One of the few advantages of living in the twentieth century is that we can keep centenaries. And judging by the yearly crop of these celebrations, it is an advantage we seem to make the most of. St. Dominic, St. Francis, St. Ignatius, St. Jerome, Dante, Napoleon, Shakespeare, Columbus, Cervantes, Shelley and Pascal have all of late been in the thoughts of those who glory in greatness and set store by antiquity. When we are wearied by our present woeful strifes or anxious about the ill-foreboding future, we can look back and take comfort in the past. It is natural that we, who are made for an eternal destiny, should find the thought of never-ending time entrancing; and length of days seems to us a symbol and a suggestion of eternity—a hint of immortality. A man who lives a hundred years is an object of praise and wonder, but the centenarian who preserved all the grace and sprightliness of youth would be an object of envy too. It is precisely this combination that attracts us in a centenary. We are not simply revering immemorial age : we are honouring someone who has been proof against time’s decay, who is ever ancient yet ever new, as old as the hills yet as fresh as the dawn.

This month we keep the six hundredth anniversary of the canonization of St. Thomas Aquinas. The occasion seems appropriate to indulge a few reflections upon the enthusiastic interest his name still evokes, and to remind ourselves that the influence of his genius is as strong upon the minds of men of all schools of thought to-day as it was when the Church set her seal upon his greatness six hundred years ago.