It is idle yet to discuss the prospects of the second Spanish Republic; it is impossible to predict whether it will have as short a life as the first Republic of 1873. This lies not in the new form of government, but in the whole instability of Spanish politics. Before the April Revolution I was of the opinion that it was impossible to take Spanish politics seriously, an opinion which, to my mind, constituted no insult to the Spanish people. Though still persisting in that view, I will admit that recent events make the holding of it perhaps unfair. One thing now emerges as definite; there is no lack of political earnestness among a number of the people, but how large this number really is appears a matter of conjecture.

I was recently discussing the new Spanish situation with a friend who is an authority on everything Spanish. The conversation turned from Spain to the rest of Europe, and I remarked that Germany was a country I much admired. ‘Spain is a country one cannot admire,’ said my friend; ‘but it is a country one can love.’ To a certain extent this is true, in that one can love the country and its inhabitants, yet deplore its politics. When known, Spain is a country one can love with gratitude and joy; it is a country that can exercise an irresistible attraction; and its peculiar fascination, once felt, never fades, but grows ever stronger. Yet it is impossible, when looking back at its political history since the days of the great Hapsburgs, to admire what is only a lamentable history of deplorable government.

The movement from the town back to the country is typical of to-day, and the call of ‘the open road’ was never so much heeded in England since the days when pilgrimages were a part of our national life. While twenty years ago only a very few enthusiasts went into camp or took to tramping for the duration of their holidays, to-day these pastimes are rapidly becoming universal. In America and on the Continent—especially in Germany—this movement has become an established part of the national life, and here in England it is on the brink of assuming like proportions. For this reason alone it is at least a matter of interest to Catholics.

Even the staid Nonconformist News-Chronicle has become its sponsor, and there are several magazines, including a new monthly, devoted entirely to the joys and advantages of an informal holiday in the open air. In addition, there are many clubs and similar organisations—both local and national—which have for their end the popularisation of the open road. What is more significant is that the first of a chain of youth hostels—where a night’s lodging can be had for a shilling—was opened at Winchester only a few weeks ago.

It is all so natural and at bottom so right; it is part of that revolution—or revulsion—against the drab gloom of the city that has been steadily growing in intensity for the last two or three decades and has produced, among other things, the Garden City Movement and Mr. Chesterton’s Distributism.

Had anyone roused Father Jucundus and asked him what he was doing, the answer would have been that he was praying. If was after the evening meal, his first community exercise since his return from a tour of spectacular preaching, that too travel-weary to stay more than a few minutes in the oratory, he had sought his cell for final prayer and then repose. His gift of lively imagination, he thought, would help his prayer. So with no curb to his fancifulness, he roamed through the courts of Heaven meeting an occasional saint although the night was well advanced. He took care to comport himself properly in the presence of one, and said all the right things to another. There really was something of the actor in his gate-crashing mode of entry into the celestial realms.

Then quite suddenly he seemed to leave Heaven behind. The atmosphere became oppressive, and he, hot and sickly. He did not like the change at all, and was on the point of taking a good look around, when his attention was held by a curious figure that plumped himself down in front of him, apparently from nowhere.

What he saw was a very old man with all the signs of youthful vitality. The head was remarkably large, the sort of head so often rightly judged to be the envelope for more than normal intelligence.

There was an expression of amused enjoyment or. the cunning old face that went with the wise old head.

In somewhat unprofessional language Fr. Jucundus asked ‘Who the devil are you?’ And the answer came, ‘I am your own familiar little devil.’

Many of the manifestations of the counter Reformation, or rather of its backwash, are becoming almost unpopular, even among Catholics. Rococo was the first to suffer, and Baroque. Then florid counterpoint. Then some of its devotional forms and religious methods, institutions, and thought. Many expressions of the Catholic reaction do not belong merely to the period. Michael Angelo, Palestrina, and the Jesuits, for instance, if not immune from criticism, are anyhow great enough to defy it. There is now an attack on a common catechetical method which dates from the sixteenth century.

In a recent book, Père Tahon, a Scheut missionary in the Philippines and an educational expert, has marshalled the evidence to show that what he aptly calls psittacism, or the system of imposing a bare summary of Christian doctrine on the memory of the child without previous understanding, is Protestant in origin, is not authentically Catholic, exists in the Church as an abuse, and is, besides, contrary to the principles of pedagogical psychology.

The apostolic method of teaching beginners consisted in first presenting the facts of sacred history, and then drawing out from them the doctrinal elements of religion. This narrative method was continued by the Fathers, was formulated by St. Augustine (de Catechizandis Rudibus) precisely as the best way of instructing the ignorant, and became traditional in the Church, until it was largely displaced by a new catechetical method deriving from the polemics of the Reformation.

On the day of the Fête-Dieu or Corpus Christi in Saint-Malo and the surrounding district known locally as the Clos-Poulet, the windows of all the confectioners’ shops, large and small, are heaped with little bags of dragées or sugared almonds, known (on this occasion only) as Cornets-de-la-Saint-Jean. Till recently it was also the custom to sell them in the streets, when from early morning the cry could be heard:

‘Les cornets de la-Saint-Jean,

Pour les petits et pour les grands,

A chacun pour son argent . . .’

—and there were few who could not spare a few sous to buy them, if only to give away to the children. But as their name indicates, these cornets do not really belong to the festival at all and were only transferred to it when la-Saint-Jean fell more or less out of observance; in earlier days it was on the 24th of June that they made their appearance, and if one goes back further their origin is as interesting as it is remote. For the Cornets-de-la-Saint-Jean have a history that dates back some six hundred years, and they are all that is left to-day—these gay and gilded little ‘pokes’ of sugared almonds—of a very ancient and noble Confraternity.

It was somewhere about the year 1240 that, under the auspices and with the support of the Bishop Geoffroi, the Confraternité des Frères-Blancs de Saint-Jean was first founded at Saint-Malo; and there still exist very precise details of its earlier years in certain ancient MSS, some of which (originals or copies) are now preserved in the archives of the town.