Out of the pall of gloom that hangs over Ireland to-day there has emerged a gleam of light. The Archbishop of Tuam, in weightiest words, has urged a Truce of God : a cessation on both sides of shooting and raiding in order that, in an atmosphere of calm and peace the foundation of an understanding between the two nations may be laid. On both sides of the Channel the idea is being eagerly canvassed, and men have at last been brought to see that a truce of some kind is an urgent necessity unless murder and violence and ruthless destruction of property are to be prolonged with ever-increasing bitterness, Somehow moderate men in either camp must be got together in spite of Dublin Castle on one side and the Irish Republican Forces on the other. But how? At the moment of writing, in Dublin, amid daily shootings, raids, arrests, and re-arrests, the prospect would appear utterly black were it not that the very intensity of the evil compels men to seek desperately for a solution. .

Readers of Blackfriars (Nov.) have already been given by an able pen all the main features of the situation. Nothing has changed since then save an intensification of the horror. There is little to be gained by summarizing here the melancholy events of the last few weeks. It is more to the purpose to try and put before English readers something of the mentality of the Irish people in this crisis of their history.