In an increasingly pagan world, it is a truism to say that Catholics must become more Catholic or they will have to compromise their faith to an extent which will prove fatal. The truly Catholic life must express wholeness of dedication to Jesus Christ and an integration of all activities. One aspect of the chronic lack of wholeness in living seems to me to stand out above the rest at the present time and to be of great importance. I refer to man’s dependence on the fruits and hence the well-being of the earth, which have largely ceased to interest the modem educated man except from a scientific and mechanical point of view.

More than enough has already been written on the disintegration of our times, but right action can only emerge from knowledge and understanding, natural and supernatural. First, then, I am going to try and put the problem, as I see it, in its true context. In the book of Genesis we read that man was born in a garden to dress and keep it. Before he fell, man did not have to work by the sweat of his brow, but he did have to keep a garden in as good a condition as he found it. In practice he would have perhaps to keep the divisions between different kinds of plants and to maintain an orderly arrangement in the garden. For, first of all, the garden of Eden was a perfect creation, and not the finest system of husbandry in the world we know can show a garden to rival this paradise of pleasure.