It has of late been almost taken for granted that the Anglo-Catholic movement within the Church of England was in danger of forfeiting its claim to scholarship. The early Tractarians from whom the movement began had left names like Keble, Newman, Pusey, which might almost overawe into silence the men whom their genius organized into a school of action rather than of thought. On the other hand, the stalwarts of Biblical exegesis—Hort, Westcott, Light-foot—had captured a position in the world of scholars which few could rival. Moreover, to the credit of the Anglo-Catholics it may be said that, scorning academic delight, they have lived laborious days, often in the slums of England or the poverty of foreign missions, building up the ‘Catholic Church of England’ ; which is not yet, but is to be. Much of the reason why the scholarly output of recent Anglo-Catholics has not equalled the old is written in Fr. Knox’s pathetic words of introduction : ‘For my impertinence in presenting to the public a book on such a subject, which has been composed for the most part in the intervals of parochial work in London, I can only offer my humblest apologies.’

The modern scholar is to be seen or felt in every page of this work written against the overwhelming odds of a London parish. So high a level of conscientious scholarship is reached that even those who find themselves in disagreement with many of his views must find themselves in admiration of the dogged zeal which has packed his book with toil and thought.

It is a relief to turn from the nebulous emotionalism and egoistical self-centredness of the recent articles on My Religion which have recently appeared in the daily press to Mr. Chesterton’s Everlasting Man—a work which comes upon us as a fresh breeze from the mountain tops. It is a challenge, and a noble one, ranging from scientific theories to religious dogmas. It is quite impossible to give more than the briefest of brief outlines of its scope and treatment, and one can only hint at the faultless and fearless fathoming of flaws in the attitudes of the modern mind. But it is not until we come to the end of the book that we find, what we had all along surmised, that most of the theories attacked are popular rather than really scientific, and the author’s conscience smites him with the thought that he ‘may sometimes have given an impression of scoffing at serious scientific work.’ The book is really meant to be a popular criticism of popular fancies, often, indeed, of very vulgar errors, and it is never meant to be ‘an impertinence to the truly learned.’ So we know where we are, or, at any rate, where we have been, when we come to the Appendix.

In pointing this out we do not mean to imply that his strictures are beside the mark—in point of fact, they hit it every time, and he is inimitably accurate in detecting the weak points in many popular theories.

Mrs. E. M. Simpson has recently published a study of Donne’s prose works. The author of such a study could not avoid giving some account of those ideas which writers on Donne usually label his ‘Medievalism.’ For no one can read either Donne’s poetry or his prose intelligently unless he is fairly well acquainted with what Donne himself calls the philosophy of the ‘Schoole.’ Seemingly conversant with the whole range of scholastic writers, he had studied St. Thomas Aquinas with particular diligence, and he admired his genius profoundly : indeed he puts him on a level with St. Augustine, and in one place, addressing God, he speaks of St. Thomas as ‘that other instrument and engine of thine, whom Thou hadst so enabled that nothing was too minerall and centrick for the search and reach of his wit.’

The theory known as the Materialistic Interpretation of History, which constitutes the philosophical background of Communism, asserts that religious beliefs are the product of social and economic circumstances and vary according to those circumstances. I had never realised the large measure of truth in that theory until quite recently. The need of refreshing my memory concerning the methods of worship among certain sects, for the purposes of a series of articles on the subject in a Catholic newspaper, led to sundry visits to non-Catholic bodies. The formative influence of class traditions on ecclesiastical proceedure and belief was impressed on my mind with considerable force as visit followed visit.

It was impossible, for instance, not to recognise that factor in the case of the Christian Scientists. It was not merely that the roadway outside the Hall was lined with motor-cars for some hundreds of yards or that those who filled the building were most obviously of the leisured class. The whole tone of the Service was that of a drawing-room meeting, well-bred, politely interested, and—if the paradox may be allowed—profoundly superficial.

Christian Science is an American importation. One might speak of it as the Gospel of Optimism or as Christianity without the Cross. It is a cult patronised almost exclusively by those whose external circumstances have placed them beyond the need of that severe struggle which others must make for a livelihood. Happiness for these consists largely in their power to shut out the ugly and sordid aspects of life. Conversation among such people quietly assumes that the whole world, or at least the part of it that matters, is circumstanced as are they themselves. The intrusion of poverty and disease into their comfortable circle is resented as something lacking good taste.

In many of the modern text books epitomizing the story of the first discoveries of the Antiquity of Man and of his having been the contemporary of extinct mammalia, the part played by MacEnery, Pengelly and the members of the Torquay Natural History Society often receives very little adequate representation. Usually most of the praise is meted out to Boucher de Perthes, and it is quite forgotten that it was the spade work of these English pioneers which induced Falconer, Prestwich and Evans to take up the cause of the famous archaeologist of Abbeville. An attempt therefore will be made to relate in their proper order the series of incidents that led up to the revolution of scientific opinion in 1859 on the antiquity of the human race. These when seen in their true sequence, from Kent’s Cavern to the valley of the Somme, are also the vindication of MacEnery’s discoveries.

As early as 1840, Godwin-Austen read a paper to the Geological Society of London On the Bone Caves of Devonshire (March 25th), but in it he made no mention of MacEnery; nor did he, as is generally asserted, speak of the flint implements. Perhaps he thought it politic to avoid the subject as Buckland was in the chair. A year later (MacEnery died in the February) Godwin-Austen and Buckland had ‘an interesting discussion’ at the Plymouth meeting of the British Association.