New York, Mott Street, Chinatown ... It is the district of the Law Courts, the prisons and Police Headquarters. Only poor Italians and Chinese live here. At night sightseeing buses come down from Times Square filled with tourists from Europe and the “West” who want another thrill out of this amazing cosmopolis. There is only one bright spot in this ugly place which has grown like a cancer from avid speculation and deforms the gigantic body of New York. It is a square cemented site surrounded with chicken-wire fences, a playground for the poor children of the immediate neighbourhood—another humane deed of Mayor La Guardia and his energetic and efficient assistant Mr. Moses, who has dotted the huge metropolis with playgrounds and parks. Yet even this playground would be sad and dull, were it not filled with the laughter, the singing and screaming of poor Italo-American children and their gossiping mothers. It little resembles our European playgrounds, with their shrubs and lawns, their flowers and shady paths. It looks more like an open wound amidst the ghosts and skeletons and sub-human mansions called tenements. Yet if not here, the poor little boys and girls would have to seek their exercise and amusement on the littered streets, in dark and damp backyards, and between parked cars.

Now there remains goodness, beauty, truth, these three: but the greatest of these is truth . . .

If the implied parallel between these three “transcendent- als” and St. Paul’s disposition of the theological virtues with charity at their heads be not an exact one, the right understanding of the place of truth in human life is nevertheless of no less moment than—is, indeed, an indispensable condition of—an enlightened appreciation of the claims of charity ; a fact which may perhaps go far to justify so seemingly bold an adaptation of the scriptural text.

It would not be difficult to show that whatever is permanent in human activity is in some way an expression of man’s instinctive worship of “the good, the true, the beautiful.” The saints and moral reformers, the philosophers and savants, the artists and poets proclaim their homage by their respective functions; they walk within the sanctuary of this trinity and offer their praises as its chosen votaries. As surely, if less evidently, the more familiar ways of life, the commonplace actions of every day, bring their own witness. To read a newspaper is to admit a need for knowledge, which is another name for truth—however precarious may be this particular means of obtaining it; to smoke a cigarette is to satisfy a craving, assuage desire, that is, to acquire goodness within a limited sphere of reference; to gaze upon an object or to pause and listen for no other reason than that it is delightful is to pay tribute to beauty.

Between Stockholm and Upsala, in one of the occasional clearances amongst Sweden’s seemingly eternal forests towards the northern end of the great Lake Malar, lies the lovely village of Sigtuna, the cradle of the Dominican Order in all Scandinavia where, at the time of the Reformation, the Dominican Province (Provincia Daciae) counted forty-three houses of friars and four of nuns. It is, beyond question, one of the most interesting places historically in northern Europe. In this small settlement three massive ecclesiastical stone-built ruins attract attention, the broken tower of the Church of Saint Lawrence and the fortress-like churches of Saint Olaf and of Saint Peter with their chancels roofless but otherwise intact. The last-mentioned church was the cathedral of the bishopric of Sigtuna which early in the twelfth century was split into two dioceses, Weteraos and Upsala.

But if these three ancient relics of Sweden’s early and vigorous Catholicity call for notice, another in Sigtuna commands it. The church of St. Mary, as it is called, is a building of clamorous pink brick, looking scarce more than a decade of years old when viewed from a short distance. When, however, we get close up to it, it shows by the lines of its door and window arches signs of considerable age, and the interior clearly demonstrates its birth in the thirteenth century. It is no other, in fact, than the ancient Dominican Church of Sigtuna, now used as the state or Lutheran place of worship. This explains its intense state of preservation.

Notwithstanding that Catholic Action has been already so thoroughly investigated and discussed, it is possible that sufficient attention has not yet been paid to the important question of its sacramental basis and sacerdotal implications. It should hardly need to be said that Catholic Action, as a thing if not as a name, is not something new in the Church; it is, on the contrary, implied in the very notion of membership of the Mystical Body of Christ and is an integral part of Catholic truth.

It is important to insist that the Church of God is a hierarchic society in which membership implies also status, a status which derives immediately from oneness with Christ and a sharing in His perfections and powers, and therefore in His sacerdotal character. The nature and the degree of this sharing in the Priesthood of Christ varies considerably in the different grades within the Church; but it is a reality even in the lowest grade and gives an almost unbelievable quality and value to even the most commonplace participation in the liturgical life of the Church; and the source of this sacerdotal power throughout all the hierarchical grades is to be found in the Sacraments. Moreover, as far as Catholic Action in the modern sense is concerned, there is a particularly important source to be recognised in the Sacrament of Confirmation.

It was the privilege of the present writer to have been able to assist at the 10th International Congress for Psychotherapy which met for the first time in England at Oxford from July 29th to August 2nd, under the presidency of the well-known Swiss psychologist, Professor C. G. Jung. The gathering included many distinguished psychotherapists from England and the Continent, and the United States of America.

As the title of the Congress indicates, the contribution of papers, discussions and exhibitions all had a bearing on the various problems connected with the diagnosis and treatment of those border line cases of mental disorder which may aptly be described as disturbances of the normal functioning of the personality during the childhood, adolescent and adult stages of life. The frequency of such disturbances and the obscurity in which their origin and characteristics were for so long—and still largely are—shrouded, have given rise to intensive studies on the part of those whose interests are focussed on the special problems of childhood. The general public, too, is becoming increasingly aware that there are problems of behaviour which call for expert treatment, but as is so often the case it is apt to become bewildered by the diversity of theories and opinions put forward from time to time. As Professor Jung observed in his opening address, various schools of thought and practice are in existence side by side, the authors of which do not see eye to eye with one another and tend to remain aloof from like theories and practice of others.