of continual letter writing 
and the passing to and fro of scores of nuncios and ambas- 
sadors, the Pope finally succeeded in having all the Catholic 
princes agree upon the city of Trent. 

The Emperor wished the Pope to attend in person, but the 
Pope felt that the bishops would be freer in their deliberations 
if he remained away. The reports of his legates, he felt con- 
fident, would keep him well informed of the daily happenings 
of the Council. 

France, on the pretence that the Pope's call for a General 
Council was not sincere, was continually threatening to sum- 
mon a National Council of reform. This made the Pope very 
indignant, and he wrote repeatedly to refute this calumny. 
He even said that to call a National Council at such a time 
would be a crime. He had Spain and Austria write France 
to the same effect. 

At last, on November 15, 1560, the Pope, in secret con- 
sistory, announced to the assembled Cardinals that he had 
obtained the consent of the Catholic princes with regard to 
the Council assembling at Trent, and in thanksgiving ordered 
a jubilee to be published throughout the world. The Bull of 
Convocation was issued on November 29th at another con- 
sistory, the date assigned being Easter, 1561. As a matter of 
fact the Council did not come together until January 18, 1562, 
the bishops for various reasons finding it very difficult to 
answer the Pope's summons. 

Pius IV. appointed six Cardinals as Legates to preside over 
the Council; Ercole Gonzaga of Mantua, Puteo (February 14, 
1561), Seripando, Simonetta, Hosius (March 10th), and his 
nephew, Marco Altemps, the Archbishop of Constance (No- 
vember 10th). By April 16th three of the legates reached 
Trent, but they could do nothing, as only nine prelates had 
arrived and not one ambassador. The other three legates ar- 
rived: in August (Hosius), December (Simonetta) and Jan- 
uary, 1562 (Altemps). 

These legates must have possessed superhuman patience, 
for they had to listen for hours at a time to speeches of the 
ambassadors of the various Catholic princes, who often em- 



592 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT UNDER PIUS IV. [Feb., 

barrassed the assembled bishops by their petty quarrels over 
precedence, and annoyed them by their persistent demand for 
impossible concessions. We often have to marvel at their 
kindly, diplomatic replies to impertinent nobles, who in- 
sulted the assembled bishops by their bitter denunciation of 
current abuses. This was particularly the case with the 
French ambassador. 

The method of procedure also caused a considerable 
waste of time, for besides the plenary sessions there were 
general and particular congregations and congregations of 
the theologians for weeks at a time. The bishops indeed 
became so wearied of these protracted meetings the dis- 
courses sometimes lasted two or three hours that they passed 
a law limiting all addresses to a half hour; but their ruling 
was honored more in the breach than in the observance. 

The legates spent nine months at Trent, arranging all the 
details of the Council's proceedings. They wrote scores of 
letters to the Pope, asking his advice about questions of preced- 
ence, the attitude to assume toward the admission of Prot- 
estants, and their right to propose the subjects to be defined 
and the reforms to be passed; to the bishops of the world 
urging their attendance; to the various European courts 
urging their cooperation. They had to appoint officials- 
secretaries, notaries, committees to arrange for the ac- 
commodations of the visiting prelates and ambassadors, and 
to map out the subject matter for the various sessions. 

Before the first preparatory General Congregation (Jan- 
uary 15th), Guerrero, the Archbishop of Granada, demanded 
in the name of Spain that the first decree should plainly 
declare the Council to be a continuation of the Council of 
Trent, although this had been purposely omitted by the Pope 
in his Bull of Convocation. The legates answered that there 
was no doubt of the Pope's mind on the subject, but that the 
words had been omitted designedly, so as not to offend the 
Protestants. "Let us omit these words," they argued, "until 
it is perfectly evident that they have no notion of attending 
the Council." 

In like manner, the question of beginning with the Index 
of prohibited books was shelved for the time being, because 
a condemnation of these writers as heretical would of itself 
prevent their coming. 



1922.] THE COUNCIL OF TRENT UNDER PIUS IV. 593 

The Seventeenth Session was held on January 18, 1562, 
There were present five Cardinals, three Patriarchs, eleven 
Archbishops, ninety Bishops, four mitred Abbots, four Gen- 
erals of Religious Orders and thirty-three Theologians. The 
first legate, Cardinal Gonzaga, said the Mass, and Del Fosso, 
the Archbishop of Reggio, preached. The Secretary of the 
Council, Massarelli, read the Bulls, convoking the Council and 
appointing the legates. The Archbishop of Reggio then read 
the decree for celebrating the Council, "which was to settle 
controversies concerning religion, to restrain deceitful tongues, 
to correct moral abuses and to procure for the Church a true 
and Christian peace." 

All the Fathers present answered placet save four Spanish 
Bishops, who protested against the words, "the legates and 
presidents presiding" (Granada and Orense), and insisted 
upon the legates proposing only such matters as the Council 
itself determined (Leon and Almeira). 

In a General Congregation held on January 27th, the pre- 
siding legate, the Cardinal of Mantua, proposed the subject 
matter of the next session. He requested the Fathers to com- 
pile an Index of prohibited books, to invite the writers thereof 
to present their case in person before the Council, and to pre- 
pare an ample and adequate safe-conduct for the Protestants. 

The Fathers discussed these matters at great length in the 
seven Congregations held from January 30th to February 24th. 
All agreed upon the necessity of compiling an Index of pro- 
hibited books, but many thought it unwise to spend the Coun- 
cil's valuable time in this protracted work. Some of the 
bishops suggested that it be compiled by one or more of the 
Catholic universities, while others wished the whole matter 
put in the hands of the Pope. This view finally prevailed, the 
bishops suggesting that the old Index of Paul IV. be made the 
basis of the new. 

The second and third proposals were agreed to without 
much debate. The Protestants were formally invited to attend 
the Council, and a most ample safe-conduct, modeled on the 
form employed by Julius III. in 1552, was promulgated in the 
General Congregation of March 4th. 

The Imperial ambassadors were received in public 
audience on February 13th. They asked that no mention be 
made of the Council being a continuation of the previous ses- 

VOL. cxiv. 38 



594 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT UNDER PIUS IV. [Feb., 

sions of Trent; that matters of minor importance be discussed 
in the preliminary session (XVIII.), so that the Protestants 
might have time to reach Trent; that an ample safe-conduct 
be drawn up and sent to all Protestants; that the bishops re- 
frain from condemning the Confession of Augsburg and omit 
it from the Index. All these requests were granted by the 
legates three days later. 

The next week was spent in preparing the decree on the 
Index it was revised three times in deciding questions of 
precedence with regard to the Spanish Bishops, and in listen- 
ing to the orations of the Imperial and Portuguese ambas- 
sadors. 

The Eighteenth Session was held in the Cathedral on Feb- 
ruary 26, 1562. There were present one hundred and five 
Bishops, four mitred Abbots, six Generals of Religious Orders 
and fifty Theologians. The Patriarchs of Jerusalem said the 
Mass, and read the decree "inviting and exhorting all who do 
not hold communion with us to attend this Holy Synod in a 
spirit of peace and reconciliation. It called special attention 
to the need of an Index of prohibited books : "It (the Council 
of Trent) has thought good that bishops specially chosen for 
this purpose, should carefully consider what decrees should 
be passed in the matter of censures and of books, and to report 
in due time to this Holy Synod, so that it might more easily 
separate the various and strange doctrines as cockle from the 
wheat of Christian truth, and might more conveniently delib- 
erate and determine what appeared best adapted to remove 
scruples from the minds of many." 

The sermon was delivered by the Archbishop of Corfu, 
who eloquently denounced the widespread evil of Protestant- 
ism, and insisted upon combating it by a clear setting forth of 
Catholic doctrine and an earnest attempt at reform. 

The second decree, appointing May 14th for the next ses- 
sion, was approved by all, although fourteen bishops insisted 
that the Council should not remain inactive, but employ the 
three months' interval in preparing schemata of reform. 

During the next six weeks (March 16th to April 25th), the 
Council spent a great deal of time receiving the ambassadors 
of the various European courts Francis Davalos of Spain 
(March 16th), Giovanni Strozzi of Florence (March 18th), Mel- 
chior Lassi of the Catholic cantons of Switzerland (March 



1922.] THE COUNCIL OF TRENT UNDER PIUS IV. 595 

20th), John Colosarius, Bishop of Ghonad, and Dudiz, Bishop 
of Tiniana in Hungary (April 6th) , Niccolo da Ponte and Mat- 
teo Dandalo of Venice (April 25th). Every ambassador de- 
livered an oration in excellent Latin, pledging the support of 
his prince to the Council, denouncing the evils of the Prot- 
estant denials of the faith, calling attention to the universal 
need of a counter reformation, and insisting upon his country's 
loyalty to the Holy See. 

On March llth, the legates, in a General Congregation, 
presented in writing to the assembled bishops twelve ques- 
tions of reform out of a possible ninety-three. They dealt in 
turn with the obligation of residence, the frauds committed 
under the plea of the title of patrimony, the receiving of pay- 
ment for the conferring of orders, the dividing of large and 
the uniting of smaller parishes with insufficient incomes, the 
disciplining of wicked and ignorant pastors, the visitation and 
reform of benefices in commendam, clandestine marriages, 
the grave abuse of quaestors, and like matters. 

The two articles on clandestine marriages were referred 
to the theologians on March 13th, and the other nine were 
tabled for the time being to discuss in full the important 
question of episcopal residence. The article ran as follows: 
"Let the bishops consider what steps must be taken to have 
patriarchs, archbishops, bishops and others having the care 
of souls reside in their own churches, and not to be absent 
therefrom unless for reasons just, reasonable, necessary and 
of benefit to the Catholic Church." 

The question was debated at great length, and with great 
vehemence, by the bishops in nine special congregations from 
April 7th to April 21st. From the very beginning the Council 
was divided into two nearly equal camps, the one affirming 
and the other denying the divine right of residence. The dis- 
cussion ranged around five headings: the necessity of resi- 
dence, the reasons causing non-residence, the penalties to be 
inflicted, the rewards to be promised and the means required 
to enforce the decrees if passed. 

The bishops who declared residence to be of divine right, 
maintained that the absence of pastors from their flocks was 
the chief cause of the present day evils in the Church. Quoting 
one of the false decretals of Pope Damasus (Epis. 4), the 
Patriarch of Jerusalem compared the non-resident bishops 



596 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT UNDER PIUS IV. [Feb., 

to "immoral women who handed over their children as soon 
as they were born to the care of strange nurses, in order that 
they might be freer to indulge their lusts." It is perfectly true, 
they said, that previous Councils and Popes had passed laws 
to insure the residence of pastors. But experience has proved 
that these laws have always been a dead letter, especially when 
the rich and powerful were concerned. Canonical penalties 
such as excommunication, suspension, deprivation of revenues, 
and even imprisonment in a monastery had failed for years to 
correct the abuse of absenteeism, and the rewards promised 
for residence, such as promotion, exemption from taxation and 
increase of revenues had been equally ineffective. There was 
but one way to insure residence to declare its origin divine. 
We feel certain, they said, that residence is a Divine law. 
Why not then declare and define it so before the whole world? 
The very pastors, who might without much compunction dis- 
regard residence if they deemed it a mere Church law, would, 
on the other hand, hesitate about violating it if they were cer- 
tain it was a Divine law. Moreover, there were too many 
bishops clamoring for a decision to allow of the question being 
tabled. What would the Protestant world say if the bishops, 
by their inaction, showed they were afraid of coming to a de- 
cision on this all-important matter? It was absurd to argue 
that an affirmative decision would imply an attack on the 
Pope's power and jurisdiction. On the contrary, it would, as 
the Bishop of Verona well said, enhance and strengthen the 
authority of the Holy See, which, for good reasons, could easily 
permit exceptions. 

Those who maintained the negative view were most per- 
sistent in their efforts to prevent any decree being passed upon 
this question. They declared that previous Councils had delib- 
erately refused to settle this controversy that even the Coun- 
cil of Trent had tabled it in one of its earliest sessions. If 
non-residence was the chief cause of current abuses, why was 
it that heresy was more rampant in Germany, England, Scot- 
land and France, where residence had been better observed 
than in Italy? 

Some even argued that an affirmative decision would 
favor the opinion of the Reformers, who maintained that 
nothing was to be enforced as obligatory that was not clearly 
taught by the Divine law. How could the Council, by its 



1922.] THE COUNCIL OF TRENT UNDER PIUS IV. 597 

decision, favor a doctrine that had been explicitly condemned 
by the Church in a previous session. Again, once residence 
was declared a Divine law, would not heretics maintain that 
all hindrances to that law were against God's will, such as the 
privileges of the Popes, the Papal concessions to princes, the 
rights and immunities of the regulars. Such a decree would 
destroy or at least change the de facto government of the 
Church a thing not helpful, but harmful to the Church as a 
whole. 

The unfaithful prelates, against whom they were trying to 
legislate, would not be reformed by this so-called appeal to 
conscience, for experience did not prove that men felt more 
remorse or more shame in breaking the Divine as contrasted 
with the ecclesiastical law. Set aside, therefore, they argued, 
the speculative question regarding the Divine or the eccle- 
siastical origin of residence, and put the axe to the root of the 
evil by rewarding residence and punishing absenteeism. Then, 
above all, see to it that the decrees enacted are carefully and 
conscientiously carried out. As a matter of fact, what good 
would residence accomplish, "if the bishop were present in 
body and absent in soul and care and affection for his flock?" 
An absentee bishop who provided good pastors in his absence 
would indeed be more efficient than a resident bishop, who 
utterly neglected his flock and even scandalized them by his 
immoral life. 

As the debate promised to be interminable it lasted two 
weeks (April 7th to 21st) the legates finally proposed that the 
bishops declare their views by the words placet or non placet. 
With a few exceptions, they agreed, and the final vote 
was read on April 21st by Massarelli, the Secretary-General. 
It resulted in sixty-seven for the affirmative and seventy-nine 
for the negative. 

The legates sent the result of the voting to the Pope, who 
found himself in a rather painful position. No matter which 
side he took in the controversy, he was certain to antagonize 
a most powerful faction. As usual, the Pope compromised. 
He wrote the legates that it would be better to postpone the 
question until the minds of the Bishops became calmer; they 
might then debate the question with more deliberateness. The 
matter was consequently shelved for the time being, the legates 
promising to reconsider it when the Fathers came to discuss 



598 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT UNDER PIUS IV. [Feb., 

the Sacrament of Orders. Four days (April 21st to 24th) were 
spent in discussing the other chapters of reform, but no de- 
cision was reached. For the French ambassador, de Lansac, 
wrote the bishops, requesting them to decide nothing until he 
and his companions arrived from France. A few bishops, fol- 
lowing the lead of the Archbishop of Granada, objected, de- 
claring that the bishops had no right to prorogue the day of 
the session; but the majority decided otherwise. The Council 
finally compromised by holding the session on the day named, 
but refrained from issuing any decree. 

On May 14th the Nineteenth Session of the Council was 
held. The Patriarch of Venice said the Mass, Beroaldo, the 
Bishop of St. Agatha, preached. The ambassadors of Spain, 
Florence and Hungary read their credentials, which were at 
once approved, and the date of the next session was fixed for 
June 4th. There were present at this session, besides the 
legates, three Patriarchs, nineteen Archbishops, one hundred 
and twenty-eight Bishops, two Abbots, four Generals of Re- 
ligious Orders, five Ambassadors, ten Nobles and sixty-one 
Theologians. 

Little was done during the two weeks that intervened be- 
tween the Nineteenth and the Twentieth Sessions. On May 
25th the committee of eight bishops, appointed on April 21st, 
submitted to the Council the nine chapters of reform, but they 
were not discussed until the Twenty-first Session. The Council 
on May 26th read and received the credentials of the proxies 
of the Archbishop of Salzburg, and the French ambassadors, 
de Lansac, Ferrier and de Pibrac. De Pibrac made a long dis- 
course, in which he asked the Council to declare these sessions 
entirely distinct from the sessions held under Julius III. This 
angered the Spaniards, who just as bitterly urged that they 
be declared a continuation thereof. The Imperial ambas- 
sadors were ordered to withdraw from the Council, if the 
wishes of the Spaniards were carried into effect. The Pope 
had at first written the legates to introduce the continuation 
clause, as he had promised Philip II., but on the day preceding 
the session he changed his mind, and left the legates free to 
omit the obnoxious clause if the good of the Council required 
it. This was a most wise decision, for the introduction of this 
clause would, without question, have meant the dissolution 
of the Council. 



1922.] THE COUNCIL OF TRENT UNDER PIUS IV. 599 

On June 3d, owing to the sickness of Cardinal Gonzaga, 
Cardinal Seripando presided over a General Congregation, 
which called for a session on the following day. It was 
agreed to after some debate, thirty-six bishops objecting to 
the omitting of the two clauses on residence and the continu- 
ation of the Council. 

The Twentieth Session was held on June 4th. There were 
present besides the legates, two Patriarchs, seventeen Arch- 
bishops, one hundred and thirty-seven Bishops, two Abbots, 
four Generals of Religious Orders, four Ambassadors and 
eighty-two Theologians. The Mass was said by Gonzales de 
Mendoza, the Bishop of Salamanca, and the sermon preached 
by Geronimo Raggazzone, the Bishop of Nazianzum, and 
Bishop-elect of Famogosta. The credentials of the ambas- 
sadors of the Swiss Catholic cantons, of the Archbishop of 
Salzburg, and of France were read and approved, and the 
discourse of the French ambassador read and answered. The 
degree of prorogation was read by the Bishop of Salamanca, 
and approved by all but the thirty-six prelates above men- 
tioned. 

In a General Congregation held on June 6th, the legates 
proposed five articles on the Eucharist for the consideration of 
the Fathers. They were as follows : 

1. Is every Christian obliged by Divine law under neces- 
sity of salvation to receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist 
under both species? 

2. Are the reasons which have led the Catholic Church 
to give Communion under the appearance of bread only to 
laymen, and to priests when not saying Mass, to be adhered 
to so strictly, that the use of the chalice is not to be per- 
mitted for any reason whatever? 

3. If for good cause and for reasons consonant with 
Christian charity, it be deemed fitting to concede the use 
of the chalice to any nation or kingdom, what are the con- 
ditions under which it ought to be granted? 

4. Does he who partakes of this Sacrament under one 
species receive less than if he received it under both? 

5. Is it required by Divine law that this august Sacra- 
ment be administered to children before they have attained 
the use of reason? 

The irrepressible Archbishop of Granada was at once on 



600 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT UNDER PIUS IV. [Feb., 

his feet objecting to any discussion of these five articles. The 
Council of Constance, he argued, had already decided the 
first article, and, therefore, it ought not to be discussed again. 
The other articles followed so logically from the first, that he 
could see no reason whatever for submitting these questions 
to the theologians. He urged the bishops, therefore, to pro- 
ceed at once to the consideration of the Sacrament of Orders, 
so that they might decide the important question of the Divine 
origin of residence. 

At once the Council was in an uproar. The Archbishop of 
Rossano bitterly denounced Granada for bringing up the ques- 
tion again, which so angered the Spaniards that the first 
legate had to interfere to make peace between the dis- 
putants. He calmed them with the promise that the question 
would indeed be discussed fully when they came to consider 
the Sacrament of Orders a promise which was displeasing 
both to the Pope and to many of the bishops at the Council. 
For he made this promise without the consent of his col- 
leagues, and at the same time committed the Pope to the 
policy of keeping the question open. It settled the contro- 
versy, however, for the time being, and enabled the Council 
to discuss at once the five articles on the Eucharist. 

From June 10th to 23d, the theologians held twenty- two 
meetings to discuss these five articles. Finally, on June 30th, 
they drew up four canons, on which they all agreed, and sub- 
mitted them to the consideration of the bishops. These 
canons condemned those who asserted: 1st. That Communion 
under both kinds is a Divine commandment for all Christians; 
2d. That the Church had erred in forbidding the laity to com- 
municate under both kinds; 3d. That as much is not received 
under one species as under both, inasmuch as all that Christ 
instituted is not received; 4th. That infants are required by 
Divine law to receive the most august Sacrament of the Eucha- 
rist. They could come to no agreement about the advis- 
ability of conceding the use of the chalice to certain nations, 
and after a long debate they refused to report on the question 
whether greater grace was received by communicating under 
both species than under one. The bishops debated these four 
canons word for word for two weeks, June 30th to July 14th. 
Their debates were certainly most interesting, for they proved 
how carefully every word of the decrees and canons was 



1922.] THE COUNCIL OF TRENT UNDER PIUS IV. 601 

chosen. Of special interest were the debates on the meaning 
of John vi. and 1 Corinthians iv. 1, the practice of child Com- 
munion in the primitive Church, the opposite heresies of the 
Manicheans of the fifth century and of the Hussites of the 
fifteenth, the custom of communicating under both kinds by 
the faithful of Cyprus and Candia, by the French kings at 
their coronation and by the Cistercians in their monasteries. 

Some bishops objected to any discussion on what had al- 
ready been defined by Florence and Constance (Canon 3), but 
they withdrew their objection when the presiding legate in- 
formed them that the Council had in view solely the new 
errors of Luther on the use and administration of the 
Eucharist. 

The wording of the explanation of doctrine was drawn 
up by the two legates, Hosius and Scrip ando, together with 
the Bishops of Paris, Chioggia, Ostuni and the General of the 
Augustinians. In their final form, they read as follows: 

1. "Wherefore, this Holy Synod, instructed by the Holy 
Spirit, Who is the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the 
Spirit of counsel and godliness, and following the judgment 
and consensus of the Church itself, declares and teaches that 
laymen and clerics when not consecrating, are not obliged 
by any Biblical precept to receive the Sacrament of the 
Eucharist under both species; that neither can it, by any 
means, be doubted without injury to faith, that Communion, 
under either species, is sufficient for their salvation. For 
although Christ the Lord, in the Last Supper, instituted and 
delivered to the Apostles this venerable Sacrament in the 
species of bread and wine; not, therefore, do that institution 
and delivery tend thereunto, that all the faithful be bound, 
by the institution of the Lord, to receive both species. 
But neither is it rightly gathered from that discourse of 
Our Lord in the sixth chapter of John however, according to 
the various interpretations of holy Fathers and Doctors it be 
understood that the communion of both species was ordered 
by the Lord; for He Who said: 'Except you eat the flesh of the 
Son of Man and drink His blood, you shall not have life in 
you' (verse 54) , also said : 'He that eateth this bread shall live 
forever' (verse 59) ; and He Who said : 'He that eateth My 
flesh and drinketh My blood hath everlasting life' (verse 55), 
also said: 'The bread that I will give is My flesh for the life 



602 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT UNDER PIUS IV. [Feb., 

of the world' (verse 52), and, in fine, He Who said: 'He that 
eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood, abideth in Me and I 
in Him' (verse 57), said, nevertheless: 'He that eateth this 
bread shall live forever' (verse 59). 

2. "It furthermore declares that this power has always 
been in the Church, that in the dispensation of the sacraments, 
their substance being untouched, it may determine or change 
whatever it may judge most expedient, for the profit of those 
who receive, or for the veneration of the said sacraments, 
according to the difference of circumstances, times and places. 
And this the Apostle seems not obscurely to have intimated, 
when he says : 'Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers 
of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God' (1 Corin- 
thians iv. 1) ; and indeed it is sufficiently evident that he him- 
self exercised this power, as in many other things, so in regard 
of this very Sacrament when, after having ordained certain 
things, touching the use thereof, he says: 'The rest I will set 
in order when I come' (1 Corinthians xi. 34) . 

"Wherefore, holy Mother Church, fully aware of her 
authority in the administration of the sacraments, although 
from the beginning of the Christian religion the use of both 
species has not been infrequent, yet, in progress of time, that 
custom having been already very widely changed, induced by 
weighty and just reasons, has approved of this custom of com- 
municating under one species, and decreed that it was to be 
held as a law; which it is not lawful to reprobate, or to change 
at pleasure, without the authority of the Church itself. 

3. "It, moreover, declares that although, as hath been 
already said, our Redeemer, in that Last Supper, instituted 
and delivered to the Apostles this Sacrament in two species, 
nevertheless, it is to be acknowledged that Christ, whole and 
entire, and a true sacrament are received under either species 
alone; and that, therefore, as regards the fruit thereof, they, 
who receive one species alone are not defrauded of any grace 
necessary to salvation. 

4. "Finally, this Holy Synod teaches that little children, 
who have not attained the use of reason, are not by any neces- 
sity obliged to the sacramental communion of the Eucharist; 
forasmuch as, having been regenerated by the laver of bap- 
tism, and being incorporated with Christ, they cannot, at that 
age, lose the grace which they have already acquired of being 



1922.] THE COUNCIL OF TRENT UNDER PIUS IV. 603 

the sons of God. Not, therefore, however, is antiquity to be 
condemned if, in some places, it, at one time, observed that 
custom; for as those most holy Fathers had a probable cause 
for what they did in respect of their times, so, assuredly, it is 
to be believed without controversy that they did this without 
any necessity of salvation." 

The Council then passed nine decrees of reformation, 
which forbade the receiving of money for the giving of orders 
and prohibited the ordination of clerics who had no visible 
means of support. It prescribed a method of increasing the 
daily distributions, insisted upon rectors of parishes obtaining 
assistants to help them in their pastoral work, ordered the 
creation of new parishes and the combining of smaller parishes 
with insufficient income, demanded the punishment and sus- 
pension of delinquent priests, commanded the visitation of 
commendatory monasteries and abolished the use and* office 
of quaestors. 

On July 16th the Twenty-first Session was held. Marco 
Cornaro, the Archbishop of Spalatro, said the Mass and 
Andrew Dudiz, the Bishop of Tiniana, preached. There were 
present six Cardinals, three Patriarchs, nineteen Archbishops, 
one hundred and forty-eight Bishops, two Abbots, six Generals 
of Religious Orders, sixty-five Theologians and ten Ambas- 
sadors. 

In the General Congregation of July 19th, the legates pro- 
posed thirteen articles on the Mass for the consideration of 
the theologians, viz.: 

1. Is the Mass a mere commemoration of the sacrifice of 
the Last Supper and not a real sacrifice? 

2. Does the Sacrifice of the Mass derogate from the sacri- 
fice of the Last Supper? 

3. Did Christ by the words, "Do this in commemoration 
of Me," ordain that the Apostles should offer up His Body 
and Blood in the Mass? 

4. Does the Sacrifice of the Mass benefit the receiver 
only, and can it not be offered up for the living and dead, 
for their sins, satisfactions and other necessities? 

5. Are private Masses, in which the priest and no one 
else communicates, unlawful, and are they to be abrogated? 

6. Is it contrary to the institution of Christ to mix water 
with wine at Mass? 



604 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT UNDER PIUS IV. [Feb., 

7. Does the canon of the Mass contain errors, and is it 
to be abrogated? 

8. Is the Roman rite of uttering secretly and in a low 
voice the words of consecration to be condemned? 

9. Ought not the Mass to be celebrated in the vulgar 
tongue which everyone can understand? 

10. Is it an abuse to attribute certain Masses to certain 
saints? 

11. Are the ceremonies, vestments and other external 
signs used by the Church in the celebration of the Mass to 
be done away with? 

12. Is it the same thing for Christ to immolate Himself 
for us, and to give us Himself to eat? 

13. Is the Mass merely a sacrifice of praise and thanks- 
giving, or is it also a propitiatory sacrifice for the living 
and the dead. 

These thirteen articles were debated by the theologians 
in fourteen meetings (July 21st to August 4th), and by the 
bishops later on in seventeen congregations (August llth- 
27th). There was a general agreement about the Catholic 
doctrine of the Mass, which was finally set forth in the nine 
decrees and canons of the Twenty-second Session, condemn- 
ing the errors of the Reformers. The Council taught that the 
Mass was a true and proper sacrifice; that Christ, at the Lord's 
Supper, made His Apostles priests (Luke xxii. 19); that the 
Mass was not a bare commemoration of the sacrifice consum- 
mated upon the cross, but a propitiatory sacrifice; that the 
Mass is not a blasphemy, nor is it derogatory to the sacrifice 
of the cross; that it is not an imposture to say Mass in honor 
of the Saints; that the ceremonies, vestments and external 
rites of the Mass are not incentives to impiety; that private 
Masses are lawful, and so forth. 

The only point of disagreement was on the question : Did 
Christ offer Himself for us to the Father as a sacrifice at the 
Last Supper (Salmeron, Carpeggio, Archbishop Castagna of 
Otranto, Bishop da Casale of Leira), or solely on the cross 
(De Soto, Torres, the Archbishop of Granada, etc.) ? 

By a happy compromise, it was finally decided that the 
decree should assert that Christ offered Himself to the Father 
at the Last Supper under the species of bread and wine, but 
that no mention be made of the nature of that offering. 



1922.] THE COUNCIL OF TRENT UNDER PIUS IV. 605 

On August 27th, the Bishop of the Five Churches as Im- 
perial Ambassador asked the Council to grant the use of the 
chalice to Bohemia, Hungary and the Estates of the Emperor. 
He told the Council that the Emperor's sole motive for the 
request was the good of souls who might be led back to the 
Church, if this concession were granted. There was nothing 
contrary to the faith in the demand, he argued, for, as they all 
knew, such a favor had been granted by other Councils and by 
other Popes. The question was warmly debated by the bishops 
in sixteen congregations from August 28th to September 6th. 
The opponents of the concession had the best of the argument, 
although it was evident that many of the bishops did not wish 
to take too decided a stand against the Emperor's wishes. 

The opposing bishops called attention to the fact that the 
conditions imposed by the Council of Basle and by Paul III. 
had not been observed; that great danger often accompanied 
any marked change in discipline; that the same causes that 
prompted the legislation of the Council of Constance still held 
good, viz., the danger of spilling the consecrated wine, the 
difficulty of reserving it and of carrying it to the sick, the cost 
and scarcity of the wine in certain places; that the request 
came originally from men who held heretical views about the 
Eucharist; that other nations in turn would soon demand the 
same privilege; that the granting of this concession might 
embolden the same nations to ask for other concessions, viz., 
a married clergy. 

A final vote, taken on September 6th, showed the bishops 
hopelessly divided. Some wished the matter deferred; some 
voted a flat affirmative or negative; some voted that the con- 
cession be limited to Bohemia and Hungary; others wished it 
referred to the Pope. This last view prevailed, and on the fol- 
lowing day the whole question was tabled to the satisfaction 
of all. 

On July 20th a committee of seven bishops was appointed 
to make a summary of the things to be observed and avoided 
in the celebration of Mass. They made their report on August 
8th, under six headings the Mass itself, the celebrant and his 
ministers, the vestments, the place and time of saying Mass, 
and the congregation. They called attention to seventy-eight 
different matters that needed correction, and after many de- 
tailed discussions finally passed a decree which summed up 



606 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT UNDER PIUS IV. [Feb., 

the abuses under the three chapters of covetousness, irrever- 
ence and superstition. 

On September 17th eleven decrees of reformation they 
were originally fourteen were enacted. They dealt with the 
conduct, dress and learning of clerics, the question of daily 
distributions, the requirements for promotion to Cathedral 
and Collegiate churches, the right of the bishops to accord all 
dispensations sent from Rome, the duties of notaries, the pun- 
ishment of those who alienated church property. 

On September 15th the Twenty-second Session of the 
Council was held. Pietro Antonio of Capua, the Archbishop 
of Otranto, said the Mass and Carlo Visconti, the Bishop of 
Ventimiglia, preached. There were present six Cardinals, 
three Patriarchs, twenty-two Archbishops, one hundred and 
forty-four Bishops, one Abbot, seven Generals of Religious 
Orders and thirty-three Theologians. 

This scholarly volume, like its companion volumes, elo- 
quently refutes the statement of modern controversialists who, 
following Paolo Sarpi, still repeat the calumny that the Coun- 
cil of Trent was a failure from start to finish. On the con- 
trary, it was to our mind the greatest Council in the history 
of the Church. It put an end forever to the spread of the 
Protestant revolt; it made reunion with Rome less difficult by 
its clear-cut statement of Catholic doctrines; it inaugurated 
a most solid reform in discipline, curing effectively the many 
evils which, like cancers, were eating into the heart of Christen- 
dom; it did more than any previous Council to increase the 
honor and power of the bishops, who by its decrees recovered 
many of the privileges of which they had been deprived; it was 
the freest of free assemblies, for many a time the Pope had to 
rebuke his legates because they kept asking his advice even 
after he had ordered them to decide everything according to 
the wishes and votes of the assembled bishops. 




A TRAPPIST TRYST. 

BY HUGH ANTHONY ALLEN, M.A. 

AIS, qu'est-ce que c'est que ca?" cried Frere Paul, 
the kindly porter of the monastery of Meilleraye, 
as the huge gate swung wide, staring in amaze- 
ment at the strange guest with a huge boutonniere 
of poppies. Meilleraye is the mother or the grand- 
mother of all the Trappist houses in the United States, so for 
sentimental reasons I went there first, the only American sol- 
dier up to then who had ever set foot in the place and, indeed, 
the first to peruse that isolated corner of the Department of 
Loire-Inferieure. Those were hectic and busy days, and not 
many of the nineteen thousand of us then in France, appar- 
ently, had the resiliency to go adventuring when Sunday, with 
its slight slackening of routine, came around. From Abbaretz 
to Meilleraye my journey had been a triumphal progress. 
The crazy old eighteenth century diligence might have been 
the barouche of Louis Quinze or the litter of an Oriental po- 
tentate. Men, women and children, on catching sight of the 
unfamiliar khaki under the campaign hat, enthroned in sol- 
emn state beside the cocker, ran along the lumbering vehicle 
to cry shrill, delighted greetings, to throw flowers, to blow 
kisses, to hand up bottles of old wine to the embarrassed buck 
private passing by. 

Brother Paul had seen service in Madagascar in his day, 
and nothing could have been more touching than the fine fel- 
lowship with which he bade me welcome. There is invariably 
something peculiarly refreshing about one's reception at a 
Trappist house; however else it may vary from its sisters, one 
thing is always assured, the blessed charity and simple 
friendliness of those splendid men who first peopled the vale 
of Soligny is sedulously fostered there. 

My letter from an American Trappist Father was eagerly 
scanned, and I was pressed again and again to tell of the 
struggles of les pauvres la-bas. Meilleraye has changed but 
little since the day when, at the behest of the saintly Bishop 
Flaget, the heroic little band of white-cowled Trappists set 



A TRAPPIST TRYST [Feb., 

forth from this secure, beloved haven to establish, after end- 
less vicissitudes, the first Cistercian monastery in our land at 
Gethsemane, Kentucky. The house has many fine old paint- 
ings, and at the bottom of each is the significant inscription: 
Donne par le Roi. The prayer books in the visitors' stall, 
beautifully bound old volumes, all bear an eighteenth century 
imprint. It was as though the world had suddenly stood still, 
as though only a few hours instead of many decades had gone 
by since that gallant company bade their monastic home a sad 
adieu. There was absolutely nothing about the premises to 
remind one of the lapse of time nothing, until I paused with 
the Guest-Master beside a row of newly-made graves in the 
little cemetery, at the head of each of which was a small 
wooden cross painted white and bearing the eloquent epitaph : 
Mort pour la Patrie, the graves of monks who had fallen afar 
on the field of honor and had been given this vicarious inter- 
ment by their brethren, too old to serve, but who could not 
forget, and later, in the chapel, when my aged host pointed out 
various stalls in the choir on which there were no Missals, and 
whispered, with tears streaming down his proud, wrinkled 
face, the sinister words, "Ail front." Here, indeed, were evi- 
dences of an incredible teeming present that could not be gain- 
said. As a matter of fact, despite its seemingly calm externals, 
the place was in a turmoil over the War and rumors of war. 
The monks were wearing themselves to death and withering 
like weeds before the blasts of winter with incessant prayers 
and penances offered, as this Father blandly phrased it, "for 
the triumph of justice." We were sitting in a little study, 
given over to the account books of their cheese factory, a thriv- 
ing institution producing a famous delicacy. 

"Quelle guerre!" he murmured, an infinite weariness in 
his voice, and after an interval, demanded : "Tell me of Wil- 
son! Is he sincere, do your people believe him capable? To 
me, he seems only another Grant!" 

I looked at this shrewd anchorite with new interest. This 
man was no Breton. His verve and accent suggested Paris. 
It is easy enough to understand why La Trappe finds so many 
vocations among the Bretons. For them it is a kind of drug, 
it furnishes them with a complete change, it fills their lives 
with illusion, it provides a secure haven from the pitiless pur- 
suit of that hungry, monstrous Atlantic which has dotted this 



1922.] A TRAPP1ST TRYST 609 

land of fisherf oik with Calvaires and caused thousands to walk 
perpetually in the Valley of the Shadow. I confess I was con- 
sumed with curiosity over this monk's past as he rambled on, 
reaching at last the ethical basis of the peace to come. Was 
he some politician, tired of that most thankless of all profes- 
sions, who had immured himself in this solitude on the way 
of ambition? 

"There are too many theories," he commented. "Only 
one will serve. I am reminded of that little poem by an Amer- 
ican, which likens the world to a ball lost by the boy Jesus." 

"You have read Father Tabb?" I asked in some surprise. 

"But, yes," he answered, "and there will be no peace until 
the nations heed the good Father's invitation. They must give 
Him back His ball." 

A monk came to the door and wigwagged in the Cistercian 
sign language. 

"I must get back to that eternal fromage," explained my 
host. "Come with me, if you wish." 

Meilleraye is a typical Trappist house of the more flour- 
ishing sort. All Cistercian monasteries are built on the same 
plan. While their buildings are never elegant or ornate, they 
possess a certain chaste and simple beauty. The most char- 
acteristic feature of their churches is the great central tower 
at the junction of the nave, choir and transepts. It is sup- 
ported on four arches opening on each of those parts of the 
church respectively. The transepts have each two small 
chapels, generally used as mortuary chapels on their eastern 
side. The nave is open to the public, the choir and chancel 
beyond it are reserved for the monks. The cloister adjoins 
the church on the south. Around the cloister, conveniently 
placed, are the chapter room, the refectory, the community 
room and the store rooms. Immediately above these rooms 
are the dormitories of the monks. A great Cistercian mon- 
astery is in every respect a perfectly self-sufficing institution 
with a complete staff of tradesmen and artisans. 

Until the War, Meilleraye had been a hive of varied in- 
dustry. The community produced everything that was needed 
for itself. They had food from their own fields, gardens and 
orchards, wool for their own habits from their own sheep, 
spun, woven and wrought into monastic garb by their own 
tailors, shoe leather from their own cows made into brogans 

VOL. cxiv. 39 



610 A TRAPPIST TRYST [Feb., 

by their own cobblers. While divine contemplation surpasses 
in excellence all other forms of human occupation, since it is 
the exercise of the highest faculties of the soul on the highest 
object, it is impossible to indulge in it always and uninter- 
ruptedly, man's nature remaining what it is, and so the Trap- 
pists have the opportunity to earn their own bread by the labor 
of their hands. As we passed through the corridors, few 
sounds came from the little workshops on either side. It was 
as though there had been a walkout, and so, indeed, there 
had a walkout to No Man's Land. 

From the venerable Abbaye de Meilleraye, in the lovely 
valley of the Loire, I went to the Abbaye de Hautecombe, 
which reels and totters in a beautiful old age over Lake Boulet 
in Savoy. I could no more have avoided the thralldom of its 
lure, than a flower can avoid the yawning arms of the sun. 
For a week I withstood the haunting invitation of the mon- 
astery bell, echoed with unmistakable clearness across Lake 
Boulet to my windows in the Chalet de Notre Dame des Eaax 
on a slope of Mont Revard, where, as befitted an enlisted man 
on leave, I was installed in a bed-chamber which had been 
the quondam abode of a gay German baroness. 

I would sit for hours on my little balcony overlooking the 
blue lake, a novel forgotten in my lap, staring out across the 
water at the impressive bulk of Hautecombe that rose beyond. 
Dared I risk it? Could I bear to have my illusions about La 
Trappe and my own countrymen shattered? To be the first 
Yank to visit such a place, is one thing; to go on pilgrimage 
to a monastery which for months had been one of the sights 
of soldier tourists in Aix-les-Bains, might be quite another. 
The Abbaye de Hautecombe is the burial place of the House 
of Savoy; this family contributes toward the support of the 
monks in return for the guardianship the latter exercise over 
the tombs of their ancestors, and spacious apartments are 
kept in readiness for royal visitors at all times. Shortly be- 
fore my arrival, a souvenir fiend among the doughboys had 
made off with the immense key to these rooms, and I knew 
not what other depredations had been committed. 

How had the quiet Trappists, suddenly become an object 
of interest to vast, boisterous throngs, reacted to this extraor- 
dinary interlude in their lives? I lounged around the Casino, 
then transformed into a mammoth "Y" hut, full of such in- 



1922.] A TRAPPIST TRYST 611 

nocuous delights as ginger pop and chocolate bars, disconso- 
lately watching boat load after boat load leave for the tour 
around the lake, the focal point of which was Hautecombe. 
The Casino seemed a dreary place. Corners of that palace of 
pleasure, where kings had once made love and the fate of 
chancellories had been discussed, were now given over to the 
barber-shop persiflage of Main Street, and lurking, smirking 
ministerial figures in ill-fitting uniforms who eased up to you 
and asked apropos of nothing: "Do you believe on Jesus?" 

In the end I had to go. The group in which I found my- 
self was a perfect cross-section of America. My immediate 
companions were a Jewish haberdasher from Ohio and a free- 
thinking cow-puncher from Montana. With the latter I had 
achieved a close friendship. He was one of those splendid 
types of natural nobility one met so often in the army, who 
found themselves confronted with the great adventure without 
previous instruction in any theistic system of thought, how- 
ever unsatisfactory, as pagan as a naked savage. And like 
them, through a groping, passionate longing for higher things, 
his mind was as a ploughed field awaiting the coming of the 
sower. When finally the "Y" Secretary who acted as boat- 
swain stuck his megaphone almost into my face and yelled: 
"Last call! If you want to see the Abbey, here's your chance!" 
I could not refuse when my friend gave me a prodigious jab 
in the ribs and said: "Let's go!" 

His was no ordinary curiosity. One sensed behind those 
alert, honest eyes a titanic inner fermentation of some kind. 
I had taken him with me to Benediction in the beautiful parish 
church on the previous evening, and his questions had later 
been numerous and intelligent. Realizing that God's ways are 
devious, and that sometimes fools may serve His ends better 
than the wise, I rose at once. 

"Now, fellers," admonished the boatswain in a dismal 
camaraderie, as we departed, "if you knew as much about these 
Romish places as I do, you'd know that they're all out for the 
coin. Don't any of you put more than half a franc on the 
plates at the Abbey!" 

As the boat got under way, a lady secretary mounted a 
capstan and officiated as spieler, pointing out objects of in- 
terest along the shore. This good soul was, all unconsciously, 
a kind of female Artemas Ward. Her discourse, as it flitted 



612 A TRAPPIST TRYST [Feb., 

through the avenues of history, was a fearful and wonderful 
thing. It is truly amazing how these people can make anti- 
Catholic points and specious propaganda out of the most un- 
promising material. I ventured to dispute one of her state- 
ments as we chugged by the pass patronized by Hannibal and 
his elephants some centuries since, and she glared at me as if 
she wished one of the pachyderms would topple down the 
cliffs, then and there, to squelch me. On coming abreast of 
the quay, we saw that a tall monk, who startlingly resembled 
Pius X., had come down to greet us, smiling broadly. 

"Howdy, Pere Berchmans!" called out the boatswain 
cheerily. 

"Berchmans!" sniffed the lady secretary. "Imagine a 
man with such romantic eyes being a German! I thought 
these people called each other by their first names and took a 
new one when they became monks." 

"That is precisely what this one has done," I said. "He 
has called himself after the great St. John Berchmans a 
Jesuit!" I added cruelly, watching her squirm. 

"I don't think I have had the pleasure of meeting you 
before," the Trappist said to her suavely, holding out his hand 
and speaking in excellent English. "I am Father Berchmans, 
the Superior here." 

Then he gave me a sly, humorous wink and squeezed my 
arm, as who should say: "Well, Fm glad there's at least one 
on my side today!" 

Like a fat, wriggling olive drab snake, the sightseers fol- 
lowed the monk and the secretaries up the hill to the Abbey. 
It was extremely interesting to watch these men as we rambled 
through the ancient corridors; after the horrors of the 
trenches they feasted their eyes hungrily, gluttonously on the 
beauty about them, yet they seemed, many of them, ill at ease 
and half afraid. When a cowled figure with downcast eyes 
shuffled by us intent on some monastic errand, I saw men with 
decorations for bravery on their breasts tremble and look 
furtively about them as if they expected to see the trap-door 
of some weird dungeon suddenly agape. The glow and 
warmth of the Ages of Faith, still lingering in this hallowed 
spot, undeniably touched them with its poignant appeal, but 
they held aloof, afraid of their fears. So it is to have a Prot- 
estant education. 



1922.] A TRAPPIST TRYST 613 

"Boys, we've got to hand it to the frogs for art, at least," 
the lady secretary was saying, as her disciples paused to ad- 
mire an intricately carved bit of marble. 

Hautecombe is more Italian than French, and the treas- 
ures it houses are almost exclusively the work of Italian artists 
and sculptors. I fled discreetly to the garden. Presently my 
erstwhile companions joined me. 

"What do you think of it?" I asked. 

"It's got me locoed," the cow-puncher admitted. 

"I think these men are throwing their lives away," re- 
sponded the Jew. 

After all, he was not the only one to whom the service of a 
Bernard de Clairvaux had been less intelligible than that of a 
Francis Xavier, not the only one who looked at the gift of the 
lover rather than at the love of the giver, not the only one 
who judged by the dim sight of mortal man rather than with 
the clear gaze of the Searcher of Hearts. 

"But peace must have its heroes as well as war," I pro- 
tested. "The same manly qualities and generosity of soul 
which led so many Americans to enlist, prompts these men to 
embrace the life of the cloister. Not all are called to it, 
just as not all are called forth from the ranks to receive 
medals." 

We were sitting on a rustic bench overlooking the water. 
Beyond, Aix like a fairy city, reared its milk-white walls. 

"An interesting phase of this War to me has been that 
men have been called from the ranks to receive medals," ob- 
served the Jew, puffing ruminatively at a cigarette. 

"Did you ever notice that in the old stories of valor, the 
hero is always 'an officer and a gentleman?' Homer spent his 
talent on birds like Odysseus, Menelaus and Agamemnon, or 
superior smart Alecks like Hector and Achilles. Certain tales 
of Froissart seem tame to me now when I think of the extraor- 
dinary stunts I have seen simple bucks perform, and only a 
few got recognition for them. The fact is, bravery that would 
make a Byron throw a back-flip, is now so common as to ex- 
cite no comment. People now appreciate as never before the 
heroism potent in average individuals. Wait and see," he 
added with racial shrewdness, "what a drug on the market 
American war books will be!" 

"Are you a college man?" I asked. 



614 A TRAPPIST TRYST [Feb., 

"You bet!" he answered proudly. "Valpariso University. 
I took a regular arts course there began working and scrimp- 
ing for it when I was ten years old. My father was a teacher 
in a Talmud Torah school, and mighty ambitious for me, the 
only boy of a big family. They all helped. Our little rooms 
were turned into a sweatshop. I can see my poor, bent old 
mother yet, toiling away there under a kerosene lamp and 
looking across the table at my father, over a mountain of 
little pants, to say: Wiz, maybe a woe is by all this saving! 
Maybe, when our little Jake is a great man from his books, he 
will forget us.' " 

He stared meditatively across the lake for a moment. 

"But I didn't forget 'em," he went on. "Not that I'm a 
great man, by any means. But I have been successful. I own 
my own store, which my sisters are now running for me, and 
before I left I put up the whole bunch in one of the nicest, 
most modern houses you'd want to see!" 

I made a quick readjustment of my mental perspective. 

"Do you think your father wasted his time at the Talmud 
Torah?" I ventured at length. 

His mouth shut like a steel trap. 

"My father could have gotten himself a job that paid him 
some real money. Now that we are in a position to give our 
mother a little fun, she is too old and tired to enjoy it." 

"But what would have become of Judaism through the 
centuries if those old, unselfish Rabbinical scholars had not 
held the torch of sacred learning aloft to lead the others on 
the way? Can't you see that men such as he are, after all, 
the real hope of Israel? The few may suffer in the process, 
but it is for the welfare of the multitude." 

"I suppose that's so," he assented rebelliously. "Still " 

"What men like your father do for the Jew, contemplative 
monks like the Trappists do for the Catholic. They are the 
seers who lead us along the difficult path to holiness." 

"It's a gruesome ideal of life, nevertheless, that of these 
monks. Like everybody else, I have put up with tough condi- 
tions in the army, knowing that the confounded war has to 
end soon, but to think of these men voluntarily enduring their 
routine for years and years 

"I have called them the heroes of peace, but peace, on 
earth, is only a relative term," I retorted. "There is always 



1922.] A TRAPPIST TRYST 615 

the eternal warfare against the world, the flesh and the devil, 
and so these monks must fight their good fight to the end." 

The man from Montana had wandered away from us and 
now stood in a nearby cabbage field discussing crops with a 
weather-beaten Lay Brother. He beckoned to us to join him. 

"He can talk," he said, pointing to the brown-garbed monk 
with the naive air of a child who had discovered a similar 
ability in a mechanical doll. 

It was evident that the two had become good friends. 

"Mais, il est un Goth!" cried the Brother, pinching the big 
cow-puncher's biceps. "Nous avons besoin des garcons comme 
celui-la!" 

"I'm afraid the monks would go broke keeping you in 
habits," remarked the Jew dryly, surveying our strapping com- 
panion. "Think of the material it would take!" 

The subject of this badinage seemed unaccountably em- 
barrassed. A warning whistle came from our little steamer, 
toward which the crowd was once more slowly drifting. The 
Brother walked with us down the hill. He hoped, in a whis- 
pered aside, that the young man was not angry with him, he 
had not meant to offend. The cow-puncher had grasped the 
monk's outstretched hand in one of his huge paws, muttered 
a few words in soldier French, and lost himself in the throng 
on deck. 

"C'est I'appel!" I answered, hurriedly shaking the aston- 
ished Trappist's hand. 

That evening I heard my friend asking the long-suffering 
girl at the Information Desk where a horse might be hired and, 
wonderingly, I left him to his own devices. The next morn- 
ing, while I was enjoying my matutinal eggs in the baronial 
bed, he strode moodily into the room and gave me the story. 
In the West, he explained, when people wanted to settle any- 
thing in their minds, they jumped on horseback and by the 
time animal and rider were exhausted, some decision was sure 
to be arrived at. In Aix he had been obliged to rely on 
shank's mare. He had actually climbed most of Mont Revard 
during the night. Passing one of the little villages that dot 
the mountain side, he had paused to rest. It was late, the 
tiny cottages were wrapped in slumber, but through the win- 
dow of a house near the church a light gleamed dimly. He 
drew near it and looked in. Before him, on a shabby prie- 



616 A TRAPPIST TRYST [Feb., 

dieu, knelt a big man in his shirt sleeves and trousers of 
horizon-blue, staring intently at a crucifix before him on the 
wall. His coat, which he had thrown over a chair, bore the 
ribbon of the Medaille Militaire. He was a poilu, and yet more 
than a poilu, for on the door hung a black soutane. He stood 
there for hours it seemed, watching this man in fascination. 
Here was a "Holy Joe" who was really working at it. At last 
the figure stirred, the priest looked up, drawn by his gaze and 
without a trace of surprise, came to the door and bade him 
enter. He did so. His host knew a little English; he knew a 
little French. They had a little white wine, many cigarettes 
and a long conversation. 

"What then?" I urged, as he paused in his recital. 

"He cleared up everything," he responded. "It's all true 
the whole thing!" 

"Well?" 

"I've got to be a Catholic. And if I live to get a dis- 
charge, I'm coming back to Hautecombe." 

"What!" 

"You heard me. Remember what that Brother said -" 

"But there are Trappist houses back home," I reminded 
him. 

"This is where I got the idea, and this is where I'm going 
to try it out," he answered firmly. 

There it was, a life-long murmur in the hearts of most, 
perhaps, but to him as a voice in the night. I shall seek out 
many faces on my return to France; in the choir at Haute- 
combe only one will hold interest for me. Somehow, I know 
it will be there. 

It was a White Father, on retreat at the Abbaye de Belle- 
fontaine, in order to get, as he expressed it, the army out of 
his system, before returning to his Kabyles and his cous-cous, 
who pointed out a clue to this seeming miracle of grace. 

"Before the War," he said, "sacrifice was almost the Lost 
Impression. In these past few years, I have seen the light 
kindled on Calvary burning brightly in the most unexpected 
places. Men have learned many things during this troubled 
time, not the least of which is the worth of suffering. For 
myself, I know I shall be more resigned than ever to the life 
of the missions." 

"Do you think vocations will increase appreciably?" 



1922.] A SILVER JUBILEE 617 

"Without doubt. Religion is not the attenuated system of 
ethics it was for too many people before the War; it is now a 
living force, elemental, basic. And men who have made in- 
credible sacrifices simply for their country, are bound to ask 
themselves why they should not in increasing numbers make 
them for their God." 

"Do you think La Trappe will be affected?" 

"Inevitably. The great need of our time is deliberate- 
ness. So many of us have forgotten how to reflect, to med- 
itate. Had we been less fond of surface values, this inter- 
lude of anarchy would never have occurred. It is at times 
like these that the world needs contemplative monks most. 
The world of physical action has failed; the world of spiritual 
contemplation must take its place, and the spiritual energy 
necessary to leaven the masses is best generated in the hushed 
cloisters and sonant chapels of penitential religious and the 
unfailing power of their intercessions. Only thus will men 
keep before them the difference between true and false, tem- 
poral and eternal, right and wrong." 

"But the War involved a great moral principle," I haz- 
arded. "When you left the desert ' 

He shifted his red fez to the back of his head. 

"What will you?" he demanded in a business-like tone. 
"La P airier 

He was a true Frenchman. 



A SILVER JUBILEE. 

BY E. H. F. 

A MOTHER whispers: 

"Thy priestly years are silver-hued on earth, 
But I am keeping all thy days from birth 
With One Who understands my joy divine 
That thou His Priest eternally art mine!" 







THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL WORKER IN AN ITALIAN DISTRICT. 

BY DAISY H. MOSELEY. 

HE Catholic social worker who finds her oppor- 
tunity for service in family case work among 
the Italian poor in the United States is fortunate. 
As a Catholic she has a distinct right to this par- 
ticular service, because, whether we Catholics of 
America will or not, the problems of the Italian immigrant 
and his family are our problems, and their solution is in some 
measure our responsibility. The sense of possessing the right 
to this heritage is an asset to the social service worker, and 
the heritage is a wonderful one. Most of our Italian poor are 
industrious, lovable and generous, with great potentialities 
for good, but they are confronted with difficulties which are 
made more serious by the strangeness of our language and 
customs, and their mode of living causes them to be exposed 
to numerous dangers, physical and moral. Hence they are 
often in need of the aid of trained social workers. 

Sympathy is the keynote of fortunate approach in Italian 
social work. It takes much knowledge of resources, great 
common sense and firmness, and a certain gift for lucid 
speech and direction to treat a case successfully. Possibly a 
true understanding of her clients' attitude is much to demand 
of the family case worker, but she can at least study enough of 
their national psychology and customs, and of their ordinary 
manner of living, to enable her to comprehend why certain 
conditions exist, and what is the Italians' attitude towards 
them. 

The student of social service looks in vain for an adequate 
literature descriptive of conditions in our congested Italian 
districts. The social literature in which the "Little Italys" of 
America are depicted, usually contains atmosphere and little 
else; it is redolent of macaroni and tomato sauce; it echoes 
the music of hurdy gurdies and the laughter of dancing chil- 
dren; it makes, in fact, delightful reading, but contains little 
definite information. This atmosphere has an Old World 
charm which tempts the lover of the quaint, but the love of 



1922.] THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL WORKER 619 

the quaint tends to grow less as the long black tenement stairs 
grow longer. If she would not lose her zeal, the worker must 
have a foundation more solid than atmosphere on which to 
build. 

This solid foundation is knowledge of facts, and there is 
much available printed matter, not literary or artistic, but 
brim full of facts. Studied in the light of one's particular in- 
terest in conditions among Italians in America, the reports of 
the Department of Labor, Bureau of Immigration, and the 
United States Census reports become fascinating reading. In 
the card index of a library of sociology or religion can be 
found the titles of various valuable studies of phases of Italian 
life in our cities; and the reports of societies which have been 
devoted to work among them throw many side lights. Other 
information which aids in contact with one's clients is infor- 
mation about Italy itself. The Italian speaks lovingly of his 
"paese," the part of Italy in which he lived, and if the visitor 
is sufficiently well read or well traveled to enable her to dis- 
cuss that native heath, its beauties or industries or some in- 
teresting fact about it, she and her client have a common in- 
terest for conversation. Time spent in general conversation 
may not prove time wasted. For with no other group is it so 
essential to have a friendly, leisurely approach as with the 
Italians. They are naturally social and disinclined to haste, 
and hasty dictatorial treatment is distasteful to them. One 
may find it irksome to spend an hour or longer in a first visit, 
and more irksome to have to see innumerable wedding and 
confirmation photographs, but such a visit has tremendous 
psychological value. 

Probably most of the Italians in America live in sections 
peopled almost entirely by their compatriots; thus the social 
service worker among them finds herself grappling with only 
one national psychology because her group of clients is 
homogeneous. This tendency to congregate presents, how- 
ever, some difficulties for the American worker : it lessens the 
necessity of the immigrant for the language of the country 
and, in consequence, he often fails to learn English. It also 
tends to preserve traditions and customs little in accord with 
American life. 

When she enters upon life in a crowded section, the in- 
telligent worker realizes that she is to meet with every ques- 



620 THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL WORKER [Feb., 

tion known to modern philanthropy and, during her first day 
in an Italian district, she learns that most of these problems 
will be quadrupled in complexity by one cause: language. 
Relatively few social workers who have Italian clients speak 
pure Italian or one dialect, not to mention the difficult dialects 
of Piacenza and Calabria and parts of Sicily. Their clients 
are, as a rule, ignorant, and frequently can read no language. 
They have heard almost as little English as they would have 
heard in Italy, and most of the women, save the very young 
ones, have lived so entirely among their compatriots that they 
speak no English; others speak and understand so imperfectly 
that one cannot judge how incorrectly they may report a con- 
versation. How small a chance the American visitor and the 
client have to comprehend each other! Children, even were 
it right to employ them as interpreters, and it is not, are in- 
exact, and they know neither language in its entireness. If 
an interpreter must be the medium, the Italian woman prefers 
to choose her own, usually a friend whom she trusts. The 
visitor may find this person less gifted than someone she 
would choose herself, but if she is wise she will not substitute 
a stranger. 

Each individual must solve the dilemma for herself, but 
the visitor who knows a few phrases of Italian, expedites and 
facilitates her work. If she can ask the baby's name and age 
in the mother's native tongue and understand the answer 
given, she progresses far more quickly in her acquaintance 
with mother and baby, for friendly inquiries are chilled by 
translation. 

A serious problem which evolves from the language diffi- 
culty is a child problem; it contains the germ of many present 
and many future sufferings, and therefore it is a point to at- 
tack if social workers are not to be entirely baffled in their 
efforts to prevent delinquency among their young clients. 
The immigrant family comes to America and settles in - an 
Italian district. The father finds work as a rule among his 
fellow-countrymen; the mother keeps the home in a tenement 
inhabited by other Italians. Neither is so situated as to learn 
to speak English. The children, however, are quickly dis- 
covered by the school authorities, and are required to attend 
school; they are often placed in ungraded classes which are 
devoted exclusively to the study of English. After about three 



1922.] THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL WORKER 621 

months spent in such a class the little Italian has mastered a 
good speaking knowledge of English; he has imbibed a vast 
amount of American patriotism, and knows about George 
Washington's unwillingness to prevaricate and Abraham Lin- 
coln's splitting the rails. With childish enthusiasm he has be- 
come American, and with childish weakness he has perhaps 
grown ashamed of his Italian parentage. 

It is indeed well that he should become American, but his 
parents are Italian, and if they are to retain necessary par- 
ental control, he must not be allowed to lose respect for Italy, 
to forget his father's language, or to feel that he is his father's 
superior because he can serve as family interpreter and per- 
haps swear a little in English. 

No one who knows these fascinating children will fail to 
see dangerous elements in their behavior at home elements 
which bode ill for society in the future. The social worker 
who evolves means of keeping her clients and their children 
in touch with each other and who inspires in them mutual 
respect, is helping to overcome these dangers. 

Granted that difference in language constitutes perhaps 
the greatest national difference, and presents the most tangible 
difficulty, the varying customs and traditions merit equal con- 
sideration. Many of these Old World peasant prejudices 
seem worse than nonsense to a modern young American, but 
there is no means to estimate the unhappiness a zealous young 
woman may cause when she attempts to direct the destiny of 
a member of a family and defies the customs and prejudices 
of others of the family and their neighbors. To avoid this she 
must be acquainted with the customs. There are books de- 
scriptive of Italian peasant customs, and the social worker in 
America can derive much useful knowledge from case rec- 
ords of Italian clients of charitable organizations and courts. 

Perhaps the most evident difficulties which evolve from 
the customs have to do with the privileges of women. Not to 
consider at all the married woman, take the question of rec- 
reation for adolescent girls and young women. The young 
social worker thinks herself, as a rule, privileged to lead her 
own life; she goes almost wherever she pleases and with whom- 
soever she chooses within certain bounds of convention. She 
would advocate such independence for the bright, attractive 
Italian woman of her own age. But should she encourage the 



622 THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL WORKER [Feb., 

Italian girl in such a course until the latter defies the custom 
of her family and goes perhaps to the moving pictures with a 
man unchaperoned, that girl may meet with all the horrors of 
being disowned by her family, scorned by the neighbors, not 
desired as a wife by any compatriot, and eventually cast out 
entirely from the society of her own group, because it is a 
tradition that an unmarried woman should not go un- 
chaperoned. 

It is not necessary that the social worker should be con- 
verted to the wisdom of this tradition, but she must recognize 
its existence, and respect its dictates. Truly, the problem of 
the fun-loving Italian girl who wishes to spend her hours of 
freedom as the American girls among whom she works spend 
theirs, is a serious one. Here is an opportunity for construc- 
tive and preventive work, because the desire to be a normal 
American doubtless leads many a pretty girl of Italian par- 
entage into shocking her family and her friends by some ac- 
tion in itself perfectly harmless, and their attitude towards 
her may cause her to drift into actual delinquency. 

The physical problems which prevail wherever there are 
crowded and poor living conditions, are prevalent among the 
Italians in the great cities, because they live usually in thickly 
congested sections. Certain aspects of these problems may 
be peculiar to one group, but on the whole they can be treated 
as in other groups. Here again, however, the social service 
visitor will realize that the homemakers, not the young ones 
as a rule, but the middle aged, are so handicapped by their 
ignorance of English that they cannot always avail themselves 
of employment bureaus, clinics, milk stations, hospitals, dis- 
pensaries, or other agencies established to aid the poor. If 
the visitor makes the contact between her client and one of 
these agencies, she can be sure that the client will avail her- 
self of its services and teach her neighbors to do so. This is 
especially true in regard to hospitals and dispensaries. 

Other assets in treatment of Italian cases can be relied 
on in the solving of financial problems. Financial problems 
are, of course, numerous. They are largely the result of sea- 
sonal occupation, day's work, piecework and other means of 
subsistence which yield irregularly. There is often no fixed 
income, and sickness or lockouts carry distress in their wake. 
Among other groups the social worker frequently finds her- 



1922.] THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL WORKER 623 

self facing a financial crisis with a friendless family. It may 
strike the uninitiated as odd, but one seldom finds an isolated 
family in an Italian district in America; careful inquiry will 
almost invariably reveal that the client has relatives or friends 
within the district or within reach, who can help and advise. 
The Italian usually belongs to an Italian Benefit Society, and 
he usually carries a small insurance policy for each member 
of his family. Another matter worthy of comment is, that in 
cases of financial distress it is seldom necessary to give the 
frequently demoralizing direct relief of food and money. 
The case worker can take reasonable time to procure med- 
ical aid or employment or a regular weekly allowance or 
whatever kind of assistance the family requires, because she 
knows generous Italian neighbors in the tenement will slip 
in with food and clothing; will perhaps lend a month's rent 
in advance; will exercise the privileges of neighborly charity. 

Many isolated questions present themselves, such as the 
establishment of rights to mothers' pensions, and the depor- 
tation of families or individuals, but they are the various prob- 
lems of aliens and not peculiar to Italians. The trained so- 
cial worker knows her resources in such instances. There are 
peculiar problems, however, which no social worker can ig- 
nore: these relate to religion. 

It has been said advisedly that no social worker can ig- 
nore the religious problems among the Italians. The success- 
ful non-Catholic case worker knows fully as well as the Cath- 
olic that the average Italian is essentially Catholic; if she sees 
that her clients are neglecting the sacraments, especially if 
she finds that they fail to have their children baptized, she is 
aware of signs of danger; she fears to hear of other serious 
lapses not only from formal religion, but from morality. 

The wise social service worker knows that she is not as a 
rule qualified to give spiritual advice; she is equally certain 
that her clients need such advice; Italian clients may be espe- 
cially in need of it if, through failure to understand the cus- 
toms and language of the new country, they have drifted 
away from their religion. In ordinary cases the Catholic so- 
cial worker can refer the difficulty to the pastor; it is her priv- 
ilege to be the link between the new country and customs and 
the old long-treasured religion, and to help entire families to 
safeguard their Faith. 



624 THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL WORKER [Feb., 

One hears much of the dangers of proselytism among our 
Italian poor, and they are grave but one hears little of a 
more prevalent danger : civil marriage with no religious cere- 
mony. Why this habit of being married only by a magistrate 
should have gained such ground among our younger Italians is 
a puzzle, but the fact remains that unnumbered young, ener- 
getic Italian couples who have their children baptized, whose 
homes are adorned with holy pictures, who are Catholics at 
heart, are living under the ban of excommunication. The 
causes and results of this difficulty are manifold : that it should 
exist so largely among the young Italians who have grown up 
in America seems to point to previous inadequate religious 
instruction among Italian children, or to a lapse of religious 
care during the drifting and acquisitive age of adolescence. 
The harm has already been done, in most cases, before the 
social worker meets them. However, when she meets with 
couples who have not been married in the Church, she must 
attempt to prevent further evils by getting the couple properly 
married. This is not so easy a task as having the baby bap- 
tized and many are the weary hours she will work before she 
accomplishes her purpose. If she is wise, she realizes that 
these are hours spent in preventive work and in that highest 
of labors : the prevention of evil and the furthering of good. 

All Catholics are aware of the danger attendant upon neg- 
lecting the religious instruction of children, and, of course, 
where numbers of Catholic children go to the public schools 
as our Italians do, the danger is great. Here again, however, 
the Italian custom is a great asset. As the Italian mother in- 
sists on baptism, so does she insist on the child's making his 
First Communion and being confirmed and should she not 
the child would in all likelihood do so himself, for Confirma- 
tion and First Communion days are great days in the Italian 
child's life. 

The Catholic social worker can, of course, aid in prepara- 
tion for the Sacraments, but the great need for the trained 
case worker's care comes at a later period in the child's career : 
in the age of adolescence. The trying years which intervene 
between the time of First Communion and the time of settling 
to a regular vocation, are years in which the adolescent crave 
excitement. In gratifying this craving the young people often 
get into difficulties, and the problems peculiar to this age 



1922.] THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL WORKER 625 

which present themselves to the social worker are numerous; 
the religious problems are not the least among them. The 
social worker comes into contact with her young client per- 
haps through the Juvenile Court or Probation Officer or 
through the school authorities, persons who, though trained 
in their particular duties, may understand neither Catholicism 
nor the Italian temperament, and therefore seek the aid of the 
social worker who specializes in work among Italians. The 
Catholic social worker is especially fitted to give this aid. She 
it is who can most readily renew the child's contact with his 
church and pastor, and help him to get a new start. 

The possibility that an Italian girl may drift into delin- 
quency through her parents' lack of comprehension of Amer- 
ican customs has been mentioned. Another possibility is that 
young Italians may drift into deceit through a desire to 
work. A lie to obtain working papers may be the foundation 
on which a dishonest career is builded and this temptation 
to lie exists in a great degree for Italian youth among the poor. 
Italian families are usually large, and the financial returns of 
the average family are irregular. By the time a girl is twelve 
or thirteen years old there are often several other children at 
home, and she is requisitioned to help care for them, to cook 
and wash and sweep. For this she receives, of course, no 
remuneration. She probably has been deft with her needle 
since her eighth or ninth year, and knows that needlework in 
shops and factories brings money and gives respite from house- 
hold cares. The temptation to lie about her age and get her 
working papers is sometimes too great. This deceit becomes 
a religious problem to the Catholic social worker; she realizes 
its significance in the child's future life. It is an exceedingly 
difficult problem to handle when the social worker meets with 
it where great poverty exists, where the child's earnings are 
really needed. In such instances, if the social worker is re- 
sourceful and tactful, she can help form a splendid character; 
if she blunders, and perhaps she may blunder by too severe 
treatment of the moral aspect of the case, forgetting the in- 
sidious temptation, she may cause the child to drift away from 
a religion which dictates absolute honesty, may even pre- 
cipitate her into a career of religious doubt. 

The wise social worker will insist on making the case 
known to the proper authorities, even though she may happen 

VOL. CXIV. 40 



626 THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL WORKER [Feb., 

upon it quite accidentally, but she will convince the child that 
it is best to do so, and she will find means to tide the ambitious 
girl or boy over the year or two which must pass before he or 
she can work under the law. 

It is to the adolescent, perhaps, that Protestant proselytism 
is most dangerous, and the average Catholic who thinks of 
Italian districts thinks simultaneously of proselytism. The 
Catholic social worker meets with a few serious difficulties 
when she encounters the zeal of the Protestant workers for 
converts among the Italians. She must be careful not to 
overrate the difficulties nor to underrate the Protestant 
proselytizers. 

Visits to Catholic and avowedly Protestant institutions in 
a given Italian district will impress one fact indelibly upon 
the mind: the average Italian is essentially Catholic or he 
would avail himself more of the creature comforts of the 
Protestant institutions; he must realize something of the dan- 
gers of proselytism, or he must feel that the Protestant atmos- 
phere is too chill, else one would certainly find greater num- 
bers of Italians in Protestant settlements. In New York, 
where a few Catholic Italian Settlements exist, one finds them 
thronged with children; the happy noise is so great that one 
wonders how the hard-worked teachers can instruct in sewing 
and perhaps in catechism; it is a strange contrast to the or- 
derly precision and perhaps lonely emptiness of the Protestant 
settlement. 

However, among her clients the Catholic worker will al- 
most invariably discover some who, apparently for no rea- 
sons save material ones, frequent Protestant churches and 
settlements. The task of convincing these clients that they 
are weakening their faith by their own deceitful action is a 
delicate one: these settlements offer pleasures which Catholic 
settlements do not offer, and one has no substitute to suggest 
to the client. Of course, the only solution here is Catholic 
education, and to this end endowed Catholic settlement houses 
will be a great aid. 

In the course of her work the Catholic will meet with cap- 
able, self-sacrificing Italian Protestant ministers and social 
workers, who are equipped with knowledge of both English 
and Italian, and who have large sums of money at their com- 
mand. These Italians are not always renegades from the true 



1922.] THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL WORKER 627 

faith; in some cases their ancestors were Protestants. With 
such ministers and social workers the Catholic must, of course, 
treat as frankly of her problems with her clients as she would 
with Americans. She will find that they also recognize cer- 
tain problems as peculiar to their poor compatriots, and that 
they recognize her right as a Catholic to work among Italian 
Catholics. 

If the worker finds among her clients Italians who have 
forsaken Catholicism for Protestantism and investigates the 
history of the case thoroughly, she will probably find mar- 
riage or divorce associated with that history; or desire for 
worldly success in a "Protestant country" may have been re- 
sponsible. Of course such families, which she believes should 
be Catholic, are problem families for the case worker. She 
may be the means of restoring to such a family its precious 
Catholic heritage. 

One group for which proselytism has few dangers is that 
of the aged Italians, but the aged may give the case worker 
grave concern. In many Italian homes one finds the grand- 
mother or grandfather, not so old in years perhaps, as in days 
of unceasing hard work and poverty. This old person is a 
pitiful member of the household: childish, and afraid or un- 
able to go out alone, he or she sits in the home year after year. 
The discovery of such a person and the alleviation of his 
wants, spiritual and physical, is often possible to the social 
worker. By a simple word to the pastor, she may enable the 
client to receive the sacraments regularly. 

In dealing with religious problems among the Italian poor, 
the Catholic social worker is certainly assisted by mutual be- 
lief in Catholic doctrine, and it is not too much to say that this 
kinship of Catholicism, aids her in approaching every prob- 
lem, whether spiritual or physical. Yet this very kinship of- 
fers another and dangerous aspect, in that an American well 
instructed in her faith may think she finds cause for scandal 
among Italian Catholics. She would be astounded to be told 
that it was Pharisaical scandal but, before she condemns her 
clients as bad Catholics, she must consider what are and are 
not the essentials of religion and she must not forget the cir- 
cumstances of her clients' lives. For example, it is a com- 
mandment of the Church that Catholics hear Mass on Sundays, 
but an Italian woman who has a number of very small chil- 



628 UNSEEN [Feb., 

dren near the same age and no one with whom she may 
leave them if her husband's work as barber or waiter or la- 
borer takes him away in the early morning has a great temp- 
tation not to leave the home, would perhaps do wrong did she 
leave. Instead of being scandalized by this very prevalent 
phase of life, the social worker will recognize that the mother 
must be aided in this difficulty. Day nurseries are established 
for the care of children whose mothers work, and perhaps 
some such temporary Sunday morning care may be given to 
children whose mothers are at Mass. 

The deprivation suffered by a Catholic who cannot hear 
Mass on Sunday can scarcely be comprehended by a Prot- 
estant, and this is only one of the problems which a Catholic 
can most readily understand. Even in this limited discussion 
of the problems of the Italian poor, it will be .seen that they 
are difficulties which should appeal primarily to the Catholic 
woman and especially to the Catholic social service worker. 

Through the ages of Christianity, the Church has invari- 
ably responded to the needs of the times by the establishment 
of orders or societies to meet those needs. In our age she 
recognizes the necessity for trained social workers among the 
sick and poor, and it is to be hoped that many lay women who 
respond to her call, will recognize the necessity for specialized 
training for work among the Italian poor, work which cannot 
fail to reward the laborer. 



UNSEEN! 

BY CHARLES J. QUIRK, S.J. 

"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter." Keats. 

AH, true, my Poet, but far truer still 

Of those things never glimpsed by mortal eyes, 
That with their beauty or their terror thrill : 

Abysmal Pits of red and yawning Hell, 
Vast league on league of palaced Paradise; 

And closer yet that hidden Miracle, 
At sacring of the Mass the Host's chaste Veil 

That doth assume the Splendor of the Grail! 




BAZIN AND HARDY. 

A STUDY IN COMPARISONS WITH A CONTRAST. 
BY JOSEPH J. REILLY, PH.D. 

RENCH fiction of today numbers many brilliant 
names. There is Anatole France, master of style, 
of urbanity, and of a delicate irony, always keen 
and sometimes poisonous. There is Marcel Pre- 
vost, brilliant, colorful, rich in vitality, who has 
sounded the depths of feminine emotion. There is Paul 
Bourget, adept in psychological analysis, who lays human 
hearts upon the clinical table and dissects them with dexterous 
scalpel. There is Rene Bazin, who, despite his ample powers, 
lacks France's limpid style and his subtle irony, Prevost's pas- 
sion, and Bourget's power of analysis. Perhaps, however, on 
these counts we should have no regrets. Had he their peculiar 
gifts, he might suffer from their peculiar weaknesses. He 
might depart as far from those things that are lovely and of 
good report as did Anatole France in his descent from Syl- 
vestre Bonnard to L'Anneau D'Amethyste. With Prevost's 
passion, he might have failed to give us those supreme scenes 
in which, unlike Prevost, he sanctified self-restraint. Finally, 
did he possess Bourget's gift of analysis, he might, like him, 
have made the mistake of sinking the novelist in the surgeon. 
As a matter of fact, Bazin occupies a place apart among 
contemporary French novelists. His finest novels, Les Noellet, 
De Toute Son Ame, L'lsolee, Donatienne, suggest no ready 
comparison with theirs. There is nothing in La Reine 
Pedauque or M. Jerome Coignard, in Les Vierges Fortes or Le 
Jardin Secret, in Cosmopolis or Le Disciple that naturally 
brings Bazin to mind. Quite the contrary. His attitude 
towards life, the qualities of his art, his interest in the children 
of the soil, his emotional restraint, his robustness, his human 
sympathy (no creature of social theorizing, but child of the 
heart) all these conspire to stamp his work as unique among 
so much that is overwrought and self-conscious. He does not 
stifle you with perfume or the odor of orchids; he has no in- 



630 BAZIN AND HARDY [Feb., 

terest in the supersubtleties of sophisticated souls; to him as 
to the Celt, love is a sentiment, not a passion, and thus instead 
of such hectic beings as Prevost's Lea Surier and George 
Orsten, we have Henriette Madiot and Etienne Loutrel, in the 
tenderness of whose renunciation is typified the restraint with 
which Rene Bazin can treat the noblest and the most abused 
emotion in the world. 

As a unique figure among contemporary French novelists, 
Bazin is not without a counterpart across the channel. In 
the company of living English writers of fiction, one man 
stands out in impressive isolation, whose genius, despite his 
years of silence, there is none to challenge, and whose contri- 
bution in the field of fiction has left its abiding impress, 
whether for good or ill. Tess of the D'Urbervilles, The Return 
of the Native, and Far From the Madding Crowd are sur- 
charged with qualities which are typical of Thomas Hardy. 
They are the work of no hands but his. The "Hardian trick" 
is a secret of genius which no adventurous analyst has yet 
managed to penetrate. But the critic need not feel too deadly 
a discouragement; the typical qualities of Hardy are not far 
to seek, and to the lover of Bazin they open the way to many 
striking points of similarity between the two novelists, despite 
one of fundamental but mutually illuminating contrast. 

To say that Bazin is inferior to Hardy as a constructionist, 
implies no necessary disparagement. For since the author of 
Tom Jones (that novel whose plot, with that of (Edipus 
Tyrannos, Coleridge pronounced the most perfect in exist- 
ence), no English novelist can be classed with Hardy for per- 
fection of plot construction. In this his mastery of the novel 
is as indisputable as is that of Poe in the case of the short 
story. He carried into fiction that sense of proportion and 
interdependence of parts which he had learned from his early 
study of architecture, and profited from it as signally as did 
Poe from his talent in mathematics, Hoffman from his skill 
in painting, and Newman, the stylist, from his love of the 
violin. 

It is in their general method of developing character that 
Hardy and Bazin are comparable. Neither is a relentless 
psychologist who wearies the reader with analyses of motives 
like George Eliot in the comparative, and Paul Bourget in the 
superlative, degree. Nor is the reader plagued with those 



1922.] BAZIN AND HARDY 631 

tenuousities and ultra-refinements with which Henry James 
ruined much of his later work, enmeshing his men and women 
in the threads of his fine-spun introspections until they seemed 
as incapable of spontaneous action as a fly in a spider's web. 
The novels of both Bazin and Hardy are crowded with inci- 
dents, each of which, however slight, provides a test of his 
characters. Bazin's incidents are less closely interwoven than 
Hardy's, and their consequences are less subtly pursued. 
Hardy pauses more often than Bazin to lift the veil that con- 
ceals men's inner souls, but his keen glance conveys no more 
striking sense of moral reality than Bazin secures by his fa- 
vorite method of describing actions whose emotional implica- 
tions are left in ready reach of the reader. Bazin's method, it 
is true, more nearly approaches the dramatic, but fundamen- 
tally the same end is attained, and men and things are en- 
dowed with a convincingness which gains from the imperson- 
ality of treatment (a heritage with Bazin, an acquirement with 
Hardy) that is laid aside only at rare moments, and then with 
powerful effect. The genial obtrusiveness of self which is so 
dear to the lover of Thackeray, is anathema to the English 
Hardy as to the French Bazin who, none the less, bid for the 
reader's sympathy toward a given character as determinedly 
as the great W. M. T., though with a skillful concealment of 
purpose. 

The men and women of Hardy's and Bazin's creation, 
whether attractive or repulsive, are instinct with life. They 
are people of three dimensions, and are almost patent to the 
physical eye. We should recognize them anywhere, on the 
street, in the harvest fields, on the moor, at the vicarage, among 
boatmen or villagers or artisans, and for good or ill should 
know their passing. In the gallery of scoundrels, Alec D'Ur- 
berville, Sergeant Troy, Antoine Madiot and Jules Prayou all 
deserve a place. Among men who breathe on a higher level 
are Gabriel Oak in Far From the Madding Crowd and Giles 
Winterbourne in The Woodlanders; Etienne Loutrel in De 
Toute Son Ame and Michel de Meximieu in Le Ble qui Leve. 
Winterbourne and Loutrel are brothers in soul if not in blood, 
and their generous abnegation of the women they love (and in 
Loutrel's case, of what a woman!), proves that the sons of 
Bayard, without fear and without reproach, can live among 
the woodmen of Wessex and the boatmen of the Loire. 



632 BAZIN AND HARDY [Feb., 

Hardy's George Melbury, straining a vein to educate his pretty 
daughter, Grace, is cousin to Bazin's Pere Noellet, scrimping to 
put his brilliant son through college, and the pride of each 
father in his child runs before a fall. 

Both Bazin and Hardy are emphatically masculine. 
Method, style, attitude towards life all proclaim it. The 
worship of power for power's sake which betrays the effem- 
inacy of such a man as Kipling is nowhere to be found in 
their work. It is for this reason that we notice with surprise 
the delicacy of the art which they lavish upon their women. 
They know how tremendous is feminine power whether for 
good or for evil, and they have made women the pivotal char- 
acters of their greatest novels, endowing them with a fra- 
grance and a grace eternally feminine, eternally appealing. 
Hardy's women, says Professor Phelps, are all tender and 
capricious. Bazin's, too, are tender, but with a touch of 
maternal tenderness such as those women possess whom men 
rise up to call blessed. One thinks of Hardy's best women as 
charming wives; of Bazin's, as perfect mothers. Where 
Hardy's women are capricious, Bazin's are playful, for after 
all, Bazin is very human and very French. There is a po- 
tent attraction in Tess Durbeyfield and Bathsheba Everdene 
and Eustacia Yeobright, just as there is in Odille Bastian and 
Marie Limerel and Henriette Madiot, but Hardy's women are 
untouched by spirituality and kindle no beacon fires upon the 
heights. Henriette in Hardy's hands would have been an- 
other Bathsheba, to be courted and won and lost and won 
again, finding the wine of life sweet despite its bitter, and 
adoration grateful as incense. But Bazin's Henriette can 
make her great renunciation smiling through her tears, put 
love behind her, and out of a divine pity devote her life to 
the poor and helpless. The love of a woman such as this is 
beyond rubies; her very tears convey a benediction. 

There is another and rarer side on which our two novel- 
ists are surprisingly alike. Nature to them is clothed with a 
personality of its own. Egdon Heath is almost one of the 
dramatis personse of The Return of the Native, as the sea is 
in Conrad's Youth. In The Woodlanders the great trees play 
their part and the advance of the plot falls into the cycles of 
the seasons, spring greeted by the budding leaves as by a 
paean, autumn's passing mourned as by a dirge. In Le Ble qm 



1922.] BAZIN AND HARDY 633 

Levs the huge trees which are doomed to be felled stir Gilbert 
Cloquet's pity, and he gives voice to his regret in words elo- 
quent in their simplicity. None of our novelists' men and 
women are indifferent to nature's magic nor unresponsive to 
her influence. Not that the reactions she effects are always 
the same; rather they vary infinitely, like her moods. Both 
Bathsheba Everdene and Tess Durbeyfield seek refuge from 
anguish of spirit in the solemn darkness of the woods. But 
the glory of the dawn hailed by the choiring of birds and the 
opening of blossoms awaken dissimilar emotions; Tess is 
overwhelmed by the thought of her own sin amid such ac- 
cusive innocence; Bathsheba is comforted by the thought that 
life is sweet despite its agonies. When spring comes, the 
smell of the rich earth is in one's nostrils, April thrills in 
every living thing, and pulses quicken with the stir of a new 
life. Then it is that Angel Claire at Talbothay's Dairy and 
Gilbert Cloquet at Pain-Fendu forget the ill days gone, and 
kindle with the hop of fairer fortune and the will to seek it. 
In the darker moods of nature the tragic interplay is no 
less striking. When Tess makes her Via Dolorosa to Em- 
minster Vicarage, the world she treads is as frozen and deso- 
late as her heart the roads choked with snow, the sky leaden, 
the winds sharp as whipcords. When Jude and Sue meet at 
Christminster for their last and heart-broken farewell, the 
conflict of passion and duty in their hearts is imaged by the 
storm which rages about them. Similarly in Bazin one re- 
calls how, as Jean Louarn, his wife faithless, his children 
abandoned, he himself dispossessed of his little farm, journeys 
to La Vendee stupefied with misery, the heavy rains which 
sweep the countryside drive him and his little ones to shelter 
under the trees in kindred desolation to the world about them. 
When Pere Noellet learns from the lips of his son Pierre that 
he has abandoned his intention of becoming a priest, it is 
when the world lies beneath a shroud of snow, as if the 
father's high hopes thus rudely dashed lay dead beneath it. 
But nature even in gloom and storm can bestow a benedic- 
tion. Thus Madame Corentine, beside her sister's sick bed, 
looks out from the shrouded hush of the room into the wind- 
swept darkness, and beholding in it a symbol of her heart, 
desolate for want of love, resolves to seek a reconciliation with 
the husband of her youth. 



634 BAZIN AND HARDY [Feb., 

Men who know and love nature as do Hardy and Bazin 
are rare in any age. To them she speaks with a thousand 
tongues; they understand her mood, however swift and chang- 
ing; her infinite variety is an abiding delight. She holds, as 
well they know, 

A forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time 
And razure of oblivion, 

but that residence is not within city walls nor does it echo 
to the feet of the passing multitude. To love nature indeed, 
means to love the country. To love the country, means to 
understand it and to see in it the great world in little, less 
swift of pace, less brave in human pomp and circumstance, 
but offering a stage, far from the madding crowd, where 
tragedies and comedies are played out in laughter or in tears 
no less than within the din of the market-place. For the most 
part the lives of Hardy's men and women, like those of Bazin, 
are cast in narrow places, mostly some remote corner of 
"Wessex," to which urban turmoil never penetrates. Bazin's 
stage is less circumscribed. Paris, Nimes, Lyons occasionally 
provide his setting, but it is some tiny village of Brittany or a 
farm in the Angevin Vendee that he loves best and in whose 
atmosphere we breathe as if on our native heath. How 
meagre seem the figures in such novels as Donatienne and The 
Return of the Native when compared with those which throng 
The Newcomes or David Copperfield or Anna Karenina! Be- 
yond a doubt it took masters to perform such multitudinous 
miracles and make the great world thrill with life in the 
printed page. But just as surely it took masters to wave the 
great world aside and, giving a tongue to reticence and a rein 
to fettered imaginations, make desert places vocal with hu- 
man passion, the sighs, the tears, the laughter, that are the 
heritage of the sons of Eve. Few men have done this to equal 
Bazin, none, to surpass Hardy. 

Restraint, whether in literature or in life, is an unfailing 
sign of power. Masters as they are, Bazin and Hardy never 
fling aside the final restraints even in their tragic scenes. 
When Pere Noellet drives his son from home in a frenzy of 
rage, when Jacques droops and dies, when Pascale tastes the 
bitterness of worse than death, we feel the power of emotions 
which smoulder in the depths of human hearts. So with 



1922.] BAZIN AND HARDY 635 

Hardy, in such scenes as those in which Clem Yeobright con- 
demns his wife, Knight clings to the cliff from which he must 
fall at any moment to destruction, or Michael Henchard, 
ruined and despairing, scrawls his last testament. To dis- 
play power is a great gift; to create the illusion of unplum- 
meted reserves of power, belongs to genius. 

It is in their conception of the forces which underlie the 
obvious facts of life, facts which rarely square with poetic jus- 
tice, but are frequently charged with tragic contradictions, 
that Hardy and Bazin show themselves to be poles apart. One 
stands conspicuous among novelists as the most absolute 
pessimist of our day; the other sees life with the eyes of such 
an optimism as that of St. Francis de Sales or Thomas' More. 

Hardy finds no joy in life. He has long ago abandoned 
such tragi-comedy as that of the Woodlanders and Far From 
the Madding Crowd for the utter tragedy of Tess and Ju.de. 
Life has darkened with the years and lachrymas rerum is his 
litany. As Hardy beholds men and women it is to see them 
caught in the toils of an unavoidable destiny against which, 
Laocoon-like, they struggle in vain. The scene stirs him to 
pity and revolt. The Lord of Life, he cries, is no God of 
Love, else He would countenance no such injustice. He is no 
"Power not ourselves which makes for righteousness" (the 
nebulous something of Matthew Arnold's imagining) , nor even 
a blind and casual Destiny. Rather He is some Setebos to 
whom men pay the tribute of fear, and whose toying with their 
destiny is made doubly cruel because attended by an irony 
calculated with exquisite nicety to transform comic possi- 
bilities into tragic realities. 

To Bazin such a pessimism as this is impossible. He ac- 
cepts life neither as the be-all nor the end-all here. To him 
happiness is no ultima thule to be found in marriage or for- 
tune or success, and whose denial brings heartbreak in its 
train. Human desire is as real to him as to Hardy, but it may 
be bravely renounced for nobler ends and its loss acquiesced 
in as the decree of an inscrutable, but loving, Wisdom. To 
him the sorrow of the world is a discipline to be sanctified by 
a fiat voluntas Tua; to Hardy it is a phase of life's irony, need- 
lessly scourging the righteous and defeating their noblest en- 
deavors. Hardy's is the view of one who sees no hills brought 
low nor crooked ways made straight, and who conceives of 



636 BAZ1N AND HARDY [Feb., 

nothing in heaven or earth beyond the dreams of his 
philosophy. 

Such vital antagonisms betray themselves at every turn. 
Neither Bazin nor Hardy is content to touch merely the sur- 
face of things, and the one finds a divinely wise ordering of 
affairs where the other beholds only a cruel enigma. It is 
worth our while to examine our two novelists in their typical 
work. Their similarities will become more obvious, their ir- 
reconcilable difference in their views of life more striking. 

In everything but its ending Bazin's Donatienne might have 
come from Hardy's pen. The setting in Brittany on a farm 
with which Louarn is compelled to struggle in order to win 
a livelihood, is worthy of Hardy at his best. There is about it 
that air of isolation which the Englishman achieves unfail- 
ingly, as if his little dramatis personse were moving toward 
some hidden catastrophe far off from the strife of cities. 
Donatienne, strikingly handsome, attractive to men, wishing 
the good but infirm of purpose, might have been a sister of the 
hapless Tess. There is more than a fanciful likeness between 
Jude Fawley and Jean Louarn, big and rawboned, with his 
lean face and his dark yearning eyes such eyes as belong to 
one whose heritage dooms him to battle for his daily bread. 
A typical Hardy character, too, is Annette Domerc, the servant 
girl who attends his motherless children and who, repulsed 
in her advances by Louarn, screams out the story of his wife's 
degradation. 

Hardy might well have conceived the meeting with the 
strange woman who suddenly steps out of the fog into the 
light of Louarn's camp fire, and indeed the Frenchman's 
touches might have been done by the English master. How 
skillfully we are made to realize it all Louarn's feeble at- 
tempt to drive the intruder off; her silent but efficient help; 
his gradual dependence upon her; her ascendency over his 
weakened will; the anomalous place she assumes in his house- 
hold, when finally, his journey over, he gets work in a quarry 
and settles down ! Hardy would have drawn her as did Bazin 
with coarse features, bold eyes, sharp tongue, and the ingrained 
hardness which belonged to a dark past and a precarious 
future. Bazin's portrayal of the pretty but unstable Dona- 
tienne in Paris, all too facile prey for the destroyer, is worthy 
of the Englishman at his best, and the incident in the theatre 



1922.] BAZIN AND HARDY 637 

when her hungry heart cries out at the sight of a little child 
asleep on its mother's knees, challenges Hardian pathos when 
it strikes the deepest. Our two novelists beyond a doubt 
would have gone far together, but they must needs have parted 
company at the end; for, where Bazin brings Donatienne back 
after years of absence to put the kettle on the hob and once 
more tend her long-abandoned children and her invalid hus- 
band, Hardy would have shaken his head in disapproval and 
proclaimed this a piece of purely literary optimism, a con- 
cession to popular taste, a sentimental fiction which violate 
the facts of life as they are. 

Another novel of Bazin's affords similar grounds for com- 
parisons and contrasts. It is more elaborately worked out, 
more closely woven, and more subtly handled. In Les 
Noellet we have a theme which in treatment and characteriza- 
tion might have come from Hardy's hands. From him we 
might have had the farm pictured as was possible only to one 
who knows the country and loves it; the girl Melie who adores 
the unwitting young Noellet; the pathos of her dreary life with 
her drunken father; the irony of poor Jacques' death after his 
sacrifice for his brother. So, too, the theme. The brilliant 
lad Pierre pretending to a vocation for the priesthood as the 
only means by which he can secure an education; the subse- 
quent periods of depression and remorse; his final confession 
of deceit; the heartbroken acquiescence of the family; the 
sullen wrath of the father; the contempt of the villagers; the 
lad's departure for Paris to carve out a career in journalism 
and to win the hand of the wealthy girl whom he has wor- 
shipped from childhood; his desperate struggles; his pitiful 
failure here are the successive steps in a moral tragedy 
touched with the inevitability of Hardy's own Return of the 
Native. 

Our novelists, however, do not make the journey without 
a break. It is at the end, just as in the case of Donatienne, 
that they are compelled to part company. Pierre Noellet, 
brought back to the farm from Paris, broken in health and 
spirit, is a tragic figure. Life on his father's farm, it is true, 
is open to him; so, too, the rare devotion of Melie. Both, how- 
ever, are equally impossible. To this impasse, Bazin implies, 
Pierre has been brought by his own false pride, his deceitful- 
ness, and his over-weening ambition. Hardy would have ex- 



638 BAZ1N AND HARDY [Feb., 

plained it otherwise: the lad is the victim of forces potent 
enough to have granted him success, but so malignant as to 
toy with him, lure him on into difficult ways, and then brutally 
crush him. Pierre in Mr. Hardy's hands would doubtless 
have sought refuge in suicide. Bazin, the optimist, lets Pierre 
die by accident, his father and Melie kneeling by his side, the 
little black cross of his rosary pressed to his lips. Old Pere 
Noellet is dealt cruel blows; for his hopes of seeing a son suc- 
ceed him on the farm are dashed. Hardy would have left 
him crippled and despairing. Not so Bazin, who pictures him 
as finding in his daughter's husband a manly, industrious son 
who will be the staff of his declining years. We are not left 
plunged in darkness; the shadows have fallen, it is true, but 
in the East is the promise of a new dawn in whose light we 
know the innocent folk will remain, acquiescing in a denoue- 
ment not wrought by a malicious Setebos, but granted by a 
merciful Providence. 

There remain for particular consideration two more 
novels, whose points of comparison and contrast are even 
more emphatically clear. On each have been lavished the 
deftest portraiture, the subtlest touches, the most skillful spe- 
cial pleading. Each is its author's masterpiece, despite ad- 
mitted and grave defects. In both Bazin's L'Isolee and 
Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles the heroine is a young and 
beautiful woman possessed of the wish, rather than the will, 
to avoid moral danger. Hardy, true to his philosophy, in- 
sists that Tess is a "pure woman" despite her transgressions. 
She is merely a human pawn upon life's chessboard. Malig- 
nant destiny throws her into the path of her destroyer; malig- 
nant destiny robs her of her husband when she has scourged 
her timidity into confessing her past; malignant destiny brings 
her seducer once more across her path to play upon her love 
of her wretched family and to lure her again to his arms. 
Over against all this let us now consider Bazin's L'Isolee. 

Pascale seeks refuge in the convent from those worldly 
temptations which she fears may overmaster her, and is 
happy there until thrust back again into the world from which 
she sought escape. She then seeks refuge at Nimes with her 
aunt, a figure weak and vile enough to mate with Tess' mother. 
Against her better inclinations she, too, becomes the prey of 
a villain, not because malignant fate has thrown her across 



1922.] BAZIN AND HARDY 639 

his path, but because the haters of religion have forced her 
from conventual shelter and her own weakness of will has left 
her vulnerable. 

The results of each woman's misstep are tragic. Tess 
murders her seducer and pays the penalty with her own life. 
Pascale is murdered by the brute who has wronged her. With 
neither novelist is there any flinching, and the realism of 
Bazin is no less harrowing than that of Hardy. Each sym- 
pathizes with his heroine, and with all his art lends her a 
pathos whose cumulative effect reaches an overwhelming 
climax at the end. As you stand upon the hill near Winton- 
cester with Angel Claire and 'Liza Lu and see the black flag 
move slowly up the staff upon the jail tower, you know that 
within its gloomy walls the hapless Tess has paid the price 
which inexorable law demands. And what says Mr. Hardy? 
Does he permit us to think of poor Tess as having paid the 
penalty of her own weakness, or does he proclaim her a vic- 
tim of malignant destiny which pursued her to the end and 
made her an innocent sacrifice to the laws of retribution? 
" 'Justice' was done," he announces with bitter agony, "and 
the President of the Immortals (in ^Eschylean phrase) had 
ended his sport with Tess." Here in a sentence is implied the 
Hardian philosophy. Gould ruinous pessimism go further? 

Hardy pictured Tess's life at Talbothay's Dairy in chap- 
ters of supreme and idyllic beauty. Bazin in the first half of 
his book shows us Pascale dwelling in conventual peace amid 
joys unguessed by the daughters of the world. But just as 
the sunlight withered from out Tess' days, so Pascale's life 
beyond the convent walls fell in dark places, and we behold 
her caught in the maelstrom of temptation and suffering from 
a fall more hideous than that of Tess, because she had dwelt 
upon spiritual heights of which Tess had never dreamed. 
Bazin's realism never wavers. He presents Pascale, the beau- 
tiful, the tender, the good, and alas, the weak, as a woman of 
the streets, and he lets us see her struggling in the grasp of a 
half-drunken drover. Again we behold her with dull eyes and 
hollow cheeks crouching on her heels at the public washing 
tank, and still again when Prayou, taking her in attempted 
flight, carries her back in his arms to his house and in a rage 
hurls her against the wall with all his strength, where she lies, 
pitiable and inert, a crimson thread of blood staining her lips. 



640 BAZIN AND HARDY [Feb., 

Hardy mercifully draws the veil over the final scene in 
which Tess pays the penalty. Not so Bazin. He shows us 
Prayou pursuing his victim with upraised knife and striking 
her down just as she has sobbed out the broken prayer, 
"Miserere met, Deus!" He does not even pause then, but pic- 
tures Pascale, lying dead and ghastly, her sightless eyes turned 
up to the stars, and in the chill dawn bids us follow the body 
to the public morgue where it lies without taper or flowers, or 
any other sign to show that living creature has ever loved 
Pascale. 

The infinite pathos of this scene is the most masterly thing 
Bazin has ever done; nothing in Hardy or George Eliot can 
equal it; nothing in Thackeray or Balzac surpass it. In the 
cold hush of that room life seems so paltry a thing, so sad, so 
impotent in the invisible presence of the Destroyer. But the 
despair of Hardy on Wintoncester Hill is absent; no "Pres- 
ident of the Immortals" leers at the innocent victim of his 
brutal sport. At the head of the room, chill and bare though 
it is, hangs a cross from which the Crucified looks down upon 
the dead Pascale with eyes of infinite pity, as if to bear wit- 
ness that He had heard the prayer of her dying agony and 
granted it. 

No one can lay aside either Tess or L'Isolee with emotions 
unstirred to the depths. And small wonder. The pathos of 
human suffering has rarely been told with a more tender 
sympathy or a more perfect realism, nor do we often find a 
more consummate artistry employed in defence of a philos- 
ophy of life. But the emotions aroused strike different roots. 
Hardy epitomizes his philosophy in a pessimism which chills 
the heart because it annihilates hope and gives love no sanctu- 
ary save in the dust. Bazin's eyes, even amid scenes of har- 
rowing realism, never miss the light ahead and, though his 
journey be through the valley of the shadow, it leads him to 
the heights from which he sees, beyond heartbreak and 
wretchedness and sin, a Divine Love that orders all things 
well, and in Whose giving are pity and forgiveness and eternal 
peace. 




THE VULGATE TRANSLATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 

BY CUTHBERT LATTEY, S.J. 

N order to appreciate aright the great work of St. 
Jerome, it is needful to understand something of 
the "Old Latin" versions, by which are meant 
those existing before he wrote the Vulgate. We 
know less of them in what concerns the Old 
Testament than in regard to the New; and the textual prob- 
lem is largely different in the two cases, since St. Jerome 
merely revised existing versions of the New Testament, 
whereas he composed the Vulgate Old Testament (or most of 
it) directly from the Hebrew. There seem to be three main 
types of Old Latin New Testament text. The most primitive 
is doubtless the African, for the Roman Church was Greek- 
speaking at the first; it has been edited from St. Cyprian and 
the most important manuscripts by the late Freiherr von 
Soden. 1 The "European" family is more largely represented, 
and with more variety; it was current in Western Europe, 
especially in North Italy, and may represent a revision of the 
African text, with a view to smoother Latinity. This second 
text would again, upon revision, give rise to the Italian family, 
though, as a matter of fact, the very existence of this last fam- 
ily has been denied, the readings peculiar to it being attributed 
to the Vulgate itself, with Old Latin admixture. In the large 
Wordsworth-White edition of St. Jerome's Vulgate, a manu- 
script of this family, the Codex Brixianus, is reproduced as 
being, so far as can be judged, the best representative of the 
text upon which St. Jerome worked. 

The Old Latin versions of the Old Testament were made 
from the Greek Septuagint, and therefore the differences be- 
tween them and the Vulgate are greater in the Old Testament 
than in the New. The chief question to be asked is, whether 
the same families of text are to be found in both cases; and 
the right answer appears to be the affirmative. This was to 
be expected, since substantially the same influences would be 
at work; and such evidence as there is seems to point that 

1 Texte und Untersuchungen, vol. xxxiii. 

VOL. CXIV. 41 



642 THE VULGATE TRANSLATION [Feb., 

way. For example, as Mr. Mclntosh shows in A Study of 
Augustine's Versions of Genesis, St. Augustine appears to have 
used in his earlier writings a freer translation than in his later 
works, and it may well be that we have here the African and 
the Italian types of text. 

We pass to the author and the origin of the Vulgate. 
Eusebius Hieronymus, now best known as St. Jerome, was born 
not far from the modern Trieste in 340 A. D., or a little later, 
of Christian parents. He was educated at Rome, retired later 
to the desert of Ghalcis, where he devoted five years to study 
and asceticism, learning Hebrew from a converted Jew, and 
then he spent some years at Antioch before returning to Rome 
about 382 A. D. Thus master of Latin, Greek and Hebrew, 
he was equipped for Biblical work as none before him, and 
none for centuries afterwards. At the instance of Pope 
Damasus, who greatly trusted him, he revised the existing Old 
Latin New Testament from the Greek, thus producing the 
Vulgate New Testament. He seems to have revised the Gos- 
pels with more care than the rest. He also made a simple 
revision of the Old Latin Psalter from the Septuagint, now 
known as the "Roman" Psalter, and still in liturgical use in 
St. Peter's and at Milan. 

In 385 A. D., a year after Pope Damasus' death, St. Jerome 
left Rome and soon settled at Bethlehem. There he revised 
the Roman Psalter, largely on the basis of Origen's Hexapla; 
the result is the "Gallican" Psalter, still printed in our Vul- 
gates. It is called "Gallican" because of the popularity to 
which it attained in Gaul; and the faithful clung to it too tena- 
ciously to suffer it to be ousted by his later Psalter, translated 
direct from the Hebrew. After that, he revised, as he tells us, 
the Old Latin translation (made from the Septuagint) of the 
rest of the Old Testament, and finally he made a new Latin 
translation direct from the Hebrew, the Old Testament Vul- 
gate. How he treated the books not extant in Hebrew, as far 
as this translation is concerned, is not always clear; but there 
is reason to hope that the Benedictine Commission will restore 
to it the Psalter properly belonging thereto. St. Jerome died 
in 420 A. D. 

St. Jerome's Vulgate had every advantage over the Old 
Latin versions, at all events in the Old Testament; it was 
simple, popular, vigorous, and represented the originals far 



1922.] THE VULGATE TRANSLATION 643 

more accurately. Within a couple of centuries it had gained 
an absolute and practically universal supremacy; but its 
predecessors were so far from being driven from the field, 
that they were a persistent source of corruption to the Vul- 
gate itself. To explain matters by our previous article, it 
may be remarked that in the New Testament the original 
Vulgate shows a good, though somewhat mixed, text; the gen- 
eral tendency of later changes has been to remove it further 
from the Egyptian type and assimilate it to the textus receptus. 
Charlemagne commissioned Alcuin to prepare an amended 
edition, which was ready by the end of 801 A. D. It was based 
upon the Northumbrian text, which itself was built upon the 
best Italian manuscripts, brought to England by St. Benedict 
Biscop and others in the seventh century. It was, therefore, an 
excellent edition; but the very demand for it occasioned hasty 
and careless copying, and the process of corruption was only 
temporarily stayed. 

In the thirteenth century Bibles were copied in great num- 
bers, and the correctoria appear, more or less fruitless at- 
tempts to improve the text, of which the best was the Correc- 
torium Vaticanum, and one of the worst the Parisiense, the 
object of Roger Bacon's attacks. Unfortunately, it was the 
latter that was used by Stephanus in the Bible he published 
at Paris in 1528 A. D., and in that of 1538-1540. "All the Vat- 
ican editions of Bibles are based in some measure upon the 
first edition published by Hentenius at Louvain in 1547 A. D.; 
and this latter on that of Stephanus in 1540." So we are told 
by that great pioneer of Vulgate textual criticism, Father 
Vercellone, the Barnabite, in the Prolegomena to his Varise 
Lectiones, a work which he dedicated to Pope Pius IX. The 
Bible of 1540 has been called the first genuine attempt at a 
critical edition. Stephanus' smaller edition in 1555 is notable 
from the fact that the modern verse divisions first appear in 
it; the chapters, it may be remarked, go back to that second 
Bede of Catholic England, Cardinal Langton. 

The Council of Trent in its fourth session (1546 A. D.) 
finally determined the canon of Sacred Scripture. The teach- 
ing of the Church is the only possible means of judging what 
is canonical Scripture and what is not; all attempts of the 
Protestants to find another criterion have been a ludicrous 
failure. As in the case of some other dogmas, so here we 



644 THE VULGATE TRANSLATION [Feb., 

have a legitimate development of doctrine: there is a period 
of some obscurity, followed eventually by clear definition. 
The Catholic position, indeed, may be said to have been clear 
long before it was defined; but it would have been far clearer 
but for St. Jerome. Even now his words remain in the Thirty- 
nine Articles, a welcome support to Protestants in their con- 
tention that the books of Machabees, Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, 
Ecclesiasticus and Baruch, with parts of Esther and of Daniel, 
are to be read "for example of life and instruction of man- 
ners," but not "to establish any doctrine." 

There can be no doubt that it was not any Catholic tradi- 
tion, but an ill-judged deference to his Jewish teachers that 
misled him. He proclaims as much himself, in prologues 
still retained (curiously enough) at the head of our Vulgates; 
yet elsewhere, as in his comments upon the first six chapters 
of Isaiah, cited by Comely, 2 the force of Catholic tradition is 
too strong for him, and he refers to deutero-canonical books 
without in any way distinguishing them from the proto- 
canonical. Nor are they, of course, to be distinguished. Since 
the time of Trent, at all events, these prefixes have for us a 
purely historic interest, as marking off those books about 
which there has been little or no dispute from those whose 
claim to canonicity has upon occasion, and most of all by St. 
Jerome, been called in doubt. 

The Council of Trent also commanded that "hereafter 
Sacred Scripture, but especially this ancient and vulgate edi- 
tion, be printed as accurately as possible." Notice that "vul- 
gate" here practically means "current," and, strictly speaking, 
should be so translated; it did not become the specific title 
for St. Jerome's version, and so deserve a capital letter, till 
later. Practically nothing appears to have been done to 
carry out this decree of Trent, issued in 1546 A. D., until the 
pontificate of Sixtus V. (1585-1590 A. D.), who took the matter 
in hand in his usual masterful way. Even he did not ven- 
ture upon an official edition of the original texts, such as the 
Council appears to have contemplated; 3 that is a glory which 
we may perhaps venture to hope is reserved for our own cen- 
tury, to put the crown upon the efforts of private individuals. 

2 Introductio Generalis, vol. i., p. 107. 

8 This is implied in the words of the decree just quoted, and Is confirmed by the 
record of the preparations for it. (Cf. Thciner, Ada Concilii Tridentini, vol. i., p. 65.) 



1922.] THE VULGATE TRANSLATION 645 

But some years before his elevation to the pontificate he had 
already persuaded Gregory XIII. to undertake an edition of 
the Septuagint, which was intrusted to the competent scholar- 
ship of Cardinal Caraffa. Pope Sixtus himself published it 
towards the end of 1586, and at once intrusted Cardinal Caraffa 
with the further task of editing the Vulgate. 

The Sixtine Septuagint is a fine work, well got up and 
sound in text, based closely, as it is, on the Vatican Codex 
(B). Cardinal Caraffa was for following the same plan of 
action in regard to the Vulgate; here, too, he had good manu- 
scripts to work from, and a small but capable commission to 
help him. It is hardly too much to say that if he had been 
given a free hand, there might have been little need of the 
Benedictine revision today. But Pope Sixtus himself, as he 
tells us in the Bull JEternus Ille, took an active and even de- 
cisive part in the work. "He in part approved the corrections 
made by the commission, and in part, in spite of Cardinal 
Caraffa's protests, he rejected them. For the new text dif- 
fered not a little from the Louvain edition, which the Pope 
held in great esteem, and the commission had chiefly followed 
the guidance of the Codex Amiatinus, which Sixtus did not 
value so highly." 4 

This Louvain Bible has already been mentioned. It is 
tolerably clear that Pope Sixtus did not realize the extent to 
which the current Vulgate text of his own time differed from 
the text such as it had left St. Jerome's own hand: in the 
JEternus Hie he writes that he has chosen the readings "so as 
absolutely to retain the old reading, received in the Church 
for many centuries," and nevertheless a little lower down he 
declares that it has been his object to restore the Vulgate "to 
its original purity, such as it first proceeded from the trans- 
lator's own hand and pen." These two objects, to keep the 
traditional text and to restore St. Jerome's original text, could 
not in reality be completely reconciled with each other, a fact 
that will be obvious when we have the Benedictine edition of 
St. Jerome's text at no very remote date, it may be hoped 
as a standard of comparison. The original text had dete- 
riorated a good deal, though for the most part in quite un- 
important details; the chief cause of this has already been 
mentioned, the slipping of pre-Vulgate readings back into the 

Comely, Introdnctio Generalis, vol. i., p. 464. 



646 THE VULGATE TRANSLATION [Feb., 

text. The Bull JEternus Ille, it may be remarked, is printed in 
full in Father Cornely's Introductio Generalis, vol. i., pp. 465- 
474; we shall return to it presently. 

The story of the Sixtine Vulgate is a difficult and some- 
what obscure subject; the best account of it is to be found in 
Dr. Amann's Die Vulgata Sixtina von, 1590, published in 1912, 
a work based directly upon the original documents, some of 
which indeed are published therein for the first time. It is 
the chief, though by no means the only, authority here laid 
under contribution, and the reader may be referred to it for 
further investigations. 5 The outline of the story is this: the 
Sixtine Vulgate was viewed with displeasure and even alarm : 
on Sixtus' death, even before the election of a new Pope, the 
sale was suspended: soon all copies were withdrawn: it was 
hastily revised and issued with the preface that we now read, 
composed by Cardinal Bellarmine: and eventually the name 
of Clement VIII. was also prefixed to it. The crucial question 
arises: what was wrong with this Sixtine Vulgate? To this, 
and to some secondary problems, a brief solution is here at- 
tempted, with a sufficient indication of the grounds upon 
which it is based. 

Cardinal Bellarmine tells us in his autobiography 6 that 
in 1591 there were not wanting persons of weight who advised 
Gregory XIV. publicly to prohibit the Sixtine Vulgate, "in 
which many wrong changes had been made." But Bellarmine, 
to save Sixtus' honor, proposed that the edition should be 
quickly withdrawn, revised and reissued, still under Sixtus' 
name "with a preface in which it should be explained that in 
Sixtus' first edition, by reason of the haste, some errors had 
crept in, either of the printers or of others." We also have 
another suggestion for this preface, probably from the hand 
of Father Bocca the Augustinian: according to this, Pope 
Sixtus had the Bible printed "as it were, privately, that he 
might examine what learned men all over the Christian world 
thought about the matter. Meanwhile as he began to take 
account of the mistakes arisen from the press, and all the 
changes, and the various opinions of men, in order that after- 

Pere Paul Dudon, S.J., has lately discussed the whole question once more, in 
view of the process of the Cardinal's beatification (Romana: Beatiflcationis et Card. 
Bellarmini, Rome. 

Amann, p. 96. 



1922.] THE VULGATE TRANSLATION 647 

wards he might deliberate more at leisure upon the whole 
matter, and publish the Vulgate edition aright (prout 
debebat); forestalled by death, he could not accomplish what 
he had begun." T Bellarmine proposed to write, as above, 
"or of others." As Father Pope, O.P., remarks in his Catholic 
Student's Aids, 8 it is hard not to see in these words an allusion 
to Sixtus himself; and Father Rocca's suggestion also implies 
that Sixtus saw he had made a mistake. But in Bellarmine's 
preface, as it actually appeared, and as we have it today, the 
relevant passage runs: "Remarking that not a few things 
had crept into the sacred Bibles by fault of the press (prseli 
vitio), which seemed to need renewed attention, he determined 
and decided that the whole work was to be put upon the anvil 
once more." 

Now it is an agreed point among experts, and beyond 
reasonable question, that on its material side the Sixtine Vul- 
gate is well printed, and it has been insinuated that bad print- 
ing was an untrue pretext, put forward to cover the rejection 
of it on other grounds. Nevertheless "fault of the press" 
(pr&li vitio) is a wide term, not necessarily to be restricted to 
"misprints" in the strictest and narrowest sense. Bellarmine 
complained that there were places "which without any sup- 
port or reason, and against the testimony of all the manu- 
scripts, Latin, Greek and Hebrew, had been removed, added 
to, or changed." 9 Perhaps he may have had Numbers xi. 
11-14 in his mind's eye, where nearly three verses are entirely 
omitted in the Sixtine text, or Judges xviii. 3, where eight 
words are omitted, in both cases without the slightest warrant. 
Such blunders could only be due to haste, the reason assigned 
in Bellarmine's suggested preface and implied in the one pub- 
lished; and when we consider Sixtus' restless energy, in this 
as in other matters, and the important share he had in the 
actual printing of the work; we shall probably come to the 
conclusion that this "fault of the press" does not exclude Six- 
tus' own work, but implicitly includes it, without pointing to 
him too directly. 

"We ourselves," Sixtus writes in the JEternus Ille, 10 "have 

T Amann, p. 122. "Old Testament," p. 104. 

Amann, p. 105. Cardinal Bellarmine was a good Hebrew scholar, and in fact 
published a Hebrew grammar, a copy of which has lately been presented to the St. 
Beuno's College library. 

10 Comely, Introductio Generalis, vol. i., p. 468. 



648 THE VULGATE TRANSLATION [Feb., 

corrected with our own hand any mistakes that had crept in 
through the press; and passages that seemed confused, or 
very likely to be confused, we have distinguished by an inter- 
val in the writing, and by larger letters, and by punctuation." 
It is clear, therefore, that Sixtus was taking a leading part in 
the press-work itself, and must be held largely responsible for 
any mistakes therein. It was not for any following of ancient 
manuscripts, as against the Louvain text, that Bellarmine finds 
fault with the Sixtine Vulgate; nevertheless, the commission 
which he proposed was to "revise the Sixtine Bible quickly, 
and bring it back to the ordinary Bible, especially that of 
Louvain." X1 There was no question now of doing the work of 
the commission once more; the text was merely to be made 
reasonably safe. And as a matter of fact the Clementine 
Vulgate is acknowledged to be a better text than the Sixtine, 
rapid though the revision was. 

It has also been questioned whether, as asserted in the 
Clementine preface, quoted above, Sixtus really meant to 
withdraw his Bible at all; and the matter is complicated by 
the doubt as to whether the Bull enforcing it, the famous 
jEternus Hie, was ever fully promulgated, so as to have legal 
force. These two points may now be briefly discussed, and 
the latter first. There are three main arguments in favor of 
the promulgation having taken place, and three against it. 12 
In favor of it is the fact that the original Bull has the official 
endorsement on the back, to the effect that it has been duly 
published in Rome, with the customary formalities: secondly, 
copies of the Bull were actually printed: thirdly, in the briefs 
issued to the Catholic princes, Sixtus speaks of having already 
issued a "perpetual constitution" on the subject, 13 binding 
already, one would naturally suppose, as it is to bind for all 
future time. On the other hand, the Bull was never entered 
in the official register. Further, Father A. Tanner, S.J., in the 
second volume of his Theologia Scholastica, gives weighty 
evidence against the promulgation. In 1609-1610, when he 
was professor of theology at Ingolstadt, difficulties arising 
from the Sixtine Bible were much under discussion, and he 
was assured by the General of the Society's Assistant for Ger- 

11 Amann, p. 96. " Amann, pp. 115-118. 

l Cum . . . constitutione perpetua super hoc iam edita decreverimus, Amann, 
p. 117. 



1922.] THE VULGATE TRANSLATION 649 

many that the Bull had never been promulgated, and two 
proofs were offered, the one, that the promulgation was not 
entered in the register, the other, Cardinal Bellarmine's dec- 
laration that he had heard as much on his return from France 
from several cardinals, who asserted that they knew absolutely 
for certain that no promulgation had taken place. Later on 
the Father Assistant wrote again, putting forward yet a third 
proof : a certain Father Azor in a public disputation at Rome, 
when some were basing an objection to Papal Infallibility upon 
the Sixtine Bible, made the reply that the Bull concerning it, 
the JEternus Hie, had never been promulgated, and that it had 
been endorsed as promulgated only by anticipation, at Sixtus' 
behest, in order to save time. 

It is interesting to find the Society of Jesus definitely and 
officially defending Papal Infallibility at that early date; we 
may also observe in passing that no very serious difficulty can 
be made against it from the JEternus Hie. Pope Sixtus, it is 
true, uses some rather strong language as to his selecting the 
readings in virtue of his Petrine privilege; yet in at least two 
places he shows himself aware that the selection may not be 
the best. 

But an even stronger argument against the promulgation 
of the Bull is to be drawn from Sixtus' own attitude. He 
steadily refused to recognize the Bull as possessing as yet 
binding force. The Venetian Government was protesting 
energetically against the regulation in the JEternus Hie which 
restricted the printing of the Sixtine Vulgate for ten years to 
the Vatican press; it complained that the Venetian printers 
would suffer, alleging moreover (apparently without ground) 
that the inquisitor at Venice had already begun to enforce the 
Bull. Sixtus replied that the inquisitor had been too forward, 
and had acted without proper authorization; nothing ought to 
have been done, and nothing should be done, without further 
instructions. Dr. Amann therefore thinks that the Bull was 
formally published, but was never intended by Sixtus to come 
into actual force as binding, and in that sense was never pro- 
mulgated, since Sixtus' mind on the point was well known. 
Nevertheless the non-entry into the register points to the omis- 
sion of some, at least, of the usual formalities of publication. 

Even though Sixtus had thus delivered himself, the Vene- 
tian ambassador still pressed for the withdrawal of the Bull, 



650 THE VULGATE TRANSLATION [Feb., 

and was fairly hopeful of the result, when the news came of 
Sixtus' death, on August 27, 1590. As far as his evidence goes, 
it shows that Sixtus was shaken in his determination to carry 
Bull and Bible through; but we must remember that it was 
with the Bull, not with the Bible, that the ambassador was pri- 
marily concerned. He was working in the interest of the 
Venetian printers, and had no interest in the correctness of the 
Sixtine text. On the other hand, doubts as to the soundness 
of the text would help to make Sixtus more pliant; if he felt 
the need of revising his Vulgate, he would not be prepared, at 
all events as yet, to enforce the Bull. That he did feel this 
need, we know both from Cardinal Bellarmine and Father 
Rocca, the two best possible authorities on the point, since 
both were largely concerned in the matter. The fact that the 
Clementine preface was actually printed also shows that the 
statements of fact contained therein were regarded by the 
Pope and the cardinals concerned as correct. 

And indeed, Sixtus was not likely to remain unaware of 
the objections to his Vulgate. Both the Congregation of the 
Index and his own revising commission took strong and open 
exception to it, the latter naturally enough, since he had set 
their results at naught; matters came to such a pitch that he 
even threatened Cardinal Caraffa with the Inquisition. And 
the Spanish ambassador in the background was working 
steadily both against Bible and Bull on political grounds. 
Thus a careful consideration of the evidence and of the cir- 
cumstances will lead to the acceptance of the statements of the 
Clementine preface, disputed as they often have been; nor 
would it be fair to treat as anything but an ascertained his- 
torical fact the high character of Cardinal Bellarmine him- 
self, a great pillar of the Church in those days of storm, whom 
we may yet see upon our altars. 

For the last chapter in the history of the Vulgate, the 
reader will best be referred to His Eminence Cardinal 
Gasquet's own account in the Catholic Encyclopedia. 14 There 
is a certain fittingness in St. Jerome's great work being in- 
trusted to the venerable order of St. Benedict for revision and 
restoration, even as his other great work, the part he played 
in introducing asceticism into Europe, found direction and 
order in the rule of St. Benedict himself. And in the words of 

"Article: Vulgate, Revision of. 



1922.] THE VULGATE TRANSLATION 651 

Pope Pius X.'s letter intrusting Cardinal (then Abbot) Gasquet 
with the work of revision (December, 1907), we may find 
words, plain, yet without exaggeration, wherein to couch our 
verdict on the previous revision: "You have a work pro- 
posed to you which is laborious and difficult, whereat there 
have worked with skill men renowned for their learning, and 
some from the number of the Popes themselves, with a not 
altogether happy endeavor." 

In conclusion, we may turn to a question of a rather 
more dogmatic character, that of the authority of the Latin 
Vulgate. The present writer has already had occasion to 
treat what Cardinal Franzelin regarded as, from this point of 
view, the most difficult passage (1 Corinthians xv. 51: Fran- 
zelin, De Traditione et Scriptura, ed. 3, p. 531) in the first 
appendix to his edition of 1 Corinthians in the Westminster 
Version of the Sacred Scriptures, to which accordingly the 
reader may be referred for a handling of the problem as it 
presents itself in the concrete; here we must concern ourselves 
rather with the general principle which must govern such a 
handling. 

The Council of Trent in its fourth session, after enumerat- 
ing the books in the canon of Scripture, laid an anathema 
upon any who "should not receive as sacred and canonical the 
(above) books entire, with all their parts, as they have been 
wont to be read in the Catholic Church, and are contained in 
the ancient Latin vulgate edition." It has already been re- 
marked that "vulgate" at this date probably means little more 
as yet than "current." In this Tridentine canon, then, we 
have the Vulgate put forward as the concrete embodiment of 
what is to be regarded as canonical Scripture, as an easy test 
of what had been "wont to be read in the Catholic Church." 
The Vatican Council, indeed, dealing with the same matter in 
its third session, contented itself with a reference to the 
Tridentine enumeration and to the Vulgate, without speak- 
ing of constant usage in the Church. 

The Council of Trent next declares that this same Vulgate 
edition, "which has been sanctioned by the long usage of so 
many centuries in the Church herself, is to be treated as 
authentic in public lectures, disputations, sermons and exposi- 
tions, and that no one is to dare or presume to reject it under 
any pretext whatever." That the Vulgate is thus constituted 



652 THE VULGATE TRANSLATION [Feb., 

the "authentic" text in the sense that it is made the official 
text is clear from the decree itself, and may be considered an 
agreed point, but some ulterior issues need to be discussed. 
What precise edition or text of the Vulgate was thus made 
authentic? To this question Pere Durand, S.J., appears to 
supply the right answer in the Etudes for April, 1898, in words 
here translated: "The edition of the Vulgate absolutely 
authentic in the sense of the Council would be one in which 
only the variant readings and all the variant readings were 
retained, which have in their favor the irrefragable witness 
of tradition. This ideal edition the Popes immediately after 
the Council undertook to realize." 15 In passages, therefore, 
where the traditional text is divided between two variant 
readings and therefore doubtful, the full authority of Trent 
cannot be claimed for either of these readings; on the other 
hand, the Clementine text is, of course, official today, and it 
appears best and safest to apply to it what is hereafter to be 
said of the Tridentine sanction itself. 

The Fathers of the Council of Trent did not make the 
Vulgate authentic because they thought it a perfect transla- 
tion, but because they thought it safe. On this subject we 
have reliable documents, chief among them the letter of the 
presiding legates to Cardinal Farnese. The decree declaring 
the Vulgate authentic met with considerable opposition at 
Rome; it was objected that there were many mistakes in the 
Vulgate which could not be ascribed to copyists or printers, 
and there was even talk of delaying the printing of the de- 
cree until it had been revised. The presidents, however, wrote 
to Cardinal Farnese that the difficulties raised had already 
been maturely considered by the Council, but that all had 
agreed that the Vulgate was the safest version, because during 
so long a time it had never been charged with heresy, even 
though in some places it seemed to differ from the Hebrew 
text. 18 

That the Vulgate was safe in matters of faith and morals, 
was beyond question the view taken by the Council, and 
indeed might be argued theologically from the very posi- 
tion and authority assigned it, for otherwise this general coun- 
cil would be leading the Church into dogmatic or moral error. 

"Page 220. 
" Cardinal Pallavicino, S.J., Istoria del Concilia di Trento, Book VI., chap. 17. 



1922.] THE VULGATE TRANSLATION 653 

It might also be shown from an examination of the version it- 
self; finally, it is an agreed point among theologians. That it 
is substantially faithful as a translation might also be proved 
in much the same way, but there is some little question as to 
the precise limits of that faithfulness. The eminent theolo- 
gian, Cardinal Franzelin, put forward a hypothesis which 
seems to go beyond the mind of the Council on the point, and 
occasions some difficulty. In his otherwise admirable treatise, 
De Divinis Scripturis (These 19), he propounds the view that 
where a dogma is expressed in a passage of the Vulgate, it 
must be found expressed in the same passage in the originals, 
though it need not be expressed in the same way, and though 
the converse need not be true. He argues that the Council 
declares the books of Holy Scripture with all their parts 
canonical and therefore inspired as they are in the Vulgate; 
since they are inspired only as originally written, it would 
follow that they must be in the Vulgate as originally written. 

This argument, however, proves too much; it would prove 
absolute and complete correspondence in the translation, 
which nobody would admit, contrary as it is to evident facts. 
And further, the Vulgate can be used to show what is canonical 
Scripture without reproducing it all with perfect accuracy. 
Franzelin's other argument is that in enforcing the acceptance 
of "all the parts," the Council has in view the proof of dogma 
from Scripture; this proof must be valid, and therefore all 
dogmatic parts must faithfully represent the originals. He 
relies upon the fact that the Council goes on to say that all 
are now to understand "what testimonies and support it will 
chiefly use in confirming dogmas and renewing morals in the 
Church." Nevertheless it should be noted that these last 
words refer to the traditions of the Church no less than to the 
canonical books, and it is enough that a proof from the Vul- 
gate should always be in accord with tradition, without the 
words of Trent demonstrating that in all cases the original 
text of Scripture must bear out the dogmatic sense of the Latin 
translation. As a matter of fact, it seems clear from the acts 
of the Council that it was not thinking of the dogmatic parts 
of Scripture at all as such, but of parts which Protestants and 
others denied to be canonical Scripture, partly books and 
partly passages. 

The whole matter may be examined by the student in 



654 WASTE [Feb., 

Theiner's Acta Concilii Tridentini, in the debates preparatory 
to the fourth session. 17 The more general view appears to be 
hostile to Cardinal Franzelin's conclusions, and it is based, 
not merely upon the insufficiency of his arguments, but on an 
appeal to actual facts, to particular passages of Scripture. 
Some of the more relevant are adduced by the late Dr. Gigot in 
his General Introduction, ed. 2, pp. 321-325, and others are dis- 
cussed by Pere Durand, S.J., in the Etudes for April, 1898. 

Thus the correspondence of the Vulgate to the originals 
must not be exaggerated; nevertheless, when we consider the 
conditions under which St. Jerome worked, far as he was 
from possessing all our modern paraphernalia of dictionaries 
and grammars and concordances and textual apparatus and 
the rest then we cannot fail to applaud his achievement 
as truly magnificent, magnificent in faithfulness no less than 
in force and clearness. These fine qualities we can recognize 
even in the current text; much more shall we recognize them 
in the revised edition to be issued by the sons of St. Benedict, 

" E. g., vol. 1., pp. 59, 71. 



WASTE. 

BY FRANCES HADDOCK. 

IN my mystic cup of thought, 

My little folded brain, 

I hold the great winds and the moon, 

The moonlight and the rain. 

Twin shells of vastness, sea and sky, 
Beauty and joy and gold, 
Space, and the infinite flight of stars 
My thought has stretched to hold. 

And who will say that Death, a Fool, 
Babbling and drunk, one day 
Will spill my thought's vast treasure out, 
And fill the cup with clay? 



THE COMING OF THE DANES. 

A TALE OF IRELAND A THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
BY BRIAN P. O'SHASNAIN. 




DARK-HAIRED, slender boy lay in the heather 
looking out over the sea. Below him vast break- 
ers burst against slippery, smoothed rocks. Gulls 
swooped and screamed overhead. A few yards 
behind him a rabbit popped out of the ground 
and "froze" as it sensed the presence of a human being. 

The boy was at the age when tales of adventure stir in 
the mind, filling days and nights with dreams of far places 
and of high deeds to be wrought. He was dressed in a kilt 
with a linen smock hanging over his shoulders, bound in at 
the waist by a leather belt. His feet were bare. On the 
ground near him were laid a bow and a sheaf of arrows. 

He was watching a ship that was making in towards the 
harbor entrance below. It was a long, slender craft with 
gorgeous red sails which made a rich spectacle as it moved 
through the narrows. Presently the great sail flapped down, 
and the boy, Dermot, son of Murtagh, thrilled as he saw a 
long line of oars begin to move in rhythm. 

"Cormac," he called softly to someone whose scrambling 
could be heard on the cliff a little below him. 

"Aye!" answered a voice. "Dermot, I've found the nest. 
There are only four eggs in it, but I'll bring them up." 

"I was not thinking of that," answered Dermot. "I was 
thinking to tell you that a Long Serpent of the Danes is enter- 
ing the harbor." 

"Oho!" cried an astonished voice from below. "That's 
news! I didn't see trace of such a thing when I scrambled 
down here. Has it just come?" 

"It has just come around the point," answered Dermot. 
"You had better climb up and see it before it disappears." 

In answer to this there was a violent scrambling, and a 
fair-haired youth somewhat older than Dermot thrust his 
head above the rock's edge. Climbing carefully, for with one 



656 THE COMING OF THE DANES [Feb., 

hand he held the eggs, he scrambled out on the heather be- 
side Dermot. He was tall, with blue eyes, fair hair and a very 
white skin. He wore a kilted garment similar to the one that 
Dermot had on, but a little finer in appearance. He stood up, 
shading his eyes with his hand, and stared long at the formid- 
able ship-of-war below. 

"That means trouble," he muttered, half to himself. 

"Do you know them?" asked Dermot. 

"No," answered the other, "but from the equipment and 
speed of the ship I think they will be hard to deal with. We'd 
better be off, Dermot, and see what's going to happen." 

"Aye," said the younger boy. "I am glad I brought my 
weapons with me." 

Cormac looked at his comrade and laughed. "So, little 
Dermot, you think of encountering the fierce Northman with 
your weapon!" 

Dermot flushed as he sprang to his feet. 

"I'll have you know, Cormac, that my courage is equal to 
yours, even if you are bigger!" As he said these words he 
stared fiercely at his comrade. The blood came to his cheeks 
and his eyes flashed. The idle wind lifted his smock as he 
stood there and revealed a body as lithe and beautiful as a cat 
ready to spring. 

Cormac's laugh died out. Taking a step nearer, he passed 
an arm around the shoulder of Dermot and looked down at 
his face. 

"I'm sorry, little firebrand," he said. "I meant no offence. 
No one more than I knows how brave and skillful and faith- 
ful you are. I was but jesting. Forgive me." 

Instantly the fierce look passed from the face of Dermot. 
He took the hand of his companion and violently shook it. 

"It's I that need to be forgiven ! My temper is always get- 
ting the better of me. You put me to shame, dear friend, with 
your coolness." 

As he said this the two boys began to walk away from the 
cliff. 

"We need all the coolness we can command at this time," 
answered Cormac. "The Northmen are coming in great num- 
bers to the coast of Ireland. There is fighting eyery where. 
Monasteries and holy places by the hundred have been burned. 
As long as we Irish quarrel among ourselves the foreigners 



1922.] THE COMING OF THE DANES 657 

will be able to command the country. That is the beginning 
and the end of things everywhere in Ireland." 

"The foreigners will never get me to bow the knee to 
them," cried Dermot fiercely. "As long as I have a hand that 
can strike, I will make war against them aye, even though 
Long Serpents come by the thousands." 

"Those are the words that the young chief, Brian, used 
last month when he spoke to our council," answered the other. 
"But he said that we would never be free of the foreigner as 
long as we war among ourselves. When he went off, I wished 
that I could join his band, but that father would not allow." 

By this time the two youths had reached a path that ran 
down towards the harbor of Youghal into which they had 
seen the Long Serpent moving. Here they halted for a 
moment. 

"Let us go down and spy on the Northmen as they land," 
said Dermot, his imagination stirred to adventurous exploit. 

After a moment's hesitation, the other answered : "I will 
go, Dermot, if you give me your solemn promise to come away 
when I say so." 

"Why should I come away when you or any man says," 
flashed the other fiercely. 

"Now, my dear comrade," began the other. "Don't you 
remember what your father told us. He said that you were 
not to go near the coast if the Northmen came and we begged 
him off, and then he said we could go to the sea if we kept 
together. And he said that because he knew that you were 
braver than I, but hotter-headed." 

"Braver than you, Cormac," said the young boy. He 
laughed. His sudden temper subsided, and he walked along 
at the side of Cormac without further protest. The path 
which they trod led in a general way along the coastline, but 
the land through which it passed, was uninhabited save by wild 
deer and the rabbits, or now and then a browsing cow. Occa- 
sionally the path brought them in sight of the sea, which shone 
blue and splendid between black cliffs. A soft wind blew, but 
it only served to make the warmth of the summer day more 
delightful. 

They had not covered more than a mile of ground when 
they saw coming towards them a small, lean, dark man who 
trotted along the path at a swinging pace. He saw the boys 

VOL. cxiv. 42 



658 THE COMING OF THE DANES [Feb., 

and shouted as he came closer: "The Northmen are in the 
harbor." 

"Yes, we saw their ship," answered Cormac. "We are 
going down to look at them." 

"Ye be venturesome lads," answered the other with a look 
of admiration. "Most boys do not want to be near the men 
from a Long Serpent. But if ye can keep under cover per- 
haps ye will gather information of value. I must go on now, 
for I run with the news to Brian's camp, and it ten miles off." 

As he spoke, he leaped along the path once more, this time 
running faster to make up for the time he had wasted. Der- 
mot looked after him for a minute. 

"Isn't he a wonder?" he said, "the way he can run!" 

"He is so. My father says he is the best runner in Mun- 
ster, and that is saying a lot." 

"Is it true, do you think," asked Dermot as they went on, 
"that he can outrun a horse?" 

"It is true, and it is a thing that I saw him do myself," 
answered Gormac. "Also he can run a hundred miles be- 
tween dawn and dark of a summer's day, and not be any 
more tired than you and I after walking twenty-five." 

Dermot was silent for a moment. 

"It is a wonder to me," he went on, "that with men such 
as Rory the Runner and with fighters such as your father and 
mine, we ever let the Northmen come to eat up our coasts." 

"There are many reasons for that sad state of affairs. 
One is that the men of Ireland are best as single fighters. 
They are uneasy in the ranks, even though they be great lone 
champions, while the Northmen have been disciplined by 
their many wars and, above all, by the sea. A ship is a narrow 
world, says my father, and it teaches every man to know his 
place. 

"Another reason," he went on, "is that the Northmen wear 
good armor of steel, while the Irishman likes best to fight in 
his shirt. But the biggest reason of all is that the men of our 
country are busy fighting their own little wars, so that when 
the big war comes on them from the sea they are divided. 
These are the things my father tells me, but my own reason 
teaches me likewise." 

Dermot listened with interest. From the time six years 
before when Cormac's father, who was a sea-trader, had set- 



1922.] THE COMING OF THE DANES 659 

tied in the town that stood near where Youghal now stands, 
these two boys had been chums. Cormac's father had taken 
him on many voyages, and did so still on occasions, so that the 
youth was widely traveled. His mother had died when he 
was three years old, and he had been raised by an old nurse 
and by his father, Cormac the Trader, a man who had voyaged 
to the Hebrides, to Scotland, to the tin-ports of Cornwall, to 
Marseilles, to Spain and Scandinavia. It was while there that 
Cormac had learned to respect the seamanship of the North- 
men, their abilities as traders and their immense energy. Also 
he had learned the language, and like so many seacoast dwell- 
ers of his time, he could trade in Irish, in the tongue of the 
Northmen and, at a pinch, talk good Saxon. 

Cormac at sixteen had received the very best education 
that a boy could get in those days wide travel with an intel- 
ligent father, the mastering of several useful crafts and the 
knowledge of reading in Latin and reckoning which the monks 
at Cashel had given him during two years spent in their school. 
He was good-natured to a fault, but to offset that he had a 
practical intelligence that made him the equal of worldly men 
in many ports. He might be generous, but he was not a fool. 
In his travels his father had not neglected to teach him skill 
in arms, for in those wild days every trading ship had to be 
ready for flight or fight at a half hour's notice. He had learned 
the use of the long spear which the Irish wielded with such 
effect, and the battle-ax; with the bow and arrow he was a 
fair shot. He could run and leap surpassingly well like most 
of the Irish. Above all, he was observant. Experience and 
necessity had taught him to use his senses well. 

Dermot was at once the master and the disciple of Cor- 
mac. There had come into being between them one of those 
deep, permanent friendships which sometimes exist between 
boys, and which have furnished the world with many a fair 
story of bravery from the days of Damon and Pythias on. 
Dermot was of a slighter build than his comrade. He was 
more passionate and more intelligent when dealing with ab- 
stract ideas. He was more the poet and the artist than the 
other but it was an age when poetry and art were widely 
diffused despite the general risks of life. Dermot's impetuous 
nature, however, was like to keep him in continual hot water, 
but for the aid and interposition of his ready friend, and more 



660 THE COMING OF THE DANES [Feb., 

than once the younger boy burst out on the other with almost 
feminine fury. Always during such outbreaks Cormac had 
known how to keep his head and to bring his young comrade 
to his senses. Dermot's father was a poet, one of the many 
cultivated men of his time. The boy was his only child, and 
his mother, realizing what a capacity he had for getting into 
trouble, had practically given him in charge to Cormac dur- 
ing the summer vacation when the monks kept no school and 
when young lads roved the countryside or climbed the high 
cliffs, searching for birds' eggs or strange colored stones. 

The two boys emerged on a plateau overlooking the beach 
towards which the Long Serpent was heading. They were 
effectually hidden in the heather which grew at the top, but 
as they peered out they could see the flashing oars come to 
rest an arrow-shot from the shore. From there the ship gently 
drifted in until she struck the sand. A sailor leaped ashore 
with a rope, which he ran around the nearest tree. Now the 
Vikings in glittering array appeared on the deck. The sailor 
stretched forth a plank and the armored men walked ashore 
on it. They were magnificent-looking fellows, tall, robust, 
with springy step, each armed in mail. Some of them wore 
steel helmets, which were decorated by the flaming wings of 
birds. From beneath these helmets the hair fell down behind, 
and was clipped at the neck. Most of them wore dark blue 
linen breeches, held by leather belts. Each carried a large 
sword and a massive shield. Most of the shields were beauti- 
fully decorated, and some which were burnished glowed with 
golden light when the sun slanted against them. One who 
seemed a leader, wore a red scarlet kirtle and over it a gray 
cloak. A boar-skin cap made his head more fierce-looking 
than the others. 

The boys held their breath as they watched this splendid 
spectacle. Cormac with keen eyes noted the military pre- 
cision of their movements, and admired the seamanship which 
secured the vessel and left it under an armed guard off shore 
till the return of the raiders. 

Now the officers could be heard speaking, and Cormac 
listened intently, for the day was still and from where they hid 
he could understand. 

"Thou hast chosen a fair place to land, Olaf," said one 
who seemed to be second in command. 



1922.J THE COMING OF THE DANES 661 

Olaf shouted orders before answering. At his word the 
Northmen dispersed about the beach at ease. Two of them in- 
stantly stripped and ran into the water, where they swam 
about like seals. Then Olaf spoke to the other : 

"It is a rich country. I think we shall do well here if 
luck is with us," he said as the two walked up and down the 
beach together. The men who were in the water came out 
and ran along the sand to dry themselves. One of them chased 
the other, who leaped and dodged with extraordinary agility. 
At last, however, he was cornered and, finding nowhere to 
turn, suddenly ran up the steep slope towards the boys, agile 
as a goat and laughing aloud. 

Before the boys could move, he was on them. He tripped 
on Cormac, but in falling, twisted and seized the boy by 
the wrist. Dermot leaped away like a rabbit and disappeared 
in the heather. The Northman and Cormac rolling and 
twisting fell over the edge of the slope and rolled to the bot- 
tom, turning over and over, their mouths and ears filled with 
sand. All the time the Viking never let go of Cormac. 

The other player came up and plucked off the boy, while 
the men stood laughing and shouting at the unexpected enter- 
tainment. Cormac, shaken, scratched, his clothes torn, was 
dragged before Olaf, who stood on the sand watching. 

"Ho!" he cried. "What have we here a youth set to spy 
on us?" 

Cormac answered in Danish : 

"Nay only a boy who saw thy Long Serpent enter the 
harbor and who stayed to see how well Olaf handles his ship." 

"Well spoken, youth," answered Olaf laughing. "Thou 
hast a sweet tongue. How wouldst thou like to taste the edge 
of this sword?" 

"The sword of Olaf would be shamed by the blood of a 
weaponless boy," answered Cormac boldly, knowing that 
above all things the Northmen prized a high spirit. 

"How can we tell that thou art not a spy sent to report 
our movements?" questioned the Captain, still suspicious. 
Cormac knew that his life hung by a thread, for these wild 
men from the North were like great cats who had captured a 
mouse. 

"Sir," he answered, "whatever coasts ye fall upon, there 
will be children or shepherds or women who may chance to 



662 THE COMING OF THE DANES [Feb., 

see ye. Would ye then do them harm merely because they 
have chanced to observe your forces coming in from the sea?" 

"There is sooth in what you say," answered Olaf. "My 
Sharptooth" here he tapped his great sword affectionately 
"will not satisfy its thirst in boy's blood. All the same I will 
not let you go, lest you carry news of our coming to the Irish." 

"How doth it hap," he went on, "that you speak in the 
tongue of my people?" 

"My father is a trader," answered Cormac. "I have been 
with him to the countries of the North." 

Olaf beckoned to one of the men. "Bind him," he said. 
Then : "No harm will come to thee unless thou try to escape." 
The soldier bound Cormac's hands behind him. 

Olaf turned to the men and called out orders. They fell 
into double files and, with the prisoner in the centre, began 
their march towards the town. For the most part they walked 
in silence, with two scouts thrown out ahead and a rear guard 
fifty paces behind. Cormac guessed that they were about five 
score all told. 

At the end of a few miles they came in sight of habitations, 
but the news had spread and every house was deserted. The 
sea-rovers, however, were after larger booty than the contents 
of cottages or wattled huts. When they approached a small 
monastery they began to look interested. The Abbot met 
them at the gate and held out a richly carved cross, hoping 
against hope that somehow the holy symbol would work a 
miracle in the hard hearts of the raiders. A buffet from the 
hand of Olaf sent him spinning against the wall. Cormac, 
horrified, was left at the gate under guard while the Danes 
swiftly ransacked the place. The looting was carried on to 
the accompaniment of broken rough shouts, commands from 
Olaf to be quick, directions called from one group to another, 
the noise of battered-in doors and the crash of heavy furniture. 

Presently a shout announced the discovery of treasure. 
The monks had been herded in the cellar, but they could see 
the proceedings in the yard through small barred windows. 
When they saw the Northmen carrying their precious books 
into the yard and throwing them down to be burned for the 
value of the gold clasps and hinges on the covers, there arose 
a common cry from them. It was of no avail. The match 
was applied to the precious tomes and the reverent artistic 



1922.] THE COMING OF THE DANES 663 

labors of years went up in smoke. Out of the ashes the van- 
dals raked the molten gold as soon as it had cooled. 

Cormac watched the proceedings with unfeigned horror. 
He had come to accept as traditional a certain measure of 
peace and safety always accorded to the learned and to clergy. 
In Ireland all factions, no matter how bitter the quarrel, were 
accustomed to exempt monasteries and schools from the 
devastation of war, but here were people to whom learning, 
piety, art, meant nothing in comparison to the lust for gold. 

After burning the books the Northmen tried to set fire to 
the buildings themselves. But fortunately for the monks they 
had builded of heavy timbers and stone, and the fire had not 
progressed very far after the Vikings had left before they 
broke out of their cellar and quenched it. But they fell heir 
to a sadly devastated establishment, as did all on whom the 
wrath of the sea-rovers fell. 

Meanwhile the Vikings had approached nearer the town. 
The houses and gardens now became more numerous, and the 
boy, recognizing familiar scenes, trembled lest the dreadful 
orgy of destruction be repeated. Under Olaf's orders, how- 
ever, the Northmen marched on towards the town itself. 

The approach to the town led into a glen through which 
the road wound, at one point flanked by wooded hills on both 
sides. They were half way through this passage when sud- 
denly the Irish war-cry sounded. Fierce men burst from the 
bushes on both sides, and charged them. 

"An ambush!" cried Olaf. "Keep steady. Face out!" 

The Irish were armed with their formidable eighteen- 
foot spears, and their first onset was sufficient to throw the 
line of the Danes into some disorder. There was a wild scene 
for a moment and the wood was filled with the battle cries of 
two races. Then the Vikings recovered their line. A hard 
battle began. The sea-rovers found it difficult to reach the 
attackers because of the length of their spears. The Irish, 
however, found it almost impossible to penetrate the excellent 
armor of their foes. The advantage on the whole was on 
the side of the Northmen. With long, powerful sweeps of the 
heavy sword they cut down the spears and rushing forward 
engaged the Irish at close quarters. Then the spearmen were 
driven back, but their place was immediately taken by stal- 
wart fellows, wielders of the ponderous battle-ax. 



664 THE COMING OF THE DANES [Feb., 

The fight now became general, and when in the melee the 
man who guarded Cormac was suddenly struck down by a 
spear thrown from the wood, he leaped for the shelter of the 
trees and ran into the arms of Dermot! 

"I ran to the town and roused the men," cried the younger 
lad breathlessly. 

"I'll never forget it," cried Cormac, clasping his hand. 

Cormac's father was there, his eyes sparkling with the 
joy of battle. 

"Oh, it was you who threw that spear!" cried Cormac de- 
lightedly as the old man cut his bonds. 

"It was," answered Cormac the Trader. "And now I want 
ye to keep well back from the fight. This is no place for boys. 
Promise me that! Ye can shoot arrows from the woods." 

"I promise, father," answered Cormac. His father, satis- 
fied, rushed again out of the woods and went into the fight. 
The boys, well hid in the woods now, followed the varying 
fortunes of the battle, which had become an affair of single 
combats. The Northmen, despite the orders of Olaf, were 
pursuing the Irish into the deep shade of the woods. In vain 
their chief exhorted them. They were getting the best of the 
fight! The unarmored Irish were giving way! That was 
enough. Cormac and Dermot shot a dozen shafts from the 
shelter of the wood. 

Suddenly there was a rumbling like the burst of a thunder- 
cloud. Dermot leaped up and screamed and pointed. En- 
tirely oblivious of danger, they leaped out into the open to see. 
Down the path came charging a body of the Irish horsemen, 
then, as now, a formidable cavalry. They struck the North- 
men with a great crash. The Irish among the trees renewed 
their onset. The woods were filled with confused shouting, 
with the metallic blows of steel on steel and the cries of the 
wounded. 

The horsemen more than equaled the superiority of the 
Vikings in armor. They rode to and fro among the knots of 
men, striking and parrying with extraordinary agility. 

Olaf at last gave the order to retreat. The sea-rovers 
knew how to hold a line and they fell back only to the accom- 
paniment of hard and bitter fighting. Dearly they made the 
Irish pay for their victory. The rejoicing shout of many a 
man among the conquerors was turned to a cry of pain. 



1922.] THE COMING OF THE DANES 665 

All the way to the ships the Irish harried them, and the 
Danes returned blow for blow. A last fight took place on the 
beach. The sands were reddened with the blood of many a 
good man before the sea-rovers at last put forth in their Long 
Serpent. 

The two boys had run along in the rear of the fight, and 
they had been able to help many an injured man, of whom 
more than one dropped out of line dripping-red and faint 
from wounds. Then came the monks with bandages and 
stretchers, for medicine and surgery were among their kindly 
services and they gave healing both to the Irish and to the 
Danes. Cormac and Dermot hastened down to the beach to 
witness the last desperate battle when the Irish tried to cut 
the foreigners off from their ship and failed. Then, amid 
shouts, the Long Serpent put forth from the harbor to seek 
some easier prey. 

Cormac's father came up. He wore a bloody bandage on 
his head. "There's someone I want ye to meet, boys," he said. 

He led them to a young man who sat a tall rangy horse 
the Irish Chief Brian, a man magnificently dressed according 
to the manner of the mounted Fianna. He sat his horse look- 
ing keenly out to sea after the Long Serpent. 

"Chief, you have met my son, Cormac, but I want you to 
meet my son's friend, Dermot. They were both captured by 
the Danes when they landed." 

The man on horseback gave kindly greeting to the boys. 
He asked them to describe the landing of the Danes, and they 
did so, one chiming in after the other till the Chief smiled. 

"These are good boys," said Brian the Chief. "Some day 
I hope they will serve Ireland." 

"Surely we will, sir," burst out Dermot fervently. "And 
I will follow thee into battle against the foreigners!" 

"Go back now," Cormac's father said, "and aid the hurt 
men, both Danes and Irish. Some day, God willing, ye 
will serve under Brian and then" he lowered his voice to 
a whisper "who knows perhaps he will be no longer Brian 
the Chief, but Brian the High King of Ireland." 

The boys turned back once as they climbed the sandy 
path. Outlined against the blue sea they saw their chief sit- 
ting his tall horse. He was talking to two other horsemen. 
The monks moved actively among the wounded. Lithe, 



666 CONFESSIONAL PRAYER [Feb., 

scarlet-shirted cavalry scoured along the coast, following the 
movements of the Long Serpent. The smoke of a campfire 
rose into the air. 

The two boys trotted in silence back towards the mon- 
astery. And in the mind of each rang the words: "Brian, 
High King of Ireland. Brian High King of Ireland!" 



CONFESSIONAL PRAYER. 

BY FRANCIS CARLIN. 

THAT the love of John 

Who died in peace, 
And the faith of Peter 

Who was crucified, 
And the hope of James 

May never decrease 
In this soul, thrice guilty, 

For whom One died. 

That Joseph's Care 

Who dreamed and wrought- 
That the Son of Mary, 

Who wrought and dreamed 
As the Son of God, 

May cleanse each thought 
Of this soul, thrice guilty, 

Whom One redeemed. 

That God the First, 

Beneath, Above; 
And that God the Second 

Who died and lives; 
And that God the Third 

May forever love 
This soul, thrice guilty, 

Whom One forgives. 




JUGO-SLAVIA: A MODERN KINGDOM. 

BY HERBERT F. WRIGHT, PH.D. 

|HE King is dead! Long live the King!" It is 
thus the peoples of the Old World lament the 
death of their sovereigns and herald the ac- 
cession of new sovereigns. It is thus the Serbian 
people lamented the death of their King and 
hailed his successor, when, on August 16, 1921, Peter I. passed 
away in the capital of his Kingdom after a number of years 
spent in voluntary exile. Born in 1844, the son of Alexander 
Kara-Georgevitch, he was the third in the line of Black George 
Petrovitch, the founder of the dynasty, to occupy the throne, 
to which he succeeded upon the murder of King Alexander of 
the Obrenovitch dynasty in 1903. 

And now another Alexander is King of the Serbian State. 
Although a second son, he has for some time been the heir- 
apparent, his older brother, George, having renounced his 
right of succession in 1909. For a number of years, too, he 
has been prince-regent, for his father abandoned the supreme 
command and regency to him at the close of the first Balkan 
War and retired to Athens, to return finally that he might die 
in his own land. 

"Kings pass, but governments endure." So it is, we trust, 
with Greater Serbia. It was but a few months ago that a new 
Constitution was voted for that country which had finally be- 
come the concrete realization of the dreams of Serbians for 
years past a union of all Serbian peoples into a single State. 
It would indeed be a pity were that dream to be shattered in 
the first few months of its realization. 

It will not require the memory of a Nestor to recall that, 
after the revolution in Austria-Hungary, the countries of Slo- 
venia, Croatia, Bosnia and Dalmatia declared their independ- 
ence. The movement for the formation of a State of Serbian 
peoples was crystallized by the union of the Austro-Serbian, 
Croatian and Slovenian parts of the decadent Austro-Hun- 
garian monarchy with Serbia into a single State. There was 
some doubt for a while as to the position of Montenegro upon 



668 JUGOSLAVIA: A MODERN KINGDOM [Feb., 

such a union. This little mountain principality had, from its 
very origin, withstood attempts of other nations to absorb it, 
but the death of Prince Nicholas on March 1, 1921, left the way 
open for its definite absorption into Greater Serbia. 

Greater Serbia became a reality on December 29, 1918, 
when the first Ministry of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Groats 
and Slovenes was formed, representing all the Jugo-Slav prov- 
inces. The Allied Governments were informed of the crea- 
ation of the new State, and were not slow to grant recognition. 
The boundaries of the new State were definitely fixed by the 
Treaty of Rapallo. How these compare with the boundaries 
of the former Serbian State may be judged from the following 
comparison of the area and population of the constituent 
parts of the new State : 

District Area in Square Miles Population 

Serbia 42,098 4,955,631 

Montenegro 3,536 238,423 

Croatia 17,405 2,715,237 

Bosnia and Herzegovina 20,709 1,931,802 

Dalmatia 5,090 621,503 

Slovenia . 6,790 875,090 



Total 95,628 11,337,686 

Until the new Constitution was adopted, the administra- 
tion of Serbia was based on the Serbian Constitution of June 
5, 1903, and the administration of the other provinces which 
form part of the Kingdom, on the local laws and the agree- 
ment arrived at on December 1, 1918, between the representa- 
tives of the Kingdom of Serbia and those of the provinces 
joined with Serbia. The elections for the Constituent As- 
sembly, held on November 28, 1920, resulted as follows: 

Radicals 102 

Democrats 94 

Croatian Agrarians (Raditch Party) 51 

Communists 42 

Serb Agrarians 33 

Mohammedans 25 

Catholic People's Party 21 

Total 368 

The ministry appointed February 19, 1921, including Protitch, 



1922.] JUGO-SLAVIAS A MODERN KINGDOM 669 

head of the Old Radical Party, as Premier, and Trumbitch as 
Minister of Foreign Affairs, was composed as follows : 

Old Radicals 8 

National Croatian Club 3 

Slovene Clericals 3 

National 1 

National State Club 1 

Unassigned 2 

Vacant 1 

Total 19 

The Constituent Assembly met on December 12, 1920, the 
Croatian Peasant Party and the Croatian Republicans re- 
fusing to take part therein. Including them, however, the 
various districts were represented as follows: 

Old Serbia 158 

Montenegro 8 

Bosnia-Herzegovina 63 

Batchka 25 

Banat 20 

Dalmatia 11 

Croatia and Slavonia 93 

Slovenia 38 

Total 416 

It was on May 12, 1921, that the assiduous labors of the 
Constituent Assembly resulted in the adoption of a Consti- 
tution, inspired in its grander lines by the Serbian Constitu- 
tion of 1903, which in turn owes much to the Belgian Consti- 
tution of 1831. From the day when M. Protitch directed the 
elaboration of a draft, its successive handlings have not been 
without fruit. Retouched by the Vesnitch Cabinet, then by 
the Pashitch Cabinet and, finally, by the Committee on the 
Constitution, it bears the impress of careful agreements 
reached by the Government parties (Radicals, Democrats. 
Bosnian Mohammedans and Agrarians) only after much dis- 
cord and laborious consideration. In the long months of dis- 
cussion, however, the general principles of the new charter 
have remained intact. The initial draft of M. Protitch was 
much more extensive than that which was finally ratified by 



670 JUGOSLAVIA: A MODERN KINGDOM [Feb., 

the vote of May 12th; nevertheless, its essential provisions 
are found therein, although expressed in a less rigid form. 

The first question and not the least discussed was that 
of a definitive name for the new State. The name "Jugo- 
slavia" was advocated by the national groups (Croats and 
Slovenes), because, they said, it was short and in general use, 
lent itself to adjectival forms and in usage had assumed a 
federalist meaning. The Serbs energetically opposed this, 
because, they claimed, for the benefit of the union they had 
already abjured their name, their flag and their State. They 
were loath to adopt a title from which the word "Serb" en- 
tirely disappeared and which would imply to outsiders a sort 
of composite State. Moreover, the longer name which was 
favored by them had already acquired currency in all the 
treaties, agreements and other official documents. To their 
point of view rallied all the unitarist or fusionist parties, that 
is, the vast majority of the country. The new State shall be 
called, therefore, the "Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slo- 
venes." 

The essential provisions of the Constitution are those 
which treat of the King, the legislative power, the adminis- 
trative organization and religious liberty. 

The Jugo-Slav State is a parliamentary and hereditary 
constitutional monarchy. The sovereign is, or was, Peter I. 
Kara-Georgevitch, the crown shall pass in the male line by the 
order of primogeniture. The person of the King is inviolable; 
no proceedings can be instituted against him except in matters 
which concern his private property. The King names officials 
and promulgates the laws. All acts issued by him must be 
countersigned by the responsible minister. The Minister of 
War is responsible for the acts of the monarch as commander- 
in-chief of the armies on land and sea. 

The King has the right to pardon and grant amnesty, with 
some exceptions. He declares war, with the previous consent 
of the Chamber if the country is not the object of an aggres- 
sion. He concludes peace and treaties; in certain instances 
the previous authorization of the Chamber is necessary. This 
authority is also required for the King to become the head of a 
foreign State. The King swears, in the presence of the Cham- 
ber, to observe faithfully the Constitution and laws, as well 
as to maintain the national integrity and unity. 



1922.] JUGO-SLAV1A: A MODERN KINGDOM 671 

The legislative power is intrusted to a single Chamber. 
In the Constituent Assembly there were quite divergent views 
on this point. Politicians of the old generation urged the in- 
stitution of a Senate, and the Protitch project implied in fact 
a bicameral system. But afterwards, this provision was re- 
considered and the project submitted to the Constituent As- 
sembly provided for but one house. After all, the Senate has 
not left a pleasant impression upon the memory of the Serbian 
people, who well remember that Alexander Obrenovitch, an- 
noyed by a few life senators, suspended the Constitution of 
1901 for an hour but a single hour and ousted the trouble 
makers. And although a constitutional eclipse of this kind is 
no longer to be feared, it has seemed more in keeping with the 
spirit of a peasant democracy to keep the unicameral system 
which figures in the Serbian Constitution of 1869, 1888 and 1903. 

The Chamber is elected by universal ballot, direct and 
secret, in the ratio of one deputy for each 50,000 inhabitants, 
about two hundred and eighty deputies in all, with repre- 
sentation of the minorities. The King can dissolve the Cham- 
ber, provided that the decree of dissolution bears the signature 
of all the ministers and prescribes new elections within a 
maximum period of three months and the convocation of the 
New Assembly within a period of four months. 

Perhaps the most serious question before the Constituent 
Assembly was that of the administrative and judicial reorgan- 
ization of the Kingdom on a unitary and equitable basis. This 
question is necessarily bound up with the problem of auton- 
omies. It is well known that Jugo-Slav autonomy includes, 
besides quite legitimate tendencies toward administrative and 
economic decentralization, particularist thrusts whose logical 
result would be a veritable political separatism. For example, 
the movement to restore George to his rights as first-born re- 
nounced by him some years ago, would probably have spelled 
the dismemberment of Greater Serbia. On the other hand, 
the present regime is a heterogeneous collection, such as might 
in fact be termed federalism. 

The legislative enactments of the old Austro-Hungarian 
provinces are still in force in their essential prescriptions. 
Serbia, properly so-called, is divided, as heretofore, into de- 
partments, arrondissements and communes, in the French 
manner. Croatia is divided into counties and circles; they 



672 JUGO-SLAVIA: A MODERN KINGDOM [Feb., 

still possess "royal free cities." Slovenia and Dalmatia pre- 
serve the provinces (Lander) of the Austrian administration. 

From the point of view of the judiciary, the confusion is 
still more perceptible. Groatia-Slavonia preserves its famous 
"Table of Seven" (Supreme Court or Court of Cassation) and 
its "Table of the Ban" (Court of Appeal). The name, com- 
petence and statute of the jurisdictions varies from one prov- 
ince to another. 

The military organization alone has received in the new 
State a complete unification. To extend this unification to the 
other branches of the administration, the Constituent As- 
sembly took into account the local traditions and susceptibil- 
ities, and therefore provided for a period of transition. A 
special legislative committee, to be elected by the Chamber 
from its membership, shall examine all projects of unification 
or leveling which are brought forward during a period of 
five years. It shall submit them, with its advice, to the As- 
sembly, which shall decide upon their adoption or rejection 
by a single vote on a nominal ballot. 

The question of religions remains. Passionate discussions 
were evoked when the Committee on the Constitution exam- 
ined the provisions tending to put in the charter the "kanzel- 
paragraf" of the electoral law. It is under this term that the 
article is known which prohibits officials and members of the 
clergy from placing their spiritual authority at the disposal of 
party interests. Catholics, naturally, believed themselves in- 
tended by this prohibition, and their anxiety is explained if 
one remembers the ardor with which the clergy participated 
in the election campaigns. The "kanzelparagraf," while its 
name by an abusive turn suggests the time of the Kulturkampf, 
nevertheless, appears to be a measure of practical wisdom and 
foresight. The hierarchy itself seems to be the first to be 
alarmed at the activity of not a few priests in political life, to 
the detriment of their moral authority. However, the Con- 
stitution assures a complete freedom of worship to all recog- 
nized religious denominations. The budget, which is assigned 
to them, will be repartitioned among the confessions pro rata 
to the number of communicants. It is difficult to see how the 
matter could be arranged otherwise in a country where plural- 
ity of religions make tolerance and equality a matter of vital 
necessity. 



1922.] JUGO-SLAVIA: A MODERN KINGDOM 673 

The fundamental rights and duties of citizens, or what 
might be termed the "bill of rights," are contained in the 
second part of the Constitution, from Article 4 to Article 21. 
Certain social and economic provisions, among which might 
be noted the interdiction of usury in all forms, the provision 
for sick, accident and life insurance of workmen, and the pro- 
vision for aid to veterans, war widows and orphans, are con- 
tained in Part III., Articles 22-24. The powers of the State are 
outlined in Part IV., Articles 45-48, and subsequent parts treat 
of these powers in detail. 

An interesting sidelight on one of the difficulties en- 
countered by the Constituent Assembly is given by M. Ivo 
Ribar in La Revue de Geneve for July. In this article, the 
president of the Jugo-Slav Constituent Assembly tells why the 
Croat and Slovene peasants remained hostile to the centralized 
power for such a long time. They had been raised in Austria- 
Hungary in the distrust of the State, always the oppressor. 
They had come to believe every evil came from it and its 
army of officials, and that the only remedy therefore must be 
the destruction of the State. Such a reasoning, he says, is 
today used abusively by conscienceless agitators in their at- 
tempts to undermine Jugo-Slav unity. In fact, the Croat 
peasants of the Raditch Party and the deputies of the Narodni 
Club (National Club), whose head is M. Matal-Drinkovitch, 
refused, as mentioned above, to participate in the labors of the 
Constituent Assembly, and therefore did not vote for the new 
Constitution. 

The new Constitution, it is hoped, will mark the begin- 
ning of an era of peaceful and fruitful labor. In effect, it 
ratifies the decision of the international council, which had 
placed in the hands of a young South-Slav people its own or- 
ganization and its own destiny. If the noble words of this 
document are not treated as mere "scraps of paper," as has 
happened with some of the other new States of Europe, there 
is every reason to believe that it is the ruin of the hopes of 
those who, within and without the Kingdom, had counted 
upon the disruption of the State. 



VOL. CXIV. 43 




"A DIVINE FAILURE." 

BY M. G. CHADWICK. 

HERE is old Rome, and there is, alas! new Rome, 
the modern substitute for the desert, where the 
contemplative soul is assailed by the demons of 
weariness and disgust. It is a soulless desola- 
tion, glaring with direct sunlight, dazzling with 
white dust, ill-built and insufferable. The pines of the Prati, 
the great cypresses of Villa Ludovisi and their long shadows, 
have given place to cheap villas, noisy hotels, shops and bar- 
racks. But there is still a district of ancient palaces, small 
piazze, narrow immemorial streets the "Street of the Dark 
Shops" for instance, the streets "of Paradise," "of the Rope- 
makers," "of the Cat" where Rome is still Rome, and the 
people still in the main Romans. It is a region of famous 
names Palazzo Mattei, Braschi, Altieri, Spinola, and so many 
others; and here, at the foot of the Capitol, is the very old and 
famous house of Torre de' Specchi, extending well-nigh the 
whole length of the narrow street that repeats its name. Out- 
wardly, it might be a prison. The heavy walls, smooth and 
brown, are pierced in their great thickness with small in- 
frequent windows, set irregularly and for the most part 
barred. An ancient column, half imbedded in plaster, stands 
huddled into the wall near to an arched doorway; a row of 
little shops have wedged themselves underneath the great 
house for half its length; and the winding old street takes its 
way from Piazza Ara Coeli, under the Tarpeian Rock, down 
to Santa Maria in Portico, tumultuous Piazza Montanara, and 
the grim Theatre of Marcellus. A great and famous house 
this Torre de' Specchi, but silent and impenetrable, even be- 
yond the wont of Roman houses. 

For five centuries it has been a garden enclosed, a fountain 
sealed, a treasure house of Rome. Within, is the still living 
work of Francesca de' Ponziani, known to the Church as Santa 
Francesca Romana, whose life has been spoken of as "a 
Divine Failure." Born in the days, so terrible to the Church, 
of the great Schism, she lived to see the Council of Constance, 



1922.] "A DIVINE FAILURE" 675 

the deposition of two anti-Popes, the election of the powerful 
Colonna, Martin V. She saw Eugenius IV. fly as a fugitive to 
Bologna, before the onslaught of Nicolo Bracciaforte, and 
mourned the years of his exile from the city ; to her ears came 
rumors of the doings at Basle, the sullen struggles of Pope and 
Council. Her days were days of strife and affliction, of 
schism, war, pestilence, famine, distress. Francesco de' Pon- 
ziani, dying at fifty-six, had seen whole cycles of history, the 
sins of men, the anger of God, as well as His persistent in- 
scrutable Providences. One divines that she was glad to die, 
fatigued in heart by evils that seemed to have no end and no 
respite. 

The daughter of Paolo Bussa and Jacobella dei Roffre- 
deschi, her home was in the "rione" of Parione and in the par- 
ish of Sant' Agnese in Piazza Navona. Her great kinsmen, the 
Orsini, dominated Parione, as they did also the rioni of Ponte 
and Regola; they had their fortress in Pompeii's Theatre, 
hard by Campo de' Fiori. Orsini and Colonna, Savelli and 
Frangipani, had for centuries waged war with one another, 
with the Pope, with their neighbors. She was born into a wild 
world. But the little girl grew up untouched by Rome's 
tumult, molded by far different influences. She was a sensi- 
tive, charming child, and her mother seems to have treasured 
greatly the small daughter, who had so clear an individuality, 
so firm an intelligence, and who was also, as her heart divined, 
so near and so dear to heaven. When she was old enough, she 
was taken each week to confession at Santa Maria Nuova in 
the Forum, where a Father of the famous Olivetan Congrega- 
tion became her regular confessor, and directed her spiritual 
life until she was a woman of forty. Who could have guessed 
that Santa Maria Nuova would hereafter bear the name of this 
child-penitent? 

Francesca now began to live her own individual life of 
the spirit; she had the courage of a hardy boy when it came 
to penance; she obeyed already with the inbred patience 
of a Roman woman; she prayed as God very tenderly taught 
her to do; she was gay and happy as only a child can be. A 
few years passed. Into her heart, as she grew, came how 
naturally the vision of romance that has always allured the 
hearts of the Saints the archetypal romance. Audi filia et 
vide, said the angel. She went to her confessor full of her 



676 "A DIVINE FAILURE'' [Feb., 

project, her eyes shining. What could he say? A life given 
jealously to God what else was fitting for this child of grace 
and charm? She went to her parents eagerly, but their faces 
darkened and became impassive. Shortly afterwards, her 
father told her that he had promised her in marriage to the 
second son of the Ponziani, Lorenzo a match perfectly fitting 
and desirable. She protested with a storm of tears, her father 
very sternly ordered her to obey. She was but twelve years 
old. 

When she appealed to her confessor as to her right to 
chose the perfect life, he took part with her parents, and en- 
forced their will upon her, seeing, no doubt, in obedience her 
manifest duty. The Roman tradition on this point was in- 
credibly strong, coming down from the days when a Roman 
father might scourge, imprison, or even put to death his sons; 
he being truly, in the grim phrase, "master in his own house." 
It is terrible to read of this child's heartbroken submission to 
what she supposed to be the will of God; to hear of her bitter 
sobbing on her wedding day, her white looks, her sacrificial 
obedience. She began her forty years of married life, not as 
a young girl should, but with broken hopes. 

The Ponziani seem to have been won by her charm, so 
that as far as could be she found with them a happy home. 
Her young husband was indulgent, her sister-in-law, Vanozza, 
wife of the elder son, came to love her with enduring affection. 
It was this sweet Vanozza, motherly beyond her years, who 
drew from the unhappy child an avowal of her real mind as 
to the life on which she was entering. Profoundly moved, 
she promised her little sister-in-law to help her in every way, 
and, indeed, the two girls devised for themselves a life of 
ardent devotion, as well as of all practical duty. Francesca, 
with great sweetness, did all her husband desired dressed to 
content his pride in her, was gracious to his friends, serviceable 
to his family. He seems to have loved his little Saint, and to 
have defended her fiercely against those who condemned her 
"seriousness." But now, grief and strain had their revenge 
a wasting illness attacked Francesca, so that she was very 
like to die, and Vanozza's tender nursing seemed in vain. She 
was cured, suddenly and miraculously, by the young Roman 
Saint, Alexis, who fled from the bride his parents forced upon 
him, and lived as a hermit and pilgrim, dying at last, un- 



1922.] "A DIVINE FAILURE" 677 

known, in his own father's house on the Aventine. What 
wonder that into the girl's soul the Vision came again, with 
tenfold strength the longing to go straight to God, unhin- 
dered, to escape to the rich loneliness of the solitary life? 
She suffered as she had, perhaps, not yet suffered. But it was 
not to be. 

Francesca came back to her duties; only Vanozza and she 
enlarged their hours of prayer, and Francesca, at least, gave 
herself to unrelenting penance. The floor of her oratory at the 
top of Casa Ponziani was, often enough, splashed with blood. 
When she was seventeen, came the birth of a little son, Bat- 
tista; and shortly afterwards, at the death of her mother-in- 
law, Francesca was put at the head of Casa Ponziani, though 
that office fell naturally to Vanozza. But Francesca they 
would have, and so, at eighteen, she shouldered this heavy 
task. At least two other children were born to her a boy, 
Evangelista, and a girl, Agnese. Of her exquisite care of these 
children and of her devotion to them we are expressly told. 

And now her life was caught up into the political hap- 
penings of those terrible days, when arrogant anti-Popes, 
fierce soldiers and venal Cardinals made the Church a battle- 
field and Rome a pawn in the gigantic disgraceful game. 
Ladislaus and his Neapolitans, strongly aided by the Colonna, 
occupied the city with terror and violence. The Ponziani were 
"Papalim" adherents of Pope Alexander V., and suffered ac- 
cordingly. Lorenzo was attacked and carried home in what 
seemed a dying condition; his elder brother was made pris- 
oner; his son, Battista, demanded as a hostage. Francesca's 
prayers obtained the boy's release, and within a short time, 
Ladislaus was hunted from Borne by the Duke of Anjou. But, 
in the year following, the terror returned. Alexander V., the 
legitimate Pope, died at Bologna, another anti-Pope was 
elected that Baldassare Cossa, who now lies in the Florence 
Baptistery and the Neapolitans streamed back into Borne, 
violent and bloodthirsty. Lorenzo de' Ponziani fled for his 
life, leaving his wife and children. The invaders sacked his 
palace, wasted his lands, carried off the luckless Battista, now 
ten years old, as prisoner; and Francesca, her house left unto 
her desolate, lived as she could with Vanozza and her younger 
children. 

Borne, once again, lay sacked, burned, dishonored; her 



678 "A DIVINE FAILURE" [Feb., 

ancient stones, every one of which had tasted blood, renewed 
their terrible feast. Afterwards came the horrors that wait on 
war, pain and death in every broken street, famine and pesti- 
lence slaying their hundreds of victims. Francesca's heart 
woke to a passionate pity, an assiduous service. She, who 
loved the poor, gathered them together, sick and dying, into a 
hospital hastily arranged in the lower story of half-ruined 
Casa Ponziani. With their own hands, she and Vanozza 
tended them. From her vigna outside Porta San Paolo, she 
fetched them wood to burn, herbs and fruit. The miserable 
hovels of Rome knew her, the beggars on the bridges also, the 
forlorn fugitives who slept in the streets. The pestilence ate 
its way through the city, like a sullen fire. Francesca's hands 
healed, almost, what she touched pain, disease, wounds; so, 
to conceal God's gift she made her famous ointment to which 
cures might be attributed. The large, heavy bowl she used 
for it is still preserved. Yet, in spite of this stratagem, we 
find in her process of canonization sixty miracles of healing, 
worked at this time, and set down for us. 

In all the gloomy town there was no one who could con- 
sole like this lady with the tender hands. But her house was 
to be left unto her more desolate than ever. Evangelista, her 
little son, died of the pestilence, and she who saved others, 
could not save him or herself. She wept unceasingly for his 
loss. But although she was assuredly to go to him, he was 
also to return to her. He came one morning, as day dawned, 
radiant and loving, and Francesca held him in her arms. He 
whispered to her the pain and joy to come. Agnese, the little 
daughter, was to die before many days were over, and he, too, 
must go quickly whence he came to a delight that has no 
words. But he would leave her as guardian an Archangel. 
Francesca raised her face from the child's and saw the radiant 
being already before her. By the tenderness of God, she saw 
always her Archangel, and saw him in the likeness of Evan- 
gelista he seemed a child of nine with golden curls. By her 
side in the rough streets he walked in grave beauty; by the 
light of his hair, it is said, she could see to read on a dark 
night. Her spiritual life, so full of suffering, was permeated 
by her Angel's personality; he guided her, at once interiorily 
and visibly, so that her life became a marvel. 

Sanctity is no child's game, as we can dimly see, but it is 



1922.] "A DIVINE FAILURE" 679 

not every saint who lives as she lived, with an intensity almost 
cruel. Austerity so terrible that the very reading of it brings 
tears; assaults of evil angels full of foul violence; an active 
slavery to the poor; a continual passion of prayer, the mind 
taught with visions and filled with prophecy life burnt like a 
furnace. Agnese died, and she was childless save for Bat- 
tista in exile. What wonder that she sickened, and lay on a 
bed of unceasing pain, nursed by Vanozza, with love and with 
tears. During this illness her famous vision of hell came to 
her; its black anguish is depicted in the terrible imagery we 
see on the walls of her chapel in Torre de' Specchi today. 

And now, in 1414, Ladislaus being dead, her husband and 
son could return to Rome, and to Francesca, who, for four 
years, had lived among shadows. The old life was resumed; 
but Lorenzo, chastened and wiser, looked with more wistful 
eyes at his exquisite Francesca, at her sweet holiness. He 
began to think deeply of eternal things, to talk with his wife 
of what so filled her heart, to pray. A more spiritual tie grew 
up between them. Years passed. The schism ended when 
the Council of Constance, all obstacles being removed, elected 
the virile Colonna, Martin V.; for awhile there was peace in 
the Church. Years passed, unmarked for Francesca, save by 
the deep experiences of the spiritual life. By day and by 
night she saw the noble looks of her Archangel; there was 
always Casa Ponziani and its inmates, dear to her heart; the 
day came when she was gladdened by the little children born 
to her son, Battista. There were always the sick to heal, the 
sorrowful to soothe, the insatiable, piteous poor; always the 
terrible demons at war with her; always prayer, the burning 
life of the spirit, the strange will of God. The years came in 
and went out. 

And then, no new thing happened, or hardly anything, yet 
it was the beginning for which God had waited. A little hand- 
ful of women, her friends, were wont to frequent with her the 
churches of Rome. Coming, one day, out of Santa Maria 
Nuova, the little group began to speak of their admiration for 
the Olivetan monks, and for the noble Benedictine tradition. 
Francesca suggested that there might be a Third Order of St. 
Benedict, after the model of the Franciscan Tertiaries. The 
idea was eagerly discussed, developed, considered, submitted 
to the superiors of the Order, approved by them. Finally, on 



680 "A DIVINE FAILURE" [Feb., 

the fifteenth of August, 1425, Francesca and her companions 
made their oblation to Our Lady at Santa Maria Nuova. They 
were to be Oblates of Mary, affiliated to the Olivetan Benedic- 
tines, united among themselves by a few simple rules of life. 
Francesca was beset by the old pain the longing to leave the 
world, to devote herself to this new work. But although Lor- 
enzo had given her the most complete freedom, he had made 
her promise that she would stay with him until his death he 
could not part with his Saint and she obediently had given 
her word. But the pain was pain. 

The little sketch of an undertaking the new Oblates was 
as the sown grain of a harvest to be, and God seemed to spend 
Himself in care and providence for the fragile project. No 
great Order was ever launched upon the world with more of 
supernatural intervention and solicitude. The Court of 
Heaven was involved in offices of protection for the Oblates. 
The great Pope, St. Gregory, exhorted her; rules and 
counsels in ample and touching detail were given her; she 
was treated with as, indeed, a foundress. The years came 
in, and went out, softly, inexorably. At last, a house was 
bought; the Pope's approval Eugenius IV. had succeeded 
Martin V. sought and obtained; then, after many anxieties, 
into the blessed and famous walls of Torre de' Specchi, Fran- 
cesca and her Oblates entered on March 25, 1433. She entered 
with them, and, obediently, returned to Gasa Ponziani. Lor- 
enzo would give her no permission to remain. Two years 
later, Lorenzo died, nursed through a long illness by his wife, 
and went we may well believe to await her in heaven. 
She now had no other thought but to end her days at 
Torre de' Specchi; but she had first to encounter the pas- 
sionate grief of her son, Battista, his wife and children, who 
could not endure to see her go. Sobbing herself, she held them 
in her arms, and then turned and went from them to her City 
of Refuge, the vision of Peace that had haunted her life. 

For four years, as Mother of her Oblates, Francesca's heart 
had its rest. She worked tender marvels for her daugh- 
ters, taught them the ways of God, as ever, was at the com- 
mand of the poor; and for the rest, lived in long ecstasies, 
during which she, not seldom, held the Divine Child in her 
arms. Her tomb is in Santa Maria Nuova, now more gener- 
ally known as Santa Francesca Romana. 



1922.] "A DIVINE FAILURE" 681 

Torre de' Speech! is her work a house of Oblates, that, 
with few rules, and no vows, has flourished for almost five 
centuries a place of recollection, gentle silence, profound 
prayer. In the simple, black robes, white caps and short 
pleated veils that recall some of the Flemish pictures, the 
Oblates of Santa Francesca known in Rome as "the noble 
Oblates" live the life she devised for them. It is a house of 
singular freedom. There are no vows, no enclosure, no juris- 
diction save that of the Holy Father, there are very few ob- 
ligations. The "Mother President" is elected with ceremony 
the ceremony almost of a Papal election and her daughters 
kiss her hand in sign of submission, for she has the spiritual 
and temporal government of the house, and, with her two 
counselors, the regulation of everything. Each Oblate gives a 
certain dowry to the house, and beyond that has the ownership 
and disposal of her own property. The Congregation is affil- 
iated to the Olivetan Benedictines, who receive the "oblation" 
of each member. The Breviary used is the monastic one, and 
its noble words are chanted daily in choir. 

The Venerabile Casa is a unique institution; nothing could 
be more simple or more likely, one would say, to have failed, 
than the life of this ancient house and yet it has never 
failed; though attempts to found similar houses have always 
done so. There are a few rules concerning dress and food, 
there is the Divine Office, there are the customs of the house; 
but there is an individual liberty that is very complete. The 
Oblate "lives her own life" a thing rarely to be accomplished 
anywhere. They have, in fact, a singular, emphatic individ- 
uality, these gravely gracious women, in their austere dress. 
The annals of Torre de' Specchi are full of the records of 
saintly Oblates distinguished for the monastic virtues of si- 
lence and prayer, obedience and detachment. The contem- 
plative life is led here, as truly as in a Carmelite Convent. 

The great house, set in two quadrangles, holds within its 
ancient walls the essential fragrance of Rome, and is beautiful 
as only an Italian house can be. The immense refectory, that 
would seat one hundred persons, recalls some of the fifteenth 
century paintings in Florence. The seventeenth century 
Chapel has fine marbles, and is hung with heavy damask 
behind the pilastered stalls. Endless corridors, brick-paved 
and as wide as roads, run round the quadrangles, behind rows 



682 "A DIVINE FAILURE" [Feb., 

of cells; stairs lead upwards to dim heights; the place is dusky 
and cool, a maze of lobbies, chapels, ante-rooms; it is starred 
with lamps alight before many shrines. There is a paved 
cortile with an ancient well, a garden of lemon trees and ole- 
anders, where a fountain rustles all day. Everywhere is order,, 
peace, silence, tempered light, the perfume of an ancient 
house. Behind the refectory is the original house of the Ob- 
lates, where Francesca dwelt with them for the last four years 
of her life there are to be seen her cell, the stair she used,, 
the Chapel, its brown dusk lit faintly by the colors of the fres- 
coes that cover its walls. We may study here the story of her 
miracles, the imagery, too, of her famous vision of hell. 

Francesca's life was a "failure." She had the capacity,, 
the thirst, the vocation for the perfect life. At every stage in 
her history that longing breaks forth in fruitless pain; there is 
nothing more touching in the story of sanctity one thinks 
sometimes of an angel set to work in a factory. Teresa, Ger- 
trude, Clare what whole and harmonious lives were theirs, 
moving in predestined orbits to music assigned. Beside them, 
the no less exquisite Francesca seems a thing thwarted and 
broken. But we are to ask what is failure? We reflect that 
God is not an optimist, in our sense of the word; that He is not 
concerned to set each soul in the "best" surroundings; and yet, 
when we muse upon Francesca, we can but marvel at the way 
in which He spent Himself on her and on her undertaking. 
Great Orders grow, endure with a Divine strength, but so does, 
Francesca's House it is as manifestly blessed as they. The 
daughters of the great Roman families have always come in 
their numbers to serve God in the contemplative life at Torre 
de' Specchi, and thus it has been for five centuries and for all 
Rome a saintly influence and a high example. 



Iflew Boohs. 

THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE. A Popular History of Ire- 
land. By Seumas MacManus. Assisted by Several Irish 
Scholars. New York: The Irish Publishing Co. $6.00. 
This popular history has many excellent features to recom- 
mend it. It has been written and prepared by a man whose liter- 
ary and political associations guarantee a popular narrative which 
will satisfy the critical sense and appeal to a high grade of intel- 
ligence. Many of the chapters have been contributed by special- 
ists without affecting seriously the organic unity of the work; and 
valuable lists of references are appended to important chapters 
for the convenience of those who may desire to pursue the matter 
further. The history is brought down to October, 1921, when 
President De Valera accepted the invitation of Premier Lloyd 
George for a peace conference in London. There is a blank page 
with the superscription : "On this page write or paste in the result 
of the Peace Conference." 

It will be seen that the story thus supplies all the material 
needed for a proper background to the present critical situation 
in Irish political affairs. It is a badly needed book in this coun- 
try. Seldom have the editors of American newspapers shown so 
much painful ignorance of their subject as in their solemn pro- 
nouncements on the Irish question during these last few momen- 
tous years. Solely in the interests of high intelligent standards, 
we recommend American journalists to look over the last thirty 
chapters or so of this history. They are not long chapters, nor 
are they hard to read. There is perhaps no parallel in literature, 
for dramatic intensity of interest and feeling, to the modern po- 
litical history of Ireland. And the subject matter has not lost any 
of its inherent advantages in the hands of Mr. MacManus. 

The least satisfactory chapter is that on the modern liter- 
ature of Ireland, where we expected to see the author at his best. 
In his account of the Gaelic revival during the last century, the 
omission of the name of Archbishop McHale is strange and inex- 
plicable. And in the sketch of Anglo-Irish letters of more recent 
date, the brevity imposed upon the author by considerations of 
space and proportion can hardly serve as a sufficient excuse for 
not including the name of Canon Sheehan among those who made 
notable contributions to the renewal of the national spirit. 

One other important omission to be noted is the absence of 



684 NEW BOOKS [Feb., 

any reference to the Educational Bill put through by Mr. Birrell 
in 1908. It made it possible for the youth of Ireland to obtain a 
university education without doing violence to their religious 
beliefs. The result has been the enlightened leadership which 
has brought the struggle for Irish liberties to a point of success 
never dreamed of by the last generation. The "campaign of edu- 
cation and enlightenment," which has served English-speaking 
countries so long as a convenient means of attack upon Catholics, 
has been a powerful boomerang in recent Irish history. It is hard 
to see how Mr. MacManus overlooked this critical and decisive 
step in Irish political life. 

On the whole, the work is admirable and most opportune. 
The format is attractive; the cover artistically designed; and the 
price, in comparison with the prices of the regular book pub- 
lishers, astonishingly cheap. 

THE LIFE OF JEAN HENRI FABRE. By the Abb6 Augustin 

Fabre. Translated by Bernard Miall. New York: Dodd, 

Mead & Co. $2.50. 

This work, painstakingly executed, is a fitting complement 
to the Souvenirs Entomologiqu.es, from which, indeed, most of 
its material is drawn. It was called forth by the jubilee of the 
great entomologist, celebrated at his Provencal home in 1910. 
The final chapter, dealing with the period immediately preceding 
Fabre's death in 1915, at the ripe age of ninety-two, was written 
especially for the English edition. 

By means of copious extracts from the Souvenirs, the biog- 
rapher has allowed the scientist to tell his own story, a literary 
method particularly stimulating in the case of a man like Jean 
Henri Fabre, who combined in an unusual degree the scientific 
and the poetic faculties. If he was distinguished by an ardent 
love of truth, he was likewise distinguished by a burning desire, 
and a not inconsiderable ability, to impart that truth in terms 
both illuminating and agreeable. Victor Hugo did more than 
employ a well-turned phrase when he alluded to him as "the 
insects' Homer." He has told of their lives and their loves in 
sentences that deserve to live as literature quite as much as 
natural history. They were his companions, his friends, whose 
goings-out and comings-in, whose pains and toils and deaths were 
to him parts of a great epic. 

One catches glimpses, too, of other people besides the master, 
some of them men of world renown: Victor Duruy, who coaxed 
him forth from his obscurity at Avignon to pin upon his coat the 
ribbon of the Legion of Honor; Pasteur, who called upon him to 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 685 

learn something of the silk-worm; Darwin, who, although in some 
respects at an opposite scientific pole, took pleasure in rendering 
him the homage that only one great man can pay another. 

Jean Henri Fabre's span of over ninety years was marked by 
vicissitude. He ran the gamut of dire poverty, keen disappoint- 
ment and much misunderstanding. To see the hermit of Serignan 
surrounded by his insects and his collaborators, the children who, 
in exchange for pennies, bring him the trophies of the field and 
the shepherd who unwittingly lets him into the scarab's secret, 
is to witness another sublime example of the glorification of the 
commonplace. 

The Catholic reader will regret that the biographer has dealt 
more than could be desired in spiritual generalities. We are told 
of Fabre's early life, quite obviously that of any French lad of 
pious parentage; we learn of the entomologist's somewhat naive 
references to God; and at the close of the narrative we find him 
receiving the Sacraments, after an exhortation from the Arch- 
bishop of Avignon "to die as a Christian." There is, then, an 
area untouched by the story, as we have it. In view of the fact 
that Fabre has been hailed as one of our Catholic men of science, 
is it asking too much that we know more definitely of his attitude 
towards the Church during his middle and later years? We sus- 
pect that that page might be one of the most interesting in the 
volume. 

THE GREAT SCHOOLMEN OF THE MIDDLE AGES. By W. J. 

Townsend. New York: G. E. Stechert & Co. $4.00. 

This book is a popular compendium without any pretensions 
to learning. The works on which it is based are mainly non- 
Catholic, old and, in many cases, have been superseded by modern 
studies. The author has sympathy and respect for Scholasticism 
and the Scholastic doctors. He thinks their opinions and systems 
worth considering; he believes that their achievements in the his- 
tory of human thought and progress were noteworthy; he em- 
bodies many useful quotations from non-Catholic writers in praise 
of these old and decried philosophers. A person seeking texts 
with an apologetic or polemic bearing could glean a great deal in 
these pages. But at the same time a Protestant tone pervades 
the book. Many of its assertions require to be very carefully 
sifted and severely controlled; some of them are absolutely false, 
for instance, that the Papacy previous to the election of St. 
Gregory X., was vacant for fifteen years. There was indeed a 
vacancy between the death of Clement IV. and the election of St. 
Gregory X., but it lasted less than three years. Again, the author 



686 NEW BOOKS [Feb., 

speaks of several Popes in a manner offensive to Catholic senti- 
ment; while his strictures on two Popes of Avignon, namely, 
Clement V. and John XXII., are not borne out by the researches 
of modern historians. If one professes to discourse, even inci- 
dently, on the Popes of Avignon, one must push one's inquiries 
considerably beyond Milman's History of Latin Christianity. A 
cursory glance over the immense bibliography referred to in Mol- 
lat's Les Papes d' Avignon will show immediately how enormously 
this field of inquiry has grown. 

HERMAN MELVILLE MARINER AND MYSTIC. By Raymond 

M. Weaver. New York: George H. Doran Co. $3.50. 

Those who through admiration for that American classic, 
Moby Dick, have admired its author will be woefully disappointed 
in this life of Herman Melville. 

Melville was born in New York City in 1819. At the age of 
thirty his literary powers were recognized on two continents; 
at thirty-two he wrote Moby Dick, the high watermark of his 
creative powers. He looked for a reward and triumph that were 
certainly his due. The waves of poverty, of neglect, of bitter- 
ness came in even to his soul and drowned him. He died in 
obstinate obscurity in 1891. Mr. Weaver tells the pitiable story 
with power and literary grace. He has labored to present all the 
obtainable documents and has read, what are not always easy 
reading, all the works of Melville. 

Melville first believing in the world and men; later, through 
disappointment, began to question, then to deny, and then to hate. 
Of fine moral caliber, of an unspotted superior selfishness, his 
body withstood that which conquered his soul. Disillusioned re- 
peatedly, he despised men, despised himself, despised all human 
kind. That this picture of Melville is true is evident both from 
Melville's writings and the further data given by his biographer. 
And he has found a biographer in perfect sympathy with his 
worst moods. Indeed, in this very sympathy lies the failure of 
the present biography. 

Not a smile, nor a kindness, nor a healthy gesture of encour- 
agement illumines the book. Not one word is said of Melville's 
religious training or belief in his youth or in his later life. How 
far his despair was a reaction from that training is never dis- 
cussed. Melville was a religious man. The biography is padded 
with needlessly long digressions, replete with sophomoric final- 
isms that prove the author's inability to measure the character 
of his subject. To the biographer humanity is the herd. "Openly 
to harbor convictions repugnant to the herd is still the unfor- 






1922.] NEW BOOKS 687 

givable sin against the most holy of ghosts." "Knight Errantry 
was a shabby form of the butchering business." "The truest his- 
torians are the poets." "The fall from innocence was begun in 
Eden, it was sealed in Bethlehem." "In the Middle Ages the 
Blessed Mother was celebrated in a duality of perplexing incom- 
patibility, she was at once the Virgin Mother of the Son of God 
and the patron of thieves, harlots and cutthroats." 

Nor does the biographer understand fully the allegory of 
Moby Dick. True it may be, as Melville himself wrote of the 
work: "I have written a wicked book." But iniquity may lie 
unto itself and wickedness bear testimony to the truth of God. 
The white whale is the heart of humanity. Captain Ahab is 
mad, and be it carefully noted, mad with hate. In hatred he 
pursues, seeking revenge. With all his hate he rushes upon the 
whale and the whale turns and destroys him and his ship and 
his ship's crew. 

He who loves not humankind and the heart of humankind, 
wicked, faithless, ungrateful, treacherous as it is he who turns 
upon it in disdainful hate will be destroyed by it. To change 
the figure, Melville hanged upon his own gibbet a terrible lesson 
in literature and in spiritual life. But his biographer has missed 
it entirely. Spiritual vision is necessary in literary criticism, as 
it is if we would be saved from the world and attain the kingdom 
of heaven. 

JOHN PATRICK, THIRD MARQUESS OF BUTE, K. T. By the 

Right Rev. Sir David Hunter Blair, Bt., O.S.B. New York: 

Longmans, Green & Co. $5.00. 

Dom Hunter Blair has written in this volume the official biog- 
raphy of the great and saintly Catholic nobleman who is best re- 
membered today for his monumental translation of the Roman 
Breviary into English, but who fifty years ago was, perhaps, better 
known to the English public as the supposed prototype of Dis- 
raeli's novel, Lothair. Bute was a descendant of Robert I., King of 
Scotland, and his name is famous in the annals of Scottish and 
English history. He went to Harrow and to Christ Church, but 
does not seem to have been at all influenced by the aftermath of 
the Oxford Movement. This despite the fact that his main in- 
terests were, from the beginning, ecclesiogical. At nineteen he 
had made up his mind to join the Catholic Church, a decision 
arrived at purely by the grace of God and the application of an 
enlightened common sense to the facts of history. In deference 
to the feelings of his friends and advisors, however, he abstained 
from fulfilling his purpose until he reached his majority. Thence- 



688 NEW BOOKS [Feb., 

forward, he devoted himself unfalteringly to the advancement of 
the interests of the Church of his adoption. He traveled much 
and wrote much mainly upon archaeological and ecclesiogical 
topics; he built and restored churches; he adorned the office of 
Rector of St. Andrews* University by his tenure of it. 

His worldly wealth and prestige, his gifts of intellect and 
taste, his far-flung social and ecclesiastical influence all these he 
used consistently and persistently in the service of Christ and 
Christ's Church. It is a wonderful record that is here set forth 
with such grace and charm of style. It is most touching to read 
at the close of this fine biography that shortly after Bute's funeral, 
his widow, with her daughter and three sons, left England for 
the Holy Land, in order to carry out his long-cherished desire that 
his heart should be interred in the sacred soil of Olivet. This 
book is an important addition to what someone once called "the 
literature of the Second Spring." 

ON THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES. By Dr. Leonard John 
Vanden Bergh. New York: James A. McCann Co. $3.00. 
Nine years of previous travel in East Africa and a practical 
knowledge of one of the Bantu languages had fitted Father Vanden 
Bergh for the anthropological exploration, of which this book gives 
a very interesting account. The expedition was made with the 
cooperation of the American Museum of Natural History, and the 
photographs were taken under the guidance of Dr. George Shat- 
tuck, formerly Professor of Geology at Johns Hopkins and Vassar. 
The purpose of the author was to give a true version of the habits 
of various East African tribes, such as the Wanyika, Masai, Wak- 
amba, Kavirondo and the curious pigmy people, known as the 
Mambuti. Many of the investigations are extremely valuable in 
the case of tribes such as the Pigmies and Kavirondo, which have 
never before been the subject of monographic treatment. The 
Pigmies are the oldest race in the eastern part of the Congo, prob- 
ably of the Bushman genus, and originally had a free hand in the 
country moving about from place to place. Pushed back by 
neighboring tribes, they were at length confined to the forest and 
never come out of its sheltering depths. They eat its produce, 
they make huts of the leaves and branches, and never see the sun- 
light. This curious people disprove the theory that negroes are 
black from centuries of merciless heat, for there are more black 
pigmies than there are yellow. The constant lack of sunshine 
and their manner of prowling in a stooping position accounts for 
their size, and they live like the creeping things of the great forest, 
roots and all kinds of rodents being their favorite food. Notwith- 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 689 

standing this, their morality is higher than that of most African 
tribes; they are strictly monogamous, and lying and stealing are 
almost unknown to them. The Reverend Father Buyck of the 
Belgian Congo acted as interpreter for the author through the 
medium of a Pigmy woman who had left the clan and become 
acquainted with the Wanyari language, of which Father Buyck 
is the best authority in the Congo. 

Fourteen years of absence from the Dark Continent have 
caused the author to wonder at its modernization. In the years 
from 1896 to 1905 he was forced to travel continuously on foot, 
but in 1919 one might tour the most out-of-the-way places in 
trains, or steamboats, horses, automobiles, motorcycles or rick- 
shaws. In reading of the startling customs of the East African 
tribes and in looking at the still more startling photographs, it 
must be said that the name of Darkest Africa is almost as appli- 
cable as ever. 

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE PAPACY. By Mary I. M. Bell. 

New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. $6.50. 

As a literary production this work is passing fair, but as a 
history it is utterly unreliable. We fully appreciate the difficul- 
ties of compressing within the narrow compass of three hundred 
and ninety pages what Grisar, Gregorovius, Pastor, Mann and Mc- 
Caffrey together require no less than twenty-seven volumes to tell; 
but this cannot excuse the displacing of more authentic informa- 
tion by such an amount of mere gossip and "all-but-proved" ugly 
allegations laid at the already encumbered doors of many Popes. 
Nor can we pass over without censure the failure of the author to 
present to her readers credentials of authority. To this they have 
a full right in a matter around which the enemies of the Papacy 
have woven such a tissue of falsehood. Apart from a few chance 
references to Ranke, Macaulay and Bishop Creighton, none of 
them acceptable witnesses against the Popes, the author gives no 
clue whatever of her sources. 

In view of the ample evidence at hand, documentary and 
otherwise, one must realize very keenly against what tremendous 
odds the truth has to battle, when, in the year of enlightenment 
1921, he reads fresh from the press that "the history of the Papacy 
has no definite beginning," or that "of St. Peter's own Bishopric 
of Rome nothing is known, and even tradition is comparatively 
silent." Yet no less advanced a Rationalist than Harnack avows 
that "it is a well-authenticated fact that Peter resided in Rome 
and died there." 

In proof that Pius IX. declared war "on the whole modern 

VOL. CXIV. 44 



690 NEW BOOKS [Feb., 

and liberal system of ideas," the author quotes quite baldly and 
in an unfavorable context, some of the propositions condemned 
in the Syllabus of 1864. Among them is the famous Eightieth 
Thesis, the condemnation of which implies the Pope's enmity to 
"modern progress." Now, connected with each of the theses of 
the Syllabus there is a document determining the particular sense 
in which each proposition has been condemned; hence, before 
quoting the Eightieth Thesis, the least Mrs. Bell, as a historian, 
could have done was to consult the Allocution "Jamdudum cer- 
nimus" of March 18, 1861, wherein Pius IX., distinguishing very 
clearly between true and false civilization, affirms that if a system 
designed to de-Christianize the world be called a system of prog- 
ress and civilization, he can have none of it. Obviously, this 
changes the meaning of the Eightieth Thesis as quoted by the 
author. The omission of this explanatory document was a grave 
misdemeanor in one presuming to write even a "short" history 
of the Papacy; and the book teems with similar omissions. 

THE PHILIPPINES, PAST AND PRESENT. By Dean C. Wor- 
cester. Two volumes in one with seventy-five illustrations, 
two maps and index. New York : The Macmillan Co. $5.00. 
No one is more qualified to write on the Philippines than Dean 
Worcester. He was Secretary of the Interior of the Philippine 
Islands from 1901 to 1913, also member of the Philippine Com- 
mission from 1900 to 1913. He proves that American consuls and 
naval officers never promised the Insurgent leaders that the inde- 
pendence of the Philippines would be recognized by the United 
States. Another statement disproved is that the Insurgents 
were the allies of the Americans against Spain. He shows that 
no such cooperation existed. Consequently, in subduing Agui- 
naldo, the United States did not destroy a republic. The In- 
surgent rule was not government, but tyranny, which is evident 
from the horrible accounts of excesses, cruelties, rapine and 
murder, which followed in the wake of the Insurgents. 

The author points out the splendid work of the Civil Govern- 
ment of the Philippines in building highways, constructing 
bridges and in maintaining public order, particularly by means of 
the Philippine constabulary. Especially noteworthy are the 
eminently successful efforts of the Government to improve health 
conditions in the islands by combating disease by modern sanita- 
tion and a rigid quarantine system. The author admirably de- 
scribes what has been done for the education of the Filipinos. 
The work of the Americans contrasts very favorably with what 
had been done for the education of the masses under the Spanish 






1922.] NEW BOOKS 691 

regime. In a chapter, entitled "Corrigenda," the author disclaims 
all connection with missionary activities as such. He admits that 
his activity was confined to establishing law and order and utiliz- 
ing both Catholic and Protestant missionaries in administering 
simple remedies to the sick. The chapter on the results of Amer- 
ican rule are replete with information, and we cannot but observe 
that American colonial government compares very favorably with 
that of other colonial empires. 

Mr. Worcester's book is carefully documented, and will cer- 
tainly commend itself to careful and discriminating readers. 

LOST SHIPS AND LONELY SEAS. By Ralph D. Paine. New 

York: The Century Co. $4.00. 

What a gorgeous title for a book ! And how Stevenson would 
have loved to brood upon it, and perhaps to write up to it! 
Here, in a beautifully illustrated volume of more than four hun- 
dred pages, are seventeen thrilling chapters, each containing an 
account of some "hair-breadth 'scape" or fatal happening in the 
history of the men who go down to the sea in ships. Here you 
may read of the frigates that vanished in the South Seas, or shud- 
der at the "Grim Tale of the Nottingham Galley," or muse won- 
deringly upon the "Singular Fate of the Brig, Polly." If you loved 
Treasure Island (published 1883 by one R. L. Stevenson) and have 
read it every year since then why, this is the book for you. 

ABANDONMENT TO DIVINE PROVIDENCE. By Rev. J. P. De 
Caussade, S.J. Edited by Rev. J. Ramiere, S.J. From the 
Tenth Complete French Edition by E. J. Strickland. St. 
Louis: B. Herder Book Co. $3.50. 

Father Caussade's Abandonment to Divine Providence is one 
of the best known of modern spiritual writings. It is divided into 
two parts, the first containing a treatise on total abandonment to 
Divine Providence, and the second containing letters of direction 
for persons aspiring after perfection. The treatise comprises two 
different aspects of Abandonment to Divine Providence: one is a 
virtue common and necessary to all Christians, while the other 
is a state proper to souls who have made a special practice of 
abandonment to the holy will of God. 

The letters of direction, now appearing in English for the first 
time, were addressed to the nuns of the Visitation at Nancy. Di- 
rectors of souls will find in them a perfect answer to the con- 
stantly recurring difficulties and trials of the interior life, from the 
initial difficulties of beginners to the more subtle difficulties of 
more perfect souls, 



692 NEW BOOKS [Feb., 

TURNS ABOUT TOWN. By Robert Cortes Holliday. New York: 

George H. Doran Co. $2.00. 

This is "more of much the same kind" from the genial and 
lovable author of Walking-Stick Papers and two other very pleas- 
ant volumes of essays. Mr. Holliday discourses, as usual, de 
omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis. He writes of Humorous Mis- 
fits at a Murder Trial, of the queerness of undertakers, of Traffic 
Cops, Hotel Guests; and every little paper of the collection has its 
special and inevitable chuckles. Quite the most amusing pages in 
this book are those in which the author chronicles the vicissitudes 
he underwent in his ultimately successful endeavor to interview 
"G. K. C." In "Bidding Mr. Chesterton Good-bye" there is an excel- 
lent account of Mr. Holliday's farewell evening with the great 
English philosopher and humorist an account which is delight- 
fully intimate and revealing. The best piece of literary chronicle 
so to call it in Mr. Holliday's book is his essay upon the late 
James Gibbons Huneker, whom he calls a "Steeplejack of the 
Seven Arts." The Story of American Life, which the author has 
ironically entitled "Fame," was well worth reprinting from the 
Bookman, in which it originally appeared. Not the least diverting 
pages of Turns About Town is the very first, that whereon is dis- 
played the brief, but breezy, correspondence between the author 
and that true poet, Mr. John Bunker, concerning the dedication of 
the book to the latter. 

HIS REVERENCE HIS DAY'S WORK. By Rev. Cornelius J. 

Holland, S.T.L. New York: Blase Benziger & Co. $1.50 net. 

This exceptionally interesting book is unique in character. 
It appeals directly to the laity, and its purpose is, in the main, to 
answer certain questions that are often asked among themselves, 
but are naturally seldom addressed to the only quarter whence an 
authoritative reply could come, the clergy. The habits and the 
unwritten rules by which the parish priest orders his life are ex- 
plained by the delightfully informal method of letters, from 
"Father Sperinde" to "Prudenzia," a supposed parishioner. When 
the reader has finished the volume, he understands many things 
that have puzzled and, perhaps, a little piqued him. He will have 
gained a closer knowledge of the difficulties and problems that 
confront his pastor, and, with it, a deeper respect and appre- 
ciation. Father Holland is always kindly, and often humorous; 
sometimes, with great benefit, he turns briefly to weightier mat- 
ters of spiritual import. The book is graced by a tiny essay in 
the form of an introduction, from the pen of Miss Agnes 
Repplier. 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 693 

SPIRITUAL TEACHING OF FATHER SEBASTIAN BOWDEN OF 

THE LONDON ORATORY. Edited by the Fathers of the 

Oratory. New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons. $2.00. 

The Counsels and Dissertations which form the bulk of this 

volume are taken from notes kept for many years by people who 

enjoyed the privilege of Father Bowden's spiritual guidance. 

They consist of personal counsels given, answers to questions 

and opinions on various subjects drawn forth in conversation. 

They are published to show forth Father Bowden's own inner life, 

to remind his old friends, penitents and converts of his spiritual 

teaching, and to give real spiritual help to others, who may have 

been strangers to him personally. 

The spirit of St. Philip is manifest on every page. Someone, 
for example, asked him whether it was wrong to take pleasure in 
religion? He answered: "It is certainly wrong, and even rank 
heresy to mistrust any joy given one by religion. The Jansenists 
taught this in terms: they held that everything in our nature was 
corrupt; and that, therefore, to gratify our senses in any way, or 
even to take pleasure in rational judgment was wrong, and to be 
resisted. The Catholic doctrine and you are bound to hold it 
is the opposite : that we are to accept with thankfulness every sort 
of pleasure that religion, and the practising of virtue, give us. 
The teaching of Our Lord Himself begins with the Beatitudes: 
nothing can be stronger than the Gospels. Joy, rest and peace 
are the rightful consequences of faith and virtue to the soul." 

WHAT IS SCIENCE? By Norman Campbell. London: Methuen 

& Co. 

This interesting and well-written little book was planned to 
attract students of the Workers' Educational Association to the 
study of science. It is not a little surprising, by the way, to find 
that they should need to be lured into the study of science, but it 
appears that such is the case and that literary subjects are more 
eagerly pursued. In order to show the interest of science, its 
general method rather than any special science, is dealt with, 
though the writer, as a physicist, very naturally draws most of 
his examples from that field of learning. No person, however 
ignorant of science, need hesitate to embark on this book, for it is 
perfectly intelligible. As an example, it may be said that the 
chapters on Measurement and the functions of Numbers proved 
very interesting even to one who has no mathematical tastes 
whatever, and therefore invariably turns aside from pages covered 
with figures. Necessarily, the writer finds himself obliged to 
discuss many philosophical questions, especially those relating to 



694 NEW BOOKS . [Feb., 

epistemology. Though many of his readers will completely dis- 
agree with his views, they are always interesting and stimulating, 
and he fully admits that they are his views and not those of all 
the world. If all writers on science would do likewise, how much 
less confusion there would be ! Thus he discusses the relation of 
science to logic and admits, as we believe most do, that many of 
the most cherished tenets of science cannot be proved according 
to the rules of formal logic. Nevertheless, they may, and do, 
command universal assent, and there we agree with him. But 
when he tells us that "to deduce a conclusion from premises is 
simply to state the premises in different words," we "dissent 
vehemently," as he himself says many will do, from his opinion. 
There are many excellent remarks in the book, e. g., that scien- 
tific men "sometimes forget that they cease to be experts when 
they leave their laboratories," and outside their own subject have 
no special claim to speak upon any question. An interesting book 
which may be commended to our readers. 

THE DEFENCE OF PHILOSOPHIC DOUBT. Being an essay on 
the Foundations of Belief. By Arthur James Balfour, F.R.S. 
A New Edition. New York: Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd. $5.00. 
This volume is a reprint of an essay bearing the same title, 
published in 1879. The present edition has not been revised or 
amplified to bring it up to date. The original intention of the 
author was to give the work the title "A Defence of Philosophic 
Skepticism." This would more definitely indicate the purpose 
and the aim of the essay. To understand the point of view of the 
author, it is necessary to consider the intellectual tendencies of the 
period in which the book was written. In the second half of the 
nineteenth century the empirical scientific spirit reigned supreme. 
Scientists, in the name of science, made most extraordinary and 
unwarranted claims concerning the value of scientific research. 
Science was hailed as the infallible weapon with which to destroy 
traditional beliefs in religion, philosophy, ethics, etc. Salvation 
was to be obtained exclusively through the new positivistic 
methods of investigation. Mr. Balfour then, in a true Cartesian 
spirit, sets out to investigate the foundations upon which the 
superstructure of science claimed to be erected. He comes to the 
conclusion that science and all its pretensions are built on sand 
and must crumble to dust. The inductive logic of John Stuart 
Mill, the Realism of Herbert Spencer, Transcendentalism, laws on 
which the scientific conclusions are based are without sufficient 
foundation. Skepticism or denial certitude in any sphere of 
human thought is the outcome of his scathing criticism. 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 695 

The essay is destructive in the extreme; as such it was cal- 
culated to react against the extravagant pretensions of science. 
Extended, however, as it is to all branches of human learning, the 
work is an exaggerated portrayal of the incapacity of the human 
mind to arrive at any certitude of whatever description. Its 
perusal makes a depressing, gloomy impression upon the reader. 
The constructive part, however, of his writings is found in Bal- 
four's subsequent publications. The essay is splendidly written 
and deserves, even today, a careful and thoughtful perusal. 

THE FIERY SOLILOQUY WITH GOD. Of the Reverend Master 
Gerlac Petersen, Canon Regular. New York: Benziger 
Brothers. $1.25 net. 

The editor of the present edition of The Fiery Soliloquy With 
God says: "That it is the great work of an old master; great that 
is, not in size, but in merit and exceeding beauty." No doubt this 
is a true estimate of this work of Master Petersen. It is a book 
for the more advanced rather than for beginners in the spiritual 
life. It offers the strong meat of spirituality rather than the milk 
suitable for the novice. It is said that Master Petersen was a 
friend of Thomas a Kempis, the reputed author of the Imitation, 
and very akin to him in spirit. One can readily see why the 
Soliloquy has, nevertheless, remained little known, while the Imi- 
tation has been the vade mecum of the multitudes; the Imitation 
has the breadth of the Gospels and is for all, the Soliloquy will 
appeal only to the few. Yet to these it will afford much delight. 

MANUAL OF CHRISTIAN PERFECTION. By Monsignor P. J. 
Stockman. Published by the Author, Hollywood, Los An- 
geles, Cal. $1.62 postpaid. 

This introduction to asceticism is adapted from the large 
Directorium Asceticum of Scaramelli in four volumes in the 
translation by the Welsh Jesuits and, though especially designed 
for the instruction of novices in religious communities of women, 
may be used with profit by directors of souls and all who aspire 
to Christian perfection. Scaramelli's plan is followed exactly: 
a division into four sections or treatises, upon the notion of per- 
fection and ten means of acquiring it, the chief obstacles to be 
met with in its pursuit, the moral virtues and the theological vir- 
tues. There is also a short appendix of fifteen pages upon the 
discernment of spirits. Brevity comparative, that is, to the full 
Directorium is achieved by suppressing the quotations from the 
Fathers, though the references are usually given, and by the omis- 
sion of the innumerable anecdotes which Scaramelli related with 






696 NEW BOOKS [Feb., 

all the diffuseness characteristic of his age. By way of introduc- 
tion, there is a reduction of the parts of the new Codex affecting 
religious. The book contains six hundred closely printed pages, 
and, lacking the ancedotes which, however uncritical, lent life and 
spirit to Scaramelli's pages, is not easy reading. Rather is it a 
book to be studied, to be pondered over, nay, to be prayed over. 

ARCHEOLOGY SERIES. By Professor Orazio Marucchi and E. 

Sylvester Berry. Edited by Roderick MacEachen, D.D. Five 

volumes. Wheeling, W. Va. : Catholic Book Co. 

The latest volumes of Father MacEachen's Catholic Library 
tell us some of the important facts of early Church history. Vol- 
ume I. describes the origin and history of the Roman catacombs, 
viz., the cemeteries of St. Pancratius, SS. Processus and Martinian, 
St. Cyriaca, St. Callistus, St. Sebastian, St. Agnes, St. Valentine, etc. 
Volume II. describes the many inscriptions and frescoes of the 
catacombs which prove the antiquity of our Faith in the divinity 
of Christ, the veneration of the Blessed Virgin and the saints, Bap- 
tism, the Holy Eucharist, Marriage, Holy Orders, the primacy of 
St. Peter. Volume III. gives a brief outline of the lives of the 
early Popes from St. Peter to St. Damasus, most of whom were 
martyrs. Volume IV. outlines the early persecutions from the 
time of St. Stephen, the first martyr, to the persecution of Julian, 
the Apostate. Volume V., after a brief mention of the early 
domestic churches, and the titled churches of Rome, describes 
the ancient Christian basilicas of St. John Lateran, St. Peter, St. 
Paul, the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, St. Lawrence, St. Agnes, St. 
Pudentiana, St. Praxedes and St. Clement. 

The volumes are beautifully illustrated. 

'T'HE CHURCH AND HER MEMBERS, by Rev. George H. Bishop (New 
1 York: Benziger Brothers. 45 cents net). In sixteen brief 
chapters Father Bishop describes in the simplest manner, for children, 
the four marks of the Church, its authority, infallibility and perpetuity, 
the primacy and infallibility of the Pope. We recommend the book 
to catechists in our parochial schools. 

J7IELD AFAR STORIES, Volume III., prepared and edited by the 
1 Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America (Maryknoll, Ossining, 
New York. $1.00). The seventeen stories of this fascinating volume 
will undoubtedly foster vocations for the foreign missions, and con- 
strain the most selfish Catholic to loosen up his purse strings in behalf 
of the pagans of the Far East. The volume contains stories of mission- 
ary hardships, missionary consolations, martyrdoms for the faith and 
extraordinary conversions all told in a simple, devout way. 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 697 

'T'HE PASSING OF THE THIRD FLOOR BACK, by Jerome K. Jerome 
1 (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. $1.50). Mr. Jerome's allegorical 
story, which created a decided stir when first published and which was 
presented beautifully on the stage by Forbes Robertson, is here, for the 
first time, brought out in a play edition for the general public. The 
story itself is too well-known to need review. 

A PLEA FOR OLD CAP COLLIER, by Irvin S. Cobb (New York: 
George H. Doran Co. 75 cents). In this little volume, Mr. Cobb 
has well sustained his reputation as a humorist. He tells us, that being 
laid up over Sunday, he passed the time away with the only book on 
which he could lay his hands, an ancient Fifth Reader. This Reader 
provides his point of departure, and he recalls with contagious humor, 
the typical selections which used to grace (or perhaps disgrace) the 
readers of his boyhood. In contrast to them, he conjures up the penny 
thrillers, which were taboo in all respectable families, but which were, 
on that very account, perhaps, all the more eagerly read even though 
stolen glimpses occurred behind the barn or in some other equally 
safe coign of vantage. 

A MEDIAEVAL HUN, by John L. Carleton (Boston : The Cornhill Co. 
$1.50). The author is a prize winner in the Canadian prize play 
competition of 1918. His present play deals with a phase of the 
relations between Pope Gregory VII. and Henry IV. of Germany. The 
play has little organic unity, being for the most part a dramatic por- 
trayal of more or less notable events in the duel between Pope and 
Emperor. These events themselves are largely fiction, as the writer 
points out in his preface, but the chief characters are historical. The 
play has few genuinely dramatic moments. 

GRAY WOLF STORIES, INDIAN MYSTERY TALES, by Bernard Sex- 
ton; illustrated by Gwenyth Waugh (New York: The Macmillan 
Co. $1.75). Of special interest to boys, but with enough of the fairy- 
tale element to be also enjoyed by girls, these Indian folk-lore stories tell 
of the adventures of "Acorn," an Indian lad, who attracts the attention 
of Owl Man, who takes the form of the boy's sister, and leads him into 
his mystery valley. Here he continues to live with Owl Man, Grizzley 
and Gray Wolf, and hears from them many legends of the various 
Indian Tribes, among them those of Coyote, Thunder and Scarface. 
The illustrations are many and unusual. 

HAPPY HOUR STORIES, by M. Genevieve Silvester and Edith 
Marshall Peter (New York: American Book Co. 60 cents). The 
joint authors of the Happy Hour Stories, which in verse tell about 
animals, birds, trees, flowers and children, have given them an educa- 
tional value for children of the kindergarten age, as well as much 
charm. They have mingled with their own stories verses by such well 
known authors as Robert Louis Stevenson and Joyce Kilmer, and, with 
profuse illustrations, it makes a very attractive little volume. 




698 NEW BOOKS [Feb., 

T^HEIR FRIENDLY ENEMY, by Gardner Hunting (New York: The 
L Macmillan Co. $1.75). A story of two girl-editors of a small-town 
newspaper which lets us in behind the scenes not only to exhibit 
"grapevine," "boiler-plate," fake news, printers' pi and other mysteries 
and misadventures of office and composing room, but to take us deep 
into the secret weaknesses of the editor's heart whence often spring 
the editorial policies. This is a thoroughly wholesome and interesting 
story for girls of any age from sixteen to sixty. 

QUIET INTERIOR, by E. B. C. Jones (New York: Boni & Liveright. 
$2.00). Perhaps, it is in wholesome reaction to the superficial- 
ities of the movie show that a small group of novelists attempt to depict 
for us the real selves of the personages of their stories, their hidden vir- 
tues and defects, their mixed motives, their struggles within which 
result sometimes in defeat, sometimes in victory always, with the fine 
soul, in clearer knowledge of self and consequent humility. In such 
stories plot is so subordinated to personality that we are hardly con- 
scious of reading fiction, we seem to be on-lookers into human lives. 

Such a book is Quiet Interior. Its heroine, a girl of fastidious 
refinement, refuses the love she craves which comes to her in the 
guise of a temptation, and this without conscious motive other than the 
desire to be true to herself which has in her the compelling force of 
an instinct. Here we find the weakness of the book, its greatly to be 
deplored lack. There is a concomitant touch of agnosticism, which is 
perhaps only in keeping with the immaturity of the characters, and is 
surely overborne by the writer's insistence on profounder truths. A 
remarkable book for a first novel. 

BOBBY IN MOVIELAND, by Francis J. Finn, S.J. (New York: Ben- 
ziger Brothers. $1.50 net.) Father Finn's friends will welcome his 
new book, which is up to date, in that it deals with Movieland, and its 
people a Movieland quite different from that usually depicted. The 
hero, a precocious boy of eight, has thrilling adventures, "breaks into" 
the Movies with ease, and is on the high road to fortune and inci- 
dentally to school when we leave him. 

MATTERS OF MOMENT, by Rev. John McCabe (New York: Benziger 
Brothers. $2.00 net). This volume is a collection of short 
souvenirs of sermons preached from Sunday to Sunday in a small 
mission in the north of England. They are, as the author himself 
declares, suggestive, rather than exhaustive. They treat in a simple 
fashion the Divinity of Christ, Redemption, Reason and Faith, the 
Resurrection, the Holy Spirit, the Church, the Papacy, etc. The Bishop 
of Northampton writes a most interesting preface, in which he dis- 
cusses the root cause of the indifferent preaching in England today, 
ascribing it to the almost total neglect of technical training in the 
subject in the seminaries. 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 699 

OLAYTIME STORIES, by Agnes Dunlop and Robinson G. Jones (New 
1 York: American Book Co. 60 cents). This little volume is in- 
tended for very small children. It will delight them, and will also 
teach them much without their realizing that they are being taught. 
It is modern in its tendency, yet harks back to the days of Mother 
Goose and "The House that Jack Built," continual repetition of the 
words being a notable feature. The children are intended to act, as 
well as read these stories. The illustrations are many, and selected 
verses by other than the authors are introduced from time to time. 

"pHE CUSTARD CUP, by Florence Bingham Livingston (New York: 
L George H. Doran Co. $1.90 net), abounds in rare and unforced 
humor which delights and holds you to the very end. Happily, the 
last chapter shows Penzie, Crink, Thad, Lettie, and the new boarder 
beginning a new life, which we trust will be continued through several 
more books. We predict that Mrs. Penfleld will be known and loved 
by many generations of fiction readers, for she brings gifts of fun and 
joy and wisdom to all whom she invites to "Come right in." 

FROM THE UNCONSCIOUS TO THE CONSCIOUS, by Dr. Gustave 
Geley. Translated by S. de Brath. (London: William Collins & 
Son. 17 s. 6 d.) From the "jacket" of this work, we learn that it will 
place its author "not only among the great thinkers, but among the 
great pioneers;" that it is a counterblast against Darwin's Descent of 
Man and other interesting facts. No doubt, its author is right in 
summing up the difficulties with regard to "classical transformism" as 
its failure to explain (1) the origin of species, (2) the origin of in- 
stincts, (3) the abrupt and creative transformation of new species, 
(4) their rapid "crystallization" and their immutability when formed, 
and (5) the failure to resolve the philosophical difficulty, "which makes 
the greater and more complex proceed from the simple and the greater 
from the less." Others have done this before the writer. But the really 
novel point in the book is to attempt to explain the development of life 
in terms of the "materializations" of spiritualistic mediums. Whatever 
we may think of this, there is much to interest in the book. 

DE PR.ECEPTIS DEI ET ECCLESLE, by H. Noldin, S.J. (New York: 
Frederick Pustet Co. $4.25). This volume on the Precepts of God 
and of the Church is one which we recommend for priests and every 
Divinity student. It is particularly adapted for use in seminaries, and 
is the thirteenth edition of a work that has long since won wide 
approval. 

TREASURY OF INDULGENCES, by M. P. Donelan (St. Louis: B. 
Herder Book Co. 50 cents net), treats of the nature and meaning 
of indulgences, conditions and definitions, and gives a number of in- 
dulgenced prayers and works. 



700 NEW BOOKS [Feb., 

HPHE DIVINE MOTHERHOOD, by Ansiar Vonier, O.S.B. (St. Louis: 
1 B. Herder Book Co. $1.00 net), is not a work of controversy. As 
the author says, there is not a controversial word in the book. It is 
simply a study of that wonderful truth of our Faith the Divine 
Motherhood, which was the privilege of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Of 
this truth we cannot learn too much; on it we cannot meditate too 
often. This book by the learned Abbot of Buckfast will assist both 
to give more knowledge and deeper insight into this sublime mystery. 

IN Life's Lessons, Father Garesche, S.J. (New York : Benziger Brothers. 
$1.50 net), once more addresses himself to his ever enlarging circle 
of admiring readers, and gives them as usual many helpful thoughts and 
good suggestions. The volume is neatly bound in cloth and has as its 
frontispiece, Da Vinci's Madonna of the Rocks. 

FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS. 

Pierre Tequi, Paris, offers: Capitalisme et Communisme, by Jules 
Riche (5/r.), a strong condemnation of modern Communism and Bol- 
shevism, written in the form of a sprightly dialogue defending the 
present industrial system while acknowledging its defects and declar- 
ing that the remedy lies in Catholic social reform; Marcellin Cham- 
pagnat, by Monsignor Laveille (10 /r.), an excellent biography of the 
founder of the Institute of the Little Brothers of Mary, who, on July 
11, 1920, was proclaimed "Venerable" by decree of Benedict XV. This 
biography will appeal to those interested in Primary Education; 
Tentations et Taches de Femmes, by Monseigneur J. Tissier (3 /r.), gives 
three conferences addressed to society women, on Intellectual Cur- 
iosity, Moral Softness and ^Esthetic Mediocrity; and Les Charismes du 
Saint-Esprit, by D. B. Marechaud (3/r.). 

La Spiritualite Chretienne, Vol. II., "Le Moyen Age" (Paris: Li- 
brarie Lecoffre. 10 /r.), is a continuation of P. Pourrat's historical 
studies on Spirituality. This volume treats of the period of the Middle 
Ages, a period fruitful in mystic authors, and is divided according to 
the schools formed by the great religious Orders in so far as they cul- 
tivated affective or speculative spirituality. It is a work of piety, as 
well as a manual of the History of Spirituality. L'Ame de Saint Augus- 
tine, by Pierre Guilloux, S.J. (Paris: Ancienne Librarie Poussielgue), 
considers certain aspects of the life and thought of the great Bishop of 
Hippo. Quinze Annees de Separation, by Paul Bureau (Paris: Blond 
et Gay. 5 //*.), a well-known French lawyer, is a detailed study of the 
French Law of Separation of December 9, 1905, and the modifications 
made in it to date. Cours Superieur de Religion, by Louis Prunel 
(Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne), might be called a Manual of Dogmatic 
Theology in French. The work is as a whole very commendable, and 
will be found useful by priests and teachers. Vol. I. deals with the 
foundations of belief and the important subject of God. Vol. II. with 
the Church. Both are excellent. Vol. III., on the Mysteries, is rather 
unsatisfactory; the difficult subject of Grace is handled in a masterly 
fashion in Vol. IV., and Vol. V., on the Sacraments, is satisfactory 
except that it dismisses the important subject of Matrimony with one 
short chapter. 



IRecent Events. 



During the last thirty days France took a 
France. much more prominent stand in the Wash- 

ington Conference on the Limitation of 
Armament than in the previous sessions. This arose chiefly from 
her veto of the plan of Secretary Hughes proposing to cut the 
maximum of submarines for the United States and Great Britain 
from 90,000 tons, as tentatively suggested, to 60,000 tons, and in 
the cases of France, Italy and Japan limiting them to their present 
submarine strength, which would allow about 31,500 tons each 
to France and Japan and about 21,250 tons to Italy. This the 
French delegation, on explicit instructions from the French Cab- 
inet, absolutely negatived, insisting firmly on an allowance of 
90,000 tons. This stand aroused much comment and even some 
bitterness, especially on the part of the British and, to a lesser 
degree, among the Americans. Despite much pressure, however, 
France refused to agree to the plan, contending that submarines 
afforded her security against interruption of her communication 
with the French colonies, upon which, in the event of war, she 
must necessarily depend for man power. Through her posses- 
sion of French Indo-China and other colonies in Asia, France has 
suzerainty over millions of Asiatics. 

The French attitude effectually blocked any agreement on the 
question of submarine limitation, though later France, with the 
four other principal Powers, adopted a resolution prohibiting the 
use of submarines as commerce destroyers and making the pro- 
hibition a part of the law of nations. Agreement was also reached 
on the tonnage, number and armament of airplane carriers re- 
garded by many experts as the real capital ships of the future 
the ratio being 5-5-3 for the United States, Great Britain and 
Japan, and practically 2 for France and Italy. 

To date, besides the two agreements on the submarine, the 
Conference has accepted the following proposed treaties: (1) The 
four-power Pacific Treaty, an agreement by the United States, 
Great Britain, Japan and France, to respect each other's rights in 
the Pacific Ocean; (2) A five-power agreement, fixing the total 
capital ship tonnage for the United States, Great Britain, Japan, 
France and Italy, on a ratio of 5-5-3 for the first three and 1.75 
for France and Italy; (3) A six power treaty adjusting the Ger- 
man cable situation in the Pacific, to be signed by the five prin- 



702 RECENT EVENTS [Feb., 

cipal Allied and Associated Powers and Holland. It is anticipated 
that the Conference will adjourn towards the end of January. 

The Allied Supreme Council, at its opening session on Jan- 
uary 6th, at Cannes, France, decided to call an international con- 
ference of all the countries of Europe, Allied and ex-enemy, and 
including Russia, to meet the first two weeks in March in Genoa, 
Italy. The United States will also be invited to participate. The 
conference, which is to be purely economic and financial, will not 
in any way touch politics or reparations in their narrow sense. 
It will be an attempt to reconstitute Europe as a whole on the 
basis of common need, and will not deal with claims arising from 
the War or the Treaty terms. 

The resolution adopted by the Supreme Council in laying 
down the conditions on which the Allied Powers would recognize 
the present Soviet Government, accepts the principle that no 
nation can dictate the form of government of another nation, but 
the payment of the old Russian debts, abstention from propa- 
ganda, and legal enforcement of the rights of private property and 
contract, are clearly stated as prerequisites for the investment of 
foreign capital in Russia and for the recognition of the Soviet. 
On January 9th the Soviet Government officially accepted the in- 
vitation to the conference and acceded to the conditions imposed. 

The other chief subject of discussion at Cannes, not yet con- 
cluded, is the matter of an Anglo-French alliance. The pro- 
posed Treaty will be in the nature of a defensive alliance between 
the two countries, but will at the same time take account of the 
position of Belgium and Italy under the terms of the Peace 
Treaties, so that in case of aggression against any of the Allies 
the quarrel will be the quarrel of all. An attempt is also being 
made to adjust the conflicting views of the two countries on the 
question of how much Germany must pay and how the amount 
shall be distributed. But, as we go to press, the news is flashed 
that Briand and his Cabinet have resigned and affairs at Cannes, 
as others in France, are left in an uncertain state. 

The Council of the League of Nations met at Geneva on Jan- 
uary 10th, and is now in session. Among other items, its agenda 
calls for the discussion of the nationalities and populations of 
Africa, Oceania and the Pacific Islands, the appointment of a 
High Commissioner for the free city of Danzig and ratification of 
the agreement between the Germans and Poles and the protection 
of minorities in Lithuania, Esthonia and Latvia. 

Before the meeting of the Council, on December 28th, Lith- 
uania sent a communication to the President of the Council, de- 
clining to accept the Council's recommendations for a settlement 



1922.] RECENT EVENTS 703 

of the dispute between Poland and Lithuania over Vilna. These 
recommendations, which were made early in November, suggested 
the creation of two semi-autonomous Lithuanian cantons out of 
the disputed territory. The declination of Lithuania to accept 
this, now reopens the question. On the other hand, the agree- 
ment between Czecho-Slovakia and Poland has been notified to 
the League by both countries, which agree to bring all future dis- 
putes before the Permanent Court of International Justice at The 
Hague, recently set up by the League. 

As a result of a meeting of the War Guild Commission of the 
League of Nations, held in Paris on January 6th, the Allies will 
probably abandon further proceedings against German military 
leaders on charges of instigating the World War. The meeting 
was called to compare reports prepared in accordance with in- 
structions from the Allied Supreme Council at its meeting in Paris 
last August. The instructions were that the Commission should 
inquire whether the Germans correctly administered justice in the 
recent trials conducted at Leipsic. The English and Italian mem- 
bers of the Commission reported that they were reasonably satis- 
fied with the results of the trials, but the French and Belgian mem- 
bers submitted adverse reports. In view of their division, it is 
believed that further proceedings will not be pressed. 

The Allied Council of Ambassadors has decided to place in the 
hands of General Nollet, head of the Disarmament Commission, 
the task of converting the Deutsche Werke, a group of plants 
used during the War for manufacturing German armaments, into 
workshops for the manufacture of industrial machinery. The 
plants in question are at Munich, Cassel, Amberg, Dachau, Span- 
dau, Hanau, Ingolstadt, Lippstadt and the former naval torpedo 
yards at Friedrichsort, in the harbor of Kiel. The plan of con- 
version will call for the employment of 20,000 workers who were 
employed in the manufacture of war material. 

France's total army strength, both of white and colored 
troops, will be 673,000 men after May, 1922, according to a recent 
statement by General de Castelnau, President of the Army Com- 
mission of the Chamber of Deputies. General de Castelnau set 
at rest conflicting estimates of the French forces by explaining 
that the budget of 1922 carries appropriations for only 636,000 
men, and as the army will be below that figure between the first 
release of men of the class of 1920, and the first incorporation 
into the army of the class of 1922, there will be enough of a saving 
in revenue to support the larger number of men later on. 

Unofficial reports place the total of the 1922 French budget 
at 24,003,236,000 francs, which is 326,000,000 under the amount 



704 RECENT EVENTS [Feb., 

demanded by the Government. Included in the budget is one item 
of 12,886,000,000 francs for meeting the interest on the public 
debt. 

On December 28th the American Congress 

Russia. passed a bill to appropriate $20,000,000 for 

relief of the Russian famine sufferers. In 

return, the Soviet authorities agreed to turn over to the American 
Relief Administration $10,000,000 worth of gold for the purchase 
of grain in the United States to be used in the Volga region. The 
agreement calls for the expenditure of the $10,000,000 in America 
within ninety days. Meanwhile, the first steamer carrying grain 
paid for out of the $20,000,000 appropriation, sailed for Russia 
on December 31st, carrying 240,000 bushels. 

Russia begins the new year with dreadful anticipations for 
the next eight months, and the fear that next summer's crop may 
only slightly relieve the famine. At numerous points in the fam- 
ine area bodies are stacked high, awaiting burial in the trenches, 
which workmen cannot prepare fast enough for the victims of 
famine, exposure and typhus. American relief workers, who orig- 
inally predicted the number of probable deaths in the stricken ter- 
ritory this winter at 2,000,000, now say that 5,000,000 is a low 
estimate, and many say that 10,000,000, or even more, may be 
swallowed up by the famine. This is quite probable, particularly 
since the shortage of horses, oxen and camels makes it impossible 
to reach the more remote sections, and since it is predicted that the 
typhus epidemic will be the worst that Russia has ever suffered. 
This disease, being spread by refugees, has assumed serious pro- 
portions in Moscow, where upward of eight hundred new cases 
were reported to the hospitals during the week ending Decem- 
ber 17th. 

Meanwhile the American Relief Administration is feeding 
nearly 1,000,000 children, and the British and various other or- 
ganizations are furnishing nourishment for at least 100,000 under 
the most dangerous conditions. Late in December, the President 
of the Italian Red Cross signed an agreement with a Soviet repre- 
sentative, for the establishment of eighteen food and medical 
depots in the Volga region. The Italian Government has con- 
tributed 6,000,000 lire for the work, and is also supplying the 
medicines and bearing the cost of the mission's transportation. 
The mission will start for Russia in February, and plans to supply 
food to 16,000 persons, including 4,000 children. 

As a result of the unanimous action of the ninth All-Russian 
Soviet Congress, which was held in Moscow, December 23d, Nico- 






1922.] RECENT EVENTS 705 

lai Lenine was reappointed executive head of the Russian Soviet 
Government. His retention in office was brought about by the 
unanimous reelection of the executive body of the Congress, with 
M. Kalinin as President, which in turn reappointed Lenine as 
President of the Council of People's Commissars. The Congress, 
which lasted till January 4th, produced nothing important beyond 
the adoption of a number of land reform plans, involving short- 
term leases and the hiring of labor under its regulations. Several 
points were thrown into clear relief at the various sessions : First, 
the hold of the Communist Party, and particularly of Lenine and 
Trotzky, on the country is as strong as ever. Second, the de- 
mobilization and reorganization of the Red Army, has been satis- 
factorily accomplished without impairing its efficiency and loyalty 
to the governing classes. Third, the commercial and industrial 
situation so far has not improved under the new economic policy, 
and according to some of the speakers is extremely serious. 

In a fiery speech before the Congress on December 29th, Min- 
ister of War Trotzky declared not only must the Soviet army and 
navy, now totalling 1,595,000 men, not be reduced, but on the con- 
trary must be enlarged and prepared for war next spring and 
summer, in the event of attack by outside foes. He made specific 
charges against the Japanese, accusing them, among other things, 
of aiding recent White Guard aggressions in the Far East. This 
accusation gains added interest from the fact that the special 
trade delegation from the Far Eastern Republic, now in attendance 
at the Washington Conference, has given out a number of incrim- 
inating documents concerning Japanese activities in Siberia and 
elsewhere. These tend to show an agreement between France 
and Japan, concluded in the spring of 1921, for the trans-shipment 
of the Wrangel army from Constantinople to Vladisvostok, the 
setting up of a conservative Government in Russia under the con- 
trol of Japan and the signing over to Japan of all economic con- 
cessions in Siberia, with the understanding that French interests 
"will be taken into consideration." The heads of both the 
Japanese and French delegations at the Washington Conference 
have entered vigorous denial of the authenticity of the docu- 
ments. 

Meanwhile, Japan is replacing the troops in the maritime 
provinces of Siberia with fresh contingents. This action, it is 
said, has been taken in view of the failure of the Conference at 
Daireu between the Japanese and representatives of the Chita, or 
Far Eastern Republic, to reach an agreement. Late in December, 
Khabarovsk, an important Siberian railway junction, was captured 
by anti-Bolshevik troops, said by the Chita authorities to have 

VOL. cxiv. 45 



706 RECENT EVENTS [Feb., 

been reactionary bands armed and organized by the Japanese, but 
declared by the latter to have been troops of the Vladivostok inde- 
pendent Government, which is opposed to the Government at 
Chita. 

Since the first of the year extensive military preparations 
have been under way along the Russian-Finnish frontier by both 
the Russians and the Finns. The Soviet Foreign Minister, M. 
Tchitcherin, has addressed another sharp note to the Finnish 
Government, demanding withdrawal of alleged Finnish aid to the 
insurgents in Karelia, and the expulsion from Finland of General 
Boris Savinkoff, who was recently expelled from Poland at the 
request of the Soviet Government. Finland has replied, reiter- 
ating her previous position that the Karelian question is one for 
the League of Nations to consider. Despite the high diplomatic 
tension and the military preparations on both sides, both the Bol- 
shevik and Baltic missions at Riga have expressed the belief that 
there will be no war, particularly in view of the fact that the Fin- 
nish Government has recently made an official announcement that 
they have expelled from the country two members of the Karelian 
Government "in accordance with the provisions of international 
law." 

A considerable increase in Russia's foreign trade the turn- 
over for the first nine months of 1921 exceeding the total for the 
three previous years was reported on December 30th by the 
United States Commerce Department in a statement based on 
figures compiled by Bolshevik newspapers. Exports for the nine 
months aggregated 90,000 tons, as compared with a total of 42,000 
tons for the previous three years, while imports amounted to 
574,000 tons against 279,000 tons for the preceding three years. 
Analyzing the statistics for 1921, the Commerce Department de- 
clared that the most important item of imported goods consisted 
of foodstuffs, the next items of importance being represented by 
fuel and metal goods, the three groups together constituting 
eighty-nine per cent, of the total imports. The bulk of the im- 
ports came from England, with Germany, the United States and 
Sweden following in the order named. England and the United 
States supplied much of the foodstuffs and coal, while Germany 
supplied chiefly agricultural implements and railroad supplies. 
On the other hand, the export trade lags far behind the imports, 
representing but a minute fraction of the pre-war trade. The 
bulk of Russian exports consist of timber, flax, furs, bristles and 
manganese ore. England took about thirty-four per cent, of these 
exports directly, while forty-six per cent, of the total was re- 
exported through Latvia to various countries. 



1922.] RECENT EVENTS 707 

On December 31st the King, at the instance 
Italy. of the Ministers of Industry and the Treas- 

ury, signed a decree postponing the Decem- 
ber settlement, which was to have occurred on that day on all the 
Italian bourses, until January 4th. This action was taken as a 
result of the failure two days earlier of the Banca Italiana di 
Sconto, one of the largest banks in Italy, having more than one 
hundred and fifty branches in Italy, as well as branches in France, 
Spain, the United States, Turkey, Brazil and the French colonies. 
The latest reports available show that the institution had a paid-up 
capital of 315,000,000 lire, a reserve fund of 68,000,000 lire, and 
current deposits of about 3,540,000,000 lire. 

The failure created an enormous impression throughout 
Italy, and the Government has granted the bank a moratorium of 
one year within which to straighten out its affairs. The total 
liabilities are estimated to be four billion lire. Before the War 
the bank had a capital of only 15,000,000 lire, which was in- 
creased by large amounts several times during the War till it 
finally reached the sum of 315,000,000 lire. The bank's holdings 
were augmented principally through its financing of the Ansaldo 
works, a large armament firm, which manufactured great quan- 
tities of munitions. Since the War the Ansaldo firm has naturally 
dropped enormously in value, and recently the Sconto Bank found 
itself in such a serious position that the Ansaldo had to be taken 
over by a consortium of the principal Italian banks. The an- 
nouncement of the formation of the consortium caused public 
anxiety, and, eventually, a run on the bank. At present the 
Sconto Bank, sheltered by the moratorium, is calling in all the 
money owing to it, and until its real assets are better known, it is 
impossible to prophesy regarding its ultimate bankruptcy or 
solvency. 

The failure also has a political aspect, as the bank was 
started in 1915 and controlled by ex-Premier Nitti and his friends, 
especially Senator Marconi, of wireless fame, and Marquis Men- 
dici, a former Deputy of Rome, with the intention of supplanting 
other banks which were then accused of being under the control 
of German financiers. The property of Senator Marconi along 
with that of the other directors, including three more Senators, 
has been ordered sequestrated pending an official inquiry. 

That Italy's general financial condition is improving is shown 
by a statement issued by the Italian Minister of Commerce shortly 
before the failure of the Sconto Bank. Reports of deposits re- 
ceived in the small popular and rural banks, representing the 
savings of the working people, showed that their total had in- 






708 RECENT EVENTS [Feb., 

creased from 1,300,000,000 in June, 1914, to 4,100,000,000 on June 
30, 1921. The total amount in all savings institutions in Italy 
amounts to 19,000,000,000 lire. With regard to Government 
finances, the last statement of the Secretary of the Italian Treas- 
ury, based on conservative estimates of Government revenues, 
shows that the estimated deficit in the budget for the next fiscal 
year may be reduced to 2,000,000,000 lire, representing less than 
half the deficit of the present fiscal year and only one-fifth of last 
year's deficit. 

Italian political circles have been much disturbed by a law 
passed by the French Government stipulating that foreign sub- 
jects cannot make Tunis their permanent abode, unless they be- 
come naturalized French. This law is especially severe on Ital- 
ians because the proportion of Italian and French residents in 
Tunis is about five to one, there being more than 100,000 Italians 
there. To the Italian Government's vigorous protest against the 
law, Premier Briand has replied that the decree would not be 
applied against Italians. But while M. Briand's declaration has 
had a soothing effect, it is not considered satisfactory, as it is 
pointed out that the Italians in Tunis need a guarantee that the 
decree will not be applied in the future. Foreign Minister de la 
Toretta is studying the question with a view to finding a formula 
satisfactory to both parties. 

An armed attack by Jugo-Slavs, aided by Serbian police, upon 
sailors on shore leave from an Italian warship at Sebenico, Dal- 
matia, caused, late in December, a storm of protest in Italy. The 
Italian press has recently been reporting numerous acts of hostil- 
ity on the part of the Jugo-Slavs against Italians, and the bitter 
feeling in Italy has been greatly intensified by the latest incident. 
Early in January, the Italian dreadnought, Dante Alighieri, was 
dispatched to Sebenico and is reported to have its guns trained on 
the town, pending the according of satisfaction by the Jugo-Slavs; 
other Italian warships are also said to be arriving in Dalmatian 
waters. 

The official programme has been announced for the cere- 
monies incidental to the bestowal of the American Congressional 
Medal of Honor on the Italian unknown soldier by Major General 
Henry T. Allen, commander of the American forces on the Rhine. 
January 18th has been fixed for the ceremony, in which a detach- 
ment of American troops from the Rhine will participate. After 
the bestowal of the medal, there will be a reception by the Mayor 
of Rome and a dinner to the officers by General Diaz. On the 
following day the King will review the American troops and later 
will give a dinner to the American officers. 



1922.] RECENT EVENTS 709 

Despite several attempts by the German 
Germany. Government during the month to obtain a 

moratorium, so far the Allies have not alle- 
viated the reparation terms, and on December 29th the Repar- 
ations Commission informed Germany that she must pay the 
January 15th installment without delay, or she would be con- 
sidered to have violated the Treaty. The notification was given 
through Dr. Fischer, chairman of the German War Department 
Commission, who was in Paris conferring with the Allied repre- 
sentatives. Earlier in the month, in response to the German ap- 
peal for a moratorium, the Commission sent a note asking three 
questions : How much can Germany pay on the January and Feb- 
ruary installments? How much extension of time does Germany 
want on the balance? What guarantees can Germany offer for 
ultimate payment? The Commission, it is said, has been unof- 
ficially informed that Germany might be able to meet the two 
forthcoming payments, provided the Allies would agree to certain 
conditions, chief among which is believed to be a definite delay in 
the payment of subsequent installments. 

Germany's outlook for 1922 depends entirely on the solution 
of the reparations problem. Further decline of the mark unques- 
tionably will bring a stoppage of German industry and a great 
increase in unemployment, with all the consequences that these 
imply. In financial circles, it is feared that the mark will show 
another considerable decline, at least in the first few weeks of the 
year, for even if reparations are radically reduced, the payments 
which Germany will be compelled to make in January and Feb- 
ruary will be bound to produce an unfavorable reaction. 

At present the entire German press is filled as never before 
with discussions of the Russian problem, towards the solution of 
which, and of Germany's own difficulties, a certain proposal has 
been put forward. This is the Stinnes-Rathenau-Radek scheme 
for the formation of an international consortium for the exploita- 
tion of Russia, from which Germany expects to divert sixty per 
cent, of her profits towards reparations. It is in Russia that 
Germany now sees her chief hope of economic salvation, and 
should the Allies and Germany fail soon to reach an understand- 
ing on Russia, it is predicted that the next twelve months will wit- 
ness a gigantic contest in that country between England, France 
and Germany, which will have a more lasting effect on Europe 
than even the Versailles Treaty. As matters now stand the Mos- 
cow Government seems more eager to cooperate with Germany 
than with any other nation. 

Germany, however, is taking more immediate and definite 



710 RECENT EVENTS [Feb., 

steps to put her house in order. A serious beginning has been 
made to balance the internal budget by eliminating the deficit in 
the railroad and postal services. The Federal Council has passed 
a measure raising all postal, telegraph and telephone rates an 
average of 2,000 per cent, above pre-war rates. All railroad 
rates, both freight and passenger, will again be raised 2,000 to 
3,000 per cent, above pre-war charges. Moreover, under Chan- 
cellor Wirth's spur, the National Economic Council has approved 
the draft of a bill enabling the Government to impose a compul- 
sory credit on all Germany's trades and industries which are to 
be organized compulsorily into a "credit association." This, the 
most radical of all German measures, if passed by the Reichstag, 
will place practically all so-called gold values and all the assets 
of Germany's trades and industries at the disposal of the Govern- 
ment for the purpose of offering them as guarantees for foreign 
loans. Chancellor Wirth has announced that he will stand or 
fall on his taxation plans as outlined above. 

According to an American investigator who has made a spe- 
cial and prolonged study of the subject, Germany to date has 
been disarmed ninety-five per cent, of the total disarmament 
figure set by the Treaty of Versailles, her disarmament being 
ninety-seven per cent, complete as regards artillery, and ninety- 
three per cent, complete as regards machine guns and rifles. In 
addition to this, of the 7,000 manufacturing plants and factories 
known to have been engaged at one time or another, wholly or in 
part, in manufacturing war materials, 5,000 have been demilitar- 
ized or industrially disarmed, five hundred are still in hand under- 
going an enforced pacification process, while 1,500 still remain to 
be investigated and controlled, with the prospect that every one 
of them will be "visited" early in the new year. Of this remnant 
of 1,500 factories, the great majority are very small, as nearly all 
the big plants were investigated first and reduced to a peace 
basis. Besides the two big facts of military and war industrial 
disarmament, Germany's armed man power has been reduced 
within the permitted limits of 100,000 Reichswehr, though the 
organization and equipment of Germany's militarized so-called 
security police force is still receiving the serious attention of the 
Allied disarmament specialists. 

The Council of Ambassadors has granted permission to Ger- 
many to retain until March 31st three hundred Diesel engines, 
which have been the subject of Allied controversy since the armis- 
tice. This is the third postponement of final decision on the 
matter. The engines were manufactured by Germany for her air 
service, but had not been placed in use when the armistice was 



1922.] RECENT EVENTS 711 

signed. The French have urged their destruction on the ground 
that Germany could not be trusted to put them to commercial 
use, but would retain them as potential war material. American 
and British interests have disputed this point of view, holding 
that it is foolish to destroy valuable commercial material which 
it would be hard to replace without great cost. 

Germany will soon surrender to Great Britain the world's 
largest drydock, which recently held the Majestic, the biggest 
ship afloat. The dock, which is now at Hamburg, will probably 
be towed across the channel to Southampton, where it will be of 
service in accommodating the great transatlantic passenger ves- 
sels. The dock is not part of the reparation scheme, but is con- 
fiscated from the Germans as a punishment for the sinking of the 
German fleet at Scapa Flow. 

In view of what was said in a previous paragraph regarding 
German plans, with regard to Russia, it is interesting to note the 
conclusion of an agreement with Russia early in December by the 
German East European Credit Bank to buy 20,000,000 marks 
worth of German goods. Russia is to pay a comparatively small 
sum in cash, while the bank will finance the remainder against 
Russian bills running up to eighteen months. 

A few days before the end of the year an epidemic of rail- 
road strikes broke out in Western Germany. Radical railroaders 
of the Elberfeld division led off with a strike suspending half of 
the traffic through the valley of the Wipper River, and this 
quickly spread to the Cologne, Essen and Diisseldorf divisions. 
The reason for the strike was the refusal of the Government to 
meet the railroaders' demand for an advance payment on January 
wages before Christmas, to meet the rising cost of living. The 
Wirth Government rejected the demand on the ground that if 
advance payments on wages were made, the railroad employees 
would simply strike again when the advances were deducted later 
from the wage payments. In other words, the Government took 
the ground that this was merely an indirect scheme to secure a 
wage increase. Indications are that the Government, while not 
agreeing to the wage demands of the men, will grant equivalent 
amounts in the form of bonuses in order to prevent a threatened 
general strike. The new tactics of demanding wages well in ad- 
vance, is not a freakish demand peculiar to the railroads, but the 
new radical workers' policy throughout Germany. In Stettin the 
Stoewer automobile works locked out all workers and shut up 
shop, because the men demanded immediately an advance pay- 
ment on January wages. 

January 13, 1922. 



With Our Readers 

IT is with the combined emotions of joy and gratitude that we 
record here a matter of interest to all Americans and espe- 
cially to all American Catholics. This cause of rejoicing and 
thankfulness is the establishmenet of an American Church in 
Rome. With the sanction of the Holy Father, and with the sup- 
port of various members of the hierarchy in Rome and America, 
the Paulist Fathers have been given charge of this church, and 
have been requested to administer to the religious needs of Amer- 
ican Catholics dwelling in Rome or passing through the city on 
their travels. 

It is not without a certain fittingness that such a charge 
should be laid on the shoulders of the one community of priests 
founded in the country that is to be thus represented in the 
Eternal City. It is not without significance that thus, too, is real- 
ized one of the cherished hopes of the first Superior General of the 
Paulists, and the first Editor of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, Father 
Isaac T. Hecker. Over sixty years have fled since the first days 
of the community and fifty-six years since the founding of THE 

CATHOLIC WORLD; but at length this desire has been fulfilled. 

* * * * 

DURING past years, while nearly all the countries in the old 
world have had their national churches in the Centre of Chris- 
tendom, one of the most progressive and most virile parts of the 
Divine Vineyard was conspicuous in having none. Spain, Austria, 
Belgium, France, Portugal, Ireland, Russia, Germany, England 
and Greece are represented by their national churches. Syria 
entered into possession of one in May of last year and the Argen- 
tine Republic also decided to have such a church. S. Andrea 
delle Fratte, near the Propaganda, was the national church of 
Scotland until the sixteenth century, and now the little Church of 
St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland, which is attached to the Scotch 
College on the Via Quattro Fontane, takes its place, although, like 
the church attached to the North American College, it is intended 
rather for the use of the students than for the public. 

* * * * 

NOT only countries, but provinces and cities, pride themselves 
in still having churches that represented them on the banks 
of the Tiber when they enjoyed the position of independent 
States. For example, Santa Maria in Constantinople on the Via 
Tritone belonged to Sicily; San Carlo on the Corso, to Lombardy; 
S. Croce dei Lucchesi, at the foot of the Quirinal Hill, was the 
property of the city of Lucca. Florence has San Giovanni dei 



1922.] WITH OUR READERS 713 

Fiorentini, which she built in 1448 and which, by the way, Michel- 
angelo wished to build "such as the Greeks and Romans never 
had." In 1662 the people of Burgundy residing in Rome built 
San Claudio dei Borgogni and had a hospice attached to it. It 
now belongs to a congregation of priests of the Perpetual Ador- 
ation, the national church of the French, San Luigi dei Francesi 
serving for the use of all Frenchmen in the cfty. 

* * * * 

TTHERE is, therefore, nothing new in the idea of a church in 
A Rome to meet the needs of the people of a particular country. 
Perhaps the strange thing is that there had not been established 
long since a church for Americans and, now that such a thing has 
become an actuality, it seems the most natural thing in the world. 
For American Catholics with their deep love of the Faith and with 
their devotion to the See of Peter, instinctively feel that, side by 
side with other nations, they, too, should be represented in cos- 
mopolitan, central, Catholic and Eternal Rome. For those of our 
country who journey to the City on the Tiber this church will be 
a great convenience and a great blessing. Nor will interest in it 
be lessened, but rather will it be increased because of the fact that 
the church assigned for the use of Americans is not a new edifice, 
but rather one of those that reaches back into the centuries that 
are gone, one of the links in that historical chain of churches that 
joins the twentieth century to apostolic days. 

The church assigned is that of Santa Susanna, which was re- 
built in 1603 by Carlo Maderno for Pope Sixtus V. on the site of an 
oratory founded by Pope Caius (A. D. 283) in the house of his 
brother, Gabinus, who was martyred with his daughter, Susanna, 
because she refused to enter into marriage with Maximianus 
Galerus, adopted son of the Emperor Diocletian, to whom this 
family was related. Paintings from the history of Santa Susanna 
and of Susanna of the Old Testament by Baldassare Croce and 
Cesare Nebbia adorn the walls. The church faces on the Piazza 
San Bernardo and is directly opposite the Church of San Bernardo. 
A rather curious fact is that at present the American Embassy 
occupies the building just next to the Church of Santa Susanna. 

* * * * 

'T'HE Church of Santa Susanna has been visited by many Amer- 
A icans in past years as one of the smaller historic and hand- 
some churches of a city that is filled with archaeological and re- 
ligious treasures. Now, it is to be hoped, Americans, journeying 
to Rome, will turn their steps to this particular church with the 
added interest that its relationship to their own country must 
create. On one hand, it will be a little spot of home in a foreign 



714 WITH OUR READERS [Feb., 

land; but, on the other, it will be only one more added feature of 
welcome to that wonderful City of the World, in which perhaps 
more than in any other, all the citizens of the world feel thor- 
oughly at home. 

May all who thus enter into this sacred shrine remember the 
martyred saint in whose honor it has been erected; may they like- 
wise remember those other martyred saints of Rome Peter, who 
led the way, and Paul, whose lowly sons now serve there; may they 
remember the hosts of those who died in Rome for the Faith that 
was in them; may they remember, too, that each and all of these 
were citizens of the City of God, followers of Christ, God and man, 
and that one of the most beautiful and significant prayers that 
went forth from His lips and heart was that one which went up 
on that darkest of nights in the Valley of Shadows beside the 
brook, Cedron: 

And not for them only do I pray, but for them also who 
through their word shall believe in Me; that they all may be one, 
as Thou, Father, in Me and I in Thee; that they also may be one 
in Us; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. 

And the glory which Thou hast given Me, I have given to 
them; that they may be one, as We also are one: I in them and 
Thou in Me; that they may be made perfect in One: and the 
world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, 
as Thou hast also loved Me. 



SPIRITUAL writers often speak of the virtue of indifference, 
but there is also the folly of indifference. The "holy indiffer- 
ence" of which masters in the ascetical life speak really means 
something very positive. It means continued confidence in God, 
no matter how much or how little of the things of this world we 
may possess; no matter whether in our devotion we have the 
grace of emotional fervor or not; no matter whether life deals out 
a greater measure of joy or of sorrow; no matter, in a word, what 
life brings as long as it is not something that of itself would lead 
us away from God. The indifference, which we would call the 
folly or the vice of indifference, is, in reality, just the opposite 
of the holy indifference, which is a virtue. For it is an indiffer- 
ence as to those things which are essential to our spiritual and 
moral life. In bringing up the subject here, it is not our inten- 
tion to dwell upon what is no doubt the most serious form of 
this vice of indifference, that is, indifference as to religious beliefs, 
which is more properly called indifferentism. Never was there 
a greater fallacy uttered than it matters not what a man believes, 
and such indifference is most to be regretted. 

* * * * 



1922.] WITH OUR READERS 715 



T^HERE are other phases of this folly, however, not so radical, 
A but at the same time very detrimental to the best interests of 
human life either in the individual or in society. How often, 
when questions of the most serious import in the moral, social, 
industrial and political world are brought up, do we find those 
who will say: "What difference does it all make. As for me, 
how these things are decided or how these difficulties are adjusted 
does not matter in the least. I am not interested." Such an atti- 
tude of mind is not uncommon even among those of a high degree 
of intelligence and education. Did it become general it would 
carry with it most unfortunate consequences. Today, partic- 
ularly, there are most vital questions of not only local and na- 
tional, but also world-wide import being discussed, debated and 
decided. Can anyone afford to be indifferent to them? Are there 
not connected with them matters of a spiritual and moral nature 
which should demand the interest and, as far as possible, the in- 
fluence of those who have right standards and just principles? 

* * * * 

NEVER has there been a day more than the present when 
important matters have been so dependent, we do not say 
upon public opinion, but rather upon the expression of partially 
public opinion. For the two do not always coincide. There have 
been mighty questions decided on the expressions of views which 
voiced opinions indeed, but which hardly voiced what could be 
rightly called public or general opinion. As a rule, however, the 
courts of arbitration, the assemblies of decision are much affected 
by the real views that come before them, constituting what may 
be classed as public opinion. There can be no doubt, for ex- 
ample, that the Irish question, which has been before the world 
acutely for the past few years, was largely decided in accordance 
with strong public opinion that flowed in from all quarters of 
the globe. Nor can we doubt that the deliberations at Wash- 
ington have been largely influenced by the public opinion of the 
different nations as voiced in the presses of the different peoples 
and made known in other ways. The same is true of many other 
gatherings and will be true in the important assemblies that are 
to come. While newspapers, especially in their editorials, are 
not always reliable exponents of public opinion, yet one who 
knows how to read them can, as a rule, collect quite safely the 
real expression of public views back of the many distortions of 
the truth. An article in the January number of the Atlantic 
Monthly on "Newspapers and the Truth" brings out these facts 
in an able way. 

* * * * 



716 WITH OUR READERS [Feb., 

"\V7HAT remains evident is that the expression of opinion is 
VV powerful and nobody who has at heart the welfare of hu- 
manity can be indifferent not only as to his views, but as to the 
expression of his views, when such expression is at all calculated 
to be effective. The last man that can afford to be indifferent, 
in this sense of the word, is the Catholic. He should have a deeper 
sense of his responsibility because the principles of his religious 
and moral code are more definite and more clearly defined than 
those possessed by his brethren not of the Faith. His oppor- 
tunities for expression of views upon the great questions of the 
time are many. In conversations, in letters to papers, in efforts 
at more ambitious statements in magazines and books, he can 
make known those sound principles upon matters such as mar- 
riage, education, birth control, social and industrial ethics, the 
morality of business, art, music and many another phase of life. 
Indifference in these matters is deadly. Indifference breeds sil- 
ence and silence, when the word should be spoken, breeds evil. 



QOME day, perhaps, there will be a daily Catholic press in the 
*-* country; newspapers in various of our large cities that can 
give expression through the influential channel of the printed 
word, easily and frequently read, to the Catholic view of life and 
to the position of Catholics upon matters that affect the deepest 
interests of humanity. Perhaps, if we did not suffer considerably 
from the vice of indifference, we could establish such a press 
through the cooperation of those who possess in themselves the 
combined qualities of zeal and ability, and with the help of those 
who could back such a proposition from the business and financial 
point of view. This would at least afford one very powerful 
means for the expression of an opinion that now rarely reaches 
the assemblies that deliberate upon the most serious questions 
imaginable. 

Before the day of the daily Catholic newspaper, of which 
there is now only one published in English in the whole United 
States, fully arrives, there is need of making known our views in 
every feasible manner. Much is done through the numerous 
weekly papers and the monthly magazines : much is accomplished 
through the efficient news service of the National Catholic Wel- 
fare Council. Recently, two Catholic business men in Pittsburgh 
had inserted in the daily papers paid advertisements, each of 
which stated a Catholic belief or explained a Catholic custom or 
ceremony. Each advertisement had the following announcement : 
"Contributed by two Catholic business men who believe in their 



1922.] WITH OUR READERS 717 

religion." Their example of zeal is a good one. If life is worth 
living, it is worth improving, too, in all its aspects. Such improve- 
ment requires interest the interest in everything that affects 
humanity, the interest that is opposed to deadly indifference and 
that makes each and every true man or woman an influence for 
social good. 



those interested in the question of Christian unity and 
reunion and who, that are serious-minded, are not? an 
article on "Projects of Christian Union: A Catholic View," in The 
Contemporary Review for December, 1921, will afford instructive 
reading. The Union or the Reunion of Christians is a subject 
much mooted at the present time. Serious thought is being given 
to it in various areas of religious activity. Hardly a Church 
magazine or periodical is published in which there is not some 
article, or at least portion of an article, devoted to the problem and 
its solution. It is true that one falters almost hopelessly in the 
presence of an unreason that frequently is found in such articles : 
it is true that one is often appalled at the sacrifice of sacred con- 
victions that is glibly asked for in order to secure a union that 
would be boneless and sinewless and, consequently, worthless. 
Nevertheless, the general discussion of the problem argues to an 
awakened interest in the pursuit of truth, and to the reasonable- 
ness of the hope that some day all will be one. 

* * * * 

IN the Contemporary article, J. W. Ponyter has this paragraph: 
"As regards schemes of, or aspirations towards, 'Christian re- 
union,' the conclusions seem to be, therefore, these : Free-will suf- 
ficiently accounts for the existence of divisions in belief, and also 
makes it improbable that, in our present state of being, such di- 
visions are destined to disappear. With regard to present non- 
Catholic efforts towards union, no one will deny the nobility of 
the intentions, or the deep earnestness of the spirit, of those who 
are making those efforts; but, with all respect for that evident 
nobility and earnestness, it must yet be said that those who are 
making these non-Catholic efforts are either going in a direction 
not leading to the goal, or, if they are in the right direction, then 
they are so far from the goal that, before they reach it, their ideas 
of its nature will be drastically altered. Unity is the distinctive 
mark of 'Rome.' Disunion is the or, at least, a distinctive 
mark of Protestantism. Unity, however, is not only 'Roman,' 
but it is also true: in the sense that it is an indispensable mark of 
the visible Church established by Our Lord. Non-Catholics are 



718 WITH OUR READERS [Feb., 

realizing the fact of its truth its indispensability ; but they do not 
yet realize the equal fact that it is essentially 'Roman,' and that 
Christian reunion is only attainable by communion with Rome. 
This, however, will have to be realized. One of the fallacies, 
hindering this realization, seems to consist in an untenable notion 
of the meaning of 'union:' the taking of that word to mean, 
namely, compromise on belief whereas, of course, the nature of 
Revelation involves quite the opposite." 

* * * * 

WE recommend the reading of this article to all because of its 
kindly spirit, its well-reasoned arguments, and its definite- 
ness as opposed to that vagueness which characterizes so many 
efforts in the same direction. The quoting of his closing para- 
graph may induce some to read all that leads up to it. "The fact 
that many people reject the Church which agrees with the essen- 
tial requirements of the very nature of Revelation, does not make 
that Church any less the true messenger of Christ, but only makes 
it evident that, however sincere those people be, yet their ideas of 
Revelation are inadequate, and that they should seek, as their 
goal, communion with that Church. The Papacy makes to be in- 
telligible what otherwise is incoherent: creeds, Councils, Biblical 
doctrine, episcopacy, Church life. These things, taken by them- 
selves, are beyond measure confused; but, in the union of the 
Catholic communion of the Holy See, they become intelligible. 
We would say what, centuries ago, St. Jerome said in his youth: 
'It is but with the successor of the fisherman and the disciple of 
the Cross that I speak;' or, again, what he said many years later, 
near the end of his long life : 'I feel that I ought, with the deepest 
affection, to give you this advice, to hold the faith of holy Inno- 
cent, who is the successor and son of that man of the Apostolic 
See.' " 



AN event of real significance in the field of missionary activity 
and one this is of more than local import, is the Silver Jubilee 
of the New York Apostolate. For twenty-five years, to quote the 
words of Archbishop Hayes, "The New York Apostolate has been 
singularly favored in its personnel, its spirit and its labors. Con- 
sistent and continuous has been its policy of burning zeal for 
souls within and without the Kingdom of Christ. It has repaired 
and built for Christ solidly and safely, far and near." 

Sharers in the credit of their success with the present able 
members of the Apostolate are the former members of the band, 
some of whom are still living and some of whom have gone to 



1922.] WITH OUR READERS 719 

their reward. Notably among those of the past mention should 
be made of the first leader, Father Cusack, afterwards Auxiliary 
Bishop of New York and still later Bishop of Albany, which office 
he occupied when death called him. Nor should we fail to re- 
member that the idea of the Diocesan band of missionaries sprang 
from the Catholic Missionary Union, of which the Archbishop of 
New York has always been the head, holding the office of President 
of the Board of Directors; and of which the veteran Paulist Mis- 
sionary, Father Elliott, was the organizer and vivifying spirit. 

* * * * 
r y l HROUGH the first year of the life of the New York Apostolate, 

A indeed, Father Elliott was a co-laborer with the members of 
the band, giving them the benefit of his long experience in the mis- 
sion field, and establishing those traditions to which the Apostolate 
has so faithfully adhered. This fidelity to the original spirit of 
its beginnings accounts, in large measure, for the unquestioned 
success of its efforts through all these years and for the mainte- 
nance of its vigorous life while many other such ventures have 
failed. Perhaps, more than any other one cause that has con- 
tributed to its success, has been the support consistently given by 
the three Archbishops of New York, under whom the Apostolate 
has prospered, Archbishop Corrigan, Cardinal Farley and Arch- 
bishop Hayes. 

* * * * 

WE congratulate the Apostolate upon the notable results of a 
quarter of a century of labor, results which cannot be scien- 
tifically measured, but which are treasured in the heart of God. 
We congratulate the members of the Apostolate upon the example 
of zeal for souls which they have been to all the people; and we 
wish them a continuation, into the many years of the future, of 
those elements that have made them truly God's "Fishers of 
Men" vigorous and replenished life, an enthusiasm such as the 
spirit of God alone can inspire, and a love of humanity that calls 
in the voice of Christ. 



HPHE Chaplain of Folsom Prison, California, writes asking us to 
A invite our readers to send him any spare books, magazines 
or periodicals which they may have. He assures us that there is 
a daily demand for literature dealing with Catholic principles, 
and that the men have much time for reading. Many, we are 
sure, will take advantage of this opportunity of helping the 
Chaplain in his work. The address is : Rev. John H. Ellis, Prison 
Chapel, Represa, California. 



BOOKS RECEIVED. 

E. P. BUTTON & Co., New York: 

And Even Now. By Max Beerbohm. $2.00. Mediaeval Heresy and the Inquisi- 
tion. By A. S. Turberville, M.D., M. A., B.Litt. $4.00. The Home of Fadeless 
Splendour or Palestine of Today. By G. N. Whittingham. 
FUNK & WAGNALLS Co., New York: 

Ireland and the Making of Britain. By B. Fitzpatrick. $4.00 net. 
THE MACMILLAN Co., New York: 

The International Protection of Labor. By B. E. Lowe, Ph.D. $2.50. The King 
of Ireland's Son. By Padraic Colum. $2.25. Maria Chapdelaine. A Tale of 
the Lake St. John Country. By L. Heinon. Translated by W. H. Blake. $2.00. 
P. J. KENEDY & SONS, New York: 

The Priest Before the Altar. Compiled by F. Macnamara, C.SS.R. $1.00. When, 

Whom and How to Marry. By Rev. C. McNeiry, C.SS.R. 50 cents. 
LONGMANS, GREEN & Co., New York: 

The Individual and the Environment. By J. E. Adamson. $4.50 net. The Me- 
chanism of Life. By J. Johnstone. $5.25. 
HKNBY HOLT & Co., New York: 

When Lighthouses are Dark. By Ethel C. Brill. Many Trails. By H. M. Batten. 

The Control of Life. By J. A. Thomson. 
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS CORPORATION, New York: 

The Flight of Guinevere, and Other Poems. By G. V. A. McCloskey. $1.50. 
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & Co., Garden City, N. Y.: 

Woodrow Wilson As I Know Him. By J. P. Tumulty. $5.00. The Uncollected 
Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman. Edited by E. Holloway. Vols. I. and H. 
HARPER & BROTHERS, New York: 

More That Must Be Told. By Sir Philip Gibbs. $2.50 net. 
HAHCOURT, BRACE & HOWE, New York: 

Goethe's Literary Essays. Edited by J. E. Spingarn. Foreword by Lord Haldane. 
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA PRESS, New York: 

The Jesuits, 1534-1921. By Rev. Thos. J. Campbell, S.J. $5.00. 
BKNZIGEH BROTHERS, New York: 

The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas. Part III. $3.00 net. 
MARSHALL JONES Co., Boston: 

The Spirit of the Common Law. By R. Pound. $2.50. 
THE FOUR SEAS Co., Boston: 

Igdrasil. By R. Snow. $1.25 net. Envy, a Tale. By Ernst von Wildenbruch. 
The Attitude of the Jew Towards the Non-Jew. By J. Lauterbach. Pamphlet. 
THE EXTENSION PRESS, Chicago: 

The Parable Book, Our Divine Lord's Own Stories Retold for You by Children. 

$2.00. Testimony to the Truth. By Rev. Hugh P. Smyth. $1.50. 
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, Chicago: 

Evolution, Genetics and Eugenics. By H. H. Newman. $3.75. 
B. HERDER BOOK Co., St. Louis: 

The Children's King. By a Sister of Notre Dame 70 cents net. The Counter- 
Reformation in Scotland. By J. H. Pollen, S.J. $1.00 net. 
THE BRUCE PUBLISHING Co., Milwaukee, Wis. : 

Some Medical Ethical Problems Solved. By Rev. M. P. Bourke, A.M., LL.B. 

Pamphlet. 

DILLON & COYLE, Charlottetown, P. E. I.: 
Wai; O'Dreams. By Lucy G. Clarkin. 
CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, London: 

Thoughts for a Child of Mary. By Maisie Ward. Catholics and the League of 
Nations. By G. E. Anstruther. 2 d. Papal Infallibility. By the Most Rev. 
John Mclntyre. 2 d. Catholics and the Bible. By C. E. G. No. 1. 2 d. 
Pamphlets. 
P. LETHIELLEUX, Paris: 

La dcrniere Abbesse de Montmartre. Par H. M. Delsart. 3 fr. Traite de U Amour 
de Dieu. Par Saint Bernard. Traduction nouvelle. Par H. M. Delsart. 1 fr. 80. 
L'Ideal Momistique et la Vie Chretienne des Premiers Jours. Par D. G. Morin. 
4 fr. Le Conlenu de la Morale. Par Louis Rouzic. Tome I. et II. 4 fr. 
L'Histoire et les Histoires dans la Bible. Par Mgr. Laudrieux. 2 fr. 50. Pour- 
quoi je Crois en Dieu. Par Abbe V. Dupin. 3 fr. 80. Exposition de la Morale 
Catholique. Par P. M. A. Janvier. 8 fr. 
P. TKQUI, Paris: 

Direction pour Rassurer dans leurs doutes Les Ames Timorees. Par R. P. Quad- 
rupani. 1 fr. 50. Direction Pratique et Morale pour vivre Chretiennement. 
Par R. P. Quadrupani. 1 fr. 50. La Femme Chretienne et la Souffrance. Par 
Abb6 Henri Morice. 5 fr. L'Esprit de Saint Francois Xavier. Par J. E. 
Laborde, S.J. 5 fr. Plans de Sermons pour Les Fetes de I'Annee. Tome II. 
Par J. Millot. 7 fr. 50. 
P. MARIETTI, Taurini, Italy: 

Rubricae Generales Missalis Romani. Frs. 7. Summarium Theologies Moralis. 
Nicolaus Sebastian!, Sac. Frs. 12. Memoriale Rituum. Frs. 5. Philo- 
sophia Scholastica, ad Mentem Sancti Thomas. R. P. Seb. Uccello, S.S.S. Two 
volumes. Frs. 28. "De Tempore." Par lonnes Lacan, S.C.I. Mtssale Romanum. 



THE 




VOL. CXIV. 



MARCH, 1922. 



No. 684. 



POPE BENEDICT XV. 



BY EDWARD A. PACE, PH.D. 




HE death, August 20, 1914, of Pius X. left the 
Roman See vacant at a critical moment. Three 
weeks previous, the War had set Europe aflame 
and spread confusion throughout the world. 
Nevertheless, the Conclave was assembled on 
August 31st. It followed the usual procedure, and on Sep- 
tember 3d, the election was announced, "with great rejoicing," 
of Cardinal della Chiesa, who took the name of Benedict XV. 
In his first official statement addressed, September 8th, 
to "all the Catholics of the world," the Pope declared: "Look- 
ing from the height of this Apostolic office upon the entire 
flock of the Lord now intrusted to Our care, We were stricken 
with horror and unspeakable anguish as We beheld the awful 
spectacle of this War and saw so vast an extent of Europe 
laid waste by fire and sword and running red with the blood of 
Christians. From the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, Whom 
We represent in ruling the Church, We hold the sacred duty 
of embracing in the arms of Our fatherly love, His sheep and 
lambs, each and all, whosoever they be. Since, therefore, fol- 
lowing the Lord's example, We should be, and We are, ready 

COPYRIGHT. 1922. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OP ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE 

IN THE STATE OF NEW YOBK. 
VOL. cxiv. 46 



722 POPE BENEDICT XV. [Mar., 

to lay down Our life for them, We have made it Our steadfast 
purpose and resolve, that so far as lies in Our power, We 
shall leave no means untried to hasten the end of this 
calamity." 

At the same time, he besought all the rulers of nations to 
put away their enmities for the welfare of human society. 
"Let them consider," he said, "that this mortal life, over- 
whelmed with misery and sorrow, ought not to be made more 
wretched and grievous than it is. Let them realize that 
already enough destruction has been wrought and enough 
blood shed: and, therefore, let them hasten to make plans for 
peace and join their hands in friendship." 

This exhortation gave the keynote to the Pope's career. 
From the first hour of his Pontificate, he saw clearly what he 
should do. Once his course of action was determined, he fol- 
lowed it, unflinchingly, to the end. When at the close of 
seven years, that end had come, he was still "prepared to give 
his life, if necessary, in order to bring about peace." 

What Benedict XV. saw from the exalted position to 
which he had just been raised was not merely the outward 
appearances of war. These, indeed, were amazing in the 
number of nations involved, the efficiency of armament and 
the destruction which the first month witnessed. As to the 
final outcome, neither reason nor imagination could make any 
prediction. At sight of such ruin, the heart of the Pope was 
sorely grieved. But what caused him the deepest sorrow was 
the spirit that worked through it all. For the time being, it 
seemed as though hatred had triumphed. While it loosened 
all other evil passions, it placed at their service the cool cal- 
culation of intelligence and the shrewdest devices that science 
could invent. It spread its miasma beyond the area of actual 
warfare to countries which as yet were neutral. It threatened 
to sweep away all that centuries had achieved in the way of 
civilization. 

After the first surprise had passed, men of learning and 
judgment began to account for the phenomenon. Much was 
said and written about economic pressure. History was con- 
sulted and the causes of earlier conflicts reviewed. Diplo- 
macy, which evidently had failed, got its share of criticism. 
Militarism, bold in its guilt, was loudly condemned. And 
each nation, while it proclaimed the justice of its cause, cast 



1922.] POPE BENEDICT XV. 723 

the blame on its enemies. The one thing that seemed quite 
plain was that wrong had been done and that greater evils 
would follow. Meanwhile, the struggle went on without re- 
gard to the value of such theorizing and with little care for 
the claims of humanity. 

Before the conflict had gone very far, speculation re- 
garding its meaning took a new turn. It was openly asserted 
that the War proved religion a failure. Christianity in par- 
ticular had been powerless, had shown itself unable to meet 
the crisis and thereby had lost its hold on mankind. Natur- 
ally, the Catholic Church came in for the chief responsibility. 
Those who had been most active in hampering the work of the 
Church were loudest in their denunciation. They even set 
going a rumor to the effect that the War was brought about 
by the Roman authorities in order to secure greater power. 

Thinkers of insight and honesty came nearer the truth 
when they traced the disaster to certain philosophical ideas. 
These had been discussed for some time with academic calm- 
ness. Shortly before the outbreak of hostilities, they appeared, 
as theories, in published form. It was frankly stated that 
might makes right, that stronger nations are justified in crush- 
ing the weaker, that war is a necessary means of progress, 
that compassion is weakness, and that any and every method 
of warfare is permissible provided it lead to success. Inter- 
national agreements were scorned even those which formerly 
prevented excess and set limits to wanton destruction. The 
only law acknowledged by this philosophy was that which 
had been taken over from the brute creation and applied to 
human affairs, the law of the struggle for existence. And, 
according to this law, the survival of a nation, however ac- 
complished, would be the one proof of its fitness. 

Happily, this rude pragmatism was not universally ac- 
cepted. Though it had prevailed for the moment, its ruthless 
application in the conduct of the War aroused indignation 
and protest. At any rate, it laid bare the issue as to whether 
war was a conflict among human beings or simply the struggle 
of brutes. It brought plainly to view the question: is there 
any significance in the moral sense and any validity in its 
demands? Or, is it to be stifled by physical force? 

The situation was not promising. The world was in no 
mood to hear the gospel of good- will. Apparently, it was use- 



724 POPE BENEDICT XV. [Mar., 

less to speak, or even to think, of bringing order out of such 
chaos. With so many factors requiring consideration, it was 
hardly possible to take action that would meet any large ap- 
proval. Worldly prudence recommended silence and neu- 
trality. 

Pope Benedict took another view and followed a different 
course. He saw that the time was opportune, not for winning 
applause, but for telling some plain truths. The first step, 
he resolved, was to dispel illusion by pointing out the real 
causes of the War. Whether his exposition of the facts would 
please or displease, mattered little. His duty, imposed by his 
office, was to compel recognition of the moral issues involved 
and of the moral principles upon which those issues should 
be decided. 

In this he was encouraged by his thought of conditions 
within the Church. It was a relief, he said, to turn from the 
spectacle which the world presented and consider the progress 
which had been made in all departments of Catholic life. 
Intent on its own pursuits and misled by the vaporings of 
theory, the world had failed to note, or to appreciate, the 
vigor which the Church, during the two previous Pontificates, 
had developed. In many quarters it was taken for granted 
that the alienation of secular powers had not only destroyed 
the prestige of the Church in temporal affairs, but had also 
lowered its inner vitality to such a point that it could exert 
little or no spiritual influence. Against this erroneous im- 
pression, the Pope set a statement of fact. 

In addition to the manifest proofs of the divine power and 
stability of the Church, We find no little consolation in the 
admirable fruits of the laborious Pontificate of Our prede- 
cessor, Pius X., who during that Pontificate adorned the 
Apostolic See with the example of a life in every way saintly. 
It is owing to him that We see the religious spirit of the 
clergy everywhere intensified; the piety of the faithful 
aroused; a disciplined activity promoted in Catholic asso- 
ciations; the sacred hierarchy consolidated or extended; 
the education of aspirants to the priesthood promoted ac- 
cording to the strict demands of ecclesiastical legislation 
and the needs of our own times; the danger of rash innova- 
tions removed from the teaching of the sacred sciences; 
music made to bear a worthy part in the solemn service of 



1922.] POPE BENEDICT XV. 725 

God, and the dignity of the liturgy increased; the knowl- 
edge of Christianity more widely spread by fresh contin- 
gents of ministers of the Gospel. 

The Pope was aware, moreover, that Leo XIII. had set 
forth the nature of society and laid down the true principles 
of human relationship. In his Encyclicals due warning had 
been given of the dangers which threatened the social order. 
Neglect of that warning had permitted the evil to grow until 
the menace became a reality and flung away its philosophical 
disguise. 

In his first Encyclical Letter, November 1, 1914, after de- 
ploring the outbreak of war and its widespread ravages, Pope 
Benedict continued: 

But it is not only the murderous struggle now going on 
that is ruining the nations, and filling Us with anxious 
alarm. There is another dreadful evil, which goes deep 
down in modern society, an evil that inspires fear in the 
minds of thoughtful men, because while it has already 
caused, and is threatening still to cause immense mischief 
to nations, it must also be recognized as the true source of 
the present deplorable conflict. Truly, as soon as the rules 
and dictates of Christian wisdom, which are the assured 
basis of stability and peace, came to be disregarded in the 
ordering of public life, the very structure of the State began 
to totter to its fall; and there has also ensued so great a 
change of thought and conduct, that, unless God comes to 
the rescue, the dissolution of human society itself would 
seem to be at hand. The more prominent disorders are 
these: the lack of mutual love among men; disregard for 
authority; unjust quarrels between the various classes; 
material prosperity become the absorbing object of human 
endeavor, as though there were nothing higher and better 
to be gained. These We regard as the four chief causes 
why the world is so terribly shaken. We must labor earn- 
estly, therefore, by putting in practice Christian principles, 
to remove such disorders from our midst, if indeed We have 
at heart the common peace and welfare. 

The source of these evils was not alone the unrest of the 
masses or the selfishness of individuals seeking their private 
gain. In large measure, the responsibility lay with those 
rulers who had forgotten that authority is from God and that, 



726 POPE BENEDICT XV. [Mar., 

consequently, they must render Him an account of their 
stewardship : 

Let princes and rulers of the people bear this in mind 
and bethink themselves whether it be wise and salutary, 
either for public authority or for the nations themselves, 
to set aside the holy religion of Jesus Christ, in which that 
very authority may find such powerful support and defence. 
Let them seriously consider whether it be the part of politi- 
cal wisdom to exclude from the ordinance of the State and 
from public instruction, the teaching of the Gospel and of 
the Church. Only too well does experience show that when 
religion is banished, human authority totters to its fall. 
That which happened to the first of our race when he failed 
in his duty to God, usually happens to nations as well. 
Scarcely had the will in him rebelled against God when the 
passions arose in rebellion against the will; and likewise, 
when the rulers of the people disdain the authority of God, 
the people in turn despise the authority of men. There re- 
mains, it is true, the usual expedient of suppressing re- 
bellion by force; but to what effect? Force subdues the 
bodies of men, not their souls. 

But again he traced the conditions, whether in public or 
in private life, to the insatiate greed for gain which deadens 
both the perception of man's eternal good and the due con- 
sideration for others: 

The evils We have just been deploring find their cause in 
a deeper root, and unless the good use their efforts to de- 
stroy it, We shall look in vain for the realization of Our 
desire for a solid and lasting peace among men. What 
that root is, the Apostle tells us: "The desire of money 
is the root of all evils," and to this root are indeed at- 
tributable all the evils now afflicting the world. When god- 
less schools, molding as wax the tender hearts of the young, 
when an unscrupulous press, continually playing upon the 
inexperienced minds of the multitude, when those other 
agencies that form public opinion, have succeeded in propa- 
gating the deadly error that man ought not to look for a 
happy eternity; that it is only here that happiness is to be 
found, in the riches, the honors, the pleasures of this life, 
it is not surprising that men, by nature made for happiness, 
should attack what stands in the way of that happiness 



1922.] POPE BENEDICT XV. 727 

with all the impelling force of their desire. But since 
earthly goods are unequally divided, and since it is the office 
of the State to prevent individuals from seizing at their 
own will what belongs to others, it has come about that 
hatred has been engendered against public authority, that 
envy of the more fortunate has taken hold of the less fortu- 
nate, and that the different classes of fellow-citizens are in 
open antagonism those who have nothing striving by 
every means to obtain, and the others striving to keep what 
they have, and to increase it. 

It was not sufficient, in the Pope's judgment, to point out 
and condemn the causes of the world's disaster. Measures 
of a practical sort were needed, and these naturally were 
determined both by the facts of the situation and by the posi- 
tion of the Holy Father as the head of the Church. At the 
beginning of the fourth year of the War, he addressed an ap- 
peal to the Rulers of the warring nations, in which he brought 
out clearly the objects which had guided his action: 

From the beginning of Our Pontificate, amid the horrors 
which this terrible War has brought upon Europe, We re- 
solved, above all else, on three things: to preserve complete 
impartiality with regard to all the belligerents, as is becom- 
ing in him who is the common Father and who cherishes 
with the same affection all his children; to put forth con- 
tinual endeavors for the greatest possible good of all, irre- 
spective of nationality and creed, as enjoined upon Us both 
by the universal law of charity and by the supreme spiritual 
office intrusted to Us by Christ; finally, in keeping with Our 
mission of pacification, to leave nothing undone, so far as 
lay in Our power, that might put an end to this calamity, 
by leading the nations and their rulers to greater modera- 
tion and to calmer counseling for the sake of a just and en- 
during peace. 

To understand what impartiality meant for Pope Bene- 
dict, it should be remembered that Catholics were fighting 
under every flag. They were his children in war no less 
than in peace. They were acting in accordance with their 
sense of duty, and none valued patriotism more highly than 
did their common Father. While their fratricidal strife 
grieved him deeply, he realized that he could not, in justice, 



728 POPE BENEDICT XV. [Mar., 

show favor to any. There was little to gain by taking sides. 
There was much to lose. Whatever the result of the conflict, 
some portion of his flock would have been hurt and estranged. 

In time of peace, the merits of international dispute can 
be fairly determined. It is possible, amid the tortuous ways 
of diplomacy, to lay hold of the facts and use them as a basis 
for decision. War blocks the way to reliable knowledge 
and makes judgment a mere conjecture. This was notably 
the case after 1914. Owing to the number of belligerent 
nations, it was practically impossible to secure accurate in- 
formation. Under those circumstances, the settlement of 
rival claims would have been hazardous. The only effect 
would have been protest against the decision and hostility 
toward its source. 

In some instances, however, the facts were clear, and the 
responsibility could be located. Then the Pope's action was 
prompt and decisive. He rebuked the doing of wrong, irre- 
spective of the party by whom it was committed and of the 
attitude which any nation might consequently take toward 
the Holy See. He had preached the gospel of justice, and he 
was the first to put it in practice. Once handed down, his 
ruling was not reversed. He listened calmly to criticism, feel- 
ing sure that events would finally establish his fairness and 
sincerity. 

However difficult it might be to mark out and follow the 
line of justice, there was no room for doubt as to the require- 
ments of charity. Nor was any close investigation needed to 
find distress that called for relief. Europe, in agony, awaited 
the Samaritan. How zealously Pope Benedict bound up its 
wounds is now matter of record. His service to humanity 
in the exchange of prisoners, the conveying of information 
regarding their soldier relatives to those who remained at 
home in suspense and the systematic distribution of charity 
in all its forms, is now generally recognized. What he had 
was given freely, without respect of creed or nationality. And 
doubtless, among those who received aid through his gener- 
osity were some who had never thought that a Pope would 
take pity on any who were outside the fold. 

The circumstances of war thus threw into sharper con- 
trast a philosophy that mocked at compassion and a charity 
which found in suffering its stimulus and opportunity. Pos- 



1922.] POPE BENEDICT XV. 729 

sibly, those who believe in pragmatism may apply its stand- 
ards here and open the way to truth. In any case the common 
sense of humanity should easily draw its own conclusion. 

Neither justice nor charity, however, could regain full 
sway as long as the struggle continued. The only hope for 
exhausted Europe was in the return to peace. And upon this 
the Pope bent all his energies. Once and again, he appealed 
to the belligerent Powers. From exhortation in general terms 
he passed to definite proposals. The fundamental point, he 
declared, was to replace the material force of arms with the 
moral power of right and to substitute for armies an equitable 
arbitration. He insisted especially on certain measures with 
which the world is now familiar; the freedom of the seas, dis- 
armament, evacuation of conquered territory, the settlement, 
in a spirit of justice and equity, of the political problems 
which had emerged from the War. Such were his proposals 
in August, 1917, more than a year before the armistice was 
declared. 

Why they were not accepted is a question which has been 
answered in various ways. Eventually, the true reason will 
be given. It is more important just now to note the spirit 
in which the Pope appealed to the Rulers. 

In laying before you these basic principles you who at 
this tragic hour are guiding the destinies of the belligerent 
nations We are animated by the consoling hope of seeing 
them accepted and a speedy termination put to this terrible 
conflict which more and more clearly appears to be a use- 
less massacre. The whole world recognizes that the honor 
of all parties is secure. Give ear, then, to Our prayer and 
heed the paternal invitation which We address to you in 
the name of the Divine Redeemer, the Prince of Peace. 
Weigh well your grave responsibility before God and man. 
Upon your action depend the comfort and joy of number- 
less homes, the lives of thousands of children, in a word, the 
happiness of the peoples whose welfare you are in duty 
bound to assure. May the Lord put into your minds and 
hearts such decisions as are in keeping with His holy will. 
Heaven grant that, while you merit the plaudits of your 
fellowmen now, you may secure for yourselves and receive 
from generations yet to come the glorious title of peace- 
makers. 



730 POPE BENEDICT XV. [Mar., 

Pope Benedict lived to see his desire, in large measure, 
fulfilled. Heavy as his burden had been, he must have re- 
joiced, more than others, at the ending of strife. But his 
efforts did not cease. He took up at once the work of restor- 
ation. His conciliatory spirit seemed to spread in all direc- 
tions. Probably its most conspicuous effect is to be seen in 
the renewal of friendly relations with France. For the East- 
ern peoples he was especially solicitous; and he accomplished 
much in behalf of the Armenians, Syrians and subjects of the 
Ottoman Empire. The plight of Russia aroused his sympatlty, 
and he took energetic measures not only to relieve the distress 
of that unfortunate country, but also to secure the return of 
its people to Catholic unity. 

To Benedict XV. the Church in America is deeply in- 
debted. On various occasions he expressed his joy at its pros- 
perity. In his Letter to the Hierarchy, April 10, 1919, he com- 
mended, in particular, the work and the spirit of our Catholic 
schools. Catholic education, he said, "is the solid and secure 
foundation on which rests the fullness of civil order, faith and 
morality . . . the weal of Church and State depends en- 
tirely on the good condition and discipline of the schools, and 
the Christians of the future will be those, and those only, 
whom you will have taught and trained." 

As he looked beyond the wreckage of Europe to our 
flourishing Republic, he saw the possibilities that lay before 
our people: 

Retaining as they do a most firm hold on the principles 
of reasonable liberty and of Christian civilization, they are 
destined to have the chif role in the restoration of peace 
and order, and in the reconstruction of human society on 
the basis of these same principles, when the violence of these 
tempestuous days shall have passed. 

The activities of the Pope in behalf of peace stand out, 
quite naturally, as his principal achievement. It should not 
be forgotten that he had, at the same time, to carry on the 
regular administration of the Church. In spite of the diffi- 
culties, notably in the way of communication, which the War 
occasioned, there was always the duty of providing for the 
spiritual welfare of the faithful, by the appointment of 
bishops, the adjudication of canonical cases, and the solution 






1922.] POPE BENEDICT XV. 731 

of innumerable problems connected with distant missions. 
The record of these transactions is preserved in the Acta 
Apostolicas Sedis, the official organ of the Holy See. Among 
the documents contained in that publication, the letters which 
the Pope addressed to persons of different countries and dif- 
ferent positions or stations, afford an insight into his compre- 
hensive interest and charity. They show him as a man who, 
amid the gravest official concerns, found time and oppor- 
tunity to share the sorrow of others and to enhance their joy 
with his fatherly congratulation. He spoke from his heart 
to the heart of mankind. 

It was not, then, surprising that the news of his death 
should have called forth expressions of regret from all who 
appreciated his character and aims from those who loved 
him as their Father, and from many others who, though not 
of his fold, had learned to admire his qualities. These trib- 
utes are hopeful signs. They reflect, from countless angles, 
the good-will of the Pontiff, which sent its rays of comfort 
through the gross darkness of evil days and steadily pointed 
the way of peace. It is well that mankind should unite in ex- 
pressions of sorrow at the loss of its chief benefactor. But 
the worthier tribute, which remains to be paid his memory, 
is the completion of the task of pacification. With the hope 
and prayer that, under God's providential guidance, this 
work of restoration might finally be accomplished, Benedict 
XV. entered into the peace which Christ alone can give. 




JOHN GALSWORTHY. 

BY MAY BATEMAN. 

HE critic, if he be a critic worthy of his craft, 
should love the art of writing with nothing less 
than passion. He must be ready to guard its 
honor at the cost of sacrifice, and immolate the 
friend of his heart, if necessary, upon its altar. 
For, after all, it is the soul of the man in his work which true 
criticism seeks; his self -revelation in his art; and even if, 
humanly, we very often love best the thing which is un- 
worthy, we can, in this case, pass over nothing that falls short 
of the best. That is the inexorable claim which art itself 
makes on the critic. 

If it be true, as has been said, that "books are written by 
the mind and not the appetites, . . ." the function of criticism 
is, obviously, "to treat in their expression in literature the 
mind and the soul. To discover the soul of a book, of a 
writer, of art itself; that is a task difficult and perilous enough 
to be interesting." 1 But, alas, "only for some of us is the 
difference between good and evil vital, in the sense that the 
perception of it is the organizing principle of our lives." 2 
Thus, "true criticism is distinguished from false by this, that 
while the latter studies" such things as style, subject-matter 
and conception, "as ends, . . . the former sees them in living 
relation." To the psychological critic, "style and treatment 
are symbols" of their creator's personal spiritual ardor and 
leanings. "Criticism," in fact, "can only become" really 
"unique and fruitful by treating literature purely as the 
emanation of spiritual entities." 3 

An author's personal relation to reality, the effect of his 
expressed attitude towards life, is then what matters, when 
the critic focuses him in this soul-perspective. Its precise 
quality is what makes the writer either an artist or a mere 
word-stringer. Books that are real books, have an actual 
atmosphere of their own which many who are sensitive feel. 
Some of us have only to enter a library to be aware of the 

1 Edward Moore. * The Athenaeum. * Edward Moore. 



1922.] JOHN GALSWORTHY 733 

spiritual character of its collection as a whole; to sense either 
interior tranquillity or actual disturbance. "They say that 
when night has fallen and the master of the house is asleep, 
the books in the library talk to each other; exchange their 
finest pages, their most brilliant phrases, from era to era and 
temperament to temperament. . . ." An incomparable honor 
for a writer to talk to Jean de la Fontaine, for example, in 
conditions of such intimacy! 

Carrying on the pleasant fantasy, one asks oneself which 
specimens of our most famous modern novelists' work would 
meet on common grounds of intercourse with those of, say, 
the mid- Victorian epoch, whose code of ethics was so widely 
different? Picture, in your mind, the figure of some indi- 
vidual heroine of Charles Kingsley or George Eliot stepping 
clear of the printed page and encountering the creation of 
H. G. Wells or George Moore! Can you imagine a dialogue 
between Argemone Lavington, 4 for instance, and Ann Veron- 
ica? 5 Or seriously conceive that Dorothea Brooke 6 and 
Esther Walters 7 would find a point of union? 

Take examples, even, from the writings of men who have 
more actually in common, Meredith and Galsworthy. Mere- 
dith serves as a connecting link between two eras. Both men 
view life from the standpoint of satiric observers; Gals- 
worthy's innate love of the country, of every fleeting gleam of 
faery gold that shows in nature for the artist, is as tender 
and sensitive in its way as Meredith's, though he gives it 
less play. He shares with Meredith the faculty of making men 
and women live and move, so that we take them seriously, 
for good or ill, and suffer when they fail us, just as we suffer 
when our friends step off the pedestals our affection raised for 
them. Yet I doubt if Carinthia Fleetwood, 8 with her loyal 
courage, or Emmie Dunstane, 9 true throughout to a fine code, 
would walk in complete accord with Irene Forsyte, 10 in spite 
of that pervasive charm of hers which steals upon you, like a 
breath, were those three graceful wraiths to pace the library 
floor at midnight in their printed shrouds. 

There would be more instinctive sympathy, perhaps, be- 

* Yeast, by Charles Kingsley. 8 Ann Veronica, by H. G. Wells. 

" Middlemarch, by George Eliot. ' Esther Walters, by George Moore. 

8 The Amazing Marriage. Diana of the Crossways. 

10 The Man of Property, The Indian Summer of a Forsyte, Awakening, In 
Chancery and To Let, by John Galsworthy. 



734 JOHN GALSWORTHY [Mar., 

tween Renee de Rouaillout 11 and quiet Irene, who says so 
little and suggests so much, a triumph of faithful literary por- 
traiture. But even so, between the French Marquise, her re- 
serve of strength built on the habit of a lifetime's discipline, 
able "to act up to the scaffold" on which, at the eleventh hour, 
she sacrificed her happiness, and English Irene, faced with 
the same test, and acting differently, there is a great gulf fixed. 

"Poetry, art and civilization all begin with an act of 
faith," Charles Maurras tells us. We know what Meredith's 
supreme act of faith was: "There is nothing the body suffers 
that the soul may not profit by." Does John Galsworthy's 
act of faith surpass, or even touch, it? How has he justified 
that "aspiration of life towards immortal beauty," 12 which 
should be equally true of literature? And if his output as a 
whole be looked at from the standpoint of a critic who, how- 
ever humbly, is intent on finding "spiritual emanation" 
wherever it exists in work, will his influence show for good or 
ill in a world which, more perhaps than ever before, needs 
sane and sound principles to guide it? 

John Galsworthy's first book appeared in a restless tran- 
sitional period of life and literature. The ball of change, 
rolling steadily on, gained momentum, and every obstacle it 
met, including literature, took fresh impetus and, possibly, 
another course. The new note in literature, if more spon- 
taneous and natural in many ways than the old note, was one 
of almost reckless challenge; the new writers were nearly all 
preachers of a kind, if preachers of the gospel of negation 
and discontent rather than of affirmation and security. The 
fashion of what Michael Fane 18 calls "mock-turtle" religious 
beliefs was already threatened. The new style, "with all its 
freshness, its living interest, its power to grip," 14 gradually 
"became less and less of an art, more and more a method of 
social propaganda. All the outstanding literary personages 
of today, first and foremost, are lay preachers Shaw, Wells, 
Bennett, Galsworthy, Masefield, Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc." 

Artists in words John Galsworthy amongst them stood 
out from the medley, for many of the new writers "threw 
grammar to the winds," and had no dignity. Galsworthy 

11 licaachamp's Career, by George Meredith. 

12 Sinister Street, by Compton Mackenzie. 
"Ibid. U A. Compton-Ricketta. 



1922.] JOHN GALSWORTHY 735 

was an observer; shrewd, ironic; versed in the mysterious 
ethics of upper middle-class families, those bulwarks of Brit- 
ish civilization whose invincible belief in their integrity no 
cataclysm can shake; an enthusiast for justice, a stanch demo- 
crat. He published his first novel in the late eighties; his 
second in 1900, in the period of the South African War. His 
restraint, his ease, the beauty of his diction delighted lovers 
of literature. Here, surely, was a man who would never 
jeopardize the honor of his craft. "Rules," says a contem- 
porary French writer, 15 "are natural and spiritual laws; 
theories, too often mere prejudice and sophistry." John Gals- 
worthy already saw profoundly into the darker side of life; 
surely, with time, he would achieve a clearer spiritual vision. 

No one, more than Galsworthy, craves for the serenity 
and satisfaction that which is perfect brings. Tragedy lies in 
his failure to find it. For he desires it with insatiable ardor; 
his very ear is pricked to catch its echo. Like Ashurst, in his 
own story of "The Apple Tree," he is devoured by a sense of 
waste, which pulls him up short, time upon time, when the 
fire-fly gleam of promise has once again drawn him toward 
another futile quest. "One's mode of life may be high and 
scrupulous, but there is always an undercurrent of hanker- 
ing ... A mal-adjusted animal, civilized man! There 
could be no garden of his choosing, ... no achievable 
elysium in life, or lasting haven of happiness for any man 
with a sense of beauty nothing which could compare with 
the captured loveliness in a work of art, set down for ever, 
so that to look on it or read was always to have the same 
precious sense of exaltation and restful inebriety. Life, no 
doubt, had moments of beauty with that quality of unbidden, 
flying rapture, but the trouble was, they lasted no longer than 
the span of a cloud's flight over the sun: impossible to keep 
them with you, as art caught beauty and held it fast." 16 

We say of the work of certain writers that it leaves us 
with the sense that it was written "with the tongue in the 
cheek." John Galsworthy's work leads whither? Until 
little Gerda's tears, falling upon Kay's eyes, in the old fairy 
tale, washed away the infinitesimal speck of glass which 
made him see the loveliest thing in the world out of per- 
spective, everything was spoiled for him; he could not really 

" Emile Bernard. Five Tales, The Apple Tree," by John Galsworthy. 



736 JOHN GALSWORTHY [Mar., 

enjoy. Galsworthy, unlike Kay, perceives, is touched by 
beauty in many directions; is, for instance, "genuinely, almost 
religiously, responsive" to nature with its sense of a "brood- 
ing spirit" always eluding the heart expectant of Pan's piping 
in the copice; appreciates, with clear perception, men's stoic 
qualities, their efforts to break free from the rut of mean and 
petty circumstances. Much of what he sees is true, and he 
sees further into social wrongs than many of his contem- 
poraries. But he does not see far enough. He does not see 
as far as Meredith, for instance, although Meredith's methods 
were often marred by obscurity, and Galsworthy's are always 
direct and to the point. In spite of his intense personal sin- 
cerity, his view of life is limited, because his moral vision is 
oblique. 

Just as, with Meredith, it is impossible to separate his 
poetry from his prose when studying his work, so, with John 
Galsworthy, it is impossible to separate his novels from his 
dramas, as means of self-expression. The position of the 
weak, the wronged, the "lame dog" or fanatic, the woman who 
is broken on the wheel for the fault of the man, the poor who 
pay with liberty and honor penalties which the rich evade 
through wealth ; these are the burning themes which rouse his 
most exalted, if sometimes his sentimental, championship. 

The Silver Box, The Mob and Strife are typical examples 
of Galsworthy's work at its strongest. The Fugitive is a weak 
variation on a theme which obsesses the author : the rebellion 
of an artistic, sensitive woman, who has found out after a year 
of marriage that she has no ideas or sympathies in common 
with her ordinary, prosaic husband, and therefore breaks a 
bond whose claims she does not recognize or acknowledge. 
Clare's tentative entry into the underworld, to which sheer 
starvation drives her, after she has left her lover because she 
realized that she was ruining his career, costs her her life: 
she is "too fine, and not fine enough, to put up with things: 
too sensitive to take help, and not strong enough to do without 
it." But the setting of the final scene, with its lights and 
music and theatrical accessories, is tawdry and sentimental; 
a medley of cheap effects, carrying no conviction and utterly 
unworthy of the author. 

Few of the ironies of so-called justice administered in 
the courts or by the exponents of our social code escape 



1922.] JOHN GALSWORTHY 737 

John Galsworthy. In The Eldest Son, Sir William Cheshire 
is firm on the subject of "the unwritten law" which compels 
his underkeeper to marry the village girl he has betrayed: 
"He must toe the line or take himself off." But when his 
own eldest son, heir to a title that goes back to the thirteenth 
century, has brought his mother's young personal maid, 
daughter of the head-gamekeeper, "into trouble" and applies 
the same "unwritten law" in his own case, saying that he will 
marry her, there is a swift volte-face in honest Sir William's 
attitude: 

"It's ruin. We've always been here. Who the deuce are 
we if we leave this place? . . . Good-bye to any prestige, 
political, social, anything ! ... If he marries her, I've done 
with him. As far as I'm concerned, he ceases to exist . . . 
The girl deserves no consideration. ... (To Freda, the 
maid.) You haven't earned the right to be considered . . . 
You'll deserve all you'll get. ... To expect me to . . .! 
It's intolerable!" 

Jack Barthwick, in The Silver Box, is the son of a prom- 
inent M. P. Young, drunken, dissipated, he takes the purse 
which contains all that his light-o-love has to pay her rent 
with, "to score off the cat," one night when he is intoxicated. 
Jones, the new, hard-working charwoman's out-of-work hus- 
band, helps Jack into the house at night, is given whisky, and 
"having had very little to eat all day," the "drink went to his 
head." "Something came over him," and he sees red and 
takes not only the purse, but a silver box. Mrs. Jones, who 
works at the Barthwick's, is accused of the theft; and Jones 
gives himself up and fights the constable, who believes he is 
only doing it to save his wife's honor. And the terrible irony 
of the whole travesty of justice comes when Mr. Barthwick, 
the honorable man "so are ye all all honorable men" 
knowing the truth, stands by, although in mental agony, al- 
lowing Jones to be branded for life, imprisoned for theft and 
assaulting the police, his first offence, sooner than to allow his 
son's name to be dragged through the mire. 

There is no weakness or artificiality, such as makes The 
Pigeon, as well as The Fugitive, ineffectual, in Strife which 
reaches the high-water mark of Galsworthy's dramatic power. 
Two iron wills- standing as symbols of the conflict between 

VOL. CXIT, 47 



738 JOHN GALSWORTHY [Mar., 

the old order and the new, in the relations of master and 
man are in bitter conflict. Throughout the play the tension 
is kept at straining point; both views are put fairly; both tell. 
Not until the last few moments do we realize that both of the 
honest enemies alike are broken by the weak compromise of 
the very men for whom they fought up to the last with their 
backs to the wall. 

The note of sardonic futility, with which this play ends, 
vibrates again in Galsworthy's latest drama, The Skin Game. 
Class is matched against class here in an ignoble struggle for 
its "rights;" and as the fight goes on, the fine traditions of the 
class, which by birth and breeding is superior, sink to the 
level of its enemy, and worse; mere decency at last is thrown 
to the winds, and the two enemies face each other like dogs, 
intent only on tearing and rending each other by any means, 
however foul. Once more, a woman pays the cost of the 
victor's unworthy success. Hillcrist, the country gentleman, 
demands, despairingly: 

"What is it that gets loose when you begin a fight, and 
makes you what you think you're not? What blinding 
evil? Begin as you may, it ends in this skin game. Skin 
game ! . . . When we began this fight we had clean hands 
are they clean now? What's gentility worth if it can't 
stand fire?" 

Stephen More, the idealist, in The Mob, applies to the 
rights of countries the same rights which, theoretically, all 
just-minded persons claim for individuals. It is the plea of 
little nations to exist, and, knowing their needs, to govern 
themselves, which he voices: 

"I love my country. It is because I love my country that 
I raise my voice . . . against the spectacle of one more 
piece of national cynicism. We have arrogated to our land 
the title Champion of Freedom, Foe of Oppression. Is that 
indeed a bygone glory? ... A great country, such as ours, 
is trustee for the highest sentiments of mankind." 

More carries his "forlorn hope not to let die a fire a fire 
that's sacred," to the point of martyrdom. He gives up 
human honors; he sacrifices the happiness of his home; he ac- 



1922.] JOHN GALSWORTHY 739 

cepts the scorn and derision of his fellow-countrymen and his 
friends, sooner than betray his ideal, for which, ultimately, 
he dies. There is a gleam of spiritual instinct in this strong 
play which shows too seldom in John Galsworthy's work, 
however much we individually may have abhorred Pacifist 
principles when misdirected in the case of the late War. 

One passage in The Mob ought to be written in letters of 
gold on the door of the House of Commons and the Senate 
for members to read, mark, learn and generously apply: 
"Mine is that great country which shall never take toll of the 
weakness of others." 

Every writer of imagination has felt the individual "pull" 
of his "special" dream-children at his heart-strings. They 
will, not only to live, but to grow sometimes to grow away 
from him; they are insistent, compelling. Until they get their 
way, he is their slave. They make his life intolerable until 
he has made them live for others as they do for him. Not just 
as types or symbols, but as separate entities as real as our 
own friends and acquaintances. 

The Forsyte family have haunted John Galsworthy for 
years. Probably, they will do so for some time yet. But be- 
cause he is an artist and knows that we can have too much 
even of what is so significant and haunting, he has wisely 
written "finis" to a story revolving round an action which, 
inexorably true to life, has consequences affecting not only 
those immediately concerned, but many innocent persons 
about them, and ends by dominating the actions of a later 
generation. The unsuitable marriage of Irene and Soames 
Forsyte, centres of the psychological interest of the Saga two 
beings who were always utterly apart in vision and who be- 
come, after marriage, actively hostile in temperament, thus 
takes a tragic force which, like the shadow of night, extends 
and deepens and covers everything within its sphere. 

An "upper middle-class family in full plumage," the 
Forsytes are presented with uncommon skill. They are 
neither caricatured nor idealized; they are simply true. 
Given the Forsytes, they can only act Forsytically, for For- 
sytism, like Potterism, is a force. It crops up in unexpected 
places. It could only be utterly uprooted by an interior con- 
vulsion which the Forsyte proper would never be likely to 
experience. You may study its development in a variety of 



740 JOHN GALSWORTHY [Mar., 

phases, in The Man of Property and The Indian Summer of a 
Forsyte; in In Chancery and Awakening and To Let. 

Such lessons in self-discipline as Mr. Galsworthy's work 
does show, are given quite unconsciously. But it is a search- 
ing study of human mentality, with the added interest of 
being carried on throughout three generations. The heroine, 
who belongs to the second generation of the family, is still 
holding our interest, a la Conperous, 11 at fifty-seven, in the 
last book of the Saga. 

The Forsytes afford an almost unique picture of British 
middle-class life and tradition at the close of the Victorian 
and during the Edwardian eras, and from the beginning of the 
Georgian era to the present time. Every Englishman knows 
that already the life, not only of 1898, but even of 1914 up to 
the memorable fourth of August, is much more remote from 
the life of 1922 than any normal span of twenty-four years, 
or eight years, would place them. John Galsworthy's history 
of the Forsytes during this period of tremendous transforma- 
tions, will take, for the reader of tomorrow, the full value of 
a human document. He reproduces, with amazing dexterity, 
the color and the atmosphere of the period. His characters 
reflect its varying whims and decorations. They speak the 
changing vocabulary of the day. 

The central theme, the failure of Irene's marriage, is 
treated with so much insight and human sympathy, that it is 
not altogether easy at the risk of the accusation of "narrowness 
and self-righteousness," which Mr. Galsworthy is ready to 
bring against those whose views differ from his own, to show 
how, unconsciously, in the very book upon which he has 
brought to bear the full weight of his personal bias, he 
actually condemns many of his own theories. George Mere- 
dith openly admitted he was "half in love with" his "Renee." 
John Galsworthy, wholly in love with Irene, makes nine out 
of ten of his readers in love with her, too. Her magnetic and 
mysterious charm pervades the whole Saga with fragrance. 
"Nothing so soft as a roseleaf's velvet, except her neck 
Irene!" 18 She is altogether womanly in her love and con- 
tempt; in her "fineness" and shrinking; her withdrawals and 
reticences; her passion and her despair. Made for love, there 

17 The heroine of Old People and Things That Pass is either eighty-seven or 
ninety-seven years old. 18 To Let. 



1922.] JOHN GALSWORTHY 741 

is something exquisitely tender in the way that dear old 
Jolyon and little Jon, to take two beings utterly apart in age, 
regard her. The love of woman herself is contained in the 
supreme love which Irene, elusive, magical, evokes. 

Soames, the man of property, takes this woman, as just 
as much his possession as any other rare thing of beauty and 
value he has paid its price for, to enjoy, whenever he may 
choose. For that initial act of grossness, he pays and pays 
again, throughout a lifetime; pays much more heavily than, 
with his nature, he may ever apprehend. Not with impunity 
can we ever besmirch the dignity of a human soul. But, surely, 
Soames Forsyte as he is through and through could never, 
even as a lover before marriage, have been much less For- 
sytian? That is where the reader, just a little less Irene's 
man that Mr. Galsworthy is, feels the first indication of the 
"something wanting" in the delicacy of discriminations which 
later are the means of making so many lives rock. 

Appeared upon the scene, young Bosinney, the architect, 
incidentally engaged to be married to Irene's greatest friend 
in the family, June Forsyte, a fact which neither he nor 
Irene permits to act in any sense as deterrent to their own 
desires. Bosinney, ardent, erratic, an idealist, something of a 
genius in his own line, swimming out of his depth in the 
Forsyte milieu, sees Irene, shining out like a star in a night of 
thick gloom. Irene "was brought up strictly;" but strictness is 
not the main armor of defence in such a case, as Mr. Galsworthy 
does not explain. "She was not light in her ideas," and there 
was struggle. What the author sees as inevitable, follows. 
For "love," as he says, "is no hothouse flower, but a wild 
plant, born of a wet night, born of an hour of sunshine; sprung 
from wild seed, blown along the road by a wild wind. . . . 
And where this wild plant springs, men and women are but 
moths around the pale, flame-like blossom." 

It is his excuse for the tragedy of Irene and Bosinney. 

And because Irene, repressed and disappointed, craves, 
like a hundred more of us, for the human satisfaction of 
human love; because in her immediate circle there is nothing 
very fine to live by, and Forsyte niches, when they have any 
niches at all, are usually fillet! up by false idols; because her 
vision of "life" is limited to the space contained in "here" and 
"now;" because, above all, she has no sense at all of the exist- 



742 JOHN GALSWORTHY [Mar., 

ence of any higher claim than the fulfillment of the tempo- 
rary happiness for which her soul is sick, she is drawn, like 
"a moth," little by little to the enchanted forest where, hidden 
from the world, the "flame-like blossom" lifts its head, incom- 
parably sweet. 

There are stolen interviews; the lovers "love in deed as 
well as thought." But presently, with violence, Irene's hus- 
band asserts his "rights," and next day, half distraught, she 
tells Bosinney what has happened. Whether he committed 
suicide or whether he was accidentally run over in his dis- 
traction, is never known. But the young life of promise is 
cut short. And one more moth in the circle round the flame- 
like flower is dust. Irene's crowning tragedy does not come 
until she is past fifty. But it has been gathering through the 
years of passionate youth and ardor and surrender; rolling 
up, in its accumulated strength, ready to sweep upon her in its 
force, even when, for a time, she found sure anchorage. It 
breaks, finally, at the moment when, physically, her power of 
resistance is weakened by increasing age. 

"Young Jolyon," now an elderly man, old Jolyon's son and 
Soames Forsyte's cousin, whom eventually she married, is 
confronted with the ordeal of writing the full story of Irene's 
life to their boy, Jon, who has, ironically, fallen in love with 
Soames' daughter by a second marriage, Fleur. It is Irene's 
wish that Jon should know the truth; but every human means 
to escape the confession is taken before Jolyon, realizing that 
"the murder's out," decides, for Irene's sake, to put the whole 
truth down in black and white. To speak of such things at 
all to a boy his own boy to speak of them in relation to 
his own wife and the boy's own mother seemed dreadful. . . . 
And yet . . . without them, how justify this stifling of the 
boy's love? 

Your mother lied from [Soames' house] that night 
[the night when Bosinney was found dead]. For 
twelve years she lived quietly alone, without companion- 
ship of any sort, until, in 1899, her husband . . . became 
conscious, it seems, of the want of children, and com- 
menced a long attempt to induce her to go back to him. 
I was her trustee then, under your grandfather's will, and 
I watched this going on. While watching I became at- 
tached to her. . . . His pressure increased till one day 



1922.] JOHN GALSWORTHY 743 

she came to me here and practically put herself under my 
protection. . . . Our names were publicly joined. That 
decided us and we became united in fact. She was di- 
vorced, married me, and you were born. . . . Soames, 
soon after the divorce, married Fleur's mother, and she 
was born. . . . The idea that you should marry his 
daughter is a nightmare. . . . Your children, if you mar- 
ried her, would be the grandchildren of Soames as much 
as of your mother, a man who once owned your mother as 
a man might own a slave. By such a marriage you enter 
the camp which held your mother prisoner and wherein she 
eat her heart out. . . . You are just on the threshold of 
life, you have only known this girl two months, and how- 
ever deeply you think you love her, I appeal to you to break 
it off at once. Don't give your mother this rankling pain 
and humiliation during the rest of her life. 19 

" 'Wretched letter,' " as Jolyon tells himself. " 'A cruel 
business cruel to her to Soames to those two children 
to himself. . . . Jon was such a tender-hearted chap . . . and 
conscientious, too. . . . Youth took things so hard.' And 
stirred, tormented by that vision of Youth taking things hard 
. . . Jolyon . . . tottered in through the long window and 
sank into old Jolyon's chair. ... So it was like this, was 
it? ... There was a great wrench, and darkness . . ." 

"Nemesis?" Yes: in spite of himself, Mr. Galsworthy has 
written a story with a moral that "who runs, may read." He 
proves that what Bosinney said, talking of art, holds true: 
"In architecture, as in life, you'll get no self-respect without 
regularity. ... It never occurs to us to embody the main 
principle of life into buildings." Nor, it seems, looking about 
us, into our modern views of marriage. 

Bosinney's death we will not call it suicide; Jon's rock- 
ing world; Fleur's marriage; Jolyon's death for it is the 
shock of giving the letter to his boy which hastens his end; 
these are the immediate results of the moth flickering about 
the "flame-like blossom." Soames' unhappiness does not 
apparently count. Of Irene it may not be said, "she brought 
it on herself," 20 yet Mr. Galsworthy's attitude towards Soames 
indicates, even if it does not expressly state, that judgment. 
Soames' unhappiness very clearly exists. To the last, he 

"Jolyon's letter to Jon, in To Let. Ibid. 



744 JOHN GALSWORTHY [Mar., 

keeps Irene's photograph concealed underneath the portrait 
of Fleur, the child he does undoubtedly love unselfishly and 
with devotion. "He slipped" Fleur's picture down, "and 
there was that other one that old one of Irene. . . . The owl 
hooted, the red, climbing roses seemed to deepen in color, 
there came a scent of lime-blossom. 'God! That had been a 
different thing! PassionMemory! Dust! . . .'" "The mel- 
ancholy craving in his heart" endures beyond the printed 
page; just as Annette's, his second wife's, dissatisfaction will 
endure. 

It is said that every man and woman has his blind-spot. 
Honesty in marriage certainly appears to be the blind-spot 
of the modern novelist. The possibility of applying the rudi- 
ments of common honor and good fellowship to its relations 
for the most part escape him. He pleads for "beauty;" uses 
the term widely, says, as Mr. Galsworthy himself says, that 
he means by it "good sportsmanship." 21 Good sportsmanship 
is emphatically not to bag another man's bird, and admitted 
that the dignity of human life demands "just conduct and 
kind conduct, for there is no beauty in the sight of tortured 
things," 22 how can we justify, even according to this standard, 
the stealing of another man's wife any more than we can 
justify the stealing of his family heirlooms? 

Mr. Galsworthy condemns the whole of religion as super- 
stition with the exception of its "beautiful expression of ex- 
alted feeling," which is its "uplifting" part. He talks of sal- 
vation as "being commercialized;" says that "the only way in 
which each one can say 'Retro Satana' is to leave his or her 
tiny corner of the world a little more dignified, a little more 
loveable than he or she found it." - 3 How does he exemplify 
his point? Which of his dream-children lives up to this ideal? 

He has spent years in the production of the "Forsyte 
Saga." It is the work of his youth and his maturity, a finished 
study. But, summed up, it comes to this. Told with incom- 
parable magic, it is the story of a woman who bought human 
happiness at a price for which not only she, but those about 
her, paid in blood and tears, in some cases unto death. 

Without vision the people perish. The vision which en- 
dures, is one Mr. Galsworthy, for all his deepening love of 
beauty, still lacks power to see. 

"John Galsworthy, in the Yale Review, October, 1921. "Ibid. * Ibid. 



1922.] JOHN GALSWORTHY 745 

The Saint's Progress is the least worthy of all John Gals- 
worthy's books. The motif of the story, unpleasant though it 
be, is capable of fine treatment, as is shown by Henri Bor- 
deaux' novel, La Resurrection de la Chair, which deals with 
exactly the same theme, from a spiritual view. In Bordeaux' 
novel, the mother of the young dead officer who, on the night 
of his departure for the front, stayed with the girl he loved till 
dawn, and who died without realizing the due weight of his 
wrong in creating a nameless human being and destroying 
his love's innocence, takes his sin on her shoulders: makes 
her vicarious sacrifice for him : immolates herself for the dead 
and triumphantly accepts the stigmas of the shame he never 
knew. 

In John Galsworthy's story, Noel, the young daughter of 
a country clergyman who is constantly spoken of as a mystic 
by friends who, like most of us, use the word without the 
faintest knowledge of its real significance, gives herself to her 
young lover, also on the eve of his departure for France, in a 
mood partly of desperation, through the overwhelming force 
of love, partly because her father has refused to let her marry 
Cyril Morland on the score of youth and inexperience. 

Cyril Morland is killed, and Noel finds that she is to be- 
come a mother. She "wants her baby." It is the consum- 
mation of her glorious hour. It is only because of her father's 
pain that she regrets the past at all. Her friends unite in con- 
soling her. One of her nearest relatives "could not help ap- 
plauding that hour of life and love snatched out of death." 
Another says: 

"Life's going to be the important thing in the future; not 
comfort and cloistered virtue and security; but living, and 
pressure to the square inch . . . All the old, hard and fast 
traditions and drags on life are in the melting pot. . . . 
Regrets and repinings and repressions are going out of 
fashion. . . . You're going to make life well, that's some- 
thing to be thankful for. ... If you put ashes on your own 
head, your fellow-beings will assist you, for of such is their 
charity." 

The father's agony of doubt, his realization that his be- 
loved child has sinned, is looked at as a sort of amazing aber- 
ration. The proper attitude for him to take would be to 



746 JOHN GALSWORTHY [Mar., 

knock down the first man who challenged his daughter's 
purity. But "the bells of" the faith he professes, "are beau- 
tiful, but out of tune with the music of the streets." The 
thought that there "will be no peace for" Noel "until she has 
atoned" for her sin shows positively "inhuman," in the light of 
today's ethics. Noel herself, whose brief suffering, whose 
brief sorrows are so easily assuaged in the arms of another 
man incidentally, a former lover of a cousin who has be- 
friended her who is ready to accept her responsibilities and 
her child as his own, is held up, I think, for our admiration as 
a symbol of the New Age, waiting to break away the last 
remnants of the Tablets of Stone under her dancing feet. 

"You've been" oar father's "deliverance," Noel's sister as- 
sures Noel, when, owing to the scandal, the clergyman is 
forced to resign his living. Leaving his Church "will be a 
wrench," of course. "A man's bound to have a cosey feeling 
about a place where he's been boss so long; there is something 
about a Church . . . there's beauty in it, it's a pleasant drug. 
But he's not being asked to give up the drug habit; only to 
stop administering drugs to others." 

Noel in her all-embracing patronage takes a step 
further. Resolving life's problems with youth's sublime as- 
surance, she voices the individualistic standpoint. 

"Shall I tell you what I should like?" she whispered. "To 
take God's hand and show Him things. I'm certain He's not 
seen everything!" The spirit of all modern thought indeed. 
Man, in his leisure hours and gracious condescension, is will- 
ing to place his services as guide and instructor at God's 
disposal ! 

How is it that a man whose sensitiveness errs in many 
ways on the quixotic side, as John Galsworthy's does; who 
can enter with innocence into the imagination of a child; 24 
and into the mind of the old; 25 who can see the glimmer of 
spiritual radiance in a Magdalen's devotion to a scapegoat, in 
spite of the squalor and sin of their surroundings; 26 who can 
get under the skin of the country gentleman on the Jury who 
feels that he, even he, unbelievably, has something in common 
with the undersized "half-baked" little soldier of Kitchener's 
Army, whom "love of wife and little home" squeezed so 
tightly that it made him a coward; who can feel with the 

84 Awakening, 2 " Indian Summer of a Forsyte. 2a First and Last. 



1922.] JOHN GALSWORTHY 747 

prisoner in solitary confinement, as in Justice; still fails so 
utterly to test the worth of fortitude, endurance, discipline, 
where the love of man for woman and the love of woman for 
man obtains; and possess so little reverence for God? 

The very Pagans knew more than most modern writers 
do about the fundamental virtues. The strengthening of the 
mind by acts of temperance; the quickening of the soul by 
flight from temptation; the wrestling of the spirit in prayer; 
the gain of trial by ordeal; the necessity of atonement for sin, 
even if the means of atonement were wrongly directed; all 
these were practised by them. Even before the Christian 
Ideal dawned upon the world to solve the burning inequalities 
and cruelty of human justice, to glorify nobly accepted suf- 
fering into a priceless gift, it was held to be a finer thing that 
a man should renounce greatly, than to be merely happy, and 
the sum of his life's quality was tested by others than Marcus 
Aurelius, rather in what it could endure for honor's sake, 
than what it left behind in worldly honors. 

Today "I want Life awfully!" 27 is the modern cry. 
In other words, freedom to taste, to see, to take, to possess 
whatever our ignorance desires, in a passing mood; to own no 
master but Self, the one relentless tyrant, and bow before no 
altar except the one where Self is glorified. 

Not yet has John Galsworthy found that high and austere 
beauty at whose fount he could quaff full satisfaction. But 
the sincerity of his art, at its best in such dramas as The Silver 
Box, Strife and The Mob, may yet point to its way. 

27 The Saint's Progress. 



THE STORY OF JACOPONE DA TOOL 

BY M. I. 

I. 

SHE was so lovely that one caught one's breath 

And stared at her mere passing. Strange she was, 

And different from all others gay and sweet 

Her laugh, her speech, her glance, her ways, and yet 

Something lay hid within, of mystery 

That lit her with a radiance not her own. 

She was Jacopo Benedetti's wife, 

Of higher rank than his, but he had fame 

As lawyer and as poet, and he loved 

His fame and wealth, but more he loved his wife. 

As for his God and for his own poor soul, 

Little recked he, but lived his careless life 

For glory and for pleasure and for her. 

One day there was a pageant and a joust 

And Benedetti bore his gallant part, 

The brave, bold man who sought the world 

And all the world could give of pastime perishing. 

A large fair balcony was built to hold 

The high nobility, and there, a queen 

Among the queenly, sat that peerless one, 

Vanna, Jacopo's wife her smiling eyes 

Were fixed upon him mounted on his steed, 

Whose spirits he controlled with practised hand. 

His gaze now seeks her out. Their glances meet: 

He bows, saluting low his priceless love, 

His soul, religion, heaven all in one. 

She laughs her debonair, bright laugh, and waves 

White hands of recognition and "God speed!" 

Jacopo fills his heart with one last look 

And dashes forward in the tournament. 

When lo! A crash: a cry: the balcony 

Has given way and all its burden gay 

Is flung upon the ground. Swift help is near 



1922.] THE STORY OF JACOPONE DA TOD1 749 

And rescued beauty soon is calmed and cheered, 

All save the Lady Vanna. Prone she lies 

And white with coming death. They call for air 

And cut her bodice open. Jewels flash 

And run upon the ground to left and right, 

But hid beneath the gold and silken vest, 

Is a harsh garment all of bristling hair, 

And the fair skin sore wounded with its touch. 

"Here comes Jacopo! Move away! Give place!" 

They murmur as he pushes through the crowd. 

"What! thou, my Vanna! Ail my life, my soul, 

My all! Nay sweet; look up once more and speak. 

Thou art not dead! O heaven, what is this?" 

He cries in horror, looking at that thing 

Of penance and of pain upon her flesh. 

Slowly the sweet eyes open once again, 

A soft blush flutters over cheek and brow 

"For thee, beloved," Vanna says and dies. 

II. 

The years have passed since Vanna died and not 

In vain that gracious giving up of life, 

Which long had been for Christ and hid in Him. 

And now in Todi's streets there may be seen 

Jacopo, once the sinner, now the saint. 

The pain that broke his heart, let in the light 

To show him what he was. Distraught with grief, 

At first for Vanna, then for Christ his Lord, 

He sacrificed his name and fame and all 

And gave himself to God in penitence. 

Mad was he dubbed; but his the vision clear 

That shows things as they are. His pride he slew 

By meekly bearing all the city's scorn. 

The boys would jeer and mock and pelt with stones 

That once proud lawyer as he trod the streets; 

And Todi's erstwhile poet was a jest. 

He was a wretched object in the rags 

That took the place of his old gay attire, 

And for his body's softness and excess 

There was no mercy in his punishment: 



750 THE STORY OF JACOPONE DA TODI [Mar., 

Spirit and flesh had sinned and both must pay 
The price that he might fit himself to love. 
Love was Jacopo's lure through all his pain 
The love of Love Itself. What then was scorn, 
What then was loss, so Christ might be his gain? 
One friend he had through all that bitter time 
One who could get the water of his tears 
Changed into wine of love by her sweet prayer, 
That Queen of Innocence, that Pearl of Grief, 
The Mother of all Sorrows. Her he sang 
While yet he dared not sing of the Divine; 
And, through her, kept his poet's heart alive 
Until his chastened spirit could pour forth 
Those other songs of love to Love Itself. 
And when, at last, that creature he had tamed 
Once called Jacopo, now Jacopone, 
Of Todi the "mad penitent," he sought 
Amongst St. Francis' sons a place of peace 
As lay brother. Those were stormy times, and his 
A stormy nature, but he held his course 
Straight on to God, and, a Franciscan, died. 
And so God's grace worked in this sinner's heart 
Because of Vanna's prayer and penitence. 
His lawyer's prowess led him into strife 
Even amid his later sanctities; 
But the true poet in him never erred; 
And all his singing was of Mary's woes 
And of his love for Mary's Wounded Son. 




PROSPECT FOR CATHOLICISM IN NATIONALIST INDIA, 
BY G. B. LAL. 

| HE high caste Hindus are the only people of 
Aryan, Caucasian or European race, who are still 
pagan or non-Christian. Their number is large 
and their influence is larger, in proportion, not 
only in India, but in all Asia. They are now on 
the point of establishing a great united, modern state, most 
probably under the British flag, but not impossibly without it. 
The imperial Conference in London had two representatives 
from high-caste India. At the Peace Conference, at Paris, 
while Ireland remained unrepresented, India had a seat with 
Canada and Australia. High-caste India is a member of the 
League of Nations. 

British statesmen and publicists have ceased to speak of 
the people of India derisively as "the natives." And even 
Rudyard Kipling has laid his un-Christian pen aside, as far 
as abuse of the upper class Indians is concerned. 

The British Dominions are beginning to understand that 
there is a world of difference, as far as racial stock and cul- 
tural inheritance is concerned, between the Mongolians and 
the dark whites of India. The India of today is a new, self- 
conscious, nationally-minded India. 

The British Government has changed its attitude towards 
the people and the problems of India; what has the British 
Church done? By the British Church, I mean the Protestant 
or State Christianity of Great Britain. The British Church 
and British State are, from the nature of the case, pretty well 
linked; and the two change their policies simultaneously. 

It is certainly most significant that a large number of 
Protestant missionaries have begun to evidence undisguised 
sympathy with the aspirations of the moderate Nationalists 
in India for "Home Rule." Such sympathy, mark well, is 
given by them, unsolicited by its recipients. Some British 
missionaries (Protestant) have gone so far as to join the ranks 
of the Nationalist propagandists. The most important among 
these, no doubt, is the Rev. C. F. Andrews, formerly a Fellow 



752 CATHOLICISM IN INDIA [Mar., 

of Pembroke College, Cambridge, England, and later Professor 
of English in the St. Stephen's College, Delhi, India. Pro- 
fessor Andrews came out to India with the intention of doing 
Christian missionary work among the upper class Hindus of 
Delhi, the capital city of India. He believed in Protestant 
Christianity and in the Protestant British monarchy. But 
instead of converting the young Hindus, he was converted by 
them. 

Contrary to his expectations, and to the things he had 
been taught about India, in his British home and school and 
university, he discovered that the high-caste Hindu boys he had 
come to teach and convert were not a barbarous lot, ignorant 
of modern science, history, literature, philosophy, nor were 
they particuarly conservative and retrogressive. The Brah- 
man boys of Hindustan knew more of Kant and Hegel, and all 
that sort of thing, than did their Scotch instructors in English 
and philosophy. Theological controversy was of no avail in 
tackling these Rajputs, Brahmans, Sayyeds and the rest. 

Rev. Mr. Andrews and his colleagues then assailed the 
caste-pride and caste-restrictions of mediaeval Hinduism. 
The Hindu boys conceded that their mediaeval Brahmanic 
system was out of harmony with modern prejudices, and 
began to violate caste restrictions. Mr. Andrews and his 
Hindu pupils dined and played together. And nobody 
paid any attention to what they were doing. The elder Brah- 
mans had learned, long since, to let the younger generation 
strictly alone when it chose to violate the Brahmanic injunc- 
tions against mingling and mixing with non-Hindus. 

That was all very good. But that was not the real object 
of Mr. Andrews' mission. In all the fifty years that his par- 
ticular mission had been working in Delhi, there had been 
hardly any conversions, except a few from the very lowest and 
most famine-stricken classes. 

What was the matter? The upper class Hindus were 
eagerly adopting English manners, customs, games, and even 
vices. They were sending their daughters to missionary and 
Government schools. They were quite willing to change in 
anything that helped them in practical life. The richer high- 
caste Hindus began to ask Mr. Andrews for letters of intro- 
duction to his friends and relatives in England : they were not 
only willing, but eager, to acquire the modern skill in science 



1922.] CATHOLICISM IN INDIA 753 

and statecraft that had made the English so prosperous in recent 
times. But, somehow or other, they would not be converted. 
What was the source of their antagonism to Christianity? 

Mr. Andrews undertook a study, through authentic 
translations, of the great scriptures and literature of the classic 
and mediaeval Hindus. He found that the spirit of the ancient 
Hindus was extraordinarily akin to the spirit of the ancient 
Greeks and Romans. The three great Aryan nations of an- 
tiquity Hindus, Greeks and Romans, as also the ancient 
Celts, Slavs and Teutons, spoke languages descended from the 
same linguistic stock, had identical family and community 
ideals and customs, and worked out their historic destinies 
along parallel lines. In 1906 or 1907, Mr. Andrews stated that 
the Brahman scriptures inculcated essentially the same moral 
and religious ideals as did the Old Testament, and the only 
thing the Hindu scriptural wisdom lacked was the great mes- 
sage of the New Testament. He argued, in other words, that 
the native wisdom of high-caste India had already prepared it 
to accept the Gospel of Christ. 

Many of his Hindu friends and pupils said that he might 
be right, and that they regarded Christ as one of the great 
incarnations of Divinity, but they would not accept Prot- 
estant baptism. What was the matter? These Hindus were 
quite obliging, yielding, accommodating in interpretations of 
history; they were willing to show deep respect for Christ, 
still they baulked at joining the Protestant British Church. At 
last the secret was out. What the Hindus objected to was 
not Christianity, but the British Church. 

Since 1858, when the British crushed a powerful rebellion 
with its centre in this same city of Delhi where Mr. Andrews 
taught and preached, the Hindus had kept their patriotic emo- 
tions pretty well masked. Their nationalistic ranks had been 
utterly battered: old-fashioned patriotism was no longer pos- 
sible. By old-fashioned, I mean Oriental or Eastern patriot- 
ism. The spirit of patriotism is, at its root, everywhere the 
same, but it becomes attached to various types of symbols in 
various epochs and climes. Fifty years ago, Indian patriot- 
ism evinced a liking for certain habits and customs acquired 
by the Aryans of India, in course of time, from the Western 
and Central Asiatic peoples who traded with, and sometimes 
invaded India. These Eastern Saracenic, Turko-Persian 



754 CATHOLICISM IN INDIA [Mar., 

and old Brahamanic customs had given mediaeval Hinduism 
a most non-Aryan form. 

In the fifty years following the great rebellion of 1857, 
the Hindus learned that their racial instinct was really Euro- 
pean (Aryan) and not Mongol-Asian or Turko-Semitic-Asian. 
So they started to purge out all non-Aryan superstitions that 
had become mixed with Hindu religion, morality and social 
customs. When this purification had progressed to a certain 
point, the old Aryan spirit of Hinduism stood out clear and 
strong. It was the spirit of simple, heroic Aryan nationalism. 
With this revival came a new hope for the unity, progress and 
liberty of the Hindu people. "The destiny of high-caste India 
was irretrievably European. India must become like, and 
join the ranks of, the modern European nations." This be- 
came the one absorbing passion of the younger Hindu patriots. 

For a long time, this new nationalism remained more or 
less unexpressed. But the day came when it felt strong enough 
to declare itself openly, like the Irish patriotism of the day. 

Mr. Andrews' pupils told him that as long as Christianity 
was presented to them furled in the imperial flag, they wished 
to be excused from accepting it. New India was saying vir- 
tually: "I regard your Christianity as an instrument of your 
State. I suspect that you bring it to me because you want 
me to forget my own indigenous ideas, ideals and aspirations. 
In other words, what you want to do, under the guise of re- 
ligious conversion, is to denationalize me. As I wish to avoid 
that, I must, under the circumstances, stick to my temples and 
mosques, although I have lost all faith in them, as far as ritual 
and creed and social restriction go. But I can still use these 
ancient shrines and altars of mine as round-tables for self- 
organization as a nation. This sounds very Machiavellian, 
very opportunistic. I realize that. But I also realize that you, 
British Churchmen, are not less, but more, politically oppor- 
tunistic than, I think, I am. When I India have attained 
my national wish, for unity and free government, I shall be 
glad to let you try to convert me. Meanwhile, take care that 
you do not cast your lot with those who are against my po- 
litical aspirations. If you persist in helping those British 
Conservatives who are determined to oppose my realization 
of self-determination, you may never, never be able to win 
back my heart, or head. If you espouse our cause now, you 






1922.] CATHOLICISM IN INDIA 755 

will be putting me under a heavy debt of gratitude. And who 
knows I may some day want to worship at the same altar 
before which you bow." 

To such an attitude on the part of India, the British 
Protestant missionary was not accustomed. Mr. Andrews, 
and his fellow-missionaries, scolded the Nationalists, called 
them misguided idealists, reactionaries and what not. But 
the time came when they began to see with different eyes. 
Mr. Andrews, for one, espoused the cause of Nationalist India. 
He is, at present, preaching the gospel of Indian Nationalism 
as a follower of Mr. Gandhi, the great Indian Nationalist 
leader, who is the father of a "non-violent-revolutionary na- 
tionalism" in India. 

The question now arises: if the position taken here be 
substantially correct, why have the Hindus not responded with 
more alacrity to non-British Christianity Protestantism as 
inculcated by Americans, or Germans and Catholicism? 

The answer is implied in the question itself. It is that 
non-British missionaries in India have, with rare and certainly 
not recent exceptions, resembled the British Protestant mis- 
sionaries minus their refinement. The German missionary, 
for instance, has been far more pedantic, controversial and 
unimaginative than the British missionary. The American 
Protestant missionary is indistinguishable from the British, 
save in that he has less influence with the authorities and is, 
therefore, less useful in the eyes of the Hindus. 

All these European and American missionaries have imi- 
tated so far the methods of the British missionary. And their 
attitude towards the people of India has been less sympathetic 
than that of the missionary from Cambridge or Oxford, or 
London, or Edinburgh. Even the Irish Protestant mission- 
aries have been no exception to this rule. 

The European missionary is not, I believe, capable of 
doing much in India. India must be reckoned, from now on, 
as an English-speaking country. The leaders of India and 
henceforth you can only deal with her through her leaders 
are an English-speaking class. The French are the only 
Europeans who can, in the writer's estimation, win the hearts 
of the Hindus by their gift of sympathy and courtesy in deal- 
ing with strangers. French Catholics have been very popular 
in the past in many parts of India. Dr. Jagadish Chandra 



756 CATHOLICISM IN INDIA [Mar., 

Bose, the foremost Hindu scientist of today, received his first 
impulse towards scientific research from a French Catholic 
missionary, Father La Font. But the French do not seem to be 
in any missionary mood at present. They are interested in 
other things, the people of France. 

It is only, I repeat, an English-speaking missionary who 
can achieve any results today in India. Now, there are three 
great English-speaking countries: Britain, Ireland and Amer- 
ica. Of the missionaries from Britain the writer has already 
said all there is to be said. Ireland, it is obvious, is much 
occupied with herself. And yet, if there be any people who can 
bring the Hindus within the Catholic Church it is the Irish. 
And when I say "the Irish," I mean the Nationalists or 
Catholics. 

The world outside does not seem to realize how profound 
is the sympathy for Ireland among the vast bulk of the people 
in India. The Nationalist organizations the Indian National 
Congress, the Sikh Conference, etc. went on record with a 
resolution of deepest sympathy with the "martyrdom of 
Mahatma MacSwiney." The point to be noted is that the 
Indian masses, touched by nationalism, have already canon- 
ized the late Lord Mayor MacSwiney as a "Mahatma"- 
"Saint." 

This bond of understanding between the Hindus and the 
Irish is not a phenomenon of the turmoil following the World 
War. It goes back to the beginning of this century. There 
lived in Calcutta, until the day of her death in 1911, a young 
woman of Irish name and parentage. Her name was Mar- 
garet Noble. But she had assumed a Sanskrit name, Sister 
Nivedita. In every large public library in the United States 
may be found her book, The Web of Indian Life. No book 
dealing with the ideals of traditional Indian culture shows 
such penetrative understanding and such keen sympathy as 
this Web of Indian Life, untangled for the modern eye by the 
subtle hands of the devoted, Catholic-trained, Margaret Noble. 

Young India was literally in love with this woman. She 
is remembered by many of the leading young Indian Nation- 
alists as their Spiritual Mother. Sister Nivedita was the most 
influential woman in India when she was alive, and her 
memory continues to be enshrined in the hearts of the modern 
Hindus. Her success was due, without question, to her Irish 



1922.] CATHOLICISM IN INDIA 757 

and Catholic (according to my information) early upbringing. 
She must be regarded, indeed, as one of the first leaders of 
that revived spirit of purified Aryanism in India, which later 
became "Nationalism." 

Ireland, I repeat, is not in a position at present to send 
any workers to India. She needs all her workers at home. 
But the case is different with Irish-Americans. The Irish- 
Americans are, it would appear, in an ideal position to bring 
the Eastern and Southern Aryans of India into the same social 
and moral and religious fold as the Northern and Western 
Aryans. They can do this if they enter upon it with a real- 
ization of the present situation, and with the spirit of Sister 
Nivedita. Christianity, rejected by the high-caste Hindu when 
offered by the Scotch or English Protestant hand, may yet 
take root in India if brought there by Americans of Irish 
Catholic parentage and frame of mind. 

The recent outstanding fact of the Indian situation is the 
spread of the Gandhi movement. Mahatma Saint Gandhi 
is known as the author of the non-violent, non-cooperative 
movement that aims at obtaining self-determination for India 
by paralyzing the British Government, the method used being 
the withdrawal of all cooperation on the part of the Indians 
from all British institutions political, commercial, social, 
educational, religious and what not. 

There is in this 'movement something quite familiar to 
the Western people: the attempt to obtain a national govern- 
ment from a foreign government. But there is another angle 
to the Indian situation. There is the peculiarly Eastern color 
of the Indian Nationalist Movement. I have already analyzed 
the psychology of this aspect of the Indian matter, and only 
wish to emphasize the statement that India is Eastern-Euro- 
pean and not Far-Eastern or Mongol-Asian. The danger, 
however, of a sharp break between Indian and Western civil- 
ization is not to be underrated. Thoughtful Englishmen, who 
have a first-hand knowledge of the Indian situation, will agree 
that the supreme question today is whether India should cast 
her destiny with the West or with the Orient. 

The Indian National Congress has grown exceedingly 
audacious and disobedient in the last three months. It has 
issued a manifesto informing "foreign nations" that India, 
"when she becomes free," will not feel bound by any treaties 



758 CATHOLICISM IN INDIA [Mar., 

that the present British Indian Government should happen to 
make in her name with any foreign powers. This is especially 
addressed to Japan. In a leading article in his weekly paper, 
the Bande Matram, Mr. Lajpat Rai Mahatma Gandhi's close 
follower and colleague appeals to Japan to refrain from 
doing anything that might hurt the Nationalist aspirations of 
India. This appeal is made, frankly, in the name of a com- 
mon Eastern civilization between India and Japan. "Let the 
Orient unite." That is the attitude of the Non-Cooperators. 

This brings us back to the question: Should India be 
driven into the arms of Japan? I confess I am thoroughly 
saturated with Western prejudices. I would like to see India 
organically related to Western civilization. For the sake of 
India, I hope she will become a permanent partner in the life- 
system of the West. That India can give much to the West- 
erner goes without saying. But at present she has to receive 
much from the West receive, that is, not autocratic imposi- 
tion, but the peculiar Western impulse of instinct, intellect 
and idealism combined the spirit, the real spirit and par- 
ticularly the American spirit. 

My own religious and philosophic ideas are peculiar and 
somewhat unorthodox. But for the vast bulk of the Indian 
people, it may be a good thing to adopt some form of religion 
that, while permitting the full play of their own artistic and 
emotional genius, will also relate them to Western life. That 
is why I am interested in the possibilities of Catholicism 
that is truly Catholic in spirit, the kind one meets in America. 

Ten years ago the leading Catholic organs in India were 
strenuously opposed to Indian Nationalism. Todajy the 
Catholic Herald of India says: 

We do believe that if Mr. Gandhi succeeds in hammering 
his psychological ideals into his countrymen, there is not a 
nation on earth that will dare to lay hands on the Indian 
people. Had India been Christian, India would have stood 
free long ago, for the Catholic sacramental system is a 
source of soul-force no human conception could ever rival. 
But of its human substitutes Mr. Gandhi's system is cer- 
tainly the best, and it were mean to close one's eyes to its 
beauty. 1 

1 July, 1921. 



MITHRAS AND MITHRAISM. 



BY SIR BERTRAM C. A. WINDLE, SC.D., LL.D., F.R.S., F.S.A., 

Professor of Anthropology in St. Michael's College, University of Toronto. 




N his most admirable little excursus on the Re- 
ligion of Mithras, 2 Father Martindale regrets that 
he knows of "no English book which treats of 
Mithraism in a way which may satisfy, without 
misleading, the general reader." Possibly the 
translation of Cumont's 3 smaller book had not at that time ap- 
peared. Mr. Paterson's book goes some way towards meeting 
this want, for it is a useful and scholarly work, although it 
relies rather too much on the writings of authors like Loisy 
and Robertson, and does not seem to be aware of Catholic 
writers, such as Father Martindale. Moreover, we gather from 
statements like the following that the author belongs to what 
is sometimes called the Broad division of that multiplex organ- 
ism, the Anglican Church. Dealing with the question of the 
immortality of the soul as viewed by Oriental religions and 
by Christianity, he says: 4 "We cannot believe that the all-wise 
God will allow His purpose to be finally thwarted, or that the 
all-loving God, or His saints, will take pleasure in the torments 
of the wicked. The only two alternatives consistent with Divine 
wisdom and love are either annihilation or universal salva- 
tion." A study of this very interesting book in any case sug- 
gests that some useful information may be afforded to readers 
of THE CATHOLIC WORLD not merely as to Mithraism though 
that will be the chief objective but generally as to the kind 
of attack often made, and sometimes with great plausibility, 
on the Church from the point of view of the history of re- 
ligions. 

1 Mithraism ami Christianity, by L. Paterson, M.A., Vice-Principal of Chichester 
Theological College. Cambridge University Press. 1921. 

2 In The History of Religions, published by the Catholic Truth Society of 
England. 

8 Every student of Mithraism or of Oriental pagan religions in Rome must now, 
and always, go to the works of this writer. Texles et Monuments, in two volumes, is 
the great work. The Mystery of Mithra is smaller and translated, as is Oriental 
Religions in Roman Paganism. 

4 Page 75. 



760 MITHRAS AND MITHRA1SM [Mar., 

"The thing that has been that shall be," Time after time 
are revived the old fables as to the Church and its relations to 
earlier forms of faith; fables for the most part, though there 
is, as will be shown, always or often some vague fact on which 
the fable is hung. These are sometimes put forward by 
scholars very well acquainted with the facts of classical pa- 
ganism but very imperfectly instructed in those of historic 
Christianity. 

The classical statement one constantly quoted is that 
of Renan: 5 "If Christianity had been checked in its growth by 
some deadly disease, the world would have become Mithraic." 
Apart from the first part of the sentence, which is tantamount 
to saying : "If Christianity had not been Christianity," there is 
abundant other reason for saying that the prophecy or what- 
ever one may call it, errs by its rashness. But it is in no way 
so absurd or unhistorical as the statement made by another 
writer, that "Christianity is only a sect of the Mithraists," per- 
haps one of the most absolutely wrong-headed utterances ever 
committed to print. 6 

Let us at once admit that Mithraism forms the high-water 
mark of the Pagan religions. For this reason, if no other, it 
would be well worth some study. Whatever the relations be- 
tween the two, and we shall examine into that matter further 
on, there was a time in history when Mithraism was great and 
Christianity small the mustard seed of the parable. "The 
Pagan world of that (the Antonine) age seems to have had 
little communication with the loftier faith which, within a 
century and a half from the death of Marcus Aurelius, was 
destined to seize the sceptre. To Juvenal, Tacitus and Pliny, 
to Plutarch, Dion Chrysostom, Lucian and Marcus Aurelius, 
the Church is hardly known, or known as an obscure off-shoot 
of Judaism, a little sect, worshipping 'a crucified Sophist' 
in somewhat suspicious retirement or more favorably distin- 
guished by simple-minded charity. The modern theologian 
can hardly be content to know as little of the great movement 
in the heathen world which prepared or deferred the victory 
of the Church." 7 

There are three schools of thought in this matter of the 

6 In his Marc Aurile. 

9 Dupuis, Origine de tons les Cultes, vol. ii., part ii., p. 203. See Paterson. 

7 Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, p. vii. 



1922.] MITHRAS AND MITHRAISM 761 

history of religions, each with some measure of truth as its 
foundation. There is the Plagiaristic school, which believes 
that where similarities exist between any two religions, one has 
copied the other. The second school is the Psychological, which 
argues that the minds of men, being similarly constituted, 
reach similar conclusions when working on similar problems. 
There is some truth in this way of looking at things, and so 
there is in that of the third or Progressive school, which treats 
of religions in terms of what is called evolution. No one 
doubts that the Oriental religions, as will later be seen, did 
in some measure, even in considerable measure, prepare the 
way for the coming of Christianity, but that is not the same 
thing as the claim that Christianity is no more than a develop- 
ment from these earlier creeds "a sect of Mithraism" in fact. 
Such persons, for the most part, will have nothing to do with 
the idea of a revelation, primitive or otherwise. It is, as one 
of them has put it, a "puerile idea." 

What are the data on which the very confident statements 
just quoted rest? It must be confessed, they are neither very 
numerous nor very convincing. Very unfortunately, from the 
antiquary's point of view, every book relating to the worship 
of pagan gods was destroyed as soon as Christianity became 
powerful enough to carry out its purpose. There must have 
been thousands of these books, and one would give a good deal 
to see them now, the two huge volumes on Mithraism which 
we know existed, for example. All the official information, 
so to speak, having vanished, we are thrown back upon two 
other sources: the allusions, sometimes copious and always 
valuable, to different pagan beliefs, in the non-religious 
and light literature of the period; and the denunciations 
of the early Christian writers, St. Augustine for example. 
Much is to be learned from the latter, though, no doubt, one 
has to remember that it is an enemy who is writing, and that 
he is not likely to take too favorable a view of his opponents' 
opinions and actions. Lastly, and perhaps most valuable, of 
all sources of information are the monuments in stone, of 
which quite a number have been discovered. 

The Mithraea or temples of the sect were always under- 
ground, whether caves or crypts, and have thus, in many cases, 
escaped the destruction which has overtaken more ambitious 
buildings above ground. The lapidary inscriptions, which 



762 MITHRAS AND MITHRAISM [Mar., 

suffer from the terseness of all such things, teach us some 
things of value, but the sculptured tablets are much more use- 
ful, although, also, much more puzzling. These consist 
usually of a central scene, almost always Mithras slaying the 
Bull, an event to be described later on. Very often around 
this, and forming a kind of frame for it, are a series of com- 
partments each containing a minor sculpture representing 
something associated with Mithras. At least, so we suppose, 
for almost everything concerning these sculptures is matter 
for interpretation. Interpretations differ, and we are con- 
stantly confronted with the disquieting idea that, where our 
opinions are not supported by something in such literature 
as we possess, our interpretation of the sculptures may be 
miles away from the truth. From all this the reader will con- 
clude that the study of these religions is not all smooth, solid 
ground, and will feel it wise when he comes to a sweeping 
statement to ask on what evidence it is based. 

Before examining Mithraism, we will briefly consider the 
religious history of Rome up to the time of its introduction. 
The Old Religion of Rome, which cannot here be discussed, 
according to Dill, 8 "along with much that was sound and grave 
and fortifying to character, was also cold and hard and cere- 
monial. It could mold and consecrate a militant and con- 
quering state; it did little to satisfy the craving for moral 
regeneration or communion with a Higher Power. It could 
not appease the sense of error and frailty by ghostly comfort 
and sacramental absolution. It was, moreover, wanting in 
that warmth and sympathy, linking the human and the 
Divine." Hence, as we learn from indisputable evidence, at 
the time of the fall of the Republic, religion in Rome was 
practically extinct and most of the temples falling into ruin. 
Now a religion of some kind all peoples must have and, if they 
cannot attain to knowledge of the truth, they will fasten upon 
the nearest and most fascinating form of faith at hand. If 
any person doubts this statement, let him cast his eye on the 
religious state of the world from the time when the War com- 
menced down to the present day. The progress of Spiritual- 
ism, so-called, for example, is evidence for this statement. 

Into a population, rid of its old religion and ready for 
a new one, poured the religious, as well as many other, in- 

8 Op. cit., p. 554. 



1922.] MITHRAS AND MITHRAISM 763 

fluences from the Orient, brought in by merchants, by alien 
legionaries, above all, perhaps, by slaves, many of whom, it 
must be remembered, were highly educated, indeed, in this 
respect, often greatly the superiors of their owners. All these 
religions of the Orient introduced to Rome two new religious 
ideas according to Cumont: 9 "Mysterious methods of pur- 
ification, by which they claimed to wash away the impurities of 
the soul, and the assurance that a blessed immortality would 
be the reward of piety." Thus they supplied two factors in 
which the old religion was deficient. The worship of Cybele, 
which came from Asia Minor, was the first to arrive. Her 
symbol, the black meteoric stone of the Magna Mater, was 
brought from Pessinus to Ostia and afterwards to Rome in 
B. C. 204. The religion itself did not actually become natural- 
ized for a number of years to come, but it was there and exer- 
cising its influence, afterwards to become much greater. 
Egypt, later on, supplied the worship of Isis and Serapis and 
the former, if we are to judge from statuary representations, 
was a much more gracious, sweeter and more seductive god- 
dess than the stern Mother of the Gods. Moreover, from the 
contemporary accounts we learn that initiates did really go 
through a genuine spiritual crisis. 10 

Both of these alien religions, if not in essence obscene, 
became tainted with indecencies and excesses which must 
have disgusted those who entered them with a genuine long- 
ing for a spiritual life, and such undoubtedly there must have 
been. Upon these followed a swarm of Baals from various 
parts of the Empire. The best known of these is Jupiter 
Dolichenus, whose memorials have been found all over the 
Empire, even in distant Britain, yet who was in origin only 
the local Baal of Doliche, a small town in Commagene, a 
province of Asia Minor near Cappadocia. 

To all of these religions succeeded the worship of Mithras, 
an Indo-Persian faith. It was a part of Mazdaism, the wor- 
ship of Ahura Mazda, a sky divinity as Zeus and Jupiter had 
originally been. In the hierarchy of this religion, below 
Ahura came certain deified abstractions, and still lower, spirits 
of nature amongst whom was Mithras, the pure genius of light. 
He was not the actual sun : there was a clear distinction drawn 

9 Oriental Religions, p. 9. 

10 See the delightful and close reproduction of the classical account given by 
Father Martindale in a story, called "God's Orphan," in his In God's Nursery. 



764 MITHRAS AND MITHRA1SM [Mar., 

here which reminds one of an Egyptian instance of a similar 
kind. That people had a sun-god, Ra or Re, worshipped in 
many places. There arose a king, Amenophis IV. (who after- 
wards changed his name to Akhenaton), who endeavored to 
introduce a rigid monotheism in the shape of the worship of 
the sun's disk. Despite the apparent close similarity between 
this and the older sun-worship, this religion never took root; 
was denounced as heresy and rapidly died out. Mithras was 
the light at mid-day when it is strongest. In the sculptures 
(and apparently the same two figures were placed on either 
side of the temples) he is accompanied by two Dadophori or 
torch-bearers, Cauti and Cautopati. One, with flaming torch 
held upwards typifies the dawn and stands on Mithra's right 
hand. On his left, the other, with torch turned downwards, 
represents the sunset. 

The story of Mithras' birth is in accordance with his solar 
origin, for he is fabled to have sprung from a rock, in other 
words the firmament regarded as a solid structure. In Egypt 
it was a roof of iron, supported on four great pillars; in other 
lands it was of stone. Mithraism was the soldiers' religion, 
and wherever they went their religion went with them, so that 
Mithra3a are to be found from the Sahara to the Wall in 
North Britain, which was the Finis Imperil. Maps giving the 
sites of such buildings as have been so far laid bare, show 
how numerous and widespread they were, but as no Mithraeum 
could contain more than about one hundred persons, the exist- 
ence of numerous temples in one place does not mean very 
much. For example, Ostia was a very important seaport 
town. It contained at least six such temples, but after all 
that need only indicate six hundred adherents as a maximum. 

The spread and rapid progress of Mithraism may, in 
some measure, have depended upon its supplying some of 
those factors which were absent from the old religion. M. 
Cumont thinks, however, that there was another and more 
important reason for the popularity of this particular creed. 
It was firmly founded on dualism; that is to say, there were 
both good and evil principles, and both were deified and to 
be worshipped. Thus was offered an answer to that crux of 
all theologies, the origin of evil, which could, and did, appeal 
to cultured as well as uncultured. That the evil deity was to 
be struggled against and eventually conquered, imparted a 



1922.] MITHRAS AND MITHRAISM 765 

certain virility to the religion and, no doubt, commended it to 
the legionaries of the Empire who, being constantly engaged 
in earthly warfare, were well able to imagine one of a spiritual 
character. Thus the religion had many characteristics making 
for success, and for a time it did succeed. Yet today it is, 
as it has been for many centuries, a mere archaeological 
curiosity. How is this and what was the cause of its failure? 

In the first place, Mithraism appears to have completely 
excluded women from its services. The female counterpart 
of the male Mithraist seems to have been relegated to the wor- 
ship of Cybele. Now, it seems perfectly obvious that any 
religion which excludes the devout female sex can neither be 
true nor have any lasting measure of success. This fact alone 
would seem to negative Kenan's confident statement. But 
there was another and most potent reason for its failure. 
Here let it be understood that we are writing of Mithraism 
and Christianity from the purely historical point of view, and 
without any kind of reference to the Divine origin of the 
latter. Dill, who speaks quite tenderly of Mithraism, says it 
"is perhaps the highest and most striking example of the last 
efforts of paganism to reconcile itself to the great moral and 
spiritual movement which was setting steadily, and with 
growing momentum, toward purer conceptions of God, of 
man's relations to Him, and of the life to come." And, he 
continues, "it is also the greatest effort of syncretism to absorb, 
without extinguishing, the gods of the classic pantheon in a 
cult which was almost monotheistic, to transform old forms 
of nature worship and cosmic symbolism into a system which 
should provide at once some form of moral discipline and 
real satisfaction for spiritual wants." 

Syncretism the absorption into the new of all or most 
of the features of the old faith that was what was at the core 
of all the religions of the Rome of the Empire. It made no 
matter how many gods or godlets a man worshipped. The 
Roman who adored, say, thirty-nine, had no comments to 
make on his neighbor who added a fortieth, perhaps in the 
person of Mithras. There was only one non-syncretic re- 
ligion, and that was Christianity, and it was the victor. The 
believer in Mithras or in Jupiter Dolichenus, or in both, with 
his syncretic ideas had no sort of difficulty in also worshipping 
the divinity of the Emperor when that became the recognized 



766 MITHRAS AND M1THRAISM [Mar., 

State religion. The Christian refused to do so and, no doubt, 
the non-Christian Roman, with his bundle of deities, looked 
upon the Christian not only as a disloyal person, but also as 
a sort of fool fit provender for the lions. Prima facie, it 
would have seemed certain that the easy, convenient, syncretic 
religion would gain the victory. But it was the non-syncretic 
which won. Dill and Cumont both agree that the syncretic 
character of Mithraism was its destruction. It could not free 
itself from the obscene and foolish fables attached to the re- 
ligions whose tenets it had more or less absorbed. And so it 
failed to satisfy that desire for a religion pure and undefiled 
which was growing rapidly. Harnack thought that the failure 
of Mithraism to capture Hellenic thought was a main feature 
in its fall. Others have pointed to the severe persecution to 
which it was in later days subjected, but if persecution could 
kill a religion, there would be no Christianity today. 

We have seen that there is more than a tendency in some 
writings to place Mithraism on a plane considerably higher 
than it would appear to deserve. The more it is exalted 
though this is a point which seems to have passed unobserved 
by these writers the greater the success of Christianity in 
vanquishing it. This, from a purely human point of view. 
In fact, from this point of view alone surely we may demand 
some reply to the question as to why Mithraism, with appar- 
ently so much in its favor, is an archaeological curiosity today 
and Christianity, with apparently everything against it, is the 
greatest factor in modern civilization. No doubt there is one 
way of getting out of this difficulty by the old formula, "plus 
ca change, plus c'est la meme chose." "Christianity is a sect 
of Mithraism" voila tout! If few would imitate the foolish 
temerity of the coiner of that phrase, there are many so-called 
historians today who would claim that all religions are 
syntheses and that Christianity, as the last of them, is the 
master-synthesis of them all. No doubt Christianity did 
make use of such items in earlier faiths as she thought might 
be serviceable. The early Christian writers, e. g., St. Augus- 
tine, frankly admit this. "But in borrowing, it transfigured 
them. In all that was essential, the Church would hold no 
truce with paganism," says Dill, certainly an unprejudiced 
and well instructed authority. 11 

11 Op. cit., p. 625. 



1922.] MITHRAS AND MITHRA1SM 767 

Christianity was a sect of Mithraism or at least borrowed 
some of its most important features from that form of belief. 
That is the statement we have to examine. In order to do so 
thoroughly it will be necessary to take each of the points 
relied upon and see what its real bearings are. 

I. The Birth of Mithras. There is an obscure tradition 
from Armenia that Mithras had a virgin birth. It conflicts 
with the legend much more probable and apparently much 
earlier of his birth from a rock. It is not heard of until the 
fifth century after Christ, so that if there is borrowing, the 
presumption is all the other way. And, finally, when care- 
fully examined, as Paterson 12 shows, the tradition recounts 
a form of virgin birth if indeed that is at all a correct term 
which only by an unwarrantable stretch of words can be 
brought to anything like the meaning attached to them by 
Christian writers. There is nothing in this, and we may pass 
to another and more picturesque feature. According to some 
authorities, the birth of Mithras was observed by adoring 
shepherds. What is the evidence for this? Out of a con- 
siderable number of sculptured slabs, seven exhibit figures 
in compartments of the frame which, from their relation to 
sheep or goats, would appear to be shepherds. Let it be noted 
they are never in the same compartment with the figure of 
Mithras nor are they ever in the attitude of adoration. In 
fact, we can feel quite sure that had there been no mention 
of anything of the kind in the Gospel narrative, we should 
never have heard a word about this story in connection with 
Mithras, and some other tale would have been invented to 
account for the shepherds. M. Gumont thinks the incident 
may have been borrowed from Christianity. Perhaps it may. 

If the legend, as it seems to be, is original, that there were 
no men until Mithras created them, it is clear that the shepherds 
cannot have been present at his birth in adoration or other- 
wise. Here is an excellent example of the difficulties pre- 
viously alluded to which arise from the necessity of attempt- 
ing the interpretation of sculptured scenes, as to which we 
have no literary information. In connection with this, it 
may be mentioned that two writers 13 have actually argued 
that the visit of the Wise Men to the infant Christ was copied 
from a visit known to have been paid in A. D. 66 (note the 

" Page 13. Reville and Dieterich. See Paterson, p. 15. 



768 MITHRAS AND MITHRAISM [Mar., 

date!) to Nero by Tiridates, King of Armenia, with attendant 
magi. We need not waste time over wild imaginings of this 
kind, the fruit, it would appear, of minds which must find 
some new explanation of Biblical occurrences at all cost, even 
of common sense. 

The last point in this connection is more worthy of con- 
sideration. Mithras' birthday was ultimately fixed on De- 
cember 25th: is not the inference irresistible? This is a point 
on which it is difficult to speak with any assurance. There is 
no doubt that the day of the winter solstice was that selected 
by all solar cults for celebrating Natalis Invicti Soils the 
birthday of the Unconquered Sun, which on that day began 
to reverse the period of decline, which had commenced with 
the summer solstice. Thus it became the birthday of Mithras. 
But why was it selected as the official day for commemorating 
the birth of Our Lord? In our complete ignorance of how it 
came to be selected, for, of course, ho one supposes or has 
ever supposed that it was His actual birthday, it is better 
frankly to say that we cannot answer the question. We do 
not know whether the choice came from the East or from the 
West. It does not appear to have been known as the festival 
of the Nativity in Rome before A. D. 354 or in Constantinople 
before A. D. 379. All that Father Martindale, in his learned 
article on the subject in the Catholic Encyclopaedia, feels in- 
clined to say as to the Christian choice of that day, is that "the 
same instinct which set Natalis Invicti at the winter solstice, 
will have sufficed, apart from deliberate adaptation or curious 
calculation, to set the Christian feast there too." It may have 
been a case of "spoiling the Egyptians" or it may not. 

II. Titles. Mithras is invoked as "the incarnate word," 
which is certainly reminiscent of Scripture phraseology. But, 
as Paterson 14 points out, the term is used in the same sect for 
others, even for an ordinary priest, and thus loses all the 
significance which it might otherwise have been claimed to 
possess. "Mediator," another term employed with regard to 
Mithras, had, says the same authority, at first a physical or 
astronomical significance, since its possessor occupied a middle 
place between light and darkness, heaven and hell. But it 
also obtained a theological meaning when he became a me- 
diator "between the unknowable and inaccessible god and 

."Page 17. 






1922.] MITHRAS AND M1THRAISM 769 

the human race," which is a conception in every way foreign 
to that of Christianity in its use of the same term. 

III. Amongst what Dill calls the "futile" attempts to 
associate Mithraism and Christianity, none is more prominent 
nor, it may be added, more futile than that connected with 
The Slaying of the Bull. It is perfectly clear from the monu- 
ments that this was the central fact of Mithraic worship. The 
legend relates that the bull was the first animal created by 
Ahura. Mithras overthrew it and, after dragging it to his cave, 
killed it by thrusting a knife above its shoulder. This is the 
action represented in the sculptures where Mithras, with a 
Phrygian cap on his head, stands astride over the bull which 
he has just stabbed, whilst Cauti and Cautopati, with an air 
of complete indifference on their countenances, stand on either 
side. In one case, instead of blood, corn is seen emerging 
from the wound, symbolic of the belief that the slaying of the 
bull was the regeneration of vegetation. In the picture, also, 
are often noxious animals sent by Ahriman, the evil deity, for 
the purpose of drinking the blood and thus preventing the 
return of vegetation. 

It will scarcely be credited that, as Dill puts it 15 to certain 
writers this "mystic sacrifice of the bull . . . seemed to occupy 
the same space in Mithraic devotion as the Sacrifice on Cal- 
vary." In further extension of the comparison here suggested, 
but actually made by others, another writer compares the 
dragging of the bull to the cave with the Way of the Cross. 
Well may Sir Samuel Dill, who is a scholar and a man of 
judgment, as we have just said, speak of the "futile attempts 
(which) have been made to find parallels to Biblical narrative 
or symbolism in the faint and faded legend of Mithras re- 
covered from his monuments." 

IV. The Taurobolium. There is some doubt as to 
whether this disgusting ceremony, described in a previous 
article, 16 was associated with the Mithraic worship as well as 
that of the Magna Mater with which it was originally intro- 
duced. Some authorities stand for one, others for the second 
theory. 17 One inscription at least seems to prove that there 
was a connection. This baptism of blood, from which the 

"Page 622. 
18 "H. G. Wells on Christianity" In THE CATHOLIC WORLD, August, 1921, p. 643. 

17 See Paterson, p. 30, note 4. 
OL. cxiv. 49 



770 MITHRAS AND MITHRAISM [Mar., 

participant emerged renatus in seternum has also been put 
forward as the forerunner, and even the origin of various 
Christian ideas to which we need not more particularly ad- 
vert. The last Taurobolium of which we have lapidary evi- 
dence took place on the spot now occupied by St. Peter's at 
Rome. There is about as much connection between the 
Taurobolium and Christianity as there is between these two 
facts. 

V. Sacraments. What are called, perhaps by some 
abuse of language, the sacraments of Mithraism, demand some 
attention, since some of the wildest theories concerning the 
relationship of this religion to Christianity have been built 
upon them. First of all, there is baptism. It is undoubted 
that the initiates of Mithraism, like the initiates of Isis and of 
other faiths, did undergo ceremonial and symbolic washings. 
The idea is perfectly simple, perfectly natural and likely to 
occur to various persons without necessary copying. To enter 
the portals of religion one should be clean of soul. The body 
is cleansed by water, and this external washing typifies the 
internal purification. Such was the pagan theory. And with 
perfect logic it was felt that these purifications could not be 
too frequently renewed. So we are told that Ahura Mazda 
ordered that neophytes should wash their bodies for three 
nights and three days. That there is a superficial resemblance 
between the general action and Christian baptism, is shown 
by the fact that Tertullian and other writers comment on and 
compare the two ceremonies. But the underlying idea of 
Christian baptism a ceremony which can never be repeated, 
whilst the pagan lustrations must be is quite different from 
the Mithraic ceremony, though, no doubt, the idea of pur- 
ification exists in both. 

The Mithraic feast, in like manner, has been associated 
with the Eucharist, and here we meet with some of the wildest 
statements of all. In this feast small cakes marked with a 
cross and the juice of some tree, called haoma, appear to 
have been partaken of. Afterwards, in the West, wine was 
used when haoma was unobtainable. What was the exact 
significance we do not know, but probably it was like the 
agape or feasts of love or friendship associated with other 
religions. The little loaves, on account of the cross marked 
upon them, have been associated with our altar-breads by 



1922.] MITHRAS AND M1THRA1SM 771 

those who ignore the fact that all sorts of cakes, including 
the hot cross bun, are notched in this way and probably have 
been from the time that cakes first were made, for the very 
obvious purpose of enabling them readily to be broken up 
into bits. It is like the perforated intervals between postage 
stamps in sheets, for which, no doubt, some occult and un- 
necessary explanation would have been found had they been 
objects of antiquity. 

Another writer, ignoring the settled judgment of scholars 
as to the origin of the word "Mass" (the religious ceremony, 
of course, is meant) tells us that it was derived from this 
round cake of the Mithraic feast, which was called Mizd or 
Myazd. As to the ceremony as a whole, no doubt there is a 
superficial resemblance between it and the Mass which com- 
memorates the Last Supper also a feast. Tertullian and 
Justin Martyr both denounce the Mithraic feast as a diabolic 
imitation. Such, no doubt, it appeared to them, but in all 
probability it was nothing of the kind but just a love feast 
like many others, even perhaps like the mythical feast of the 
dead, represented on so many tombstones and partaken of 
symbolically by all Romans at the graves of their relatives. 
Of course, there are those who would have us believe that the 
Mass is nothing more than a copy or descendant of this feast. 
Christianity, again, is "a sect of Mithraism." Paterson very 
shrewdly points out that one body would hardly copy delib- 
erately the practices of another and then pour abuse on that 
body as the copyist, nor we may add, is it likely that such a 
process could have been successful in the times as they were. 

It is extraordinary how little attempt is made by writers 
of this kind to put themselves into the time of which they 
write. The Canon of the Mass, as we have it, is, by general 
consent of scholars, of apostolic or early post-apostolic time. 
The Church was then in the Catacombs, celebrating Mass much 
as it is now celebrated. Mithraism was an important religion 
smiled on by the powers that were, who were, at the same 
time, doing their best to exterminate the weaker faith. In the 
long run, that apparently weaker faith won. Why, if Chris- 
tianity was a copy of Mithraism a mere sect of that faith and 
its central ceremony nothing more than a copy of the love feast 
of Mithras why, if this be true, did the Christians find it 
necessary to betake themselves to the Catacombs at all? Why 



772 MITHRAS AND M1THRAISM [Mar., 

undergo persecution whilst the religion of which they were 
only a sect was basking in official smiles, or at least pursuing 
an unpersecuted career? To the writers of the period, Chris- 
tianity was an obscure offshoot of Judaism and there is not a 
single word as to any relationship with Mithras. That was left 
to latter day writers to discover, as well as that marvelous 
mare's nest which ascribes the origin of the Eucharist to St. 
Paul's studies in Tarsus 18 of Mithraism and its doings. Pater- 
son says that "Professor Percy Gardner suggests that St. Paul 
was influenced by the Eleusinian mysteries, 19 and that his 
account of the Last Supper was one of his ecstatic revelations. 
Mr. J. M. Robertson argues that St. Paul was practising a 
supper of which he had no Jesuine record." 20 And Paterson 
very properly adds: "But even if St. Paul was not dependent 
on apostolic information, either of St. Peter or St. James, 21 
it is difficult to believe that he concocted the Christian rite out 
of his own head with a few heathen ideas." 

It is indeed! Further it is not explained to us how St. 
Paul, born out of due time, as he tells us himself, after invent- 
ing this wholly new thing, was able to persuade the other 
Apostles that it was part of the teaching of their Lord so that 
they and the whole Church were practising it within a few 
years. St. Paul, no doubt, was a forceful personage, but so, 
after his conversion, was St. Peter, and surely this tale is more 
incredible than any of Munchausen's adventures. There 
seems to be no end to these ingenious deliramenta. A much 
more likely result of St. Paul's knowledge of Mithraism and its 
ways and of the Eleusinian mysteries, as Paterson again points 
out, is that he was warning Christians against them when he 
told them that they could not drink the cup of the Lord and 
that of devils, nor sit at both of their tables. After all, St. 
Paul is not our only authority for the institution of the Blessed 
Sacrament. 

Confirmation, so some have suggested, derives the signing 
with the holy oil from the fact that at the initiation into one of 
the grades of which we have shortly to speak, the neophyte 
was branded on the forehead with a hot iron. The originator 
of this suggestion may be complimented on his ingenuity 
rather than his sense of humor. 

ls i'age 54. "Origin of the Lord's Supper, 1893. 

*> Religions System of the World, p. 209. 21 Galatians i. 18, 19. 



1922.] MITHRAS AND MITHRA1SM 773 

VI. Grades in Mithraism. There was a graded system 
in Mithraism : of that there is no doubt, for St. Jerome gives an 
account of it with the names of the grades, which are quite 
interesting. But except that there are seven "Orders," major 
and minor, in the Catholic Church and seven grades in Mith- 
raism, there is no other connection. Seven was possibly chosen 
by both as the perfect number. To an outsider, there is much 
more likeness to the grades in Masonry and other secret so- 
cities. Indeed, Kipling in his tale has used a novelist's 
license to introduce secret signs which, of course, may have 
existed, though history knows nothing of them. In this con- 
nection, it may be mentioned that the spirit of fraternity in- 
culcated by Mithraism was within the brotherhood as with 
Masonry, and not for all mankind as taught by Christianity. 
It is one of the ways in which the Ethics of this religion dif- 
fered from those of the Christian faith. 

Mithraism taught rigid adherence to the truth, and urged 
abstinence and continence, indeed it was distinguished from 
Oriental religions in general by the purity of its adherents, or 
at least the purity enjoined upon them. Yet Father Martin- 
dale says of it, and he is an authority on the subject, "in no 
case have we evidence of a true code or system of ethics, or 
any trace (historically verifiable) of moral effort or ideal 
which can bear any relation to the Christian, save that of a 
will-o'-the-wisf) to the noon-day sun." 

This observation, we think, is the high-water mark of what 
may be said, with any truth, of all the alleged resemblances. 




IRELAND AND THE SEA. 

BY JAMES F. CASSIDY. 

T is difficult to think of Ireland without thinking 
of the sea. Nature has decreed that that land 
should forever feel the beat of the ocean's heart 
and hear, without ceasing, its thunder voice. 
History has wrought for Ireland an acquaintance 
with the sea that has been illumined by many a glory and 
darkened by many a sorrow. And these twin forces of na- 
ture and experience have added to her character notes that 
express in many a mood and gesture the molding power of 
the eternal waves. "It may well be," says Yeats, speaking of 
the influence of the sea on Irish character, "that the elements 
have their children . . . and I am certain that the water, the 
waters of the seas and of the lakes and of the mist and rain, 
has all but made the Irish after its image." 

It is within the realm of Irish imagination that this spell 
of the waters is most potent. Nature gives the Irish a re- 
markable imaginative power, and this faculty finds a welcome 
field of activity in the watery stretches of the ocean over which 
the spirit of immensity seems to brood. From this lightning 
fancy spring many of the fires of an ardent curiosity which 
hungers for the unknown. This curiosity, hot on the trail of 
the unrevealed, finds pleasing hunting grounds in that indefi- 
nite shroud of mist which cloaks so often Irish waters, and 
seems to hold a something not of sea or land. Gray mists, 
gray seas, by virtue of their spectral coloring and strange 
bridging power between heaven and earth, are ever potent to 
coerce the fancy into flights in realms never scanned by hu- - 
man eye. It is little wonder, then, that in the days of the dim 
pagan past the Irish thought the secrets of Paradise dwelt upon 
the bosom of the deep or within the recesses of its watery 
heart. Amid the waves they fashioned in fancy for them- 
selves a haunt where youth and beauty and happiness should 
never fail to woo the heart of man. And today, in spite of 
fifteen centuries of Christian tutelage, many a dweller by the 
Irish coast line will not hesitate, in moments of romantic 



1922.] IRELAND AND THE SEA 775 

exaltation, to tell of abodes of magnificence vaguely viewed 
within the circle of the sea's horizon. 

Though this pagan philosophy of a marine Paradise seems 
to submerge the teaching of the Gospel at times when the 
Gaelic tradition is in the ascendant, it no longer claims the 
serious attention of any save the most unsophisticated. 
Christian dogma has transferred the Isles of the Blessed to the 
domain of the folklorist and the poet. Yet for the Christian 
Gael, there is still a something in the sea that speaks of an in- 
visible world. The Irishman's simplicity and closeness to 
nature grant a ready admittance to the feeling of religious 
awe, when might and majesty confront him in the heaving 
strength and unearthly sublimity of the roll of myriad waves. 
His tendency to exaggeration and giantism in imagery revels 
in the immensity of the sea, lifts him in spirit to Immensity It- 
self and makes the briny vastness a vivid reflex of Omnip- 
otence. So profound is this consciousness of God's presence 
on the main that, in the age of his most vivid faith and 
unhindered devotion to nature, the Irishman was wont to 
make the sea his favorite haunt when he heard the pilgrim's 
call. 

Many in the first days of Ireland's Christian fervor, loved 
like Conall the Red to "seek the Lord on the sea." There were 
not a few who saw the beauty and omnipresence of the Deity 
so clearly manifested in the glory and magnitude that made 
upon the deep their dwelling place that, with oarless curraghs, 
they sought the peace that is divine upon its bosom. Such 
were the good Columba and his companions who committed 
themselves to the waves as to the arms of God Himself. "Let 
us quit our voyaging," said they, "save the path that our cur- 
ragh will take us ... and let us go over the long waves of the 
flood." Besides such religious romanticists as Conall and 
Columba, there were thousands of others who sought the 
Lord on the sea through the more commonplace adventure of 
monastic life. Several quiet homes of piety were established 
on islands off the Irish coast where the heart of the recluse 
should always feel the thrill of the sea's undying Magnificat. 
Here the fugitive outline of the ocean's circular symbolism of 
eternity summoned the mystic's soul to realms where nothing 
terrestrial could check the progress of its immortal flight. 
Here, too, the distractions which haunt the ways of men and 



776 IRELAND AND THE SEA [Mar., 

hamper the silent converse of the soul with its Creator seldom 
found a residence. 

The great quiet of the lonely waters crept irresistibly into 
the mind of the isle-dweller, and kept it longing for that 
primal peace which abides for aye round the Throne. And 
the beauty that caught the eye was that which most befitted 
the devotee of the spirit. The aesthetic appeal of northern seas 
possesses very little that is fundamentally sensuous. Their 
coldness and austerity invest them with a spiritual attractive- 
ness which charms the minds of those who wage war upon the 
senses, and tends to raise them to the Spirit-Beauty they 
reflect. 

When the mind operates within the sphere of the unseen 
it seldom fails to harbor a sense of mystery. Things that 
cannot be submitted to the scrutiny of the senses, usually sup- 
ply material for wonder. This is especially true when the 
invisible occupies the attention of one so imaginative as the 
average Celt. Throughout his history a vivid and luxuriant 
imagination has cooperated with his immaterialistic concep- 
tion of life, and the permanence of this union leaves him today 
a stanch defender of wonder-haunted, poetic ground against 
the onslaughts of modern science. It is natural, then, that he 
should love the sea for the wealth of wonder that is coupled 
with its spiritual significance. As Sidney Lysaght said: 

. . . between the veiled and shown, 
Wonders hidden are our own; 

Secret vision hides we find 
Written in the undefined; 
Revelations in the guessed, 
Treasures in the unpossessed. 

The Irishman's ability for finding wonder "between the 
veiled and shown," owes much to the fact that he is not an 
extensive traveler. The non-emigrant Gael is compelled, in 
spite of his natural love of travel, by circumstances not under 
his control, to be conservative in his movements whether com- 
mercial or pleasurable. Hence actual contact with strange 
territory finds him seldom beyond the limits of his native 
county. This limited physical experience of distance only 



1922.] IRELAND AND THE SEA 777 

serves as a goad to a travel-hungry imagination, when con- 
fronted with objects suggestive of a vastness that only the 
steeds of the mind can traverse. The imaginative realization 
of what is physically unattainable, adds immensely to the 
craving of fancy and to the resultant activity to satisfy that 
hunger. Such a craving is created by the vision of the sea. 
Its giant stretches are a great "undefined" for the untraveled 
Gael because their power to suggest distance is remarkable. 
The wonder-seeker finds a strong stimulant for his fancy in the 
indefiniteness of expression that characterizes Irish seas where 
the mystery color of grayness so constantly abides. In these 
northern waters indefinite and spectral mists, uniting by their 
eerie bridge both sky and waters, seem to hold the secrets 
of the earth's quiet converse with the heavens. No wonder 
that the mystery-haunted fancy of the Gael should love these 
cloud-strewn seas, and even yet in moments of imaginative 
vigor discover the mystic glory of a lost Moy Mel within their 
obscure ways. No wonder that the rapture of the world's 
greatest dreamer is still a splendid reality. 

The magic of distance holds for the Irishman more at- 
tractions than wonder. The call of the wilderness and the 
enchantment of the far-away, everlasting properties of the 
ocean, are a constant challenge to the love of travel and the 
spirit of adventure that have been his since history introduced 
him to the world. The Irishman is abnormally curious; he 
longs to probe the unknown and discover the things to which 
the unexplored may lead. Hence the spell of the sea is upon 
him, for its long, dim lanes seem to lead to a wealth of the 
unrevealed in the far-off parts of the world. Like Brendan 
of old, "the Sinbad of clerical romance," whose boat sought the 
Land of Promise beyond the waves' horizon, the average Gael 
finds a something in the sea that speaks more gloriously of 
the promise of a future than of the record of a past, a some- 
thing that appeals to his sense of destiny, a something that 
gives strength to his endeavors to snatch from the womb of 
futurity the full flowering of the arrested genius of his race. 
And as he loves the sea for its message of things-to-be, he 
likes it, too, for its kindred utterance of ceaseless change. Its 
mutability pleases his very temperamental character, for it 
suggests an emotionalism that mirrors the passionate depth 
and very transitory nature of his own feelings. Its many pas- 



778 IRELAND AND THE SEA [Mar., 

sions, ranging from great serenities to titan rages, act as a 
magnet upon the heart swayed by kindred varied and intense 
emotions. 

This passion, which holds the great flood, begets its in- 
evitable offspring of poetry. This latter furnishes a great 
lure upon the deep for the poetic soul of the Gael. That the 
whisperings of the muse are most distinctly heard where the 
voiceful sea sings its song of majesty, is a creed of the Irish- 
man as old as his history. Though this association of the 
gift of poetry with water is closely connected in pre-Christian 
times with the religion of the druids and as a mystic dogma of 
ancient pagan faith merits no serious consideration, it throws 
light on the part that nature played in developing the poetic 
mind of Ireland. 

Nature-worship entered conspicuously into Irish pagan- 
ism and demanded a very close study of natural phenomena. 
As a result, the Irish mind cultivated an intimate friendship 
with the sea and saw how fruitful it was as a source of poetic 
inspiration. Hence, mystic dogmatizing aside, there was 
much truth in the belief that the secrets of the muse were re- 
vealed by the water's edge. In the rhythmic advance and 
retreat of the waves, there was much to suggest the poetry of 
motion. In their varied, yet restrained, coloring, there existed 
an appeal for hearts cherishing novelty and the chastened 
shades of northern lands. In their perennial freshness and 
marked immunity from earthly impurities, there was a charm 
for those who knew little of the blighting monotonies and 
taints of an artificial life. And, finally, the sea's simplicity, 
manifested in its singular freedom from the complexities that 
man's rule has imposed upon the more tractable land, was 
admired by a people who lived in considerable isolation from 
the intricacies of European civilization. 

It is, however, the melancholy of the sea that most of all 
appeals to the poetic instinct of the Irish race. It has been 
said that the element of sadness supplies the noblest thoughts 
to poetry; this is certainly true of Gaelic verse. The inspired 
numbers of the Irish people are the product of a race that has 
known many sorrows. It is this heritage of grief that makes 
Ireland feel that there is a certain sympathy in nature, and, 
above all, in the sad sea-breakers, for her woes. Convinced 
of this bond of sorrow between Ireland and the sea, Lionel 



1922.] IRELAND AND THE SEA 779 

Johnson penned this salutation to the land whose feelings he 
so nobly interpreted: 

Thy sorrow, and the sorrow of the sea, 
Are sisters; the sad winds are of thy race: 
The heart of melancholy beats in thee, 
And the lamenting spirit haunts thy face, 
Mournful and mighty mother! 

The "lamenting spirit" of the sea sings a sad song for 
hearts that are schooled in sorrow, for its wail is the keen of 
an element. It voices a grief so instinct with the note of uni- 
versality and so suggestive of all the tears that time has wit- 
nessed, that it seems the most fitting tribute of sorrowful 
sympathy that nature could pay to a people whose sufferings 
are symbolic of the elemental pain that the soul of humanity 
harbors. Then Irish seas beat upon a coast line that is pierced 
by many a deep wound, and resembles a gaunt tortured 
figure expressive of age-long anguish. These waters are more 
frequently garbed in the mourning apparel of the mists than 
in the sunlit robes of jubilee. Historically, they have many 
associations that tell of the national tragedy of Ireland. It is 
over the waves that the stranger came who took away the 
patrimony of the Gael. It is the sea that has been the greatest 
barrier to Irish freedom. It is the sea that has heard the 
lamentations of countless exiles, forced by a bitter fate to live 
the life of the stranger far from their motherland. 

And Irish seas are as lonely as they are sad. In days 
gone by a prosperous merchant marine did business between 
Ireland and the Continent, and helped to relieve to some 
extent the dreariness of the Atlantic. Today that shipping life 
has almost vanished, and the few vessels that traverse the 
waters serve only by their solitary forms to add to the desolate 
aspect of the seas. And those deserted seas circling round the 
shores of Ireland make that land more isolated than any other 
country of Europe. Situated beyond the most western point 
of the Continent, Ireland stands apart from the company of 
the other nations, and is compelled to find within herself some- 
thing to compensate her for her aloofness from international 
society. In her solitude, she naturally inclines to meditative 
and introspective ways, and broods with intensity upon her 
past and present. This loneliness of concentration upon self 



780 IRELAND AND THE SEA [Mar., 

is magnified by the extremely social nature of her soul, which 
hungers most for human intercourse through its vivid con- 
ception of what the lack of society means. 

However, within this gloom of her solitude Ireland has 
cultivated patriotic virtues, which are largely responsible for 
the brilliant struggle she has maintained for the preservation 
of her national individuality. Her isolated position has kept 
her more racially pure than any other European people. It 
has so focused her thoughts upon her national being, that 
she has developed a very vivid consciousness of her distinctive 
character as a people who, primarily, owe their racial unity 
and continuity to the saving power of their spirit. It has 
given her the sublime inspiration of the waves which ever 
preach to her amid their mutability the grand doctrine of 
fidelity to duty. This sermon of the sea has found favor in 
her soul, for, despite the extremes of her passions, she has 
never ceased to struggle for the final accomplishment of what 
she believes to be her destiny. And the God-given freedom 
that hovers o'er the deep, constantly reminds her of loyalty to 
the principle of liberty that heaven has commissioned the 
great sea to communicate through majesty of action to the 
heart of man. 

What wonder, then, that Ireland should love and admire 
the sea which she has known so long and so intimately! If 
she loves it for the sweetness of its sorrow, she loves it still 
more for the silver of its joy and the gold of its promise. In 
the past, the great sea has wept with Erin in her sorrow and 
smiled with her in her joy: surely, the glory which it has 
promised to the isle of shadow and sunshine shall be a splen- 
did reality in the future. Is it too extravagant to hope that 
a nation so buoyed up by a sense of destiny, so firm in the 
belief that the future holds the supreme revelation of her 
greatness, shall not realize what in dreams she has ever 
sought? Is her mystic vision of The Little Dark Rose, of the 
tear-sprent petals donning the glory of the Rose flushed with 
red of the sunlight, to be deemed a dream that time must 
shatter or the offspring of true prophetic insight? 




THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN. 

BY JOHN A. RYAN, D.D. 

HE citizen possesses two distinct classes of rights. 
One of these belongs to him as a human being, 
the other as a member of the State. Rights of 
the first class are called natural, those of the 
second class civil. The distinction between the 
two depends, not so much upon their nature, as upon their 
source. Natural rights are those which are derived from the 
individual's nature, needs and destiny. They are those moral 
prerogatives which the individual needs in order to live a 
reasonable life, and attain the end appointed for him by God. 
Civil rights are conferred by the State for the promotion of 
the common good, and for the welfare of the individual as 
included among the purposes of the State. 

Probably a majority of the writers on political science, as 
well as the greater part of non-Catholic authorities in eco- 
nomics and sociology, reject the doctrine of natural rights. 
In their opinion, all rights are derived from the State. Hence, 
the citizen possesses only civil rights. It is not necessary in 
this place to set down a formal refutation of this theory. It 
will be sufficient to point out that the theory inverts the posi- 
tion of the State relatively to the individual. According to its 
logic, the individual exists for the State. Against the State 
he has no moral rights, but only those which the State itself 
is willing to grant. Consequently, the State may, if it chooses, 
deprive the citizen of all rights whatever, may arbitrarily take 
away his liberty and his property, and even put him to death. 
According to the Catholic doctrine, the State exists ultimately 
for the individual, and the individual is endowed with certain 
natural rights which belong to him because of his nature, 
because he is a person and because of his intrinsic sacredness. 
As the State does not create or confer these rights, it cannot 
take them away. 

This doctrine is not only Catholic, but it is a part of the 
traditional American political theory, and it is specifically in- 



782 THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN [Mar., 

eluded in the Declaration of Independence. The second para- 
graph of that immortal document begins thus : 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are 
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with 
certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness. 

Although the last clause of this statement is not an 
explicit enumeration of all man's natural rights, it does 
embrace them all implicitly. Life and liberty cover a very 
large part of the field of natural rights; the pursuit of hap- 
piness implies the rights of marriage and of property, which 
embrace the remainder of that field. Man's natural rights 
may, therefore, be summarized as those of life, liberty, mar- 
riage and property. Liberty is, of course, a wide conception 
extending to physical movement, education, religion, speech 
and writing. Under the head of life is included immunity 
from all forms of arbitrary physical assault. All these rights 
belong to the citizen as a human being because they are all 
necessary for his existence, for the development of his per- 
sonalitj r , for reasonable human living and for the attainment 
of the end which God commands him to attain. In the United 
States they are all likewise rights of the citizen as citizen. In 
other words, they are civil, as well as natural, rights. 

A systematic exposition and defence of these several rights 
is not necessary in this article. The right to life is intrinsic; 
is an end in itself, being directly based upon the sacredness of 
personality. The right to the various forms of liberty is a 
means to the end of right and reasonable living. It does not 
include the right to do or say unreasonable things. Like all 
other rights which are means, it is limited by the ends which 
it is designed to promote. The right to marry is directly 
necessary for the welfare of the individual. Even though an 
individual does not need to marry and can secure his welfare 
as a celibate, he has, nevertheless, the right to determine for 
himself whether or not he shall marry. The State has no 
right to decide this question for him. Property in those kinds 
of goods which meet man's immediate wants, such as food, 
clothing and shelter, is directly necessary for individual wel- 
fare; therefore, the individual has a natural right to acquire 
them as his own. Property in goods which have a more re- 



1922.] THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN 783 

mole relation to individual needs, such as land, machinery 
and the instruments of production generally, is not directly 
and immediately necessary for the individual; but the insti- 
tution of private property in such goods is essential to human 
welfare, inasmuch as no other arrangement is adequate. All 
the foregoing natural rights belong to the individual, as such, 
and consequently are valid against the State. 

The rights of the American citizen, as such, are set forth 
in the Constitution of the United States and in the constitu- 
tions of the various commonwealths. They are substantially 
the same in all these documents. The First Amendment to the 
Constitution of the United States reads thus: 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment 
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or 
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right 
of the people peacably to assembly, and to petition the 
Government for a redress of grievances. 

While the language of this amendment seems to guar- 
antee unlimited freedom of speech and of the press, it has 
never been so interpreted by the lawmakers or the courts. 
Rather has it been construed as that reasonable degree of 
liberty of speech and writing which had prevailed in the 
American colonies and in England for generations. During 
the recent War, therefore, Congress and many State legisla- 
tures enacted laws forbidding men to speak or write anything 
tending to hinder effective prosecution of the War. These laws 
were enacted under the authority of the war-making and war- 
legislating powers contained in Section 8 of Article 1 of the 
Constitution of the United States. 

That form of liberty which consists in immunity from in- 
vasion of one's home is secured in the Fourth Amendment to 
the National Constitution : 

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, 
houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches 
and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall 
issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath of af- 
firmation, and particularly describing the place to be 
searched, and the persons or things to be seized. 

This means that no private individual, nor any officer of 
the law, may enter a man's house without permission, unless 



784 THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN [Mar., 

a formal warrant has been obtained from court. Over-zealous 
or malicious officers may not enter a house against the wish of 
the occupier on mere suspicion. 

Security against unjust or arbitrary prosecution by officers 
of the law is guaranteed in the Sixth Amendment: 

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the 
right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of 
the State and district wherein the crime shall have been 
committed, which district shall have been previously ascer- 
tained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause 
of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses 
against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining wit- 
nesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for 
his defence. 

This civil right is of the highest importance. Its principal 
effects are to protect the citizen against a prison sentence until 
he has had a fair trial; to assure him a trial as soon as possible 
after his arrest; to allow him witnesses on his behalf and the 
assistance of a lawyer; to give him liberty on bail until his 
trial begins, unless the crime with which he is charged is very 
serious; and to enable him to appeal to the higher courts 
against an unfavorable sentence. To be sure, these guaran- 
tees are occasionally disregarded by the officials, but the num- 
ber of such violations of civil right is not large. They become 
considerable only in time of war, or in a period immediately 
following war, when the calm judgment of the law officers is 
disturbed by fear or some other passion. 

One of the most important individual guarantees is con- 
tained in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which de- 
clares that no person shall be "deprived of life, liberty, or 
property, without due process of law; nor shall private prop- 
erty be taken for public use without just compensation." The 
phrase, "due process of law," has, in the course of time, ac- 
quired a very wide and rather indefinite comprehension, but 
its elementary and traditional meaning is fairly definite. At 
the least, it means that a man's life, or liberty, or property may 
not be taken from him without a regular trial. 

It should be noted that the foregoing amendments and 
provisions are binding only upon the Congress of the United 
States. With the exception of the prohibition against depriv- 
ing the citizen of life, liberty and property without due process 



1922.] THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN 785 

of law, all these individual guarantees could be disregarded by 
the several States. For example, if the State of Georgia were 
te pass a law forbidding Catholics to assemble publicly for 
purposes of worship, or denying trial by jury to any of its 
citizens, it would not violate any of these provisions of the 
Constitution of the United States. The prohibitions contained 
in these provisions are addressed to Congress, not to the 
several States. Nevertheless, practically all, if not literally all, 
of the State constitutions contain similar guarantees of indi- 
vidual rights and similar prohibitions to their respective legis- 
latures regard interference with these rights. 

The provision of the Fifth Amendment forbidding Con- 
gress to deprive the citizen of life, liberty and property, with- 
out due process of law, is repeated in the Fourteenth Amend- 
ment, and is there addressed to the States. In the latter 
amendment the guarantee reads as follows: 

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall 
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the 
United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of 
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor 
deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal pro- 
tection of the laws. 

Such are the principal civil rights conferred upon and 
assured to the citizen by the organic laws of our country. 
They include all the liberty that anyone can reasonably claim, 
whether as a human being, or as a citizen. Inasmuch as they 
are matters of constitutional rather that statute law, they can- 
not be abolished through a temporary whim of the electors or 
by a simple act of the National or State legislatures. They can 
be repealed only by amending the constitutions, which is al- 
ways a sufficiently slow process to give time for the better 
judgment of men to reassert itself. 

The political rights of the citizen are sometimes distin- 
guished from his civil rights. The most important difference 
between them is that the former are intended primarily for a 
public purpose, while the latter have as their immediate end 
the welfare of the individual. The chief political rights of the 
citizen are those of voting and holding office. According to the 
Fifteenth Amendment to the National Constitution, the right 

VOL. CXIV. 50 



786 VISION [Mar., 

to vote "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, 
or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condi- 
tion of servitude." It is true that this right has been denied to 
colored voters in several of the States through various devices 
for evading the Fifteenth Amendment. However, it should be 
noted that these evasions do not amount to a violation of the 
natural rights of the negro. The elective franchise is not 
among the natural rights of the individual. It is created by 
the State for a civil purpose. Inasmuch as this purpose might 
conceivably be fulfilled, and in several States has been ful- 
filled, with the suffrage restricted to males and even to certain 
classes of males, it is clear that the power to vote is not a 
natural right inherent in every individual. It is a political 
privilege. 

VISION. 

BY BRIAN PADRAIC O'SHASNAIN. 

THEY said that You had gone and that no longer 
Would seekers find You in this haunted world, 
And that the questing mystic dreamed in vain 
Watching from some lone height the heavens unfurled. 

The wise said thus Ah, then it was a sorrow 
Only to know the emptiness of space 
And the unmeaning days, each with its morrow 
And nature stript of the old passionate grace. 

Awhile I mourned awhile I wandered lonely 
All through the emptiness of night and day 
Dreaming of You and thinking of You only 
You Who had made me out of fire and clay. 

And then I found You with a sudden wonder 
Walking the purple hills You'd made in play 
Or with Your lightnings tearing clouds asunder 
How does it matter what the wise ones say? 




THE BEGINNINGS OF A NOVELIST. 

TWO EARLY MSS. OF THE LATE MGR. R. H. BENSON. 
BY ALBERT B. PURDIE, O.B.E., B.A. 

N the course of the last two years it has been my 
privilege to pay several happy visits to Hare 
Street House, Buntingford, in the pretty county 
of Hertfordshire, as the guest of His Eminence, 
Cardinal Bourne, to whom (and his successors in 
the see of Westminster) the late Monsignor Benson bequeathed 
this, his residence, as a country property. There is a mural 
tablet in the little chapel close by, which commemorates the 
gift and tells of the generosity of the donor, whose wish it was 
that Hare Street House should be a place of otium et levamen, 
where an Archbishop fatigued by the multifarious business of 
a large diocese might find rest and escape. The charms of 
this rural seat have been already eulogized by the late Mon- 
signor's biographers and, indeed, by the novelist himself in 
one of his later novels, Oddsflsh. They have all written of its 
old-world beauty and pervading sense of peace, its quiet se- 
clusion and glad remoteness from all loud noises of the world. 
It has also been told how the late owner impressed his won- 
derful personality upon the home in which he took so much 
delight, and which he fashioned and arranged after his own 
choosing. Who has not read of the quaint tapestries, of the 
Dance of Death and the Quest of the Holy Grail, and of the 
oak panelings pictured with various devices? From every 
nook and corner speaks the spirit of Robert Hugh Benson. 

It is seven years now since he was laid to rest in the 
orchard near by, and there is little new in the surroundings 
with which he was so lovingly familiar. The rose-garden, 
indeed, the last delight of his devising, is a blaze of glory in 
summer time and gives a sad sweetness to the scene, whilst 
over his dead body has sprung a nobler bloom the beautiful 
little chapel of St. Hugh of Lincoln. In the house itself a 
tender devotion to his memory has suffered most things to 
stand as he left them: his own bedroom, unoccupied, but 



788 THE BEGINNINGS OF A NOVELIST [Mar. 

appointed exactly as in his lifetime, seems yet to call his tired 
exhausted body there to rest: on the library door is still the 
correspondence card, secured by a drawing pin, on which he 
wrote, requesting borrowers to return books to their proper 
places on the shelves! 

It is with the library that I am mostly concerned in these 
few notes, or rather with a little discovery I made there a few 
days ago. It was not long before his death that Monsignor 
Benson set his many books in order and made a card-index 
catalogue of them all. This must have cost him a lot of hard 
work; all the cards are in his own handwriting. One shelf is 
devoted to his own numerous works. What a wonderful out- 
put it was! When one considers it, and the time and energy 
devoted to sermons, addresses and innumerable contributions 
to periodicals at home and abroad, one is amazed at the fierce 
activity he displayed and the amount he achieved in his all 
too short span of years. One can comprehend, too, that such 
an unresting, pitiless expenditure of power must have come 
soon to a tragic term. 

Apart from editions published in England and America, 
many of his novels and devotional works were translated into 
French, German, Italian, Spanish and Dutch, and all these he 
kept carefully together and catalogued with due precision. 
It was whilst looking through these and making a little neces- 
sary re-arrangement that I happened on a thin manuscript 
brochure, that had lain hidden between the larger books. 
This circumstance of place made it clear at once that this was 
something of his own authorship, but there was evidence of a 
more direct nature. 

It is a document of four pages of large, blue note paper 
a shop's specimens, such as we cast to children to scribble 
their serious unseriousness thereon. Hugh bore them doubt- 
lessly to his nursery in triumph, and there achieved the child's 
labor of pen and ink, little dreaming that one day he was to be 
happy bondsman to both. It is a baby's piece of work, with 
big, inky letters and joyous smudges, with lines that dip pre- 
cipitately to the margin, with bold, shameless erasures and an 
artless insouciance of the idle way letters fall together to make 
a word. The sheets are carefully sewn together with cotton 
thread and fitted into a neat, brown paper cover, with edges 
overturned and gummed. This, perhaps, is the loving handi- 






1922.] THE BEGINNINGS OF A NOVELIST 789 

work of kindly Beth, his nurse. In big, uncertain, block letters 
the cover bears the legend, ROBERT HUGH BENSON, ESQ., 
OF UPSTAIRS IN THE NURSERY PR. The last word is 
unfinished, but no doubt he intended to write PRIVATE, with 
a child's pride of personal achievement and possession. 

I think the nursery must be that in the house at Truro, 
whither the Bensons went in 1877. Hugh at that time would 
be about six years old. Mr. A. C. Benson has given 1 us an 
account of the building and its surroundings "it was a charm- 
ing house about a mile out of Truro above a sequestered val- 
ley, with a far-off view of the little town lying among the 
hills. . . . The house had some acres of pasture land about it 
and some fine trees; with a big garden and shrubberies, an 
orchard and a wood." There are several phrases in little 
Hugh's stories that fit this description: he sees the same pic- 
ture, but through the wonder-eyes of a child. However, it is 
time to place these two interesting documents before the 
reader. We have printed them just as they stand: the few 
sentences in capitals in the first piece are written in another 
and older hand; perhaps Beth came to the rescue here, when 
the young novelist was puzzled how to go on. 

STORY ABOUT FLORIANCE AND EDWIN. 

Oonce upon a time there lived a littel boy and girl and they 
were very naugty and there was a wall round a particular 
part of the forest which they lived in and there was a door 
through it & THEIR NAMES WHERE FLORENCE AND 
EDWIN AND ONCE THEY WENT THROUGH IT AND 
WENT A LONG WAY AND THEY SAW ROUND THEM A 
GREAT MANY WILD CATS AND THE CHILDREN 
JUMPED DOWN A LARGE HOLE THAT WAS NEAR 
THEM and they fell for a long way at last they stoped and 
they had to scambel up a long ditry bank till they began 
to see light and they were very glad and Florence seid to 
Edwin What shall we do. because they will ask us where 
we have been because they will know that we could not get 
so dity in the gaden aid Edwyn said Oh I shall say that 
I have being triying to gaden and Florence said Oh you 
must not say so because it would be a lie but Edwyn said 
Oh please mind your own business and at last they got 
home and they did ask them where they had been and 

1 Hugh, p. 30. 



790 THE BEGINNINGS OF A NOVELIST [Mar., 

Edwyn said Oh I have only been gerdening, but Florence 
has been outside the door you told us not. And Florence 
said, Oh no Edwyn has been with me and we have gone a 
long way away and sudenly we saw round us a ring of wild 
cats and then we jumped down a lage hole that was near 
us and we went on falling for a long time and at last we 
got to the bottom, and we had to go up a long dity bank 
and there we got so dirty, and then their mother said that 
Edwyn should be whipt and put to bed and that Floriance 
should have have a feast and after that thay lived happyly 
ever since 

THE NAUGHT (Y) BOYS. 

There once lived a little boy and girl and once the little 
boy went out to play and he saw some boys coming up to 
him and they shouted out to him Hollo you must come with 
us and he said no I wont but the boys said Oh wont you 
you must or we will take you but just then his mother 
came up and he told her and she called the policeman who 
was passing by, and he took them up. and the littel boy 
was very glad, and then they went home and had diner 

II CAPTER 

The next day they went out together to play while they 
were playing some cows came by and they were very much 
afraid and they got up to run away but just then a cow ran 
at them but just missed them, and then they went home 
and told their mother and their mother kissed them and 
told them that they were very clever children. 

THE END 

In these two simple stories we probably have the reflec- 
tion of some little escapades which Hugh engaged upon with 
one of his sisters. They belong to the fairyland of a child's 
imagination, where all ordinary mortal values are trans- 
muted. Francis Thompson reminds us of what it is to be a 
child: "It is to be so little that elves can reach to whisper in 
your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into 
horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything." 2 
So, Hugh found a magic realm in the shrubberies about his 
father's door, and magic chasms down which he went falling, 
falling, falling. And there were wild cats! The cat always 

'Shelley, p. 29. 



1922.] THE BEGINNINGS OF A NOVELIST 791 

had a fascination for him throughout his life and plays a role 
in some of his novels, the Necromancers in particular; in 
fact, the Bensons appear to have had a peculiar regard for, 
and understanding of cats, and Hugh's sister, Maggie, espe- 
cially was gifted with a wonderful insight into feline psychol- 
ogy. Her essay on the Soul of a Cat 3 is a remarkable piece 
of work, and there is one passage in it which I think must 
refer to the house at Truro; we have the same local color and 
sense of fearsomeness that little Hugh has put into his first 
story: "We went to a place which was a paradise for cats, 
but a paradise ringed with death; a rambling Elizabethan 
house, where mice ran and rattled behind the panels; a garden 
with bushes to creep behind and strange country creatures 
stirring in the grass ... it was surrounded by woods care- 
fully preserved." 4 That was an atmosphere suited enough to 
the adventurous spirit of a boy, and well calculated to keep 
alive and develop that love of the mysterious, which after- 
wards characterized his outlook on life. 

But do these early productions betray anything of the 
personality of the grown man? Perhaps it is too much to ex- 
pect that they should : a child at the age of six is in a passive, 
impressionable state. He is absorbing and giving off the in- 
fluences of his surroundings. Thus the diet of Scriptural 
reading, which the good Archbishop prescribed for his chil- 
dren, is evident enough in the turn of many of Hugh's sen- 
tences, and distinct in such phrases as "they did ask them" 
and "were very much afraid." However, I think we may de- 
tect a hint of that willfulness and impulsiveness which showed 
in his maturer character. Edwin (i. e., Hugh) is a very deter- 
mined little fellow, who knows his own mind and states it 
emphatically: he says to Floriance: "Oh, please mind your 
own business," and to the boys who tell him he must come 
with them, there is the decided rejoinder, "No I wont!" One 
can imagine how Hugh would have spluttered it out. The 
tendency to picturesque and romantic forms is also note- 
worthy Edwin (which a little later becomes Edwyn) and 
Floriance. 

For the rest, the traits are simply those of a healthy and 
very human little boy. There is the hard difficulty of spelling 
and the anima naturaliter phonetica: "dity," before the effort 

8 In The Court of the King. * Op. cit., pp. 11, 12. 



792 WINTRY WINDS [Mar., 

is over, finds its truant r; and there is only a very incipient 
feeling for punctuation, which, however, improves as the com- 
position proceeds. But Edwin is much like any other boy: 
he risks a bold lie, but does not shrink from the just retribu- 
tion that must overtake him; he is whipped and sent to bed. 
He barely suffers the protesting Eve and is glad in a human 
way to use her as a scapegoat. "Oh, please mind your own 
business!" They never do, and here the child has put his 
finger on the eternal tragedy of things! 

Perhaps we have already read too much into these juve- 
nilia; at any rate, it is pleasing to have such relics of the young 
days of one who in his prime wielded his pen to such advan- 
tage, charmed so many readers, won so many hearts and 
souls and who, though dead, yet speaketh. 



WINTRY WINDS. 

BY HARRY LEE. 

O WINTRY winds a-blawin'. 

O starry roads and bare, 
How fain I am to follow 

The lonely ways ye fare. 

For, O, I seek a wee lamb, 
Wha wanners i' the cauld, 

I'd lift it frae the shadows, 
I'd bear it tae the fauld. 

For, O, I seek a wee bird, 
Wha's fallen frae the nest, 

I'd pick it up and haud it close, 
And warm it at my breast. 

O wintry winds a-blawin', 
O starry roads and bare, 

How fain I am to follow 
The lonely ways ye fare. 




A MID-WESTERN EXPERIMENT IN CATHOLIC 
COMMUNITY LIFE. 

BY JAMES LOUIS SMALL. 

(ISTURBANCES, whether political or religious, 
have not infrequently borne fruit in regions very 
far distant, geographically, from the scenes of 
active conflict. It is not strange, therefore, that 
the stirring events which took place in Germany 
during the middle years of the nineteenth century should have 
resulted in important social modifications in the newly ad- 
mitted State of Wisconsin, a section of country regarded at 
that time by the citizens of the United States itself as scarcely 
more than an outpost of civilization. In the late forties there 
began a migration from Germany to the Middle West, notably 
to Wisconsin, that increased in volume with the passing years 
and that was to prove a factor, by no means inconsiderable, in 
determining the future complexion of the commonwealth. 

The foregoing provides the background against which the 
present narrative is set. It has to do with a band of heroic 
Catholic pioneers, one hundred and thirteen in number, who 
in the early summer of the year 1854, set sail for the land of 
promise under the leadership of a pious and well-learned 
priest, the Rev. Ambrose Oschwald. 

Despite the fact that this feeble undertaking eventuated 
in one of the best known and most efficiently conducted com- 
munity plans in the central West, the sources of information 
concerning it are surprisingly scant. They are to be found 
principally in the very few survivors of the original colony; 
in fragmentary references in the State Historical Collection; 
and in a quaint old German pamphlet, published in 1867, en- 
titled, History of the Founding of the German Colony of St. 
Nazianz, in the Duchy (I) of Manitowoc, in the State of Wis- 
consin, in the United States of North America. From the year 
185b to the end of 1866. Together with a Description of the 
Economical, Political and Religious Conditions. 

The chronicle, quite obviously that of an eyewitness, is 
homely and direct in its wording and replete with a vividness 



794 EXPERIMENT IN COMMUNITY LIFE [Mar., 

that is often lacking in more technical historical record. The 
writer enumerates the causes that led to the exodus from the 
Grand Duchy of Baden: density of population (a condition 
prevalent in many European countries at that time, but par- 
ticularly so in the southern states of Germany) ; consequent 
inability to achieve progress; a bad political situation, arising 
from the revolution of 1848 and the occupation of the land by 
Prussian troops; the persecution of Catholics, and the evils of 
famine and poor crops. The chronicler goes on to say, with 
an emphasis touched by asperity, that the emigrants who in- 
itiated this venture were not political offenders. Actuated 
by a common motive, they had gathered together from the 
Black Forest, Klettgau, Breisgau, Schwabia and the Oden- 
walde, and placed themselves under Father Oschwald's 
guidance. 

The description of Father Ambrose Oschwald, as given by 
the colonists themselves, is that of a man with high priestly 
ideals, sunny disposition and considerable executive force; 
one, in brief, who was eminently fitted, not only to begin, but 
to carry on a work of the sort contemplated. Born March 
14, 1801, at Mundelfingen, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, of 
respectable peasant parents, his boyhood was in no wise dif- 
ferent from that of his companions. He was accustomed to 
help his father, who was a miller, and to take his part in the 
life of the community. At an early age, he manifested signs 
of vocation. These were encouraged by his parents, and 
young Ambrose was able to make his studies, first, in the 
gymnasium at Donaueschingen, then, at the University and the 
Seminary in Freiburg, Baden. In 1833 he was ordained. 

In the early years of his ministry, Father Oschwald enter- 
tained the idea of laboring in the foreign missions, an ambition 
which he finally relinquished to devote himself to the needs of 
his countrymen. In 1852, at the age of fifty-one, he matric- 
ulated at the University of Munich, where he spent two years 
in the study of medicine, a step actuated by plans for an 
American colony, which he seems to have been already con- 
sidering. It was his desire to be not only priest, but also 
physician to his little flock. This by the spring of 1854 was 
organized under the name of the Emigrant Association of St. 
Gregory Nazianzen, consisting in part of married folk with 
their children; in part of young unmarried men and women. 



1922.] EXPERIMENT IN COMMUNITY LIFE 795 

It is probably true that some of Father Oschwald's earlier 
ideas were open to criticism, and it is fairly well established 
that certain of his writings had met with the disapproval of 
the ecclesiastical authorities. That he submitted to the de- 
cisions of the latter is evident, since he was in good standing 
at the time he left his native land, having obtained permission 
to head the enterprise from his ordinary, Archbishop Hermann 
von Vikari of Freiburg. Also, he had opened a correspond- 
ence with the Right Rev. John Martin Henni, first Bishop 
of Milwaukee, and from the date of his arrival in America 
until his death, nineteen years later, there would seem to have 
been cordial agreement between himself and his superiors. 
On the testimony of all who knew him, he was a man of great 
zeal and personal holiness of life. 

The colonists, so we are informed by the anonymous 
author of the queer, old, green-backed pamphlet, harbored no 
delusions as to their future. "They were told that they must 
be prepared for almost anything; for the pleasant and the un- 
pleasant; for the sweet and the bitter; for dangers, depriva- 
tions and the difficulties of the journey; for exertions, cares, 
hard and heavy work. Nothing was concealed, but every- 
thing was explained before the setting-out." 

At last the long looked-for day of departure came; the 
final farewells were said, and the pilgrims started on their 
way, overland through Paris, to Havre. Thence, on the Feast 
of Corpus Christi, 1854, they turned faces westward to the 
open sea. They were divided into two companies, one of 
which was fifty-two, the other, fifty-five days in crossing the 
Atlantic; and both were beset with sea-sickness and storm, 
aggravated by all the disagreeable adjuncts of an ocean voyage 
of that time. 

The prospective colonists did not remain long in New 
York, but started almost immediately for the Middle West, 
arriving in Milwaukee in August. Worn out with fatigue, a 
number fell prey to illness and died. Shortly, there appeared 
upon the scene the inevitable land speculator, with whom a 
contract was concluded by which Father Oschwald purchased 
3,840 acres of land some eighty miles north of Milwaukee and 
twelve miles west of Lake Michigan, in Manitowoc County, for 
$3.50 an acre. Fifteen hundred dollars were paid down; the 
balance to be discharged in five installments. 



796 EXPERIMENT IN COMMUNITY LIFE [Mar., 

The last week in August saw the deal with the land 
speculators closed, and six men of the party on board a lake 
steamer en route to Manitowoc. There they hired a team and 
drove a number of miles inland through the woods, where 
they spent the night. Early next morning, they journeyed on. 
They were obliged to hew their own way through the wilder- 
ness, cutting down trees and making a road, until at last, that 
very day, they reached the spot where the village of St. 
Nazianz now stands. The following day a rainstorm came on, 
and they were drenched to the skin. Nevertheless, they had 
managed by nightfall to put up a little hut with the wood they 
had chopped. 

The naive story of these beginnings, as one gleans it from 
the old chronicle, reads very like a page from the Jesuit 
Relations of two centuries before, when the intrepid Mar- 
quette, Allouez and others of the valiant Company of Jesus 
had prayed and lived and ministered not so many leagues 
from that self -same spot: "We were very, very tired, made a 
fire and boiled some potatoes. These were all our provisions. 
Our bed was the earth, and a huge fire was our light and our 
warmth. Already, on this day, we had seen Indians, the 
original inhabitants of America heathen. It was the first day 
in our new fatherland, our new home. We closed it by saying 
the rosary, by religious conversation and by plans and ar- 
rangements for the future." 

Next, a cross was raised "with great joy." This first cross 
disappeared long years ago, but on the front of a neat, stucco 
cottage, standing close to the village street, a large crucifix 
with a weather-stained, oddly carved figure of the Mother of 
Sorrows at its foot marks the site. 

Very soon the hardy settlers set about building a block- 
house, of which they had seen models on the way. The first 
of September brought to them their leader, Father Oschwald, 
accompanied by eighteen or twenty men of the colony. A 
sort of community life was inaugurated at once. "The ele- 
vated cross was our church; the praying of the rosary at 
morning and night our Divine service; and our community 
was now, after eight days, increased to twenty-five or twenty- 
six persons." 

The succeeding weeks were hard ones. Unaccustomed to 
the severity of the climate, half of the colonists fell ill, and 



1922.] EXPERIMENT IN COMMUNITY LIFE 797 

before the setting-in of the new year six or seven lay buried 
in the little God's acre. But the survivors never lost cour- 
age. Often, we are told, as they sat about the blazing fire at 
the close of the day's work, Father Oschwald was in their 
midst entertaining and cheering them. Morning prayers were 
said beneath the trees; everyone was present at daily Mass, 
said in the log church, which by strenuous effort had been 
completed by late October and dedicated to St. Gregory 
Nazianzen; and in the rude "refectory" the Lives of the Saints 
were read at meals. 

The years that followed witnessed a development quite 
unique in the Catholic history of the State. This expansion, 
both spiritual and material, was accomplished in the face of 
adversity of almost every kind. There are simple, homely 
references to fires and harvest failures, to say nothing of 
trouble with the land speculator, as a result of which the best 
part of the holdings was sold at auction because of non-pay- 
ment. It seemed for a time as if the colony were doomed. 
Father Oschwald, however, was successful in his attempt to 
secure the aid of some Catholics outside, who advanced money 
and thus saved the day. 

In the meantime, women had come from Milwaukee to 
join the ranks, and the settlement began to assume the special 
form by which it was thereafter distinguished. The married 
people constituted the nucleus of the village, and the unmar- 
ried lived apart, the men in one building, the women in 
another. 

Much that is legendary, not to say fantastic, has been 
related of the life at St. Nazianz. Yet the plain truth of the 
matter is that the Oschwald community never contemplated, 
in itself, any plan beyond that of the primitive Christians, 
who held all things in common. They added to this a wil- 
lingness on the part of "Brothers" and "Sisters" to live a single 
life, dedicated to God. They were simply Franciscan Ter- 
tiaries, each of whom was at liberty to leave the community 
whenever he wished a privilege, in fact, of which a number, 
from time to time, availed themselves. Upon departure, each 
member was allowed to withdraw from the common fund the 
share that was his. 

In 1858 a Sisters' House arose, and six years later, on the 
Feast of St. Ambrose, December 7, 1864, the Brothers, who 



798 EXPERIMENT IN COMMUNITY LIFE [Mar., 

had been occupying the first floor of the old log church, moved 
into their permanent home. Both of these are standing today. 
The Sisters' House is as it was over a half century ago. Its 
rose-pink plaster walls and graceful, cross-crowned cupola 
suggest those old buildings of which Mrs. O'Shaughnessy has 
written so charmingly in her Alsace in Rust and Gold. In 
the centre is a courtyard and on one side of it a shadowy 
chapel. In the late sixties it must have been a veritable hive 
of activity, for at that period the community, which had 
reached the zenith of its prosperity, counted no less than one 
hundred and fifty Sisters, many of whom were engaged in 
needlework, gardening, housework and various handicrafts, 
and some of whom were teaching schools throughout the 
country. 

But now most of the rooms are empty and the corridors 
resound to but few footfalls. Here a half-dozen of the "Old 
Sisters," as they are familiarly known, are spending the 
evening of their days. They still recite the Breviary in Ger- 
man, as they have recited it these many years past; still wear 
their picturesque habit, a plain black dress, with short cape 
and broad-brimmed bonnet; and still bake the weekly supply 
of bread in the huge oven built by the colonists. 

The Brothers' House is a quarter of a mile beyond that of 
the "Old Sisters." It, too, is of plaster roomy, solid, three- 
storied, with beams as sound as on the day when they were 
hewn from the virgin forest. Like the Sisters' House, it has 
its bit of history. In 1867 eighty Brothers lived and toiled 
here. Downstairs in the low-ceilinged refectory one may read 
many of their names. They stand in a brave list, with a re- 
quest that the reader pray for their souls. Today the 
Brothers' House is part of the Salvatorian Fathers' College, 
set in the midst of fruitful orchard and fields of waving grain. 
In a large, sunny room of the old building lives Brother 
Wenzel, the very last of the Oschwald Brothers, only a year 
or so short of eighty, but hale and hearty for all that. 

In the course of a very few years the rich land of the 
neighborhood became peopled with thrifty Catholic immi- 
grants. The frame church of the first days was too small to 
accommodate the growing congregation, so the fine stone 
Church of St. Gregory Nazianzen was built upon the hill above 
the village. It stands there now, sturdy and strong, dominat- 



1922.] EXPERIMENT IN COMMUNITY LIFE 799 

ing the broad, cup-like valley at its feet; its stately tower a 
landmark for miles around; its bells pealing out their sum- 
mons to Mass and Arigelus. Clustered about it is the parish 
cemetery, where rows of wooden crosses mark the last resting 
place of Brothers and Sisters. 

The day that saw the death of the saintly Father Osch- 
wald, February 27, 1873, saw also the beginning of the end of 
the colony, as such. There were legal complications and 
other difficulties, such as are likely to follow upon a change 
in leadership. Father Oschwald's successor, the Rev. Peter 
Mutz, who was likewise his protege and a convert from 
Lutheranism, was a zealous and able priest. But in spite of 
his careful administration the community, as far as numbers 
were concerned, was undeniably on the decline. The Broth- 
ers and Sisters were growing older, and few recruits came to 
fill the gaps made by death. 

In 1896, there were in the community seventy-five, all 
told, and many of these were advanced in age. The Most 
Rev. F. X. Katzer, Archbishop of Milwaukee, realizing the 
necessity of action, if the property of the colony was to be 
saved to the Church, offered to the Society of the Divine 
Saviour, more commonly known as the Salvatorian Fathers, 
with whom he had become acquainted in Rome, the land 
and buildings of the Brothers. The terms of transfer stip- 
ulated that the Society should care for the surviving Brothers 
as long as they lived, an obligation, it may be remarked in 
passing, that has been faithfully discharged. 

The community founded by Father Oschwald, as has been 
previously stated, was misunderstood and its aims misinter- 
preted, even by Catholics. Various ideas were entertained 
concerning it, none of which had basis in fact. One catches a 
hint of this in the note of acerbity struck in the concluding 
chapters of the chronicle, which set forth the plan, purpose 
and work of the society. Its existence is justified by Holy 
Scripture, and reference is made to the mode of life of the 
early Christians as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. It is 
active-contemplative. It has no secrets, political or religious. 
Neither is it a "... factory, in which man is misused ... to 
enrich one man, or a company." On the contrary, "It is free." 
Neither is it a strict religious house, though it may become 
such. "Our society wishes to help each one who enters it to 



800 EXPERIMENT IN COMMUNITY LIFE [Mar., 

save both body and soul from temporal and eternal destruc- 
tion." "Our community (verein) is a preparatory school to 
the cloister." There is, too, an invitation to the reader to St. 
Nazianz, there to "serve God day and night," followed by a 
rather blunt intimation that "if you do not wish to hear about 
poverty, chastity and obedience, you cannot stay long here, 
for what the Nazianzers love, that you do not love; and what 
you love, that the Nazianzers hate." 

That the colonists wished, as far as possible, to remain 
separate from the rest of the world is a well established fact. 
We find in the chronicle strong expressions of aversion to ad- 
mitting into their midst those of different racial origin than 
their own, coupled with equally strong expressions of fidelity 
to the Government of the United States, their "new father- 
land," and a desire to abide by its laws. The Wisconsin of 
the fifties witnessed troublous times, with free-thinking 
"forty-eighters" bitterly aligned against both Catholics and 
Lutherans of German birth, which may account for the care 
taken by the community at St. Nazianz to abstain from a too 
active participation in politics. 

And what of the St. Nazianz of today? There are prob- 
ably few places in the central West that time has touched 
with gentler hand. To be sure, the primitive roads of sixty 
years since have been replaced by broad, well-kept highways 
threading their way through the fertile valley to the rail- 
way station six miles distant. The rural mail routes and the 
ubiquitous Ford have brought the great outside world very 
close to what was once a wilderness. But for the five or six 
hundred people of "the settlement," as it is still called, life 
goes on tranquilly and, for the most part, undisturbed. 

In the centre of the village is the first St. Gregory's, com- 
bination church and dwelling, in a room on the ground floor 
of which Father Oschwald breathed his last. The quaint, old- 
world carvings in the church above remain as they were in 
his day, and once in a long while Mass is celebrated at the 
altar where he broke the Bread of Life for the first Brothers 
and Sisters. He lies buried in the white-washed crypt of the 
Brothers' House, adjoining the college on the hill, and occa- 
sionally an aged priest comes from some distant point to say a 
prayer at his tomb and to tell of the days when he learned 
his classics in the Petite Seminaire that does present duty as 



1922.] EXPERIMENT IN COMMUNITY LIFE 801 

the Salvatorian novitiate. In the college museum are a few 
carefully preserved mementos of the colony's founder: his 
vestments; his sick call outfit; his biretta; his high silk hat, 
worn on state occasions; various altar ornaments, and a 
small volume, without title, written in precise script and 
dealing with various phases of medicine. 

The old liturgical "blessings" are still observed at St. 
Nazianz, that of the fruits of the earth on the Feast of the 
Assumption and of the chalk, incense and salt on the Epiph- 
any. There are out-of-door processions on the Rogation 
Days and the Feast of the Ascension, and on the Festival of 
Corpus Christi a procession of the Blessed Sacrament that 
lingers long in the memory of one who is so fortunate as to be 
a participant. 

After Solemn High Mass at the parish church the cortege 
emerges from the main doorway and wends its way down the 
village street. The flag is at the head, followed by the cruci- 
fix; then the children of the school, with the Sisters; priests 
and lay brothers with surplices of snowy white over their 
habits, and a bevy of little girls wearing wreaths and veils, 
who scatter the flowers of early summer before the Host, 
borne aloft beneath a gold-broidered canopy. Last of all, 
march the women and the men scores of them, many reciting 
the rosary as they walk. The blue June sky shines warmly 
upon the scene; the hammer and the forge are idle; and fields 
and meadows lie in silence on either side as the King of kings 
goes by. 

Before the convents and at the college there are altars of 
repose, where the procession pauses for Benediction. Along 
the roadway fragrant hay has been spread by loving hands 
for the passing of the Royal Guest, and there are triumphal 
arches of evergreen, topped by the Papal colors and the red, 
white and blue. Along the road and up the hill the long 
cavalcade winds, while the bells scatter their message of joy 
far across the countryside; then back again to the church for 
Solemn Benediction. It takes one back and away from the 
feverish activities of the age to times of greater quietude and, 
it may be, greater faith. 

Has the experiment at St. Nazianz turned out a failure? 
A casual observer would say, no doubt, that the prophecy 
made by a writer some years ago, that "the society does not 

VOL. CX1V. 51 



802 EXPERIMENT IN COMMUNITY LIFE [Mar., 

seem destined to a long life," 1 has found its fulfillment. 
Closer examination, however, discloses the wide differences 
existing between such a venture as that at St. Nazianz and the 
more ephemeral efforts at community life inaugurated by 
non-Catholics. Brother Wenzel, the last of the Oschwald 
band of men, and Sister Victoria, the Superior of the "Old 
Sisters," probably spend little time in speculating as to 
whether they or their communities have been "successes." 
They are content to leave the delivery of that verdict to God. 
Nevertheless, the results of the experiment are not to be 
despised. To have been responsible, in part at least, for the 
raising up of a number of other men and women for the serv- 
ice of God (for the roll of priests and religious that St. Nazianz 
has given to the Church is no mean one) ; and for the founda- 
tion upon which the work of the Salvatorian Fathers in Amer- 
ica rests today, assuredly does not indicate failure. On the 
contrary, it spells achievement, not alone in tangible things 
such as the fair acres wrested from the tangled wilderness 
but in the deeper things of the spirit, the things of which the 
founder of the colony may well have had inner vision on that 
Feast of Corpus Christi, 1854, when he set sail from Havre-de- 
Grace. 

1 Geographical Origin of German Immigration to Wisconsin, by Kate Everest 
Levi, in Wisconsin Historical Collections, vol. xiv., pp. 385-387. 



THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH: ITS RELATIONS WITH 
ROME AND CONSTANTINOPLE. 




BY F. AURELIO PALMIERI, O.S.A., D.D., PH.D. 

HE origins of Serbian Christianity are thoroughly 
Latin, and, indeed, Roman. According to the 
imperial historian, Constantine Porphyrogen- 
netos, the Emperor Heraclius (610-641) intrusted 
to Roman priests the task of baptizing the Serbs, 
and teaching them the Christian faith. These Serbians near 
the shores of the Adriatic were the first to abandon their 
idols, and to be drawn within the fold of Christ. Croatia 
contributed also to spread Christianity in Serbia. 

The early period of Serbian evangelization extends from 
642 to 731, while the second begins with Basil I. (867-886). 

During the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Serbian 
Church developed under the sway of Rome. The names of 
the Serbian princes (Zupany) are derived from Latin Chris- 
tianity. The fragmentary inscriptions of the most ancient 
Serbian churches and monasteries are Latin, and Latin words 
are scattered through Serbian liturgical books. The Russian 
historian of the Serbian Church, Eugenius Golubinsky, declares 
that the Popes exerted their jurisdiction upon the Serbian ter- 
ritory. The western portion of the Balkanic peninsula, down 
to the reign of Leo, the Isaurian (717-741), was placed under 
the jurisdiction of the Popes, and even the diocese of Saloniki 
was administered by a vicar of the Holy See. 

Constantine Porphyrogennetos tells us that Basil I. re- 
ceived an ambassador from Mutimir, Prince of Serbia, who 
called for Greek missionaries to preach the Gospel among 
his subjects. He promised, if his request were granted, to put 
himself and his princedom under the high protection of 
Byzantium. The Emperor complied with his wishes, and sent 
to him several Greek priests. This was the first contact of 
Serbia with Byzantine autocracy. The Serbians, however, 
made no formal submission to the Hierarchy of Byzantium. 
In the first half of the eleventh century, Stephen Voisthlavos 
negotiated with Rome concerning the foundation of the Latin 



804 THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH [Mar., 

See of Antivari, whose archbishop was the primate of Serbia. 
The Serbian Prince, Michael (1050-1084), son of Stephen, 
asked Gregory VII. (1073-1085) for the royal crown. The 
Pope granted it to him, and in one of his letters he calls him 
the dearest son of St. Peter: charissimum Beati Petri Filium. 1 
His son and successor on the throne of Serbia, Constantine 
Bodin (1084-1100), openly made profession of the Catholic 
faith. Hence, it follows that the history of Serbian Chris- 
tianity in the eleventh century is a chapter of the annals of 
the Catholic Church. 

For political reasons, Stephen Nemanya proclaimed the 
supremacy of the Orthodox faith within the limits of his king- 
dom. According to some historians, he was born a Catholic 
and, until after his thirtieth year, remained faithful to the 
Catholic Church. But in 1144, he allowed himself to be re- 
baptized in the Greek Church, abolished the autonomous prin- 
cipalities of his State, and set out to extirpate the Latin 
heresy. 2 From that time on Serbia was lost to the Catholic 
Church, and became the seat of a stubborn religious intoler- 
ance. 

In his old age, Stephen entered the monastery of Studen- 
ica, and later on went to that of Vatopedi on Mount Athos. He 
died February 13, 1199, in the monastery of Khilandar. His 
name is linked with that of his youngest son, Rastko, who early 
embraced the monastic life, and changed his name to Sava. 
He is venerated by Serbians as the founder of their national 
Church and the pioneer of their national literature. He left 
Mount Athos after the death of his father, and took the helm 
of Serbian policy. Thanks to his efforts, his brothers, Stephen 
and Wuk, were reconciled, and a treaty of peace was con- 
cluded with the Hungarians and Bulgarians. He founded the 
monastery of Zicha, which became the seat of the Serbian 
archbishops. He died at Tirnovo on January 14, 1236. His 
relics were transferred to the monastery of Mileshevo, and 
there they were venerated by the Serbians till 1594, when 
Sinan Pacha ordered them to be thrown into the fire, and their 
ashes to be scattered to the winds. The names of Stephen 
Nemanya and Sava fill the first pages of the national history 
of Serbia. Bishop Nicholas Velimirovich has remarked that 

1 Epist., lib. V. 13, P. L. V. CXLVIII., col. 498. 
2 1. Markovic, Oli Slavi ed i Papi, Zagreb, 1897, tome li., pp. 318, 319 



1922.] THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 805 

Stephen formed the body of Serbia, her political and ethnical 
unity, while his son, Sava, infused the soul by creating her 
religious unity. 3 

In fact, the autonomy of the Serbian Orthodox Church is 
the result of the diplomatic skill of Sava. In the earliest 
times, the spiritual chief of the Serbian Church was the Bishop 
of Rascia (Novi-Bazar) . Later, he was subject to the juris- 
diction of the Bulgarian Archbishop of Ochrida. Sava aimed 
to make his Church independent of both the Bulgarians and 
the Greeks. He traced out a scheme of religious autonomy, 
and submitted it to the approval of Emperor Theodore I. 
Laskaris (1204-1222), and of Manuel Sarantenos Charito- 
poulos, Patriarch of Constantinople. The Greek hierarchy 
was not willing to grant to Serbia an independent metropolis. 
However, the persistency of Sava won the day. Ipek became 
the seat of an autonomous archbishop, and Serbian territory 
was divided into ten dioceses. As a mark of a nominal de- 
pendency on the See of Constantinople, as well as of the or- 
thodoxy of its teaching, the Serbian Church was pledged to 
mention the name of the Patriarch in the liturgical functions. 
With regard to the Serbian clergy, the Archbishop of Ipek 
exercised the same jurisdiction as the Patriarch of Constanti- 
nople over the Byzantine clergy. Sava was the first Arch- 
bishop of Ipek, and by the promulgation of several ecclesias- 
tic constitutions, contributed to the organization of the Ortho- 
dox Serbian Church. 

In spite of Sava's religious hostility to Rome (he had imbibed 
it in the monasteries of Mount Athos), the relations of Serbia 
with the Holy See were not broken. His brother strove to 
maintain the union with Rome. "A skillful diplomat," writes 
Louis Leger, "he contrived to receive his crown from Rome, 
and to create in his Kingdom an orthodox archbishopric." 4 
First, he opened negotiations with Innocent III. (1216-1227). 
According to Thomas, archdeacon of Spalato, Stephen sent 
to Rome his ambassadors, who asked the Pope to grant their 
sovereign the royal crown. Complying with their request, the 
Pope sent a precious diadem. The ceremony of the crown- 
ing was performed by a Papal legate. 5 The earliest biog- 

* The Soul of Serbia, London, 191G, p. 57. 

* Serbes, Croates et Bulgares, Paris, 1921. 

9 Historia Salonitana, edited by F. Racki, Zagreb, 1894, p. 91. 



806 THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH [Mar., 

rapher of Sava relates that the ceremony took place in the 
monastery of Zicha, and Sava officiated. 6 Because of the 
privilege granted to him by the Holy See, Stephen was called 
Prvovencani (the first crowned). After the death of Stephen, 
the Serbian Church followed in the wake of Byzantium. Now 
and then, the Serbian Kings proposed to Rome the union of 
their independent Church with the Holy See. These proposi- 
tions, however, were suggested only by political reasons, and 
therefore, invariably failed. Nicholas IV. (1288-1292), wrote 
a letter to Stephen II. (Urosh Milutin), extolling the truth 
and beauty of the Catholic faith. He exhorted the King to 
follow that faith, and by his example, to reconcile his sub- 
jects with Rome. 7 

Later, the most celebrated among the Serbian Kings, 
Stephen Urosh Duchan (1331-1385), sent to Innocent IV. (1352- 
1362) a Catholic profession of faith. The Pope believed in 
his good will, and expressed his joy, and complained that, 
by fanaticism, some Serbian priests baptized and confirmed 
again those who had received their baptism and confirmation 
from the Latin clergy. Trusting in his promises, the Pope 
sent his legates to the court of Serbia. As soon as they 
reached their destination, they were forbidden to step out of 
their residences, to perform their religious functions, to ap- 
proach the Catholics, and after a short time they were forced 
to depart in the deepest humiliation for the failure of their 
mission. By his offer of reunion, Stephen Duchan was at- 
tempting to secure the title of Captain General of the crusade 
against the Turks, in order to exert a great influence upon 
European politics, and when his desires were frustrated, he 
became a violent foe of the Catholic Church. 8 His code of 
laws, which is praised as a monument of civil legislation, 
sanctioned the most severe chastisement of the Orthodox 
Christian who embraced the Catholic faith: the confiscation 
of property, exile, penal servitude in the mines, burning of 
the eyes and the like. 9 

The Russian historians of the Serbian Church praise the 

6 B. Danicic, Zivot sv. Simeuna i sv. Save (Life of St. Simeon and St. Sava), in 
Serbian. Belgrade, 1865, p. 245. 

T A. Theiner, Vetera monumenta historica Hungarian sacram illustrantia, Romae, 
1859, tome 1., p. 360. 

Theiner, op. ctt., tome 11., pp. 8-17. 

S. Novakovic, Zakonik Stefana Duchana (Code of Stephen Duchan), in Serbian. 
Belgrade, 1870, pp. 23, 24, 44. 



1922.] THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 807 

disloyalty of Duchan, and declare that no Orthodox King 
can be sincere in his relations with Rome. According to 
Cheltzov: "The Serbian Tzars were stanch defenders of the 
Orthodox faith against Latinism and the heresies. There 
were among them the promoters of a change of faith and of 
Roman Catholicism. Their conversions, however, were not 
sincere. They aimed only to take advantage of the moral 
authority of the Popes to improve their political condition. 
When the danger had vanished, they broke their friendship 
with the Popes. Mostly, their conversions were but indecisive 
relations with Rome." 10 

Under Duchan, the Serbian Orthodox Church proclaimed 
her independence from Byzantium. In 1345 or 1346, the king 
convoked a synod of the Serbian clergy. Symeon, the Bul- 
garian Patriarch of Tyrnovo, and the Bulgarian bishops, as 
well as the superiors (hegumonoi) of the Greek monasteries 
on Mount Athos, were invited to attend to it. The synod took 
place in the town of Skopia (Uskub), and it may be considered 
as the first alignment of the religious forces of Slavism against 
the Greek Church. Joanniki, Archbishop of Ipek, was elected 
Patriarch. Thus by the will of the King, the Serbian metrop- 
olis became a patriarchate. Callist I., Patriarch of Constan- 
tinople, did not conceal his irritation, and in 1352 anathema- 
tized the Serbian Church. The Serbian clergy paid no atten- 
tion to the drastic step of the Greek Patriarch. Joanniki 
continued consecrating Serbian bishops. Civil war, however, 
broke out among the monks of Mount Athos. The Greek 
monks broke off their relations with the Serbian Church. 
The influence of monasticism at that time was so great that 
Duchan sought a peaceful settlement of the conflict between 
the two Churches. In 1375, Philotheos, Patriarch of Byzan- 
tium, reestablished the ecclesiastical communion between 
the Greek and the Serbian Churches, and validated the deci- 
sions of the Synod of Uskub. The Patriarchate of Serbia was 
solemnly recognized by the Church of Constantinople on con- 
dition that freedom and protection be granted to the Greek 
metropolitans who lived in the territories conquered by the 
victorious Serbian armies. 

The Serbian Patriarchate endured four centuries. In 

10 Tzerkov korolevstva serbskago (The Church of the Serbian Kingdom), In 
Russian. Petrograd, 1899, p. 29. 



808 THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH [Mar., 

1389, Serbia lost her independence after the disaster of Kos- 
sovo, and became a province of Turkey. The Serbian Church, 
however, kept her organization. The dioceses founded by 
Stephen Duchan were not abolished. But after the fall of 
Constantinople, the conditions of the Church grew worse. 
The Slavic clergy at one time faced two enemies: Moham- 
medan intolerance and Greek nationalism. The Greek Pa- 
triarchate of Constantinople strove to hellenize the Slavic 
peoples of the Balkans and, at the end of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, its efforts met with success. 

In 1557 the Serbian Church had a short period of pros- 
perity, thanks to the protection granted her by Mohammed 
Sokolovic, a Serbian who had apostatized from the Christian 
faith. His brother, Macarius, a monk in Mount Athos, was 
elected Patriarch, and set about organizing the Serbian dio- 
ceses in Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania, 
Croatia, Hungary and Transylvania. Churches and monas- 
teries that had been destroyed were rebuilt. Mohammed died 
in 1574, and thereafter the Greeks renewed their attempts to 
subject Serbia to their religious influence. To escape their 
Mohammedan and Christian enemies in 1691, under the lead- 
ership of the Patriarch Arsenius III., 37,000 families emigrated 
to Austria; and in 1738 similar action was taken by Patriarch 
Arsenius IV. Such a large emigration furthered the Greek 
plans for the abolition of the independent Slavic patriarch- 
ates. First, they obtained from the Sublime Porte a ruling 
that Greek bishops must be selected for the Serbian dioceses. 
After the flight of Arsenius IV., a Greek, Bishop Joannikios 
III., assumed control of the Serbian Church. In 1762 the 
patriarchal dignity was vested in another Greek bishop, 
Gabriel IV., who abjured the Christian faith and embraced 
Mohammedanism under the name of Mehmet Effendi. Prac- 
tically, the Serbian Church ceased to exist. In their national 
fanaticism, the Greek bishops burned the Slavic liturgical 
books, and forced the Serbian priests to adopt the Greek 
liturgy. 

In 1766 Samuel Khantzeris, Patriarch of Constantinople, 
thought the moment had arrived to extirpate the Slavic Pa- 
triarchates of Ochrida and Ipek. In September of that year, 
he convoked a synod of Greek bishops and proclaimed the 
abolition of the latter Patriarchate. In vain, the Serbian 






1922.] THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 809 

bishops raised their protest. They were expelled from their 
dioceses, and replaced by Greek bishops. Ecclesiastically, the 
Serbian dioceses passed under the jurisdiction of the Patri- 
arch and of the Greek aristocracy of Constantinople the 
so-called Phanariotes. "But the Serbian clergy withstood all 
the attempts to denationalize them, and remained faithful to 
their Slavic liturgy. Under the Greek hierarchy, popular in- 
struction sank into decay, and the Episcopal Sees were put 
up for sale by the Greek Patriarch and the Turkish Govern- 
ment." 11 

The rebirth of the Serbian Church followed closely the 
insurrectionary movement for political independence. The 
latter was inaugurated by Karageorghi in 1803. The Greek 
bishops sided with the Turks and one of them, Metropolitan 
Leontius, became a spy for them. The lower clergy, all Serb- 
ians, gave their blood for the triumph of the revolution. 
Many of them were murdered in Belgrade; many others were 
martyrized. The most venerated among these martyrs are 
hegumon Paisius, and deacon Avakum, who were impaled. 

The first revolution failed. A new one broke out in 1815, 
following the unspeakable cruelties of the Turks. Milosh 
Obrenovic took up arms against them, and by glorious deeds, 
the Serbian priests and monks won the gratitude of their coun- 
trymen. The energetic support of Russia saved Serbia from 
a new catastrophe. In 1830 she was recognized by the Sub- 
lime Porte as an independent State. A special paragraph of 
the proclamation of her independence (hatty-sherif), set forth 
that "the Metropolitan and the bishops of the Serbian nation 
shall be confirmed in their dignities by the Patriarch of Con- 
stantinople, without any obligation on their part personally 
to visit him." In order to avoid annoyance from the Greek 
Hierarchy, in 1832, the Serbian Government formulated a 
convention with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, by virtue 
of which the Serbian Church was accorded entire freedom in 
the election of its bishops. The Archbishop of Belgrade as- 
sumed the title of Metropolitan of Serbia. The Serbian Gov- 
ernment promised to communicate the names of the new 
bishops to the Patriarch, and to have his approval. A sum of 
three hundred Turkish lire ($1,300) a year was fixed as an 

"A. Lopukhin, Istoriia khristianskoi tzerkvi (History of the Christian Church, 
in Russian, tome ii., 1901, p. 407. 



810 THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH [Mar., 

indemnity to the Patriarch for the loss of his Serbian Sees 
The Metropolitan of Belgrade could not be deposed without 
the previous consent of the Patriarch. The name of the Patri- 
arch had to be commemorated in the Divine offices celebrated 
by the Metropolitan. 

In 1836, a national consistory was founded for the better 
organization of the Serbian Church, and in 1847, when the 
ecclesiastical constitution of the Serbian Kingdom was pro- 
mulgated, Belgrade became the seat of a Synod of bishops. 
In 1862, the Serbian Church passed through a storm of liberal- 
ism. The Government attempted to laicize her institutions. 
The lay department of the Church was established with the 
purpose of restraining the liberties of the clergy. It was 
during this period of lay control, and particularly in 1879, 
that the Serbian Church proclaimed her complete independ- 
ence from Constantinople. The bonds of union with the 
Greek Patriarch were limited to the commemoration of his 
name in the liturgy, to notice as to the nomination of the new 
Metropolitan of Belgrade, and to the purchase of the Holy 
Oils. The Metropolitan Michael fought valiantly for the de- 
fence of the ecclesiastical liberties. In 1881, the Government 
expelled him from his See, and forced the clergy to pay a duty 
for the exercise of their ministry. 

In 1890 a new ecclesiastical constitution was elaborated. 
Some changes were made in 1893, 1894 and 1901, when King 
Alexander Obrenovic promulgated the new constitution of his 
Kingdom. According to the new constitution, the Orthodox 
faith is the official religion of Serbia. The Serbian Church 
does not depend on the See of Constantinople. She is gov- 
erned by a Synod of five bishops. The Synod elects arch- 
bishops and bishops, upon the approval of the King. The re- 
lations between the Church and State are regulated by the 
Department of Worship. The Synod assembles twice yearly 
under the presidency of the Metropolitan of Belgrade. The 
affairs of the eparchies are attended to by a consistory of four 
priests under the presidency of the bishop. When this con- 
stitution was issued the Serbian Church had only five dio- 
ceses: Belgrade, Chabatz, Negotin, Nish and Ushitza. The 
Serbian monasteries numbered fifty-four. 

The political reunion of all the Southern Slavs under the 
political sway of Serbia makes necessary a reorganization of 



1922.] THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 811 

the Serbian Church on broader lines, and a new alignment 
towards the Catholic faith. Before the War, the Orthodox 
population of the Serbian Kingdom amounted to 2,880,000. 
With her new territorial conquests, the Serbian Church em- 
braces at the present time about six millions of Orthodox 
within the limits of Jugo-Slavia. Therefore, the first task of 
the Serbian Church is the religious unification of all Serbians. 
This problem was discussed in the meeting of all the Serbian 
bishops, held at Belgrade, May 26, 1919. A decision could not 
be taken without a preliminary understanding with the Greek 
Patriarch. At the end of the same year, the Patriarch con- 
sented to renounce his jurisdiction over ten Metropolitan Sees 
of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Old Serbia and Macedonia upon the 
payment of an indemnity equivalent to $300,000. At the same 
time, the Serbian Government negotiated the exemption of 
the Metropolitan Sees of Zara and Cattaro from the jurisdic- 
tion of the Patriarch of Cernowitz. 12 The Serbian Orthodox 
bishops have also discussed the opportunity of reviving the 
ancient Patriarchate. According to Dr. R. Kazimirovia, the 
reestablishment of the Patriarchate is an historic necessity 
for the Serbian Church, because the Patriarch would be the 
centre of unity for all the Orthodox of Serbia, Croatia and 
Slovenia. A full scheme of the duties and prerogatives of the 
Patriarch was inserted in the Srpska Crkva (The Serbian 
Church), the Orthodox Serbian review of Sarajevo. In the 
month of October of last year the same review published a 
proclamation issued by the regent, Alexander, and Paul Marin- 
kovic, Minister of Worship. According to this document, 
"the Patriarchate of Serbia is restored. Its titular, the suc- 
cessor of St. Sava, Arsenius, Daniel I., Joanniki, Macarius, 
Gabriel, Arsenius and other illustrious hierarchs will bear the 
name of Serbian Patriarch of the Orthodox Church of the 
Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian Kingdom." 13 

The restoration of the Patriarchate took place on August 
30th (September 12th). Of course, the Serbian press expects 
from the change of a title the best results for the united 
Serbian Orthodox Church, and a renewal of religious life. 
In 1909 Dr. Sava Urosevic, Dean of the University of Belgrade, 
said: "Our Church is in arrears as concerns her task of edu- 

" F. Grivec, Srbski cerkveni (Serbian Ecclesiastical Problem), Cas, 1920, xiv 
pp. 85, 86, ID.; Pravoslavje (The Orthodoxy), Ljubljana, 1918, pp. 89-92, in Slovenian. 
" Srpska Crkva, 1920, n. 5, pp. 193, 194. 



812 THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH [Mar., 

eating the common people. Christian faith among us is only 
a series of ritual ceremonies. Our clergy are not awakening 
from their torpor, and they are unable to preserve the purity 
of their faith. The Serbian Church is not equal to her mis- 
sion." 14 

At the moment when we write, the relations between the 
two clerical orders have been embittered, because of the ques- 
tion of the second marriage of widowed priests. In 1907 the 
Dalmatian Bishop Nicodem Milas published a treatise about 
the sacerdotal consecration not being a canonical impediment 
to marriage. His daring assertion opposed the constant tra- 
dition of the Orthodox Church that does not allow the mar- 
riage of the priests after their consecration. The pamphlet 
of Milas gave rise to a lively polemic. In the congress of the 
low clergy, held at Belgrade, August 21 to 23, 1919, the Serbian 
priests invited their bishops to sanction the second marriage 
of the widowed priests. But in a pastoral letter, signed by 
seven metropolitans and ten bishops (December 14, 1921), 
the Serbian episcopate rebuked the lower clergy for the re- 
quest. 15 

Some Serbian Orthodox writers suggest a rapprochement 
with Rome. The reunion with the Catholic Church is to be 
discussed in the meeting of the Serbian episcopate, and has 
already found a sturdy defender in the person of Bishop 
Nicholas Velimirovic, the great friend and admirer of the 
Episcopalian Church of the United States. 

The situation of the Catholic Church in Serbia has re- 
cently improved considerably, following the concordat of June 
24, 1912, between Cardinal Merry del Val and the Serbian 
delegate, Milenec R. Vesnic. The concordat was incorporated 
in the Serbian Civil Code (July 2, 1912). Its first paragraph 
grants freedom to the Catholic Church in Serbia. The con- 
stitution of July 11, 1861, had already proclaimed freedom of 
worship on condition, however, that nothing be attempted 
against the welfare of the Orthodox Church. These words 
meant that conversions of Orthodox to the Catholic faith were 
strictly forbidden. The concordat abolishes this restriction 
and opens the frontiers of Serbia to Catholic missionaries. 
Other paragraphs concern the restoration of the Catholic 
archiepiscopal See of Belgrade which had existed in the 

14 F. Grivec, op. cit., p. 93. l Srpska Crkva, April, 1920, p. 67. 



1922.] THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH 813 

fourth century and of the diocese of Skopia (Uskub), which 
in 1745 was included in the diocese of Prizren. 

Before the War, these dioceses contained 17,000 Cath- 
olics, ten parishes, twelve churches and fourteen secular 
priests. The State assigns an allowance of 16,000 dinari 
($3,200) to the Archbishop of Belgrade and $2,000 to the 
Bishop of Skopia. The concordat is also concerned with the 
privileges of the Catholic clergy, the hierarchy, ecclesiastical 
goods, seminaries, the relations of the Catholics with Rome 
and of the use of the Slavic tongue in the liturgical prayers. 

No doubt, the rights and life of the Catholic Church are 
satisfactorily guaranteed by the Serbian concordat. Some 
Orthodox writers even complain that too much freedom is 
allowed to Catholic Serbians, while the State exerts severe 
control over the Orthodox clergy. 16 In spite, however, of 
some opposition, for the present, the Serbian Government 
seems disposed to observe the clauses of the concordat. 

Still more important, the Orthodox clergy are voicing 
peace and concord. Bishop Nicholas Velimirovic writes that 
Catholic and Orthodox, with a common inheritance of suffer- 
ings, should exercise mutual tolerance in their denomina- 
tional divergencies and mutual affection in the things which 
they hold in common. The former are only ten per cent.; the 
latter ninety per cent. Jugo-Slavia is convinced that a com- 
plete harmony will establish closer relations between the two 
clergies and the two Churches. 

"I am fully convinced," he writes, "that to love rather 
than to logic belongs the primacy in the problem of the re- 
union of Christianity. We must unite in action, in our daily 
relations, and give each other a helping hand in charitable 
works. This mutual help will make us tolerant, and toler- 
ance, in turn, will open the way to reunion and find us a 
common logical foundation. . . . All we Jugo-Slavs are sure 
that there will be harmony and unanimity between the two 
priesthoods, the two confessions and the two Churches in the 
future Serbian State." 17 

These words from the pen of an Orthodox Serbian bishop 
are consoling. They are more authoritative than the vulgar 

ta G. Rozman, Srbski konkordat iz 1. 191b, Cas, 1920, Ljubljana, 1920, i., pp. 9-29, 
87. Cardinal N. Marliil, La conclusione del Concordato fra la Santa Sede e la Serbia. 
Bessarione, Rome, 1914, pp. 26-32. 

" The Soul of Serbia, pp. 70-72. 



814 THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH [Mar., 

invective of some bigoted Orthodox of the old sort, who depre- 
cate the reunion of Eastern and Western Christianity as the 
ruin of the political grandeur of the Southern Slavs. 18 It is a 
widespread calumny that the Catholic Church is responsible 
for the national misfortunes of the Slavic peoples. 19 The truth 
is some Slavic nations lost their independence and underwent 
a lasting martyrdom under the intolerance and shortsighted 
policy of an Orthodox nation. Poland, for example, in her 
national distress, under the tyrannical yoke of Orthodox Rus- 
sia, found the bulwark of her national spirit in the Catholic 
Church and in the Catholic clergy. The first and constant 
apostle of the union and solidarity of all the Slavic peoples 
was a Catholic Croatian priest, Sergius Krizanic (seventeenth 
century). The pioneer of the literary renaissance of the 
Southern Slavs was a Catholic bishop, Strossmayer, founder 
of the Academy of Sciences and of the University of Zagreb* 
During the War, the Catholic clergy of Slovenia and Croatia 
paid dearly for their Slavic patriotism. If the apostles of the 
Slavs came from Greece, they went also to Rome for help, 
guidance, approval and encouragement. In its most brilliant 
periods, the history of the Slavs is intertwined with the history 
of the Papacy. And now that Orthodox Serbia may bathe in 
the azure waves of the Adriatic, near the shores whence civil- 
ization and Christianity came to her ancestors, an opportunity 
is given the Orthodox Serbian Church to renew her spirit and 
life in a closer contact with the Church that needs no unity 
for herself, but is the source of unity for the other Churches 
withering in their national isolation. 20 

" Sec the fanatical pamphlet of Dr. Grubac, Pravoslavic i unit Hi Srbi braco, 
cuvaite pradedovsku veru (The Orthodoxy and the Union, or, Serbians, My Brothers, 
Be True to the Faith of Your Ancestors). Karlowitz, 1920. In Serbian. 

19 The Servian People. Their Past Glory and Their Destiny. New York, 1910, 
vol. i., p. 344. 

* For a complete bibliography concerning the Serbian Orthodox Church, see : 
A. Palmieri, Cattolictsmo e ortodossia nella Serbia, Florence, 1921, pp. 21-23, 41-44, 
64. R. M. Grujic, Pravoslavna Srpska Crkva (The Serbian Orthodox Church), in 
Serbian. Belgrade, 1921, pp. 180-196. 







LILY LORE. 

BY HARRIETTS WILBUR. 

HE lily, more than any other flower, appeals to 
the aesthetic, the spiritual, the religious side of 
man's mind. The very word, used as an adjec- 
tive, is always synonymous with pale, delicate, 
white, pure: "The earth was pushing the old, 
dead grass with lily hand from her bosom," says Phoebe Gary 
in one of her poems, using the word with a pretty double 
meaning. The mental picture created by the word lily is 
always that of a white, trumpet-like blossom, shooting from its 
earthy-brown body and towering high above the green leaves 
surrounding it, typical of the human soul in its strivings heav- 
enward, and universally accepted as the emblem of innocence 
and purity. This mental picture persists, in spite of the well- 
known fact that many members of the lily family are not 
white at all, but purple-spotted, orange-striped, yellow-tipped 
or red-leaved, the most garish and worldly flowers to be found 
anywhere. For the mind of man has intuitively idealized the 
large white species (Lilium candidum) , originally from the 
Levant, but cultivated for centuries in garden-beds and flower- 
pots; it is "the lily," while the more showy species must be 
designated by specific names. 

The Greeks and Romans regarded it as a symbol of pur- 
ity, and among many nations it was the emblem of virginity 
and innocence. Because of its spiritual character, this flower 
is the one most frequently seen in religious paintings, being 
dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, to many of the saints and to 
the Angel Gabriel and other heavenly messengers. As one 
writer has said: "It is especially fitting that the lily should 
represent the Virgin Mary, for as the venerable Bede pointed 
out long ago, the pure white petals signify her spotless body, 
and the golden anthers within, typify her soul sparkling with 
divine light. Hence, its common name of Madonna Lily. It 
is also the Annunciation Lily, because in Italian art the Angel 
Gabriel, when appearing before the Virgin, holds in his hand 
a branch of the blossoms. Because of its association with 



816 LILY LORE [Mar., 

Annunciation Day, observed on March 25th, the flower natur- 
ally became used and cultivated for Easter decorations, the 
trumpet-shaped blossoms seeming particularly fitted for an- 
nouncing spiritual tidings. Rossetti, in describing that hand- 
maid of the Virgin, The Blessed Damozel, speaks of the lilies 
three, which "lay as if asleep along her bended arm." 

The lily is also dedicated to the service of St. Swithin, 
who is called the "rainy saint," because the pre-harvest 
showers are under his care. It was probably made St. 
Swithin's flower because of its large cup, which, however, as 
poets have observed, can be filled to overflowing: 

And her head droop'd as when the lily lies 
O'er charged with rain; Lord Bryon. 

My heart 

Is little, and a little rain will fill 
The lily's cup which hardly moists the field. 

Edwin Arnold. 

You have been wretched, yet 

The silver shower, whose reckless burthen weighs 
Too heavily upon the lily's head, 
Oft leaves a saving moisture at its root. Wordsworth. 

As the symbol of purity, the white lily has received many 
lovely tributes from the poets. It is "the lily without stain," 
"the lily, wearing the white dress of sanctuary, to be more 
fair," "the lily, of all children of the spring the palest, fair- 
est," "the lady lily, looking gently down;" they are "lilies angel- 
ical," "pure lilies meet for a young virgin's bier," and "Mary's 
lilies like virgins white and pure." 

and she that purifies the light, 
The virgin lily, faithful to her white, 
Whereon Eve wept in Eden for her shame. 

Thomas Hood. 

The nun-like lily bows without complaint, 
And dies a saint. Susan Coolidge. 

The nobility of the flower has also become proverbial. 



1922.] LILY LORE 817 

Linnaeus speaks of the lily tribe as "nobles (or patricians) of 
the vegetable kingdom," and Pliny remarks, "Liltum nobilitate 
proximum est The lily is next in nobility to the rose." In 
France, where the lily was largely employed as an emblem, 
it was regarded as the king of flowers, the rose being their 
queen : 

Shining lilies tall and straight 

For royal state. Christina G. Rossetti. 

However, one poet writes of "alabaster lilies" and calls them 
"graceful slave girls, fair and young, like Circassians." 

In German folk-lore, the soul is supposed to take the 
form of a flower; and from the grave of one unjustly exe- 
cuted, white lilies are said to spring as a token of martyred 
innocence. A legend current in Spain is to the effect that 
after a particularly devout inmate of a monastery near Se- 
ville was buried, a lily sprang from the grave, and, curious 
to know its origin, the abbot ordered the body to be exhumed, 
whereupon it was found that the heart of the good man had 
become the root of the flower. 

Above his head, 

Four lily stalks did their white honors wed 
To make a coronal. John Keats. 

A natural reincarnation is hinted in the poetical line "drifts 
of lilies which mimic winter's snows," and beautifully de- 
scribed by Lucy Larcom in "Snow-Bloom:" 

Where does the snow go, 

So white on the ground? 
Under Mary's azure 

No flake can be found? 
Look into the lily 

Some sweet summer hour; 
There blooms the snow 

In the heart of the flower. 

In many rural districts in England, white lilies are be- 
lieved to be a charm against evil spirits, and so are placed 
over doors and about the house, to protect a home and its in- 
mates from witchcraft and such ill fortune. The Great White 

VOL. CXIY. 52 



818 LILY LORE [Mar., 

Lily (Lilium candidum) was believed by the Jews to counter- 
act all witchcraft and enchantments, for which reason Judith 
is said to have crowned herself with a wreath of lilies before 
she went to the tent of Holof ernes, to protect herself from the 
very evil she meant to inflict upon him. In Spain, it was 
long held powerful to restore human form to any who had 
fallen under enchantment and been changed to beasts. In a 
garden in that land, in 1048, an image of the Blessed Virgin 
was seen to issue from one of these flowers in the royal gar- 
den, which restored the king, who lay ill of a dangerous dis- 
ease. In recognition of the Divine help, the king organized 
the Knights of St. Mary of the Lily, three centuries before a 
similar order was instituted by the ninth Louis of France. 
This idea has been used by Longfellow: 

Bear a lily in thy hand; 

. ' Gates of brass cannot withstand 

One touch of that magic wand. 

Shakespeare has used the lily to point a moral, which he 
does with such brevity that it has much the nature of a 
proverb : 

Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. Sonnet XCV. 

In Titus Andronicus, he has made good use of the observa- 
tion that when drying, the flower exudes a sort of thick sap: 

then fresh tears 

Stood on her cheeks, as doth the honey dew 
Upon a gather'd lily almost wither'd. 

Omar Khayyam, too, found a moral in the lily, which 
might with profit be pondered by the Russian peoples while 
seeking democracy: 

Know ye why the Lily fair as freedom's flower is shown? 
With ten well-developed tongues, the Lily never speaks. 

Aside from any symbolical meaning, the lily has a phys- 
ical beauty which has appealed to the poet as well as to 
flower-lovers everywhere. There are "gold-hearted lilies," 



1922.] LILY LORE 819 

"lilies of the moorland, amber-eyed," "pale hedge-lilies that 
round the dark elder wind," "lily bells that trembling laughter 
fills," "milk-white lilies, stately and tall," "lilies crouched 
under the mossy-green parapet, rocking their white heads 
like mourners," "tall June lilies in raiment white and gold," 
"lilies in white veils," "flashing lilies," "tall white lilies gleam- 
ing athwart the dusk like spears of silver;" and 

the milk-white lilies 
That lean from the fragrant hedge, 
Coquetting all day with the sunbeams, 

And stealing their golden edge. Alice Gary. 

And the wand-like lily, which lifted up 
As a Maenad, its moonlight-colored cup, 
Till the fiery star, which is its eye, 
Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky. 

Shelley. 

It is now commonly believed that the lily referred to in 
the Sermon on the Mount is some liliaceous plant, such as the 
wild tulip, or even that gorgeous member of the buttercup 
family, Anemone coronaria: "And why take ye thought for 
raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; 
they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, 
that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one 
of these." It would be expected that the poets would make 
generous use of this beautiful parallel, yet two references 
to it by Alice Gary are the only ones I have found in a list 
of nearly ninety quotations: 

The lily wears a royal dress 

And yet she doth not spin. "Signs of Grace." 

And the right royal lily, putting on 

Her robes, more rich than those of Solomon, 

Opened her gorgeous missal in the sun, 

And thanked Him, soft and low, 

Whose gracious, liberal hand had clothed her so. 

"Field Preaching." 

And in these, particularly in the second quotation, some one 



820 LILY LORE [Mar., 

of our native species is implied, such as the Canada Lily 
(Lilium canadensis) or the Red Lily (Lilium philadelphicum). 
Leaving the White Lily, we find that the poets have not 
been blind to the colored members of the family, "like torches 
lit for carnival." Robert Browning has devoted some half- 
dozen lines or so to a colorful description of the Garden 
Turk's Cap Lily (Lilium martagon) when he has Pippa ex- 
claim with joy: 

Oh, is it surely blown, my martagon? 
New-blown and ruddy as St. Agnes' nipple! 
Plump as the flesh-bunch on some Turk-bird's poll! 
Be sure if corals, branching 'neath the ripple 
Of ocean, bud there fairies watch unroll 
Such turban-flowers! I say, such lamps disperse 
Thick red flame through that dusk-green universe. 

The Tiger-Lily of the garden (Lilium tigrum) comes in for her 
share of praise, or of blame, according to the viewpoint of the 
poet observing her. Richard Henry Horne, describing Orion's 
hounds, speaks of their "skins, clouded or spotted, like the 
tiger-lily." Another poet mentions a "sable butterfly, the 
tiger-lily's knight, that flutters round her theft of evening sky." 
Titus M. Coan mentions "the panthers of the meadows, tiger- 
lilies," Austin Dobson speaks of tiger-lilies which "swayed, 
like courtiers bowing till the queen be gone," and to Alfred 
Tennyson "heavy hangs the tiger-lily." On the whole, she is 
much admired. 

The California poets have noted that the "leopard lily 
lights the heather dun," that "among the reeds and rushes 
wild leopard-lilies drop the while to hide their conscious 
blushes," and the "late shorn meadow red with the leopard 
lily blossoms" all referring to the Lilium paradalium, a 
western species having mottled orange flowers. 

The Red Lily (Lilium philadelphicum) is one of the most 
beautiful of our midsummer blossoms, found rather plenti- 
fully in open copses and among bushes in the pasture lands 
of New England. Lucy Larcom writes of "red lilies blazing 
out of the thicket," Lowell knew of a nook "where red lilies 
flaunted," Paul Hamilton Hayne, in his poem, "The Red Lily," 
compares a certain maiden he knows to this flower which 
"stands from all her milder sister flowers apart." And Elaine 



1922.] LILY LORE 821 

Goodale, not to be outdone by her sister, has written a poem 
to this rival of the Canada Lily, entitled "Wood Lilies:" 

Through trellised roadway edges 

And open woodland range, 
By ruined walls and hedges, 

Laid low through endless change, 
They kindle sparks of beauty, 

Flow upward ever higher, 
And break the moveless verdure, 

With shifting lines of fire. 

There are in all about fifty species of the genus Lilium, or 
the true lilies; but the poet has limited his observation to these 
half-dozen common species. To be sure, the name lily is ap- 
plied to many other plants, members of the lily family which 
belong to different genera, such as Tulipa, Yucca, Hyacinthus, 
Fritillaria, and so on, and even to lily-like plants of different 
families, such as Amaryllis, Lily of the Valley and such "false" 
lilies. But to quote everything the poets have had to say of 
the lily's kinsfolks, near and distant, would take us too far 
afield, so it is wiser to hurry back to our own home garden, 
from whence we started, where we may still 

See the young lilies, their scymitar-petals 
Glancing like silver 'mid earthier metals; 
Dews of the brightest in life-giving showers 
Fall all the night on these luminous flowers. 
Each of them sparkles afar like a gem, 
Wouldst thou be smiling and happy like them? 

James C. Mangan. 




DEDICATION. 

BY MARIE ANTOINETTE DE ROULET. 

O one in the house knew anything about the young 
stranger's antecedents. No one had even known 
that he was ill until the landlady, trudging up 
to his room with a fresh supply of clean towels, 
found him lying unconscious across his bed. 
She had sent for the doctor, and had then put the white, 
emaciated lad to bed. 

Now doctor and priest both had come and gone. The 
doctor had diagnosed the case as hopeless weak constitu- 
tion, slow starvation, and, as a finishing touch, pneumonia. 
The priest had waited for an interval of consciousness, and 
had then administered the Last Sacraments. But in that 
neighborhood the calls on them were so many and so urgent, 
neither priest nor doctor could linger long at one bedside. 

The kind-hearted landlady had many duties awaiting her, 
and the poor lad would have been left to die alone, had not 
the little artist from the floor above offered to watch with him. 
"There's not much you can do for the poor boy, except 
say your prayers," said the landlady, "but it do seem awful 
pitiful to die alone." 

"It does," agreed Martha, "what was it Cardinal Newman 
said? 

" 'God grant me in a Christian land, 
'Mid Christian friends to die.' " 

So saying, she left the landlady's little office and mounted 
the stau*s. There was a set of drawings awaiting completion 
in her tiny studio the only order in two weeks but Martha's 
was the whole-hearted charity of the poor, that forgot its own 
need in ministering to another's. 

The stranger was unconscious or asleep when Martha 
entered. She sat on a chair beside the bed, her rosary slip- 
ping through her fingers. 

At length, the sufferer opened his eyes. They rested 
questioningly on Martha's strong, young face. 



1922.] DEDICATION 823 

"Was I wounded, Madam?" he asked. 

"I think it's pneumonia," Martha answered gently. 

"No matter what, if it's for Ireland. We're holding out?" 

"I do not know," Martha evaded. 

"Madam would know. It's not Madam! Who are you?" 
the tired voice insisted. 

Martha was an idealist, a dreamer, but in all her vague 
and romantic fancies she had never imagined anything 
stranger than this situation. Trying to make her voice and 
manner natural, she replied: 

"I'm just Martha Fleming. I came in to sit with you. 
You are sick, you know." 

"I thought I thought this was Easter Week. I have been 
dreaming of them. Why didn't they shoot me? I was as 
much against them as Pearse and MacDonagh. We all 
wanted to get back Kathleen Ni Houlihan's four green fields 
from the stranger. They shot the others and let me go." 

He was wandering; half delirious. Martha laid her cool, 
artist's hand on his hot forehead, and he continued in a weary 
monotone : 

"They put me in prison the English, and when I got out 
I came on the ship to New York. But I could not find work, 
and I think I caught a bit of a cold. It's chilly here in the 
winter. 

"Living, I could do little to serve my country, and I could 
not even die for her." 

"You are dying in exile for her," Martha suggested 
shyly. 

"So many have died in exile, and she is still in chains. 
The Irishmen who died fighting in foreign armies used to say: 
'Would that this blood were shed for Ireland.' " 

"Offer your death as a sacrifice for for " 

"For the freedom of Erin! For the freedom of Erin!" 
He half rose to a sitting posture, but Martha's quiet hand re- 
strained him as he started to sing: 

" 'Princely O'Neill to your aid is advancing 
With many a chieftain and warrior clan. 
A thousand proud steeds in his vanguards are prancing 
'Neath borderers brave from the banks of the Bann. 

Many a heart shall quail 

Under its coat of mail; 



824 DEDICATION [Mar., 

Deeply the merciless foeman shall rue, 

When on his ear shall ring 

Borne on the breeze's wing, 
Tirconnell's dread war-cry, "O'Donnell aboo!"'" 

When he came to the chorus, Martha, who had heard the 
song before, joined in, and her clear mezzo-soprano mingled 
with what had once been a fine barytone. 

He was weakening rapidly, and babbled feverishly of 
Meath and his boyhood dreams. 

"Weak always in body," he muttered, "but never a sup of 
food did I take without praying it would make me strong to 
serve Erin. And who should serve Her if not myself the 
last descendant of the O'Neill?" 

"Is there no one to whom you wish to send a message?" 
ventured Martha, wondering if some mother was waiting in 
vain for news of her son. 

"I have no one," he answered. "There are none of us left 
there, where my ancestors presided over the Feis at Tara!" 

"At Tara!" she echoed, summoning her vague knowledge 
of Irish history. 

His mind seemed to clear a little as he answered : 

"My boyhood thrilled with Irish history. I traced my an- 
cestry back to the days when the O'Neill, King of Ulster, was 
\he Ardri of all Erin; and farther back when the McLaughlin, 
King of Meath, was Ardri. Meath was absorbed by Ulster, 
and the O'Neill, the over-king, married the McLaughlin's 
daughter. I am the last direct descendant of the O'Neill. 

"I am the rightful king of Eire, and I wanted to make 
Ireland free." 

" They went forth to battle, but they always fell; 
Their might was not the might of lifted spears. 

Their wreaths are willows, and their tributes, tears; 

Their names are old, sad stories in men's ears; 
Yet they will scatter the red hordes of Hell, 
Who went to battle forth and always fell/ " 

quoted Martha who was kneeling beside the bed. 
The O'Neill came back to the present painfully. 



1922.] DEDICATION 825 

"It is good of you to stay here to help me die," he whis- 
pered. 

"Oh, no," she exclaimed with a sob, "you are helping me 
to live ! All my life I have dreamed of faith and heroism and 
devotion and have never seen anything but the prosaic and 
the commonplace. With your example 

"Will you live {or me then to serve Ireland?" asked the 
last O'Neill. 

"I will live and use my talents as you would wish me to, 
until Ireland is free," she promised. 

It was a strange scene for that bare, paltry chamber. 
The little artist, whose life had been as gray and sober as her 
dreams were idealistic and beautiful, kneeling at the side of 
the dying young patriot and dedicating her life to the service 
of his cause. 

At last Martha roused. He would be gone in a moment, 
and she must fortify him for the journey. 

"Hugh O'Neill, you received Holy Communion this morn- 
ing," she began. "Say with me this prayer: '0 my God, I at 
this moment accept readily and willingly whatever death it 
pleases Thee to send me with all its pains, penalties and sor- 
rows.' " 

He repeated the words after her, and adding faintly, "For 
Eire Aroon," he passed away. 

After he was dead, Martha knelt like one turned to stone, 
her rosary still slowly passing through her fingers. She rose 
when the landlady came to the door, and, to the latter's un- 
spoken question, replied: 

"He is dead/' 

"Poor boy," the old woman said, blessing herself. 

"No boy!" said Martha with white lips her eyes were 
like stars and her cheeks blazing. "No boy, but one of Ire- 
land's noblest heroes." 



THew Boohs* 

LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY. By Alice Brown, with portrait fron- 
tispiece. New York : The Macmillan Co. $1.50. 
In this little book of slightly over a hundred pages, Miss 
Brown pays glowing tribute to one of the finest artists of our 
time, albeit one scarcely known beyond the small circle of the 
cognoscenti. Louise Imogen Guiney at the last, indeed, was in a 
fair way toward becoming a legend. Her books were hard to 
come by, she wrote distressingly little and that little in out-of-the- 
way corners, and she made her home abroad. Add to this, that 
for many years previous to her death in November, 1920, she had 
chosen to live a life withdrawn from the clamors of the literary 
market-place, and one has all the elements of the familiar situa- 
tion of genius neglected and obscure. 

Miss Brown was an old friend of Louise Imogen Guiney's, 
and from long intimacy she presents those personal and vivid 
touches which go to the making of an authentic portrait. She 
tells many characteristic stories of her heroine some amusing, 
some a little wistful and sad, but nearly all evincing the high 
native courage of one whose father was a soldier and whose chief 
praise was reserved for fighters, for those who "die, driven 
against the wall." Her humor, which turned to jest her deafness 
and poor sight, her titanic conflicts with refractory printers 
unaccustomed to such a meticulous punctuator and proofreader 
as herself, her childlike impracticality in worldly concerns, her 
love of walking, her notable gift for friendship, her unfailing 
kindness for aspiring writers, her romantic loyalties to lost 
causes, her generosity in writing long and delightful letters, 
"those floating immortalities she cast about with so prodigal a 
hand" all these are set forth with judgment and skill. 

Then, too, there is literary appraisal and quotation, though of 
quotation, perhaps, not quite so much as we could desire. As a 
writer of prose, Louise Imogen Guiney was scholarly, and even 
bookish, her work in this kind being "the despair of the less agile 
and instructed mind." "She tended more and more to the ob- 
scure, the far-off and dimly seen . . . the restorer of names 
dropped out of rubricated calendars through sheer inattention of 
an unlearned world, or rusted by time in chantries no longer 
visited." In her verse, quoting her resume of Hurrell Froude's, 
Miss Brown finds " 'the clearness, simplicity, orderly thought and 
noble severity* " which Louise Imogen Guiney found in him, and 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 827 

her poems also, like his, " 'have a strong singleness and sad trans- 
parency, the tone of them a little chilly, yet almost Virgilian, and 
arrestingly beautiful; . . . abstinent, concentrated, true.'" And 
finally the author concludes that Louise Imogen Guiney "has done 
the most authentic and exquisite verse America has yet produced." 
Miss Brown writes in picked and fragrant phrases in con- 
sonance with her theme. At times, she verges on preciosity, and 
her allusiveness will not make easy going for the average reader; 
but then the average reader would probably not be interested in 
her subject in the first instance, and preciosity may well be con- 
sidered a virtue in these days of careless authorship. Miss Brown 
has produced a finely wrought piece of work, which most ad- 
mirers of Louise Imogen Guiney will find singularly satisfying. 
A splendid woodcut portrait of the poet by Timothy Cole adds 
interest and artistic value to the book. 

SAINT JOHN BERCHMANS. By James J. Daly, S.J. New York: 

P. J. Kenedy & Sons. $1.50 net. 

A peculiar difficulty lurked in the writing of this biography. 
Its subject led a life extraordinarily devoid of unusual incident 
and outward adventure, and the telling of his story offered an 
almost unbroken opportunity for dullness and tedium. John 
Berchmans, indeed, was the saint of the commonplace. He won 
his sainthood not by martyrdom or fiery ordeals or marvelous 
visitations common in other saintly lives, but simply by an as- 
siduous attention to the humdrum duties of every-day living. 
In his acts and in the circumstances surrounding them there was 
nothing whatever out of the ordinary, so that it is doubtful if any 
other saint had less of what the world calls romantic appeal. 
And yet, as Father Daly presents him, John Berchmans stands 
out as a figure both romantic and appealing appealing because 
the difficulties and problems he met were altogether of the same 
dusty, workaday sort with which the great majority of us have 
to deal, and romantic because of the high spirit, the engaging 
humor, the pervasive charm and the invincible courage with 
which he met and conquered them. The Saint was only twenty- 
two years old when he died at the Jesuit novitiate at Rome on 
August 31, 1621, but into that short space he crowded such a 
multitude of heroic acts of ordinary duty as to merit the crown 
of sanctity. 

A frequent complaint brought against hagiographical writers 
is that they turn out stained-glass figures or plaster casts with 
which the average mortal feels little in common. No such charge 
will lie against the present work. Father Daly gives us a human 



828 NEW BOOKS [Mar., 

picture of a human being, though a human being, it is true, all of 
whose powers were fused and held at a white heat by a consuming 
love of Christ. The author assuredly does well by his hero in 
listing such items as the saint's personal likes and dislikes. It is 
pleasant to learn that the saint had a prejudice in favor of smiling 
faces and gentle manners, and it somehow brings us into closer 
sympathy with him to be told in his own words that "Frequent 
contradictions displease me" or that "Being too dainty displeased 
me" or that "An ironical way of talking displeased me." More- 
over, John was a collector of stories, of which the following was 
one of his favorites: "Someone said to Father Ledesma when he 
was dying, 'Father, you are still needed here for the welfare of 
the Church/ Father Ledesma looked sharply at the speaker and 
replied, Teter and Paul are dead, and the Church has suffered 
no harm.' " 

That the literary quality of the present work is exceptionally 
fine will of course be no news to those familiar with Father 
Daly's work in the periodical press. As a stylist, indeed, we have 
long considered him in the front rank of contemporary critics. 
Here, as elsewhere, his work is characterized by an unfailing deft- 
ness of phrase and by a cool and penetrating observation of 
human nature. In this book, he has various angles of approach, 
but whatever his approach, he succeeds in making it a source of 
lucid commentary on his subject. As an example of biographical 
skill and literary management, it is no exaggeration to say that 
John Berchmans is a veritable achievement and an event. 

ESSAYS ON CRITICAL REALISM: a Cooperative Study of the 
Problem of Knowledge. By Durant Drake, Arthur O. Love- 
joy, James Bisset Pratt, Arthur K. Rogers, George Santayana, 
Roy Wood Sellars, C.A. Strong. New York: The Macmillan 
Co. $3.00. 

Only a specialist in this department of philosophy can ap- 
preciate the full significance of the series of essays on Epistemol- 
ogy which compose this volume. The subtle abstruseness of the 
subject-matter almost defies the power of human language to 
clarify. And we doubt if the masterly analysis and vigorous 
presentation of the authors could be excelled. 

The collaborators of Essays On Critical Realism set out to de- 
molish the ingenious theories of the pure subjectivist, and of the 
invalidity of knowledge, and construct their rational system on 
the undeniable facts of common experience. Truly, the volume 
might well be entitled "Back to Sanity and Common Sense." 
What a gratification for the Catholic philosopher to find seven 






1922.] NEW BOOKS 829 

prominent professors of our leading American Colleges and Uni- 
versities arrive at conclusions that but reproduce and confirm the 
Scholastic Epistemology that has prevailed in more or less perfect 
form since the time of St. Thomas! And what reenforces the 
value of this corroboration is, these authors seem unconscious of 
their accord with the Scholastic theory of knowledge, and reach 
their conclusions by a thorough and independent scrutiny of 
the mental processes of cognition. Were they more familiar 
with Catholic philosophy, they might encounter the experience 
described by G. K. Chesterton. 

In his Orthodoxy, he tells how after independent investiga- 
tion of the facts of life, and a thorough examination of the con- 
flicting writings of rationalist and infidel critics, he felt the thrill 
of adventure in the discovery of certain definite conclusions about 
man and the universe, only to learn that Christianity had been 
ahead of him and had preached these doctrines and principles 
centuries previously! We congratulate these learned authors on 
their discovery of critical (or moderate) Realism as the best 
theory of Epistemology a discovery none the less real and meri- 
torious, but all the more trustworthy, because Catholic philos- 
ophy, which is reason kept sane and illumined by faith, has for 
centuries stoutly championed the same system. 

To the Catholic student of Epistemology, we strongly recom- 
mend Essays on Critical Realism as a valuable constructive treat- 
ment of the theme, and a complete and satisfying refutation of 
the false contemporary theories of Idealism, Pragmatism and 
Neo-Realism. 

JOHN MARTINEAU. The Pupil of Kingsley. By Violet Mar- 
tineau. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. $4.50. 
This is the biography by his devoted daughter of a fine old 
Mid- Victorian Tory squire and philanthropist, one of whose titles 
to distinction and remembrance is that Charles Kingsley was his 
tutor. Kingsley is a large and important part of the book, and 
the letters in which we catch glimpses of him are among the most 
entertaining and interesting of those here reprinted. Kingsley 
was very much of a lay parson. "On one occasion . . . when he 
was dining at my house, I asked him to say grace. 'I will say 
it this once, as you have asked me,' he answered, 'but,' he added 
with emphasis, 'never ask me again! Every man is priest in his 
own house.' " There is a letter from the pen of John Martineau's 
mother describing the advent to her home of "Currer Bell" the 
pen-name at first used by Charlotte Bronte whom she had in- 
vited to be her guest without having previously learned Currer 



830 NEW BOOKS [Mar., 

Bell's sex or age ! After a day spent in wondering whether Currer 
Bell would turn out to be "a tall, moustached man, six feet high, 
or an aged female, or a girl or altogether a ghost or a hoax or a 
swindler," great relief came to all when "in came a neat little 
woman, a very little sprite of a creature, nicely dressed, and with 
tidy bright hair." A biography well worth reading, if only for 
such choice morsels. 

THE CATHOLIC CITIZEN. By John A. Lapp, LL.D. New York : 

The Macmillan Co. $1.00. 

The Catholic Citizen is a text-book of civics for upper gram- 
mar grades or high schools. It is very excellent for this purpose. 
A thoroughly Catholic tone pervades the book and the author 
quotes freely from Catholic sources. This gives a moral back- 
ground so often lacking in books on the same subject. Those of 
our schools that can find room for a course in civics could not do 
better than adopt this text. Among so much that is admirable, it 
may seem hypercritical to point out that Dr. Lapp is wrong in 
giving the impression that the Federal Constitution guarantees 
religious freedom. It restrains only Congress, not the individual 
States, from infringing upon religious liberty. 

SOME MODERN FRENCH WRITERS. By G. Turquet-Milnes. 

New York: Robert M. McBride & Co. $2.50. 

M. Turquet-Milnes purposes to show that, latterly, certain 
French writers have, with Bergson, reacted from Positivism, 
which reigned in France from 1850 to 1890, and that others re- 
flect Bergson's influence. The Positivists, it will be remembered, 
believed that life originated spontaneously from inorganic mat- 
ter. Although they regarded man as an automaton, yet Science, 
the "new idol," would, they affirmed, provide for his needs, moral 
and spiritual, as well as material. 

This conceptualist philosophy, chiefly based upon the author- 
ity of Taine, Renan and Comte, was early opposed by such men as 
Pasteur, Boutroux, Bergson and Henri Poincare. Bergson more 
than any other proved to be an exponent of free will, conscience 
and spiritual life. He rejected intellectualism because it had 
misinterpreted nature with her infinite fecundity. In the evolu- 
tion of life, he perceived a definite design of nature to realize in 
man her most perfect creation, a conception which afterwards 
enabled him to comprehend the immortality of the soul. 

A spiritual doctrine of this sort, which dispelled the depres- 
sing clouds of Materialism, so appealed to the younger writers 
that they acclaimed Bergson as the greatest living philosopher. 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 831 

Hence, the prominence accorded to him in the present volume. 
Along with Bergson, Mr. Turquet-Milnes considers, besides for- 
eign influence, the principal French philosophers and scientists 
since 1840. Of novelists he treats Bourget and Bar res, who view 
with particular favor the Bergsonian philosophy. As literary dis- 
ciples of Bergson, he discusses especially Charles Peguy and Paul 
Claudel. 

Thanks to a thorough acquaintance with his subject, Mr. 
Turquet-Milnes analyzes with unusual discernment the confusing 
tendencies of philosophy and literature. If he magnifies the in- 
fluence of Bergson, and occasionally exaggerates the philosophic 
contributions of England and Germany, yet his opinions are gen- 
erally trustworthy. Much as the critic praises Bourget's art and 
philosophic ideas, it is rather in the evolution of Barres from indi- 
vidualist to nationalist that he sees a triumph for pragmatism. 
Likewise, he attributes chiefly to Bergson the spectacular conver- 
sion of Peguy from rabid Socialism to Christian idealism. Paul 
Claudel, also, whom M. Turquet-Milnes holds to be Bergson's 
most gifted literary disciple, certainly is imbued with that mas- 
ter's spiritual doctrine. Indeed, no other French poet of today 
exhibits greater disdain of materialism. Nevertheless, Claudel 
and Peguy, too, have traveled far beyond the influence of Bergson 
in their pursuit of the spiritual and the mystical. 

Similarly, an examination of the remaining writers analyzed 
by M. Turquet-Milnes leads to the conclusion that the vogue of 
Positivism in France has passed. As our critic remarks, it is 
obvious that the ideas accepted between 1850 and 1880 by so 
many French scientists and men of letters regarding the efficacy 
of reason, the infallibility of a certain kind of science and the 
insignificance of our sentimental life are no longer current. Few 
writers, whose views find acceptance, still believe that reason 
offers a serious basis for morality or that it will ever explain the 
origin o'f life. 

BIOCHEMISTRY. By Benjamin Moore. New York: Longmans, 

Green & Co. $7.50. 

This book by the distinguished professor of the subject con- 
cerned in the University of Oxford, will necessarily find a place in 
all libraries connected with public institutions since the discussion 
of subjects such as photo-synthesis, which are yet in their in- 
fancy, is undertaken by one whose experiments are the founda- 
tion of much of our modern knowledge of the chemistry of the 
living thing. The Scholastic philosopher, well aware that the 
author of the book will have none of the materialistic theory of 



832 NEW BOOKS [Mar., 

living things, will look with interest for his account of his own 
opinion on this matter, and, perhaps, will even be a little amused 
at it. For the author is very anxious to guard himself against 
what he believes to have been the fallacies of the past and, there- 
fore, selects the term, "biotic energy," for the older title. We 
will not quarrel as to terminology if we agree on facts, though we 
may reasonably ask what there is to prevent the use of the Aris- 
totelian word, "entelechy," used by Driesch in his great work. 
The "biotic energist," at any rate, refuses to believe that there is 
nothing more than chemistry and physics in the workings of the 
living thing. Yet he differs from holders of the older views, 
since the power he envisages is not something entirely distinct 
from the well-known forms of energy. We confess that we find 
this a little difficult to follow. If it is convertible into other forms 
of energy, "biotic energy" falls into the category of chemico- 
physical operations. If it is not convertible, and we have so far 
no reason to suppose that it is, then it is distinct from chemico- 
physical operations by whatever name we choose to call it. And 
that is the doctrine of modern vitalists. 

OUR HELLENIC HERITAGE. By H. R. James, M.A. Vol. I. 

New York: The Macmillan Co. $2.00. 

The object of this work is to preserve the content of "the in- 
fluences of Greek literature and Greek life on the formation of 
mind and character." Throughout the greater part of the vol- 
ume this is accomplished with interest and ingenuity in the de- 
scription of the thrilling military expeditions of this great epoch. 
Frequent quotations from Greek classics and passages from 
Herodotus are especially to be commended. They are naturally 
introduced and should stimulate students to further investigation 
of them. 

However, the method of "leaving out what is less admirable 
or not admirable at all," has led to an excessive admiration for 
Greek culture that results in an unbalance of critical judgment 
when this merely pagan civilization is compared with civilization 
of the Christian Era. It says almost nothing about the unspeak- 
able immorality of Greek religion, and praises at length its nobler 
side; it lauds the keenness of its natural intellectualism and for- 
gets the absurdities of its unguided mental wanderings; it speaks 
of Grecian art as the most perfect in the history of human en- 
deavor, and makes no mention of the sublime loveliness of Gothic 
achievement. This is to produce a chiaroscuro all light and no 
shade. It leaves us ashamed of the comparative backwardness of 
Christianity. 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 833 

An excellent antidote for such historical poisoning is Allies' 
chapter, "Heathen and Christian Man Compared" (Formation 
of Christendom.) In lighter vein, Francis Thompson in "Pagan- 
ism Old and New," distinguishes the highly idealized Paganism of 
the Renaissance from the real "Pagan Paganism" of Greece and 
Rome with which Mr. James confuses it in his appreciatory com- 
ments, which are often one-sided and empirical. 

CIVIC SCIENCE IN THE HOME. By George W. Hunter, Ph.D., 
and Walter G. Whitman, A.M. New York: American Book 
Co. $1.40. 

The aim of this book is to demonstrate how scientific 
methods of thought and work may be applied to the problems of 
the home, and such an aim deserves high commendation. Teach- 
ers of the sciences, which are made tributary to its contents, will 
find much rich suggestion for correlation, but it seems to us the 
book calls for wisdom and knowledge in the teacher who uses it. 
We do not quite like statements to the effect that in ages less 
enlightened than ours, certain scourges and epidemics were 
thought to be sent by Providence, but now we know they are 
caused by germs. Also we find many half-truths in the little 
volume. The section on vitamines (page 107) is superficial and 
decidedly misleading; in the illustration of foods rich in protein 
(page 95), the vegetable proteins are wholly omitted; and in 
many places theories are asserted without qualification, and may 
be, by the untrained reader, mistaken for laws. Nevertheless, 
there is a great deal of valuable information in the book, and we 
appreciate the difficulties of the task undertaken by its writers. 

THE KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS IN PEACE AND IN WAR. By 

Maurice Francis Egan, LL.D., and John B. Kennedy. New 

Haven, Conn.: The Knights of Columbus. Two volumes. 

$10.00. 

The intention of the authors in compiling this work is, as 
stated in the preface, "to explain the objects and activities of the 
Knights of Columbus." The record they have set forth is so 
remarkable in its recital of the origin, growth and activities of 
this fraternal organization that these volumes become at once a 
monument to the unselfish, devoted and untiring efforts of this 
group of Catholic patriots, who loved their Country and their 
Church and who found in the one, inspiration for service to the 
other. 

This record could not have been possible were it not for the 
fact that the Knights of Columbus was an outgrowth of the prin- 

VOL. cxiv. 53 



834 NEW BOOKS [Mar., 

ciples of the Catholic religion and guided by the Divine influence 
of that religion, which every Knight of Columbus must prac- 
tically profess. Because the fabric of the order was made of the 
warp and woof of Catholicism it has endured and prospered, and 
was able to perform its great service to mankind. 

During the early part of the nineteenth century, there was 
considerable prejudice against Catholics throughout the United 
States. To overcome this bigotry and bring about a furtherance 
of Catholic ideals by means of an organized group of laymen, 
Father Michael J. McGivney, a priest of the diocese of Hartford. 
Connecticut, called around him a group of Catholics for the pur- 
pose of organizing a Catholic fraternal organization with insur- 
ance benefit features like those of the other fraternal organ- 
izations of the country. Under his guidance, a charter was ob- 
tained from the State of Connecticut and the order formally 
organized in New Haven on April 3, 1882. 

The outstanding characteristic of the new organization was 
its conservatism. Its aim was to grow in power, but its founders 
desired that this growth should be attained by no sacrifice of 
principle. They fought against hasty over-expansion, that would 
bring about a weak, over-extended organization. When it did 
grow, therefore, the order was strong and sound. Inherently 
right in principle and endowed with the most laudable ideals, its 
growth was inevitable. From Connecticut, it spread throughout 
New England; sent its tendrils into the Middle West and, finally, 
attained full growth with branches in every large city of the 
United States. 

Up to the days of the United States' entry into the War, the 
work in establishing Knights of Columbus scholarships and the 
splendid aid to the Catholic University at Washington, gave un- 
mistakable signs that the order had become a great power among 
Catholic laymen. The World War was to make use of that 
strength, and send the name of the Knights of Columbus across 
the reaches of the world, beloved and revered by the countless 
thousands who received its succor, and respected by all the peo- 
ple of the world who saw the remarkable service to humanity that 
it was rendering. All this, in sufficient detail, the authors have 
set forth in these volumes. It is a proud story they tell, and one 
that reflects credit upon the order and the Church from which it 
sprung. 

The Knights of Columbus are to be congratulated in their 
foresight in thus setting forth in tangible and easily accessible 
form an explanation and record of their society. The organiza- 
tion has been many times misjudged and its aim and ideals mis- 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 835 

understood. This has been particularly true regarding the publi- 
cation of the so-called "bogus oath." All such bigotries can no 
longer stand in the face of the information that is contained in 
these volumes. The order will, if it lives true to its ideals, grow 
to still greater power. This work paves the way, for knowledge 
must precede where people would, at times, willingly misunder- 
stand. 

The task performed by Dr. Egan and Mr. Kennedy has been 
no light one, and they have "carried on" like true knights. 
Theirs, no doubt, was a work of pride and love, but this in no 
way detracts from the tremendous problem that confronted them 
in putting into two volumes a comprehensive story of the Knights 
of Columbus. Their efforts have resulted in an intensely interest- 
ing, scholarly history of a real movement in American life. 

The Knights of Columbus in Peace and War is a great 
chronicle of a great organization. 

\ 
THE VICTORY AT SEA. By Rear-Admiral William S. Sims, 

U. S. Navy. In Collaboration with Burton J. Hendrick. 

Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, Page & Co. $5.00. 

This cooperative work is marked by that fullness of infor- 
mation to be expected of a high official, and by that clear and 
entertaining style which one looks for in the composition of a 
man of letters. To what extent Mr. Hendrick acted as a thought- 
clothier, the present reviewer is not informed. All he knows is 
that this joint work of a technical expert in the science and art of 
naval warfare and of one who knows what is literatesque, makes 
easy and instructive reading. Over the heterogeneous facts of 
correspondence, of theories and of statistics this master of ex- 
pression throws a raiment at once useful to the memory and 
pleasing to the fancy. 

At the outset, the reader is explicitly informed that this 
narrative was primarily intended by the author as a popular, 
not a technical, account of the misunderstood submarine cam- 
paign, especially of the means by which it was defeated. During 
the War, as was quite natural, the secret of such activities was 
carefully guarded. To be sure, the public read more or less de- 
tailed statements of such actions as that of the Falkland Islands 
and that off the peninsula of Jutland. But, as is well known, the 
naval war was largely made up of contests between single vessels 
or between small groups of vessels. 

In March, 1917, Rear-Admiral Sims was summoned to Wash- 
ington from the War College, over which he had presided at New- 
port. Without reporting at the Navy Department, lest he might 



836 NEW BOOKS [Mar., 

have been seen by unfriendly eyes, he communicated by telephone 
with headquarters. War against Germany appearing inevitable, 
it was decided that he immediately proceed to London, fully learn 
the situation, and determine how best to cooperate with the British 
Admiralty. Traveling without uniform, the Admiral, with a 
single companion, his aide, sailed on the New York for England, 
where he arrived on April 9th. The existence of a state of war 
between the United States and Germany had already been de- 
clared. 

At the time of the Admiral's arrival in London, English so- 
ciety was hopeful, because it had been fed on information which, 
though accurate, was so incomplete that the alarming condition 
which had been brought about by the submarine campaign was 
not clearly revealed. His impressions were soon changed by 
facts frankly placed at his disposal by the Admiralty Office. 
During the month of February, 1917, there had been sunk of 
British and neutral shipping 536,000 tons, during March 603,000, 
while in April, at the rate of progress when the calculation was 
made, it would total 1,000,000 tons. In a word, the losses were 
three and one-half times as great as those conceded by the press. 

When Rear-Admiral Sims expressed his concern, Admiral 
Jellicoe quietly said: "It is impossible for us to go on with the 
War if losses like this continue." Indeed, unless they could be 
stopped and stopped soon the Germans would win the War. 
In fact, at that moment they were winning the War. Only fifty- 
four German submarines were positively known to have been 
sunk since the beginning of the conflict. Moreover, their ship- 
yards were turning out three boats every week. What seems 
more remarkable was the fact, noticed by Admiral Jellicoe (April, 
1917), that no voluntary surrender of a German submarine had 
ever taken place. Stories to the contrary were circulated to 
weaken enemy morale. That high official actually expected the 
situation to grow worse. Ambassador Page, about that time, de- 
clared : "What we are facing is the defeat of Great Britain." One 
object of this book is to show precisely how such an issue was 
averted. 

By those who sympathize with the cause of Ireland, Admiral 
Sims has been sharply censured for his attitude toward the peo- 
ple of that oppressed country. This criticism they justify by 
his official conduct, as well as by his speeches. To the present re- 
viewer, however, he does not appear to differ greatly from the 
majority of Anglo-Americans, though he has shown himself more 
imprudent than most of them. His account of the Cork incident 
is temperate and entirely lacking in bitterness. However, as he 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 837 

has seen fit to give to that part of Irish participation in the World 
War more of prominence than it deserves, he should, in a footnote 
or in a parenthesis, have described for his readers that other 
scene on the shores of Suvla Bay and V Beach, where the bodies 
of men of Munster covered the Turkish sands and became the 
playthings of the tide. He who wills may tell this tale, and when 
the bloody narrative is complete, readers in general will learn 
who it was that flinched at Gallipoli. 

To a clear understanding of the forces that won the World 
War, there has been made, in our opinion, no contribution of 
greater worth than this book of Rear-Admiral Sims. 

MARIA CHAPDELAINE. By Louis Hemon. New York: The 

Macmillan Co. $2.00. 

The one who peruses this book is likely to forget he is read- 
ing a story, likely to forget both the book and himself, while he 
enters, like a possessing spirit, into the lives it portrays. The 
narrative, stamped as it is with reality, deals with a little-under- 
stood people, the French-Canadians. It is told by one of their 
blood-brothers, in a simple and direct style, free from effer- 
vescence and exaggeration. In it we learn to know the habitant, 
not as he plays his part in an Expeditionary Force; or as guide 
through the woods and portages; or as voyageur, shantyman, or 
any other of the fictional stereotypes; but at home on the farm 
which he compelled from the wilderness. We touch the profound 
seriousness beneath the Gallic sparkle, we encounter the stoicism, 
the endurance, the courage and fidelity of a people of inestimable 
worth to the country they have made their own. 

The story is as full of charm as its heroine. It is an idyl, but 
one with epic qualities. The book is one to be treasured and 
lovingly re-read. It promises to be a veritable classic in Cath- 
olic fiction. 

McLOUGHLIN AND OLD OREGON: A CHRONICLE. By Eva 
Emory Dye. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, Page & Co. $1.75. 
This book purports to be the story of the "Making of Oregon," 
also, "An Informal Biography" of the man who played a con- 
spicuous part in an eventful period in the history of the North- 
west, Dr. John McLoughlin, Factor of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany at Fort Vancouver during the time that this territory was 
in dispute between the United States and Great Britain. 

In her foreword, the author says: "To this intimate, stirring 
and authentic narrative of pioneer life the historian will turn for 
fact, the rest of the world for entertainment and stimulus." A 



838 NEW BOOKS [Mar., 

careful reading of its nearly four hundred pages signally fails to 
carry out this fair promise. No word of authority is given for a 
single statement. The historian who looks for information will 
find himself befogged in a maze of assumption, falsification of 
facts and suppression of truth. The silly, apocryphal story of the 
four Flathead chiefs who went to St. Louis in 1832 in search of 
the Bible, is served up as "authentic history." The exploded 
"Whitman Saved Oregon" fable is retold with all the embellish- 
ments of an unrestrained imagination. The author has even in- 
vented dialogues between President Tyler and Dr. Whitman, also 
between Secretary of State Daniel Webster and Whitman. Dr. 
Whitman never claimed that he had met President Tyler or 
Daniel Webster and, as a matter of historical fact, both of those 
distinguished statesmen stood unalterably for forty-nine degrees 
as the northern boundary of the United States. 

If that grand old man and chivalrous gentleman, Dr. Mc- 
Loughlin, could but speak, he might well pray to be delivered 
from his friends, seeing the situations the author has invented for 
him and the preposterous twaddle she puts in his mouth in this 
"Informal Biography," which he would undoubtedly repudiate 
with all his soul were it possible for him to do so. 

That the Chronicle will help to galvanize the dry bones of 
the Whitman fable into a feeble semblance of life, in the minds of 
the credulous, is a possibility, but as "history" it is valueless, 
while, from a literary standpoint, it is crude and trivial. 

THE WORD OF GOD. By Mgr. Francis Borgongini-Duca. 

Translation by Rev. Francis J. Spellman. New York: The 

Macmillan Co. $2.00. 

This volume, to which the Apostolic Delegate at Washing- 
ton contributes an introduction, consists of sixty-one sermons on 
the Gospels for the Sundays and principal feasts of the year. 
The Gospel of the day is printed in full at the head of the sermon. 
Then, in words of limpid simplicity, a short, but substantial, 
explanation is given, mingled with appropriate exhortation, 
homily and exposition. The faithful, who will use this book, will 
acquire, with fuller knowledge, a deeper reverence for the Gospel; 
and they will obtain also a better insight into the mind and in- 
tentions of the Church in the various liturgical functions she 
places throughout the year. The book is preeminently a book 
for popular use, no less than 120,000 copies of the Italian ver- 
sion having been published. We augur a similar success for the 
English edition as set forth in Father Spellman's excellent trans- 
lation. 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 839 

WITH STAR AND GRASS. By Anna Spencer Twitchell. Boston: 

The Cornhill Publishing Co. $1.50. 

The author has gathered here many poems which have ap- 
peared in some of the foremost American magazines, and a con- 
siderable number of them deserve this more permanent form. 
Some of the most poignant inspiration of these poems come from 
motherhood, its joys, its fears, its hopes, its abnegations, its losses. 
Love is a frequent theme, its sentiment and tenderness, rather 
than its passion. "The Day Love Came'* and "Mother Heart" are 
beautifully done, and in each the point of view is unusual. There 
is grace in these poems as well as power, and a certainty of touch 
which comes from keenly observant eyes and the mastery of 
poetic art. Effectiveness is unfailing, and yet there is no strain- 
ing after it. The diction is chaste, simple, restrained. 

Among the best things in this excellent volume are "Loss," 
"Before Dawn," "After Loss," "I Know," "Rahab," "Transfigur- 
ation" and "Disillusion." With Stars and Grass is a highly 
valuable contribution to present-day poetry. 

THE DIRECTION OF HUMAN EVOLUTION. By Edwin Grant 
Conklin. Humphrey Milford: Oxford University Press. 
Lectures like these, intended to adjust matters relating to 
science and religion, should be delivered by one at home in both 
subjects. As a man of science, the writer is well known, and our 
only complaint about his book is its rather dogmatic assertions 
as to matters still under dispute, such as the heredity of acquired 
conditions, Natural Selection and the development of man's spir- 
itual part from that of the beast. None of these are settled ques- 
tions, and it would not be difficult to name men of great distinc- 
tion holding a different opinion from that set down in this book 
as definitely held today. As to religion, our criticism on the book 
is that its author knows little about the tenets of the largest body 
of Christians in the world, the only body which really counts and 
will continue to count more and more every year, and what little 
he knows is very inaccurate and incomplete. If he made a little 
study of Catholic writers, he would find that the views which he 
puts forward in connection with Biblical interpretation and evo- 
lution in general, have very largely been anticipated by Catholic 
writers of undoubted orthodoxy, such as Wasmann and de Dorlo- 
dot. From a former book, we learned some of the writer's views 
on eugenics, amongst them the proposal that no person should be 
allowed to join a celibate order or priesthood who was not phys- 
ically damaged, and in this book we are told that the number of 
births must be controlled, if the world is not to be over populated 



840 NEW BOOKS [Mar., 

something of a change of opinion. However, we must not 
diverge into eugenics. There is much of interest in the book, 
notably the discussion of democracy today, and the instructed 
reader will easily observe and correct the flaws to which we have 
drawn attention. By the way, it was not Galileo, but a Cardinal, 
who said that "the Bible was not given us to tell how the heavens 
go but how to go to Heaven." Neither that, nor the better known, 
"Yet it moves!" were uttered by that much-quoted man. With a 
gentle murmur at the absence of an index, we may commend this 
book to the attention of serious readers. 



THE NORMAN AND EARLIER MEDIEVAL PERIOD. By Ernest 
R. Hull, S.J. New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons. 50 cents. 
The traditional Protestant version of English ecclesiastical 
history has been taught for so many years that this book is a 
revelation as well as an important and truthful statement of facts. 
The references and source books are recognized authorities, and 
the quotations serve to clarify and refute many heretofore anti- 
Catholic theories. The discussion of William and Lanfranc, as 
well as the statements concerning the effects of the Norman Con- 
quest, are particularly well given. 

The writer possesses the ability to state historical facts with 
conciseness and accuracy, and we have the feeling, both from his 
comparisons of the Protestant and Catholic versions, and his ex- 
tremely well-written comments, that the book has been carefully 
written after conscientious research. The set, of which this is 
merely one volume, should prove of particular value in the teach- 
ing of history to Catholics. 

ORTUS CHRISTI. By Mother St. Paul. New York: Longmans, 

Green & Co. $1.75 net. 

These meditations are based on a study of the lessons and 
liturgy of Advent. Although styled meditations, they may be 
used by everyone for daily spiritual reading in preparation for 
Christmas. As Father Rickaby well says in his preface: "Mother 
St. Paul is always a heart-searcher. She presses self-reform upon 
souls, who to the eye of outward observers and, perhaps, in their 
own conceit have little or nothing to amend. We must always be 
following Christ, and Christ is ever moving forward. Deliber- 
ately to stand still is to widen the distance between ourselves and 
Him, an ungenerous, not to say a dangerous, thing to do. Advent 
is a season of joy, and these meditations must be taken in a joyful 
spirit." 






1922.] NEW BOOKS 841 

TEACHING THE DRAMA AND THE ESSAY, by Brother Leo (New 
York : Schwartz, Kirwin & Fauss. 75 cents) . The young teacher 
who desires some worth while suggestions in methods of teaching 
certain types of English literature is often discouraged by the pedantic 
phraseology of the books she consults. This tiny volume by Brother 
Leo is totally different from others dealing with the same subject. 
The language is dignified and beautiful in its simplicity. There are 
no puzzling psychological terms, no irrelevant discussion. Very briefly 
and clearly, the author explains the best method of having literature 
mean something vital to the student, from the primary class to the 
senior year at college. This may be accomplished if literary study 
concerns itself with the relation of books to life, the structure and 
technique of books, and their personality. The keynote of the book 
is contained in the last chapter, which the author has titled "Some 
Principles in the Teaching of Literature." There is no one who cannot 
be benefited by the thoughts set forth in those few short pages. This 
is, in short, a book that one will want to share, a book that has a 
definite purpose in mind and accomplishes it. 

HTHE EXERCISES OF ST. GERTRUDE, translated by Thomas Alder 
1 Pope, M.A., of the Oratory (New York: Benziger Brothers. 85 
cents net). St. Gertrude belonged to that Benedictine school of spir- 
itual writers which began with St. Gregory the Great and ended with 
Louis de Blois. She lived in the second half of the thirteenth century 
and the beginning of the fourteenth, and was elected abbess of the 
Benedictine monastery of Rodersdorf in 1294. While in that office, 
which she held for forty years, she drew up for the use of her Sisters 
the Exercises which bear her name. They are seven in number and 
are intended to cover a week of spiritual exercise. They embrace the 
whole work of the sanctification of a soul and, while intended for 
religious, contain much that will prove highly edifying to the lay 
reader. The present work is a translation from the French edition of 
Dom Gueranger. 

EVERYDAY GOOD MANNERS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS, by Ernestine 
Louise Badt (Chicago: Laird & Lee. Cloth, 60 cents; paper, 25 
cents). This is a book that might be described as multum in parvo. 
It is compact and concise in form, practical and useful in material. 
While its largest field will be in our schools and settlement and com- 
munity houses, nevertheless, it should prove a helpful adjunct to home 
training as well. Good manners are a very essential part of our civil- 
ization. To be able to spell correctly is scarcely an accomplishment: 
not to be able to spell correctly is a serious fault. To have good man- 
ners and to employ them is hardly a wonderful attainment; but to be 
without them is a serious drawback. Still we must learn how to be 
well-mannered. This little book will be to many boys and girls a help 
along the road. 



842 NEW BOOKS [Mar., 

FORMATION OF CHARACTER, by Ernest R. Hull, S.J. (St. 
Louis: B. Herder Book Co. 50 cents.) This new edition of so ex- 
cellent a book seems to revert to the old order of common sense and 
sound economics, for it supplies a grave need already existing rather 
than creates an artificial one. There are excellent passages comparing 
the Christian with the Catholic gentleman; education, with culture, and 
hedonism, with utilitarianism. It is refreshing, too, in our day, amidst 
much talk about, and little understanding of, "morality" to read so clear 
and intelligible an enunciation of the Christian and Catholic idea of 
it as the author presents. One point, particularly well emphasized, 
is that the purpose of college training is to teach men how to educate 
themselves. It is not merely the struggle for existence, but rather a 
man's education that begins in real earnest on Commencement Day. 

HELPFUL THOUGHTS FOR BOYS, by Rev. Peter P. Conaty, 
Arlington, N. Y. This volume, calculated to inspire Catholic 
boys with laudable ambition, meets a real need. Through several 
chapters, the possibilities and advantages of higher education for boys 
in a variety of circumstances are discussed, as well as practical means 
for bringing about any sort of self-improvement. These chapters will 
be helpful to serious-minded youth. On the other hand, the chapter 
that will appeal most forcefully to those who have dealt much with 
American boys, is the necessity of a definite purpose early in life. 
Catholic parents, as well as Catholic youth, would do well to read this 
chapter. The frequency with which Catholic boys drift through col- 
lege, with no definite plan for the future, is appalling, and the utter 
lack of any practical direction in this matter from Catholic parents 
is a neglect of duty that is as serious as it is frequent. 

The timely examples, which the author cites, are often very ef- 
fective. However, many instances in which names of persons and 
places are suppressed might better be omitted. Such examples will 
not appeal to most American boys and, in many cases, will serve only 
to arouse their suspicion. 

The author does not forget the importance of a deep foundation 
of strength of character and uprightness of life upon which the super- 
structure of education and culture is to be reared, and it is to various 
phases of this question that the first five chapters of the book are 
devoted. 

THE PARADISE OF THE SOUL a Treatise on the Virtues Suitable 
for Use in Mental Prayer, by Blessed Albert the Great, O.P. (New 
York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons. $1.25.) This Paradise of the Soul at- 
tributed to Albertus Magnus, is a treatise in brief chapters on the 
various virtues that should grace the Christian character. Though 
each virtue is given only a brief treatment, still, being done by a 
master hand, it is sufficient to guide the Christian into its proper prac- 
tice. The perusal cannot but be profitable. 



1922.] NEW BOOKS 843 

HTHE STORY OF MANKIND, by Hendrik van Loon (New York: 
1 Boni & Liveright. $5.00). When we first opened this book and 
glanced at its rather amazing illustrations and some few of the passages 
which caught our eyes, we thought that it must be a somewhat elaborate 
and costly parody of Mr. Wells' notorious compendium. It appears that 
we were wrong and that it was with the printer before the other vessel 
was launched. Mr. van Loon is remarkably free from prejudices, and 
writes with a real desire to be fair to Catholics and with more under- 
standing of our position than has ever been vouchsafed to Mr. Wells. 
"One thing and one thing alone saved Europe from complete 
destruction, from a return to the days of cave-men and the hyena. 
This was the Church the flock of humble men and women who, for 
many centuries, had confessed themselves the followers of Jesus, the 
carpenter of Nazareth." Thus the writer on the years following the 
Fall of Rome, and it might almost be the voice of Belloc to which we 
were listening. But, unfortunately, the book would need too much 
editing before it could be placed in uneducated hands. Purged of a 
few errors, we should have welcomed it gladly. 

FOUNDING OF A NORTHERN UNIVERSITY, by F. A. Forbes 
(St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co. $1.75 net). This interesting vol- 
ume describes the founding of the University of Aberdeen by Bishop 
Elphinstone in 1495, and gives a perfect picture of Catholic life in 
Scotland in medieval times. The author describes the Scottish schools 
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the town life of the people, 
their religion, their customs, their guilds, their municipal institutions. 
He gives a good sketch of the Reformation in Scotland, and a brief 
biography of the Scottish Catholics in exile. 

Two appendices deal with church music in the Middle Ages, and 
the number of convictions for "popery" in seventeenth century Scot- 
land. 

ANTHROPOS, January to June, 1919, issued July, 1921. This well- 
known journal maintains the high standard which it has shown 
from its commencement: it is an achievement possible only in the 
Catholic Church and highly creditable to its energetic promoters. In 
this number interest will largely centre round the editor's article 
on the cultural historic method and North American Ethnology, 
in which the writings of several American Anthropologists are crit- 
icized very favorably, and notably an address by Swanton, in which 
it is maintained, contrary to many efforts to establish the "primitive 
promiscuity" and "group marriage" ideas, that monogamy has prob- 
ably always been the normal form of human marriage. Further, that 
monotheism goes right back to the commencement of man's history. 
Very refreshing statements from so well known an anthropologist. 

f^PITOME THEOLOGLE MORALIS is a handy and useful digest of 
I t moral theology, published in Latin, by L. Pustet, New York. 



844 NEW BOOKS [Mar., 

MY MASTER'S BUSINESS, by Rev. Daniel L. Scully (St. Louis: B. 
Herder Book Co. $2.00 net). Though there is nothing partic- 
ularly distinctive in method of approach or manner of development in 
this collection of sermons, priests may find in them some fresh sug- 
gestions on well-worn themes, especially in their abundance of Scrip- 
tural allusion and quotation, and in the author's adroit use of history 
and literature as a source of illustration. The utility of the book will 
doubtless be restricted by the apparently haphazard arrangement of 
matter. The table of contents gives no indication of the Sunday or 
feast for which a given sermon may be adapted, and, as the titles listed 
in the table are often figurative, this is a real deficiency. 

PAMPHLET PUBLICATIONS. 

Papal Infallibility, by the Most Rev. John Mclntyre, makes 
clear this most important doctrine of the Church; Catholics and 
the Bible and Catholics and the League of Nations, both from the pen 
of G. Elliot Anstruther; Thoughts for a Child of Mary, by Maisie Ward, 
suggesting various good works for the benefit of Church and poor, to 
which the Child of Mary may profitably lend her energies; and a story 
with a moral, The Bishop and the Three Poor Men, retold by Emily 
Hickey, are some of the pamphlets (sold at 2 d. each) from the Cath- 
olic Truth Society of London. The Catholic Mind (New York: The 
America Press. 5 cents a copy, $1.00 per year), devotes the issue 
of December 8, 1921, to two articles on the Labor Question, and the 
issue of December 22, 1921, to "The Church's Divine Authority," "So- 
dalities for Catholic Girls" and "A Christmas Meditation" all by able 
and well known writers. Kahalekat for this year (Washington: The 
Ursulines of Seattle, Washington, gives a short sketch of the life and 
death of Archbishop John Charles Seghers, Martyr, of Alaska. Latin 
Hymns, edited by Rev. Matthew Germing, S.J. (Chicago: The Loyola 
University Press) ; A Selection from a Child's Prayer to Jesus, by Father 
W. Roche, S.J. (New York: Longmans, Green & Co.), a collection of 
fourteen prayers in verse, easy for the little ones to learn, and Une 
Gloire de L'Eglise du Canada, which gives (in French) a brief outline 
of the life of Mother Catherine-Aurelie of the Order of the Precious 
Blood (Saint-Hyacinth, Canada: Monastery of the Precious Blood), are 
other pamphlets received. Another useful one for Tabernacle Societies 
is The Art of Making Altar Laces (Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday 
Visitor. 25 cents), in which directions are given for the making of 
cinctures, altar linens, etc., etc. 

Where Current Events are of interest, the following list of pamph- 
lets may prove useful: Dante's Attitude Towards the Church and the 
Clergy of His Times, by Right Rev. Mgr. J. T. Slattery, Ph.D. (Phila- 
delphia : John Joseph McVey. 35 cents) ; The International Concilia- 
tion, a monthly (25 cents a year, $1.00 for 5 years), the December 
number of which is devoted to a history of the Washington Conference 
on the Limitation of Armaments (New York: American Association for 
International Conciliation); The Anglo-Japanese Alliance and America, 
by Taraknath Das (Washington, D. C.: Southern Building); The Dis- 
armament Conference at Washington Will Be a Failure (with which 
sentiment we do not agree), by Luigi Carnovale (Chicago: Italian- 
American Publishing Co. 25 cents). 



IReccnt Events. 

On January 22d, at six o'clock in the morn- 
Italy, ing, His Holiness, Pope Benedict XV., died 

following an attack of broncho-pneumonia 

brought on by influenza. The death of Benedict, who was sixty- 
seven years of age, came as a great shock to the world, and uni- 
versal sympathy was expressed, even in those quarters where, 
during the heat of the War, Benedict's motives were misunder- 
stood and impugned. Although his Pontificate covered one of the 
most critical periods in the world's history, Benedict not only 
increased the prestige of the Church throughout the world in a 
religious way, but also recovered something of the political pres- 
tige of the Papacy as a factor among the Governments of the 
world. At the beginning of the War, when he assumed the tiara, 
about twenty nations had more or less formal diplomatic rela- 
tions with the Vatican. At the end of the War there were thirty- 
one, twenty-five of which were active in their association. Re- 
lations with France had been restored, and the British Empire 
had taken steps to have a more intimate representation. Por- 
tugal renewed its diplomatic connection, and negotiations were 
pending for an exchange of envoys between the Vatican and 
Tokio. 

Ten days after the death of Benedict, the conclave of Car- 
dinals opened to select his successor, and on February 6th, on the 
seventh ballot, Cardinal Achille Ratti, Archbishop of Milan, 
was elected Pope. He assumed the name and title of Pius XI. 
The new Pontiff gave his first blessing to the people from the 
outer balcony of St. Peter's, something which has not happened 
since the election of Pius IX., in whose reign the temporal power 
of the Papacy was lost. He also speedily announced that he 
would retain as Secretary of State Cardinal Gasparri, thus 
strengthening the belief that he will carry out the policy of his 
predecessor. The new Pope is sixty-five years of age, and besides 
being a great scholar and one of the most scientific librarians in 
Italy, is a member of the Italian Alpine Society, and before the 
War was one of its most active members. During the War he 
did notable work in connection with the organization of Chaplains 
for the Italian army, and in the spring of 1918, as Nuncio at War- 
saw, he won high praise for his skill in withstanding the flood 
of Bolshevism which poured in on Poland when that country was 



846 RECENT EVENTS [Mar., 

set up as an independent State. In April, 1921, Monsignor Ratti 
was made Archbishop of Milan, and two months later was created 
Cardinal. 

Owing to complications, of which its cordiality towards the 
Vatican on the death of Pope Benedict was one of the most 
prominent, the Cabinet of Premier Bonomi, which took office 
early last July in succession to the Giolitti Ministry, presented its 
resignation to the Chamber of Deputies on February 2d. Thf 
decisio^ *o resign was made when it was discovered that the Gov- 
ernment could no longer count on the support of the Giolitti 
Liberal Democrats and the Nitti Liberals, offended at a visit of 
condolence paid to the Vatican by one of the three Catholic Min- 
isters of State and by the announcement that eulogies of the late 
Pope were to be pronounced in the Senate and Chamber by their 
respective Presidents. Since the fall of the Bonomi Ministry, the 
King has had numerous conferences with former Premiers Gio- 
litti, Orlando, Sonnino, Luzzatti, the Presidents of the Senate and 
Chamber of Deputies, and even Benito Mussolini, leader of the 
Fascisti, but none of them has yet succeeded in forming a new 
Government owing to the opposition of one or more of the leading 
parties. To break the deadlock, it is considered probable that 
Parliament will be dissolved and a general election held. 

Conflicts between the Fascisti and Communists again broke 
out late in January in several provincial centres, and a number of 
strikes were declared. Throughout Tuscany, particularly, there 
is much unrest. At Florence, the police arrested a number of 
Communist leaders identified with a plot to recruit a Red Army 
through organizations of young men in the newly-called classes. 
Details of the scheme, designed to be carried out and engineered 
by leaders in Communist youths' organizations, were discovered 
in possession of a club of young Communists. 

Thieves have broken into the tomb of St. Ambrose in the 
basilica of Milan and despoiled the body of some of its jewels. 
The body lies in the crypt of the church immediately under the 
famous altar of gold. The casket is bound with a stout cord of 
silver, sealed with the seal of the late Archbishop Farrari, who 
affixed it in 1898. The saint's body has been turned so that it 
lies on its side. A ring has been removed from the left hand and 
a diamond clasp, which held the vestments in place at the throat, 
also is missing. The fingers are covered with rings of very great 
value, some of which, apart from their antiquity, are said to be 
worth 50,000 lire. The robes in which the body is dressed are 
also extremely valuable, but nothing except the two articles men- 
tioned were removed. 



1922.] RECENT EVENTS 847 

The meetings of the Allied Supreme 
France. Council at Cannes came to an abrupt con- 

clusion on January 12th when Premier 

Briand hurried to Paris and resigned. The Premier's action was 
the result of a long series of attacks on his policies in the French 
Senate, culminating in a warning telegram sent to him at Cannes, 
on January llth, by the Senate Commission for Foreign Affairs 
and signed by his bitterest critic, ex-President Poincare, head of 
the Commission. The telegram, which was an embodiment of a 
resolution adopted unanimously by twenty-five Senators after a 
long discussion, expressed the opinion that the proposed com- 
pact with Great Britain could not become effective without the ap- 
proval of Parliament, and that France could not attend the pro- 
posed Economic Conference at Genoa unless definite and effective 
assurances were given her beforehand that her rights would be 
respected, and that the terms of the various peace treaties con- 
cluded since the Armistice would not be discussed. Feeling that 
he lacked the necessary backing at home in his negotiations at 
Cannes and elsewhere, M. Briand handed in his resignation with- 
out even calling for a poll of the deputies. 

The resignation was immediately accepted by President Mil- 
lerand, and Raymond Poincare, former President, agreed to take 
over the Premiership and form a new Cabinet. The new Min- 
istry, which was announced several days later, is composed al- 
most entirely of members of the National Party, and contains no 
member of the Radical Left and no member of the Clemencist 
group. Five of the fourteen Ministers were members of the pre- 
ceding Cabinet, though an alteration has been made in the offices 
of two of these, Barthou, who was Minister of War, now holding 
the Ministry of Justice, and Maginot having been assigned the 
Ministry of War, with which his former office of Minister of Pen- 
sions is now amalgamated. The new Premier on his declaration 
of policy on January 19th received a vote of confidence from the 
Chamber of Deputies of 472 to 107. The chief points of difference 
between his policy and that of Briand involves a more uncom- 
promising attitude towards Germany in the matters of repar- 
ations, disarmament and punishment of the War guilty, a declar- 
ation that existing treaties must stand and must not be discussed 
at Genoa, and the abolition of the Supreme Council in favor of 
the old system of negotiations through individual Ambassadors. 
M. Poincare, since his accession, has been engaged almost 
continuously in conversations with Great Britain. One result of 
these has been the indefinite postponement of the proposed meet- 
ing of the Italian, British and French Foreign Ministers, which 



848 RECENT EVENTS [Mar., 

was to have been held toward the end of January to settle upon 
a common policy towards Angora and the Greco-Turkish conflict. 

One of the most important steps of the new Premier has 
been his revision of the alliance between Great Britain and France 
drawn up by Lloyd George and tentatively agreed to by Briand. 
M. Poincare proposes ( 1 ) that the duration of the alliance shall be 
unlimited instead of for ten years; (2) that reciprocity be specif- 
ically mentioned, i. e., France promising aid to Great Britain in 
case of aggression as well as Great Britain promising to come to 
the aid of France; (3) the exact definition of "German aggres- 
sion" shall include an attack against the Allies in the neutral or 
occupied zones of the Rhineland instead of only an invasion of 
French territory; (4) that there be an immediate discussion if a 
menace should arise on Germany's eastern frontier; (5) that per- 
manent contact and cooperation be established between the French 
and British army and naval general staffs. In reply, the British 
refuse to go beyond their original offer, objecting particularly to 
the inclusion of the Rhineland in the compact. On the question 
of the Near East and the Greco-Turkish situation, also, the British 
attitude remains unchanged, laying down the principle that until 
absolutely solidarity is effected between the three great Powers 
concerned, Great Britain, France and Italy, there is no prospect 
of a solution. 

As to the Genoa conference, Premier Poincare insists that 
France be given preliminary guarantees that none of her rights 
under existing treaties or conferred by the League of Nations shall 
be jeopardized, asks that a definite programme of agenda be 
drawn up beforehand, and requests, in view of the time necessary 
to draw up such an agenda and the fall of the Italian Cabinet, 
that the Conference date of March 8th be postponed for several 
months. The British view is that the Conference should be held 
on the date set, unless the Italian Government desires a slight 
postponement. On all these questions discussions are now going 
forward between the British and French Governments. 

Before the resignation of M. Briand, much had been expected 
of the Genoa Conference, and every nation in Europe except 
Turkey had been invited to attend. Invitations had also been 
sent to the United States, Japan and the South American States. 
Altogether forty-five nations had been expected to participate. 
American participation is contingent on President Harding first 
obtaining authority to attend from Congress, and no steps have 
yet been taken to that end. Indications are that this country will 
not participate in the Conference unless the European Govern- 
ments show a disposition to balance their budgets, reduce large 



1922.] RECENT EVENTS 849 

standing armies, and make some settlement of the reparations 
problem. 

According to French Government proposals, which have just 
been examined by the Army Commission of the Chamber of 
Deputies and will undoubtedly be later approved by the Cham- 
ber, the French army will in future number 690,000 men, of 
whom 478,000 will be French-born, 107,000 North Africans, 
100,000 Colonials, black and yellow, and 10,000 foreigners serving 
in the Foreign Legion. Provision is made for the reduction of the 
forces on the Rhine from more than 90,000 at present to 69,500, 
and within France instead of 400,000 engaged in home service, 
the number will be reduced to 334,000. The only new develop- 
ment of consequence is the provision for thirty-two battalions of 
machine gunners. This enormous increase is due to the demon- 
stration during the War of the importance of machine gun forces 
for defence. 

The Washington Conference on the Limitation of Armament 
held its final session on February 6th, when the delegates signed 
the various treaties that had been adopted. In all, four treaties 
were signed and the supplement to a fifth, namely: the five-power 
naval limitation treaty, the nine-power Far Eastern treaty, the 
nine-power Chinese tariff treaty, the five-power submarine and 
poison gas treaty, and a supplement to the four-power Pacific 
treaty, which had been previously signed on December 13th, 
which supplement excludes the Japanese mainland from the scope 
of the treaty. The other three covenants of the Conference, 
those relating to Shantung, allocation of the former German Pa- 
cific cables, and cable rights in Yap, are yet to be put into final 
form through the ordinary diplomatic channels. 

Since the close of the Conference, the American delegation 
has completed its report and submitted it, with the treaties, to 
President Harding, who has indicated that he will lose no time 
in transmitting them to the Senate who, it is expected, will act 
favorably upon them. Meanwhile, in anticipation of the ratifica- 
tion by th Senate of the naval limitation treaty, construction 
work on fourteen capital ships has been suspended by order of 
Secretary Denby under direction of President Harding. Under 
the treaty only three of the fourteen vessels are to be completed 
as war craft, the other eleven to be destroyed or converted to mer- 
chant ships. This halting of building operations will save the 
United States about $5,000,000 a month. 

Following the adjournment of the Washington Conference, 
the Disarmament Commission of the League of Nations has de- 
cided to meet in Paris on February 20th to discuss further means 

VOL. cxrv. 54 



850 RECENT EVENTS [Mar., 

of world disarmament. The Commission, which has twenty 
members representing the chief countries of Europe, has been 
working on a detailed report since last September. The report 
deals with all the problems of disarmament, and it is believed to 
contain a number of recommendations for the control of the 
manufacture of munitions and armament. 

The Council of the League of Nations meeting at Geneva in 
January gave its first guarantee in connection with the neutral- 
ization of the Aland Islands. Among other matters, at this and 
subsequent sessions, the Council refused to take action on the 
German protests against the rulings of the Saar Commission as 
to what constitutes an "inhabitant" on the Saar, created a per- 
manent commission to take up the study of the white slave traffic, 
and declared itself ready to cooperate in every measure prescribed 
to insure protection for the Armenians and other minorities in the 
Ottoman Empire. The Council acknowledged its inability to 
settle the Vilna dispute between Poland and Lithuania, which has 
again come to the fore, and referred the matter back to those 
countries, which have promised to try to reach an agreement. 
The Council, which was in session a little over a week, adjourned 
until April 25th. Dr. Gastoa de Cunha of Brazil was chosen 
President in succession to Paul Hymans of Belgium. 

The Permanent Court of International Justice held its first 
meeting at The Hague on January 30th, and several days later 
elected Dr. B. T. C. Loder, a former member of the Dutch Supreme 
Court, as President. He will hold office for three years. Eighteen 
nations have agreed to give the court compulsory jurisdiction in 
all disputes arising among them, but so far no case has been pre- 
sented. Lack of business, however, is no indication of lack of 
importance, since the Supreme Court of the United States had an 
empty calendar for two years after its organization, and it is 
expected that cases will be brought before the World Court 
shortly after it is finally organized. Besides being the accepted 
court of eighteen nations, the Court received, through the League 
of Nations, compulsory jurisdiction over disputes relating to inter- 
national labor and transit conventions, treaties recently adopted 
concerning the importation of liquor into Africa, traffic in arms 
and the protection of minorities in countries of mixed populations. 
The Court must meet at least once a year, the usual date of as- 
sembling being June 15th. 

In a debate in the French Chamber of Deputies on February 
8th, Charles Reibel, the new Minister for the Liberated Regions, 
gave the following data of reconstruction in the districts occupied 
by the Germans during the War. Of 280,147 houses destroyed 



1922.] RECENT EVENTS 851 

and 422,736 damaged, 335,479 had been restored by January 1st 
of this year. Of 53,976 kilometers of roads destroyed 31,965 
kilometers had been put in repair by October 1st last. Of 1,112 
kilometers of navigable streams destroyed, 1,027 have been made 
navigable. Of 4,084 industrial establishments destroyed, 3,986 
have been operating since October 1st. Of 3,337,000 hectares of 
land devastated, 2,009,693 hectares have been restored. 

i 

The most complete railroad strike Germany 
Germany. ever experienced, not excepting the rail- 

road strike in defence of the republic 

during the Kapp counter-revolution, began at midnight February 
1st, when 250,000 railroad workers throughout the country quit 
work. The strike came in the midst of renewed negotiations for 
a wage increase which, with intervals of apparent quiescence, had 
been going on between the Government and the workers since 
last October. On January 8th the Government agreed to re-open 
the negotiations for an increase. The negotiations were renewed 
on January 25th, but were postponed to February 1st. When the 
unions suddenly demanded a favorable answer, with the alter- 
native of a strike, the Government remained silent and the rail- 
way men passed a vote to walk out. To add to the confusion, 
another strike was declared by the Berlin municipal employees, 
on February 5th, completely paralyzing the city's tramway serv- 
ice and the gas, water and electric supply. The municipal 
workers struck partly out of sympathy with the railroad strike, 
and partly to exploit the opportunity of obtaining wage increases, 
but the real significance of both strikes in the opinion of some 
observers, is that they were the radical workers' rebellion against 
an increase in taxation and hence directly against the reparations 
terms. 

After a week of idleness, during which the economic loss 
entailed by the strikes was probably greater than the daily repar- 
ation installment, on February 7th the railway strikers notified 
Chancellor Wirth that they would resume work on the Govern- 
ment's assurance that it would refrain from reprisals in the 
nature of wholesale discharges. The Government, in reply, re^ 
served the right to reprimand the leaders, but promised that the 
regular workers would be reinstated. On the following day the 
strike of the municipal workers was declared at an end, and the 
public utilities plants resumed operations. 

On January 31st Dr. Walter Rathenau, former German Min- 
ister of Reconstruction and recently German representative at 
various economic conferences with the Allies, was appointed Ger- 



852 RECENT EVENTS [Mar., 

man Foreign Minister. This post had been held by Dr. Joseph 
Wirth, in addition to the Chancellorship, since the reorganiza- 
tion of the Cabinet last October. Dr. Rathenau, who has been 
prominent in German Government affairs for many years, has 
been particularly active since the formation of the first Wirth 
Cabinet in May, 1921. He held the post of Minister of Recon- 
struction in that Cabinet, which continued until October of last 
year, when the Cabinet was reformed and the office of Minister of 
Reconstruction eliminated. Since that time, Dr. Rathenau has 
not been a member of the Cabinet owing to the opposition of his 
party, although he has represented the German Government on a 
number of missions. 

Besides the fact that it brings one of the ablest men in the 
country into the Cabinet, Dr. Rathenau's appointment has great 
political significance, since it means that the Democratic Party, 
of which he is a member, has withdrawn its ban against his entry 
into the Cabinet, and is the first of the broad coalition parties to 
show a willingness to share government responsibility with the 
Clerical, Centre and Majority Socialist parties, who have con- 
stituted the coalition since the last Cabinet crisis. On the other 
hand, the German People's Party, or the party of the great in- 
dustrial interests typified by Herr Stinnes, on which Chancellor 
Wirth was counting as another party of the new coalition, has 
withdrawn its support. The Industrialists fear that Rathenau 
will carry the reparations fulfillment policy too far, and they are 
also dissatisfied because Wirth selected Rathenau without their 
approval. 

Up to February 8th the German Government had made three 
payments of 31,000,000 gold marks each, in accordance with a 
decision of the Reparations Commission at Cannes, providing for 
such payment every ten days pending a decision of the whole 
reparations issue. The Reparations Commission also decided to 
change the system of the monthly programme of coal and coke 
for a total to be delivered in three months, namely, 5,750,000 tons. 
The German Government has formally accepted this change. 

As to the reparations question, this is still in a state of in- 
decision. At Cannes, after long and stiff debates, the amount 
agreed on among the Allies for payment by Germany this year 
was 720,000,000 gold marks. This figure was far above the Brit- 
ish estimate of Germany's paying capacity and, at the same time, 
far below the French and Belgian estimate. The consent of the 
British delegation was only won to it by the argument that it 
weuld meet the amount of interest necessary for release of bonds 
on the market, but no real decision was ever taken because of the 



1922.] RECENT EVENTS 853 

break-up of the Conference at the resignation of Briand. Hence, 
the figure of 720,000,000 was only tentative, as was also that of 
1,450,000,000 gold marks for delivery in kind. The German Gov- 
ernment has taken these figures as the basis of what it must pay, 
but has asked that the figure of cash payment be reduced, while 
liberty be given to increase the figure of payment in kind. It is 
improbable, however, that this will be allowed. 

As a result of pressure by the Reparations Commission, on 
the Wirth Government, Germany's budget, for the first time since 
the War, is prepared and ready for submission to the Reichstag 
before the fiscal year begins, on April 1st. The new budget rests 
on a basis of doubtful soundness, w r ith the estimated deficit of 
183,000,000,000 paper marks, which must be covered by loans or 
the issue of fresh paper money. The largest deficit item is 
171,000,000,000 paper marks "for carrying out the Peace Treaty," 
for which there is no concrete cover in sight except the 1,000,000,- 
000 gold marks compulsory loan, recently railroaded through the 
Reichstag. German opinion holds that the only solution to the 
entire reparations problem is that afforded by an international 
credit operation, and to this conclusion the majority of the Repar- 
ations Commission at present seem to be tending. 

That German plans for Russian trade are meeting with suc- 
cess, is shown by recent developments. For one thing, the new 
Russian State Bank has established connections with the 
Deutsche, the Disconto and the Dresdner banks at Berlin, and 
with the Warburg firm at Hamburg. The Deutsche Bank is ar- 
ranging a credit for a Russian order to be placed with the Krupps 
and other German firms for material to be used in repairing two 
hundred Russian locomotives in Esthonia. The German East 
European Bank is also stated to have closed an arrangement of 
credit for exports direct to Russia. In the matter of the proposed 
order for locomotives and machine tools, worth 4,000,000,000 
paper marks, Russia will pay the German shippers one-seventh 
in gold, will get a credit for three-sevenths until July, 1924, and 
will pay the balance in mining, agricultural and forestry conces- 
sions. Arrangements have been practically completed for grant- 
ing to the Krupp concern concessions for 100,000 acres of land 
for agricultural pursuits in conmection with sugar making and 
distillery privileges. Concessions also are pending for nurseries 
in Southern Russia. Moreover, M. Yakovenko, Russian Minister 
of Agriculture, has announced that timber contracts in various 
parts of Russia, which are also about to be entered into with the 
Krupp company, will include fur trapping privileges. The Rus- 
sian Government's trade report for 1921 shows that one-third of 



854 RECENT EVENTS [Mar., 

the imports via Petrograd were German, and that of 224 ships 
entering Petrograd, 106 came from German ports. Of 1,551,000 
Russian poods of metal wares delivered in all Russia during No- 
vember, 1,354,000 came from Germany. 

The Russian famine still has its grip on 
Russia. millions of people. According to a state- 

ment by Dr. Fridjof Nansen made at 

Geneva on January 26th to the League of Nations International 
Relief Committee, 19,000,000 Russians are suffering intensely for 
want of food and 15,000,000 will certainly die unless succored. 
He declared that the total population affected was 33,000,000 and 
that it was now too late to save all, even if the workers were able 
to use the railroad lines at full capacity. He gave it as his 
opinion that it would only be possible to move sufficient grain 
between now and the harvest to save 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 
persons. 

On the other hand, Walter L. Brown, European director of 
the American Relief Administration, has issued a statement to 
the effect that notwithstanding the disorganization of the Russian 
railways, thousands of tons of foodstuffs and seeds purchased 
through the American Government's appropriation would reach 
the famine-stricken districts on schedule time, because the Amer- 
ican supplies constituted almost the sole freight moving over the 
roads, other traffic being at a standstill. Mr. Brown said that 
the movement of grain from the ports to the interior would be 
150,000 tons monthly, which would enable the American Relief 
Administration to initiate an adult feeding programme for 
5,000,000 persons before the end of February, and to bring the 
child-feeding programme up to 2,000,000 by the middle of Feb- 
ruary. The allocation of shipping between Baltic and Black Sea 
ports would be roughly on the ratio of one to three. 

Since the Congressional appropriation of $20,000,000 for Rus- 
sian famine relief was passed, twelve food cargoes, consisting of 
3,000,000 bushels of grain, have been shipped from the United 
States, according to a statement made by Secretary Hoover on 
January 23d. Expenditures out of the Congressional authoriza- 
tion at that time amounted to about $12,000,000. He added that 
eighteen additional vessels were loading, which would sail within 
from three to twelve days, carrying a total of more than 3,000,000 
bushels of grain. 

An agreement whereby the Ukraine Soviet Republic under- 
takes to place $2,000,000 in gold at the disposal of the American 
Relief Administration for the purchase of food and seed grain, 



1922.] RECENT EVENTS 855 

was concluded in London on February 3d. The agreement stip- 
ulates that all the supplies shall be bought in the United States 
on orders furnished by accredited representatives of the Ukraine 
to the Relief Administration's London office. The supplies are 
to be distributed to the Ukraine famine sufferers. In order to 
facilitate purchase of the necessary supplies, a shipment of gold 
will be made immediately to a Stockholm bank. 

On January 27th the Executive Council of the Soviet Govern- 
ment ratified, by unanimous acclamation, the list of the Genoa 
delegation presented by Foreign Minister Tchitcherin. Premier 
Lenine was named head of the delegation and Foreign Minister 
Tchitcherin vice-chairman with full powers to act in case Lenine 
eventually decided not to go. Full plenipotentiary powers were 
given to the delegation to negotiate, conclude and sign the treaties 
or agreements that may be reached. Though border States of 
the Russian Federation will also send delegations, it was decided 
that the delegation should be a unit representing Russia, and that 
all the delegates be a part of that unit and not representatives of 
the different sections. Because of the French change of ministry, 
the Genoa Conference has been put off indefinitely, as told above, 
but if the Conference is held, Russia will attend with a detailed 
statement, showing the position of industry, commerce, railroads, 
agriculture, the budget and other matters, and an estimate of the 
figure required to set Russia on her feet again. At the same time, 
she proposes to put forward a statement of the compensation due 
her as a result of the armed intervention undertaken or fostered 
by the foreign Powers. These claims will be set against the de- 
mands upon Russia for compensation, for confiscation and nation- 
alization. Premier Lenine has formally notified the Italian For- 
eign Office of his acceptance of the Genoa invitation. 

Despite earlier reports that the Soviet forces had defeated two 
of the largest bands of Karelian partisans and driven them back 
across the Finnish frontier, a dispatch from Helsingfors, on Jan- 
uary 24th, stated that the Karelians had resumed the offensive 
and defeated the Bolsheviki with large losses. The Bolsheviki 
are concentrating on the Finnish border, and refugees state that 
troops from all districts are rushing into East Karelia. Women 
and children, crossing the frontier, are being interned in camps, 
where they are fed by the American Red Cross. 

Advices from Moscow, on January 20th, reported that the 
White, or anti-Bolshevik forces, had captured Blagovieshtchensk, 
capital of the Amur Province, Asiatic Russia; and on the same 
date a wireless message from Chita, capital of the Far Eastern 
Republic, stated that the anti-Bolshevik Government in Vladivos- 



856 RECENT EVENTS [Mar., 

tok, headed by M. Merkuloff, had leased to Japanese business in- 
terests the Ussuri railway line from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk. 

Meanwhile, the special trade delegation from Chita which 
attended the Disarmament Conference at Washington, though dis- 
appointed so far in its hope of obtaining recognition from the 
United States Government, has decided, nevertheless, to remain 
in Washington for some time in the endeavor to interest Amer- 
ican business men in the trade and development of their territory. 
Trade with the Republic's territory is hampered at present by the 
fact that the natural outlet, Vladivostok, is held by a hostile gov- 
ernment, but imports for Chita and the surrounding country are 
landed at Dairen and taken by the South Manchurian and Chinese 
Eastern railroads to Harbin, which has become an important 
trading centre. 

The Congress of Oppressed Far Eastern Peoples opened in 
Moscow on January 21st under the Presidency of Zinovieff, head 
of the Communists' Internationale. Upwards of one hundred and 
fifty delegates assembled from China, Japan, Korea and Mon- 
golia, representing Communist parties and the radical workers 
and press. Though capitalism was a prominent subject of dis- 
cussion, the general feeling seemed to be that Japan was the real 
oppressor, and that China, Korea and Mongolia were groaning 
under Japanese militarism rather than under "wage slavery." 

The Russian trade mission, invited to Brussels by Belgian 
manufacturers having large interests in Russia, has proposed that 
these manufacturers resume possession of their properties. The 
mission, headed by General Ipatieff, said to be a representative 
of the Russian cooperatives, held conferences with representatives 
of a number of large Belgian concerns. The Belgian manufac- 
turers proposed as a condition to resumption of operations in 
Russia, the complete reestablishment of property rights, the sup- 
pression of extraordinary tribunals, guarantees for the security 
of Belgians who return to Russia, indemnities for damages done 
to their plants and recognition of debts. General Ipatieff trans- 
mitted these conditions to the Soviet Government and departed 
for Paris, where he is at present negotiating with French manu- 
facturers. 

February 13, 1922. 



With Our Readers 



OUR tribute to the dead Pontiff! Since our last issue one of 
the great figures of the world has disappeared. Benedict 
XV., universally beloved, has passed through the gate of death 
into eternal life. In these perplexing times, facing a doubtful 
future, strange though it may seem to say it, his death has wafted 
a heavenly zephyr over the arid earth. For the revelation of the 
spiritual appreciation of the man voiced by the people of the 
world is nothing less than such an influence. 

Just at the moment when hope for humanity was at a low 
ebb, and when, to all appearance, men had lost sight of spiritual 
values, there comes this overwhelming proof of man's possession 
of spiritual ideals, his ability to recognize the moral significance 
of a spiritual power, and his deep regard for spiritual achieve- 
ment. No less than in life, Pope Benedict XV., in death, has been 
Heaven's trumpeter of hope. The composite tribute, gathered 
from the public press, from secular platform and from non- 
Catholic pulpit, is nothin'g short of marvelous in that it registers 
a reassuring conviction of man's fundamental love of what is 
highest and best. Various, indeed, are the reasons for this praise. 
Glowing tributes have been accorded him because of his wisdom 
in government, because of his skill in diplomacy, because of his 
democratic spirit, because of his broad outlook upon life, because 
of his sympathy with a suffering humanity. 



OERHAPS, from these sources, the most common tribute of all 
A i s the practical unanimity expressed in favor of the attitude 
of Benedict XV. during the World War. While that War was 
being waged, the White Father in Rome was compelled to bear 
attacks from either side because he did not pronounce in favor of 
either side, as such, but contented himself with voicing the prin- 
ciples of justice and advocating repeatedly, in the cry of his own 
heart, a return to peace. Nothing could have satisfied the bellig- 
erents except his partisan favor, and this he steadfastly and con- 
sistently refused to give, not because he did not appreciate the 
terror and evil of war, not because he was not longing and praying 
for peace, but because, on account of his position, universal in its 



858 WITH OUR READERS [Mar., 

scope and its view, he was compelled to maintain a perfect neu- 
trality. So, in spite of many diatribes against him, in spite of all 
kinds of attacks, he remained unshaken on the mountain-top, not 
standing with folded arms and gazing with cynic glance upon the 
poor forces of humanity contending in their madness, but kneel- 
ing, his hands clasped, his head bowed in prayer, his heart begging 
the mercy of God to descend upon the nations. Now, in the days 
of calmer judgment, he is universally hailed as the great peace- 
maker, and there is given by the world a tardy recognition of the 
supreme value of the many efforts he made during the years of 
war to bring about reconciliation between the struggling peoples. 
Now he emerges from the blackness of distorted criticism into the 
clear light of justice, that surrounds him with a halo fitting for 
him who was the true representative of the Prince of Peace. 



THAT Benedict XV. should have been the peacemaker was 
quite to be expected. A love of peace runs through the very 
blood of the Papacy. If the recent Holy Father gave his days and 
nights, gave his heart and soul to repeated efforts, little appre- 
ciated at the time, towards the reestablishment of peace, he was 
but living up to the inheritance he had received from the long 
line of his predecessors, he was but giving expression through his 
voice of that one continuous voice of the Christian ages. In line 
with this policy, too, his Pontificate, forming in this respect a 
part of that period in the history of the Church since the Holy 
Father was deprived of his temporal dominions, has been charac- 
terized by a notable advance. The years of the last three Pontif- 
icates register a recovery from this blow which the Papacy, and 
consequently the Church, had received in the later years of Pope 
Pius IX. Although the temporal dominions have not been re- 
stored, there has been a gradual and notable improvement of re- 
lations between the Vatican and the important nations of the 
world. This reestablishment of cordiality is a witness to a new- 
born political friendship and, at the same time, augurs stability 
for the future. 

Clearer and clearer will it appear, as time goes on, that in 
filling the position of Peter under the exceptional circumstances 
of his reign, Benedict XV. bore a tremendous burden and carried 
the awful weight of its responsibilities. So great was the burden 
that only one with heavenly support could have borne up under 
it. Providentially he carried it through the days of war, through 
the days of trial after the War, until the stress was beginning to 
pass, until the world came to give that approval of his deeds 



1922.] WITH OUR READERS 859 

which heaven had already given. One of the important papers of 
our country has put it thus, editorially: "The fruitful labors of 
Benedict XV., so bitterly misunderstood and calumniated in the 
distress and passions of the War, remain to praise him, even in 
the minds of his former detractors. He left the Church much 
stronger than he found it, for all the wounds of war." 



THOSE many and glorious tributes, in the last analysis, vaguely 
and unconsciously correlate that reality which is the main 
reason for Catholic honor and devotion. For, underlying almost 
all of them is the craving for something of a definite nature in 
spiritual and moral guidance. They ask for that leadership in 
world-life which the Catholic knows he possesses in the person 
and office of the Pope. In that person and office, the Catholic 
beholds a Divine Force, divinely led and divinely protected for 
the teaching and blessing of mankind. He sees in the Papacy 
one of the main features of the religion of the Incarnation, by 
which the very life of Christ is continued on earth, by which the 
human soul may arrive at a certainty of conviction just as strong 
as if that soul were addressed by the Saviour Himself. 

With such a faith, it is not strange that, however glowing 
and however deserved human tributes of praise for human 
achievements may be, they pale almost into insignificance before 
the spiritual conception realized by Christ when He chose Peter 
to be His Vicar upon earth, and realized equally in every suc- 
cessor of Peter. With such a faith, too, it is easy to conceive 
how, in the mind of the Holy Father, everything of a purely 
earthly, political or diplomatic nature is weighed in the scales 
not of temporal advantage, but of eternal value. For him the 
Church is Christ, the members of the Church are the members of 
Christ's Body, he himself is a member of that Body and, at the 
same time, its Head on earth; and so, his outlook upon the world 
is from the centre of all things, which is Christ. In the name of 
Christ and in the Life which is Christ, a Life given by the Holy 
Spirit, he speaks and acts always for the welfare of mankind 
indeed, but always, too, with the consciousness that such welfare 
can be secured only through and in Christ. 

Such is the Catholic conception of the Papacy, and such the 
reason for the devotion and love that have gone out from Cath- 
olic hearts towards Benedict XV., whom we have lost, and now 
go out to Pius XL, whom we have gained. 



860 WITH OUR READERS [Mar., 

OUR salutation to the new Pontiff. On February 6th, Achille 
Cardinal Ratti, Archbishop of Milan, forty-two years a 
priest, three years a bishop and seven months a Cardinal, was 
selected by the Sacred College to serve as the two hundred and 
sixty-first Pope. Details of his life, more or less fancifully given 
in our daily press, at least reveal a versatile man. Writer of 
books, professor of theology, linguist of no mean attainments, 
head in turn of the Ambrosian and Vatican Libraries, mountain- 
climber of distinction, accomplished diplomat, spiritual director, 
successful and beloved Archbishop, these are some of the roles 
that give indication of the character of the new occupant of the 
throne of Peter. 

* * * * 

AS a young priest, he was appointed, by his Archbishop, Chap- 
lain of the Convent of the Cenacle, then just founded in 
Milan and, for thirty years, he gave to the Religious and their work 
the enthusiastic devotion of his sacerdotal heart. This was but 
one of his priestly activities, but one which must have done much 
in confirming him in that spiritual calmness, which is said to be 
characteristic, and which will be a helpful asset in the days that 
are to come. 

The many years, however, during which he performed the 
ordinary duties of priest and teacher and spiritual guide and 
during which he perfected himself in the study of languages and 
wrote books and, when vacation-time afforded him a little 
leisure, climbed Alpine mountains, were only a long preparation 
for the special work that was given to his hands in the more recent 
days of his career. 

The years which have witnessed his most active relations 
with the great forces of the times, have been those spent as 
Nuncio to Poland and as Archbishop of Milan. These years, in 
either position, were years of mighty disturbance. A man, who 
stood as the representative of the Catholic Church, was required 
to have the highest qualities of mind, the vision of a prophet and 
a heart of sympathetic understanding to meet successfully, as 
he did, the issues that arose. Thus was he made ready, in a 
long novitiate, for the high honor and the supreme position to 
which God has called him. 



A LREADY, if we can judge from expressions of the press, he 
** has won the heart of the world. When, on the day of his 
election, he insisted upon going out upon the balcony of St. Peter's, 
to bless the multitude, a blessing which had not been given from 



1922.] WITH OUR READERS 861 

that place since the day of the election of Pope Pius IX., he found 
a way into the affections of the people; and when, on the day of 
his coronation, he repeated this ceremony of blessing over the 
two hundred thousand who were gathered in the piazza, he stood 
as the great symbol of Christian peace, inviting all the troubled 
peoples of the world. 

He speaks many languages, but most significant is it that 
he speaks the languages of the human heart, a language that, as 
on the day of Pentecost, can be understood by peoples of every 
nation. 

"He loves America," we are told, because he is a big-minded, 
broad-minded man that recognizes the good qualities of our fair 
land; but he is so big and so broad that he loves the whole world. 

He loves peace; a worthy successor to Benedict, to carry on 
that reconciliation so well begun and to institute a harmony that 
will spell spiritual happiness and contentment. 

He is the Head of the Catholic Church, and the heart of that 
Church is the Heart of Christ, bearing in its depths every honest 
soul upon earth. 

* * * * 

AS Pius XI. faces the future, with a consciousness of his task, 
with the courage of the mountain-climber, with the calmness 
of spirit that his daily life has engendered, our prayer is that God 
may bless him and give him that one strength that can uphold 
him, that one guidance that can lead him, that one life that has 
been promised him, the strength and the guidance and the life 
of the Holy Spirit. 



ONCE in a while an expression of thought appears that has an 
altogether exceptional spiritual value; and when it does, it 
is a joy to pass on the news. We heartily advise the reading and 
deep study of a little work, called The Christian Mind, by Dom 
Anscar Vonier, O.S.B., Abbot of Buckfast. There is in it an 
originality of presentation of old truths that fascinates and con- 
vinces. There is a unity that coordinates all Christian thoughts 
and acts in the one great fact of the Incarnation. Lovers of St. 
Paul, especially, will be drawn to the book, because, throughout, 
the author speaks by the voice of the Apostle of the Gentiles and, 
in doing so in our own language and after our own manner, illum- 
inates the inspired words. We permit ourselves one quotation 
which shows, to our mind, the timeliness of the book and also 
suggests its main thesis : 

"In our own days, thinking men have soared high in their 



862 WITH OUR READERS [Mar., 

efforts to put great distances between themselves and the soul 
killing misasmas of modern materialism. They have elaborated 
all kinds of ethical philosophies. There are philosophies of the 
Mind, the philosophies of the Infinite, the philosophies of the 
Divine in man, the philosophies of the Absolute, and so on. 

"They are pathetic efforts indeed, and a very good sign of the 
times in which we live; but one of their most interesting features 
is this, that many of them are ready to receive Christ, are houses 
that seem built just for such a guest as the Incarnate Son of God. 
What they call Mind, Infinite, Divine in man, Absolute, is an 
empty thing by itself, a house without an inhabitant, without any 
life in it. They are mere expressions of unlimited, undefined and 
indefinite longings. 

"But let Jesus of Nazareth be called Mind, and He is the Word 
of God; let Him be called Infinite, as in Him all fullness dwells; 
let Him be the Divine in man, being the Word made flesh; let him 
be the Absolute, as He is the Alpha and the Omega; and you have 
a most perfect, a most heavenly philosophy, besides having a phil- 
osophy that is as true, as practical, as real, as a living Person 
can be." 



ONE of the good signs of the times, and one that is finding 
various expressions, is the getting together of representatives 
of different nations for laudable purposes. A result which is cer- 
tain to ensue in all these deliberations, whether in Washington 
or Cannes or Genoa or London, is a better understanding among 
the nations, one of another. It is good to learn that among all 
the questions that have inspired these gatherings, political, in- 
dustrial, social, the religious is not to be neglected. 

The twenty-sixth International Eucharistic Congress has been 
called to meet in Rome this year from May 25th to May 29th. 
Catholics from every country will meet there to pay public hom- 
age to the King of kings and to listen to addresses of a religious 
nature, especially on the Divine Sacramental Presence and Its 
effects in the hearts of men and nations. This will be the first 
International Eucharistic Congress since the World War. Those 
who have been present at other gatherings of a like nature, will 
realize that the assembly of this Congress will mean a great spir- 
itual awakening, a magnificent profession of faith, an effective 
union of prayer, all augmented and intensified because of the 
fact that the assembly is to be held in the Centre of Christendom 
and under the direct charge of the Holy Father. 



1922.] BOOKS RECEIVED 863 

ASOCIAL movement of importance that has been operating 
for some time past is that embodied in the Catholic Boys' 
Brigade of the United States. It is an organization that gives to 
boys all that any other of a secular nature affords, and much more 
besides. For it is thoroughly and completely Catholic, as well as 
enthusiastically patriotic. Its pledge to the Flag of the country 
is supplemented by a pledge of Catholic loyalty and devotion. 
While securing for its members all the features of an athletic 
and social nature which they could find elsewhere, it also keeps 
alive the religious motive and contributes much to the develop- 
ment of character by means of the proper religious instruction. 
Many branches in various parishes are now in existence, but it is 
hoped that many more, through the cooperation of clergy and 
laity, will be established. General Headquarters are situated at 
128 West 37th Street, New York, and the Chief Commissioner is 
Father Kilian, O.M.Cap. 



WE are happy to call the attention of our readers, and espe- 
cially those who are deeply interested in social work, to the 
Report of the Seventh National Conference of Catholic Charities, 
which has been published recently. The treatment of a long list 
of social topics and the character of the contributors of the 
various papers, unite to make of the volume a work invaluable 
to all social workers, necessary to all who wish to keep abreast of 
Catholic social effort and calculated to interest even those who, 
as yet, have failed to realize either the extent or the importance of 
social activity. 



BOOKS RECEIVED. 

THE MACMTLLAN Co., New York: 

The Book of Saints. A Dictionary of the Servants of God canonized by the Cath- 
olic Church, extracted from the Roman and other Martyrologies. Selected 
Poems. By Wm. B. Yeats. $2.50. Four Plays for Dancers. By Wm. B. 
Yeats. $2.00. An Introduction to the History of Christianity, A. D. 590-13H. 
By F. J. F. Jackson. $4.00. California Trails, An Intimate Guide to the Old 
Missions. By T. Hall. $2.50. The Study of American History. By Viscount 
Bryce, O.M. $1.50. One. By Sarah W. MacConnell. $1.75. Russia in the 
Far East. By L. Pasvolsky. $1.75. Life and Death of Harriett Freau. By 
May Sinclair. $1.25. 

LONGMANS, GREEN & Co., New York: 

A Short History of the Irish People, from the Earliest Times to 1920. By Mary 
Hayden, M.A., and G. A. Moonan. $7.00 net. Thomas Hardy, Poet and Novel- 
ist. By S. C. Chew. $1.50. Richard Philip Garrold, S.J. A Memoir by C. C. 
Martindale, S.J. $1.75 net. Lady Agatha. By Beatrice Chase. $2.00 net. 

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, New York: 

The Second Person Singular, and Other Essays. By Alice Meynell. The Pro- 
ceedings of The Hague Peace Conference. Translation of Official Texts. The 
Conferences of 1899 and 1907. Index Volume. 



864 BOOKS RECEIVED [Mar., 1922.] 

E. P. DUTTON & Co., New York: 

Simon Called Peter. By R. Keable. $2.00. Some Notes Historical and Other- 
wise, Concerning the Sacred Constantinian Order. By E. Gilliat-Smith. 
ScHWAaxz, KIBWIN & FAUSS, New York: 

The ^Esthetic Motif from Thales to Plato. By Dr. M. Basiline, B.V.M. 
P. J. KENEDY & SONS, New York: 

Monasttcism and Civilization. By J. B. O'Connor, O.P., P.G. $1.75. A Boy 

Knight. By M. J. Scott, S.J. $1.50. 
BENZIGEB BROTHERS, New York: 

The Light on the Lagoon. By Isabel C. Clarke. $2.00 net. The Ideal of Repar- 
ation. By R. Plus, S.J. Translated by Madame Cecilia. $1.50 net. 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, New York: 

The Everlasting Whisper. By Jackson Gregory. $1.75. 
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York: 

Abraham Lincoln, Man of God. By J. W. Hill. 
ALLYN & BACON, New York: 

Le Tour de la France Par Deux Enfants. Par G. Bruno. Abridged and edited 
by E. A. Whitenack. 80 cents. Teachers' Course in Latin Composition. By 
H. C. Nutting. $1.00. 
JAMES T. WHITE & Co., New York: 

Songs of Florida, and Other Verse. By G. G. Currie. $2.00. Spring Flowers and 

Rowen. By Doris Kenyon and James Kenyon. $2.25. 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS, New York: 

Pneumonia. By Fred. Taylor Lord, M.D. $1.00. 
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, Washington, D. C.: 

Excavation of a Site at Santiago Ahuitzotla D. F. Mexico. By A. M. Tozzer. 

Thirty-fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Part II. 
THE CORNHILL PUBLISHING Co., Boston: 

Solitary Hours. By F. S. Schlesinger. Tree-Top Mornings. By Ethelwyn Wether- 
aid. $1.50. 
SMALL, MAYNAHD & Co., Boston: 

Veils of Samite. By J. C. Miller. The Modern Ku Klux Klan. By H. P. Fry. 
THE FOUR SEAS Co., Boston: 

The Maiden's Prayer. By K. I. Balfe. Pamphlet. Famous Stories from Foreign 
Countries. Translated by Edna W. Underwood. $2.00 net. Brazilian Tales. 
Translated from Portuguese by 1. Goldberg. $2.00 net. 
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS, Boston: 

Shackled Youth. By Edward Yeomans. $1.60. 
THE STRATFORD Co., Boston: 

Damien and Reform. By Rev. G. J. Donohue. $1.50. 
THE GORHAM PRESS, Boston: 

The Door, and Other Poems. By Daniel Sargent. 
LOYOLA UNIVERSITY PRESS, Chicago: 

The Catholic Church in Chicago, 1673-1871. By G. J. Garraghan, S.J. $2.50. 
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, Princeton, N. J. : 

The Work of the Bollandists. By Hippolyte Delehaye. 
ARCHABBEY PRESS, Beatty, Pa.: 

The Science of Education In Its Sociological and Historical Aspects. By O. Will- 

mann, Ph.D. Translated by F. M. Kirsch, O.M.Cap. 
THE NORTH AMERICAN ALMANAC Co., Chicago: 

The North American Almanac, 1922, The Aristocrat of Almanacs. 
MATHE & Co., Chicago: 

Lamps of Fire. By Marian Nesbitt. $1.00. 
J. M. KLUH, 2842 State Street, Chicago: 

The Etymologic Cipher Alphabet of One Hundred and Twenty Letters with a New 

Arithmetic System. By J. M. Kluh. 
B. HERDER BOOK Co., St. Louis: 

Once Vpon Eternity. By E. Dinnis. $1.75. A Great Mistake. By Mrs. G. J. 
Romanes. $2.00 net. Lourdes. By V. Rev. Msgr. R. Hugh Benson. 90 cents. 
THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL GUILD, Oxford: 

The Catholic Social Year Book, 1922. 1 s. net. 
BROWNE & NOLAN, LTD., Dublin: 

St. Bernard's Treatise on Consideration. Translated from original Latin by a 

Priest of Mount Melleray. 7 *. 6 d. 
IMPRIMERIE LESBOHDES, Tarbes, France: 

Une Ame Forte, Le Venerable Michel Garicoits, F.V.D. 3 fr. 
E. THIBAUT, Louvain, Belgium: 

Le Recit du Pelerin. Par Eugene Thibaut, S.J. 
ST. JOSEPH'S INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL PRESS, Trichinopoly, India: 

The "Hope" Series. No. 1. The Star-Dusty Road. No. 7. The Seven Last 
Words. By T. Gavan Duffy. Pamphlets. 



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