In her decision to seize the Ruhrland, France has committed herself to a course which leaves her practically no possibility of turning back. The gravity of her decision is already appreciated throughout the country, and the Press is busy exhorting all classes of the population to pay no heed to criticism of French policy and to face the trials which she has chosen to encounter with unflinching resolution and with a determination to rely solely upon France’s own resources. This is not the place to discuss the merits or otherwise of the policy which France has adopted. But in order to make clear the extremely serious dangers which it involves for the position of the Church in France if failure in the Ruhr should lead to a violent political reaction towards the Left, it is necessary to indicate briefly the principal factors in the situation.

In the first place it must be stated quite frankly that no one who sympathises with France in the difficulties with which she has been surrounded since the war could well see how the adventure into the Ruhr was to be avoided. The occupation of the Ruhr was France’s last card against Germany, and as all else had failed, France simply had to play it or acquiesce meekly in Germany’s triumphant default. It is not fair to say that France is prepared to drive Europe into war rather than undertake to pay for her own reconstruction out of taxes.

Among the few incidents of my ill-spent life which. I hope may be accounted to me for righteousness is the suppression of a hymn-book. At first sight this might appear to some—who do not know what literary crimes are committed under that innocent-seeming name—a matter for remorse rather than for pride, for regret rather than for congratulation. But I will venture in justification to apply to myself the response of the prudent Rector of a seminary who, when told by a scrupulous student that he had discovered a new mortal sin, replied : ‘Then, my son, keep it to yourself and never mention it; there are far too many known already.’ Yet when I add that the hymn-book was to have appeared under the protection of a Cardinal, my daring will seem to demand yet further excuse; so it will be simplest to say what actually happened.

The late Cardinal Vaughan, as is well known, had a burning desire for the conversion of England and, with that object in view, to bring the Church into contact with the people. It was this that impelled him to establish the original Catholic Truth Society for the publication or for dissemination of cheap popular Catholic books; and when, owing to various circumstances, that Society ceased to function, he gladly placed himself at the head of the new organisation established for the same purpose, retaining that position until his death in 1903. Apart from the C.T.S. the Cardinal issued a series of People's Manuals, prepared by himself, which had a very large sale.

I was being escorted the other day over the Roman foundations of an ancient British city, by a professor who said something that seems to me a satire on a good many other professors. I think it very probable that this professor saw the joke, though he maintained an iron gravity; but I do not know whether he saw that it was a joke against a great deal of historical science and comparative religion. I drew his attention to a bas-relief or moulding representing the head of the sun with the usual halo of rays, but with the difference that the face in the disc, instead of being boyish like Apollo, was bearded like Neptune or Jupiter. ‘Yes,’ he said, with a certain delicate exactitude, ‘that is supposed to represent the local sun-god Sul. The best authorities identify Sul with Minerva; but this has been held to show that the identification is not complete.’

That is what we call a powerful understatement. And it struck me that it was singularly like a large number of parallels I have come across in what is called comparative religion, on which I would add a postscript to these notes. Many professors identifying things remind me of this identification of Minerva with the Bearded Woman of Mr. Barnum. It is indeed an example of the modern world being madder than any satires on it; for long ago Mr. Belloc invented an imaginary don, who said that a bust of Ariadne had been proved by modern research to represent Silenus.

My old friend, John Brayne, had gathered some remarkably choice spirits together on the occasion of my last visit to Hadlands old manor. John Brayne is an old Catholic in every sense except that associated with Jansenism, but he has the habit of renewing his youth, like the eagle, and he always manages to keep pace with the ‘young thought’ which pours itself out in places where our rising men foregather, and they foregather very readily on John Brayne’s hospitable hearth, and bring him up to date when they consider it necessary. Sometimes the necessity has been known to arise, and then old Mr. Brayne illustrates his point with a story that is generally well worth recording. The following is quite a typical one.

We were discussing the progress of Catholicism, and someone asked our host what he considered to be the chief obstacle to the advance of the faith amongst educated folk. We all awaited the answer with interest, for in some ways old John Brayne is the youngest of us all.