What are the relations between Christianity and the social order, between the Church and those societies in which men live? Sometimes the Church is blamed because she has not solved effectively the many evils which afflict organised humanity, because she has not stopped war, for instance, or issued a remedy for the unemployment problem. Sometimes, on the contrary, her teaching with regard to current questions is disdained’ as either too medieval or too corrupt to be of use. In any case, the assumption is there; she should have something to say to enlighten a world in darkness. Another factor that has increased the demand for a statement of the implications of Christian principles is the emergence of a new and formidable political and economic force, equipped with a fighting doctrine. Communism, with its practical and apparently successful realization in Soviet Russia, is a challenge not only to the capitalistic societies to which it is formally opposed, but also to the basic ideas which have formed the Christian tradition. Lenin, of course, identified the two and saw in religion nothing but a support and sanction of the dominant regime: for him as for Karl Marx it was simply ‘dope for the people.’ The fact that he was wrong makes it all the more urgent to clarify the issue and make the independence of Christian teaching plain.

This book is a commendable effort in that direction. It has a twofold aim. In the first place it seeks to give a systematic account of the history of the Christian Social Movement in England with some reference to its growth in the United States.

The cinema hoardings proclaim, if not so insistently now as a few years ago, the advertising value of the words sin and sinner. The devil is not regarded as a bore—at least by his nodding acquaintances. Vice is thought interesting, and virtue dull. Perhaps it is the fault of the novelists whose villains are more likeable than their heroes; perhaps because the notion of immorality is restricted now to the more exciting forms; perhaps because some of our vices have the reputation of virtue. These are the deadly vices, the deadly-dull. Virtues gone flat. Or, as St. Thomas says, the vice that looks like virtue; false prudence, for instance, and religiosity, and deadness to sense.

Anyhow, there it is, sin is definitely news. You remember how people flocked to the Albert Hall to hear The New Sin expounded. Only to be mocked. Similarly, the title and opening of a recent book on Buchmanism rouse the same attention. ‘It comes to grips with an unlovely subject,’ we are promised. ‘And’—the superb assurance—‘solves its riddle.’ But only to disappoint. (Pouf! call those sins, said the Borgia courtier squaring his shoulders, now if you really want, etc., etc.). Perhaps it is a back-handed compliment, but the Catholic literature of conversion is decidedly more thrilling, and does more than skate on the conventions. François Mauriac or Julien Green will point the contrast.

Making allowance for the fact that vice is often unprintable, and noticing the Buchmanite recognition of the pervasiveness of sin, this book still leaves the impression that the sins that matter are the indulgences That Spell Inefficiency.

I had never before fallen so easily and pleasantly into conversation with anyone; it was as though we had for many years enjoyed an unexacting friendship. For though I was fully aware that she was a stranger to me, there seemed to be between us no barriers of the mind; and this, despite the fact that I was suddenly in a place that I did not know, without even the vaguest memory to tell me how I had come there. I remember marvelling at the beauty of the scene, and wondering if its mild and charming aspect had cast a spell upon me. For we were quite at ease. We stood on a broad stone terrace, balustraded and open to the sky, stretching back to the gardens and pavilions of a palace. Beneath our feet, below steep, flower-covered slopes and rolling fields, the whole world seemed to lie within the possibilities of vision; and now the plains, now the far-distant mountains, now the dark stretches of the forest revealed themselves beneath a tender floating haze that was as fresh as morning, yet as restful and contented as the twilight.

She stood looking down over the fields, leaning a little forward, one finely-shaped hand resting lightly on the balustrade. Her graciousness was elusive, yet not remote, her friendliness apparent without effort. Perfectly attuned to her surroundings, assured and happy and free from arrogance, she gave me sympathy and welcome without questioning, and I accepted it. Still unaware of what had happened to me, I stood on a garden terrace high above the world and talked of the places and the people that I loved with one who loved them too.

Plato has long since taken his place in company with Shakespeare, Rabelais, Cervantes, and other Olympians of literature among authors who are more talked about than read. It may be true that none but a scholar in the exact and classical sense is in a position to appreciate to the full the beauty of Plato’s style and the clarity of his thought, but those of us, and they tend to become an ever-increasing number, who can only read him in translation should not be deterred by that consideration. Plato’s nearness to the present age is remarkable. Though Athens of the fifth century B.C. bears little enough resemblance to London of the early twentieth century, there is this broad comparison to be drawn between, them: each looks to the future with hope out of a time of distress and the uncertainty that accompanies change; each feels itself to be politically bankrupt and puts little confidence in its accredited leaders; each feels that the trouble arises, not so much from the institutions in vogue as from the weakness, folly and incompetence inherent in human nature. It is for these reasons that Plato has much of value to say not merely to the poet and the philosopher in all ages, but also to the men and women immersed in practical affairs.

To-day we are apt to feel impatient of doctrinaire dreamers who draw up systems of government that look well on paper. The. very word ‘utopian’ has come to bear a meaning that is suspect, if not downright sinister.

Some people still cherish romantic ideas about the Middle Ages. They form visionary pictures of the typical medieval lady living on the principles of popular hagiography and doing embroidery in a high tower of ivory, while her husband was in the Holy Land. Indeed, she must have smiled, as we do, when St. Thomas, writing on the adornment of women, says that it is unlawful for a Christian woman to paint her face, unless it be for a valid reason, such as re-capturing the affections of an erring husband.

Some theologians loved to make catalogues and put woman in just her right niche in the social universe; but she was an inveterate Pagan at heart, and had a disconcerting way of popping out of her bandbox. If the scholastics would call her the unregenerate daughter of Eve, they must abide by the result if she became the cause of all evil.

The Aristocracy, on the other hand, placed woman on a pedestal. Opinions were varied : Jacques de Vitry writing in the thirteenth century, says of Eve that ‘she had no rest until she had succeeded in banishing her husband from the garden of delights.’ On the other hand, a manuscript at Cambridge says : ‘Woman is to be preferred to man, to wit: in material because Adam was made from clay and Eve from the side of Adam, and in conception because a woman conceived God,’ and so on.

As the cloister became the citadel of the finest spirits of Christendom, there arose the vision of woman as the supreme temptress.

The author of a book on how to write advertisements for selling goods came to face the question as to what was to be done if the advertisement writer simply could not think of anything to say. His solution was—start an argument with yourself.

It is said that one of our great preachers prepares his sermons in the following way. He writes at the top of the paper the statement which he wishes to teach. Below this he writes : ‘But it seems that this is not the case, because . . . .’ and here follow various objections and difficulties. The truth is there is nothing like an argument, or objection, to make one think, or to arouse interest, as the middle ages so well understood. Every article of the Summa of St. Thomas begins with objections—that is, it is cast in the form of an argument with an invisible opponent. His articles are headed, not by a statement, but by a question. For example, ‘Whether the Eucharist gives Grace? And every article has three distinct parts : (1) objections; (2) the magisterial solution of the question, with arguments; (3) replies to the above objections in the light of this solution.

Why did he do so? The answer is, roughly speaking, that St. Thomas wrote like that because he taught like that, and further, he taught like that because he thought like that, as indeed do most of us. First we are set thinking by some problem, next we consider the whole subject and come to some conclusion, and, thirdly, we solve thus the problem which originally set us at work.

There are a few perfect settings still to be found in this world. They are the ‘apples of gold in pictures of silver’ of the Wise Man.

Most golden things have quite another setting— like the jewel of gold in a pig’s snout to which the same Wise Man likens the beauty of a foolish woman.

A perfect picture in a perfect shrine, or a beautiful Cathedral in a beautiful City would find a fitting symbol in the first. For the second . . . . ! Quite lately when I saw for the first time one of the most famous historic French Cathedrals of the Middle Ages—a thing of rare beauty—it was this which came unsought to my mind.

The Cathedral, from its jewelled windows to its priceless Treasure, is a gem, but its setting is a mean and sordid town—so mean that it does not seem to know how great a treasure it possesses in its Cathedral. Its eyes have been blinded by a petty and venomous anti-clericalism. It has met with its reward. The historic and aesthetic significance which once made it great in Europe has disappeared, and its only value now in the eyes of the world (with the exception of a few savants and beauty-lovers who are not of this world) is as a place of passage where motors halt for the night and the owners sleep, eating and drinking abundantly, if not choicely.