It is a little difficult for the ordinary person who has merely the press to guide him to see his way into the confusion of China and to understand what the trouble is about.

But it is not really so difficult if the reader of the newspapers has certain facts well in view. He had better leave alone most of the names; the Changs and Chiangs will only make the muddle greater to him. There is really no need at the beginning for him to trouble himself with these. First, however, let him take as the simplest idea that the awakening sense of nationality is the dominant feature of the situation. Let him look on the South or the Cantonese as being mainly interested in this. The sense of nationality has reached the Chinese chiefly through the Western insistence on it. They have learnt this from us. The way in which it expresses itself may be happy or unhappy, may be right or wrong; but we must realise what is the power and the force of this before we can grasp what has happened in China, and what has to be done.

Awakening, then, to a sense of nationality, the China of to-day sees itself differently treated from other nations. It is the obvious exception to the rest. On its soil foreigners are encamped in a way that does not happen elsewhere. This hurts their pride or their self-consciousness. Now, self-conscious nationality is always bellicose, like a young man who feels his own strength. Rodin’s Bronze Age shows you the awakening of man to his manhood and its power. He stretches his arms out to their fullest, because he is now awake.

Now that the whole hierarchy of France, Cardinals, Archbishops, and Bishops-more than a hundred in number-have joined in addressing to the Holy Father a collective letter expressing their complete devotion and loyalty to the Holy See, and their full appreciation of the need for condemning what has been condemned in the Action Française, there should be no further rumours and insinuations to the effect that the Catholics of France were showing any reluctance in their submission to the Pope’s authority. One bishop after another has promulgated the decree of condemnation in his own diocese, and published a letter explaining the nature and necessity of the condemnation.

The main facts have been published in BLACKFRIARS and elsewhere at considerable length. But among the immense mass of documents from many sources which have been published in France in connection with the condemnation, two seem to call for special attention because of the light they throw upon particular points. One shows how strong was the demand for the condemnation of M. Maurras even before the War, when Pope Pius X actually did condemn the books which have now been publicly placed upon the Index. The other is a singularly impressive and vigorous retort to the accusations made in the Action Française suggesting that the Holy Father was misled by a conspiracy which aims at defeating the Nationalist forces in France.

‘Justifying one’s claim’ has an unpleasant sound. It is suggestive of a very lively consciousness of one’s merits and of an eager desire to get them recognised. Before trying to answer the question : Did Our Lord justify His claim to be God? it is useful to ask another : Did He claim to be God? And that question, as thus emphasized, can be broken u into two : What exactly did He claim to be? and : dow did He make the claim? It is not that there is the least intention of watering down Our Blessed Lord’s declarations about Himself. From those declarations it certainly follows that He was God—if He was speaking the truth. But that is just the point. That is the real meaning of the question we have to answer. Was He speaking the truth? Ought we to accept His word? And one of the chief means of deciding whether we ought to take His word is to consider His declarations, not as resolved into one general proposition, but to consider them, as far as we can, in the concrete; that is, to try to see exactly what He said, and how, and in what circumstances, He said it. For in so doing we get some glimpse of His character, and a man’s character is one test of his credibility. Another is corroboration by a reliable witness.