In the introductory words to two special articles on Mary the Mother which he was invited to contribute to The Catholic Times, ‘the present writer felt it imperative to point out that’ it would be a grave and lamentable loss if a Catholic’s appreciation of our Blessed Lady was no more than the largely sentimental emotion it often appears to be, or even no more than a solid but unpenetrating admiration for her spotless purity of soul and an awed wonder of her virginal Motherhood of God. These are not without their place and value; but it is yet more important to realise that both her immaculate purity and her divine motherhood play an essential part not only in the historic fact of the Incarnation whereby the world was redeemed, but also in the application of the fruits of that Redemption to all men throughout the world and throughout the ages. We need the wisdom of understanding if the full vision of the Motherhood of Mary is not to escape us............ We cannot properly appreciate the Mother except as inseparably linked with her Son; and there is a sense in which it is true to say that we cannot properly appreciate the Son apart from His Mother. There is no absolute necessity in this; but there is the necessity of God’s love, Who chose this way and no other for restoring humankind to His friendship..........so that only by finding the Child with His Mother can a man find also the wisdom of God which leads to everlasting love. For it is no mere physical necessity which linked these two ....

‘If good people feel disgust at a nation which—simply with a view to extending its dominion—spontaneously provokes a war with neighbouring States which are at peace with it and have done them no harm—then I can only say that I applaud their praiseworthy feelings.’—De Civitate Dei, IV, xiv.

Remarkably little seems to have been written on this subject. Yet Augustine is quite justly described as the Father of the Philosophy of History,’ and even if he had not treated of the subject almost ‘ex professo ‘—as we hope to show—no remarks of his on the part war has played in the history of the world could fail to be of interest. So far the only discussion on his attitude to the problems are a Paper by Fr. Vincent Scully, C.R.L., in the Clergy Review for Feb., 1932, and also Ypres de la Brière, La Conception de la Paix et de la Guerre chez S. Augustin, Revue de la Philosophic, 1916. See too R. Regout, S.J., La doctrine de la guerre juste de S. Augustin ii nos jours d'apres les théologiens et les canonistes catholiques, 1935, though the author is more concerned with Franciscus de Victoria who has, he thinks, broken with scholastic teaching on the requisites for a just war.

The above passage—so peculiarly apropos to the events of to-day—shows us what the Bishop of Hippo’s reactions to the present crisis would have been. Yet to gentle, peace- loving Augustine, ever absorbed in the needs spiritual as well as temporal of his flock, war was-—as indeed it must be to every thinking man—-something unspeakably horrible.

‘All over the world . . . our troubles have one bitter root . . . the ignoring of God’s majesty, the complete neglect of His heavenly commandments or, at best, a woeful inconsistency that can do nothing but hesitate between right and wrong.

’ It is this that gives rise to our blind excess of self-love— to our thirst for pleasure . . . the Flight from the Land (.Agrorum desertio), to levity in contracting marriage (in matrimoniis contrahendis ludificatio).’ Encyclical Letter, Sertum Laetitiae, to the United States Hierarchy on the 150th anniversary of their establishment.

We have set down this authoritative statement on a fundamental principle because only through authoritative statements and not through individual opinions can a sick world be led back to health. Individuals, and perhaps especially the young when endowed with a sensitive nature, are often capable of sensing social ailments. Yet their power to descry and describe social disease does not empower them to prescribe the remedy for the disease. Zeal to staunch the wounds of the world is amongst youth's most engaging qualities. But those of us who once were young —’ and that was long ago ‘—know that the best words an individual in the Church can now say to a world in extremis must only be words of commentary on what the Church’s authority has already said.

(2). Two anecdotes will serve to prepare the readers of this commentary to see what the commentator sees.

Not long ago those interested in the forward movement in Catholic social teaching and practice were interested to read From Union Square to Rome, which was Miss Dorothy Day’s account of her conversion to the Church. The story ended with her safely within the fold, and all who read the story and who knew of the work that she had undertaken; were anxious to hear more of it. The American Catholic Worker was always interesting and enlightening, and recently have been published Peter Maurin’s Easy Essays. But until now there was no full-length story of the work being done in New York nor of the dynamic spirit which keeps it going. Last month, however, the gap was admirably filled by House of Hospitality/ again by Dorothy Day; and I have no hesitation in saying that this is one of the most important books not only of this year, but since the publication of the encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891. A bold claim indeed, but one which I hope to substantiate in the course of the article.

What immediately puts this book in a class apart is that it is written by someone who has lived and is still living it. It is about the poorest of the poor, the destitute, about the workers and their struggles, not for prosperity, but for the right to be recognised as something more than chattels. It is written from the inside, not by a fur-coated investigator, not by a commission of statistically-minded civil servants, not by a bien pensant slumrner, but by a woman who is one with the poor, the destitute and the outcast.

Has the Catholic Church in England any message save to the individual soul? Has she a real and constructive contribution to make to .the social problem of this country? It is no doubt a dreadful thing that I should even ask such a question, but it is high time that the question were asked.

That the Church has solicitude for the material needs for her children is an article of Faith, but whether that solicitude moves the hearts of the Faithful in this country to such a degree that it will be of any practical effect is another matter. Yet if it goes no further than pious aspiration and is not likely to go further, if it does no more than proclaim ends on the majority of which all men are to-day in agreement and fails wholly to regard the problem of means, it -would be better for us to confess failure and retire into the desert to pray. To proclaim that we have a body of social teaching and then declare ourselves bankrupt when it comes to seeking ways of applying it or even of showing how it might be applied is to court ridicule. The multitude is hungry. We have no right to give them generalities instead of food. I say in all seriousness that if we cannot do better than that, it would be far better to do nothing at all.

True, we have consolidated certain defensive positions. We have asserted the priority of the family over the State, the natural authority of parents over children, the right of free association and the dignity of human personality.

In that England which was Mary’s dowry, men were eager to offer their gift of poetry to her. The thirteenth and two succeeding centuries are gemmed with lyrics praising and compassionating her. These poems are, on the whole, naive in form; they have the terseness and singlemindedness of a short story. They are arrows winged direct from the heart. Simile is seldom used; praise is given direct. There are two or three poems like the magnificent ‘Song to the Queen of Heaven’ whose lines pulse with a passion of wonder, but, for the most part, the lyrics have the simplicity and pathos of folksong music. They are prayers in verse. The unknown authors were not thinking of fame; their hymns are wrought for their Mother’s glory:

Levedy, I thank thee
With heart so mild,
The good that thou hast done me
With thy sweet child.

Love fashions it, and dictates the language. It has the clean fragrance of a bunch of cowslips gathered in a sunlit meadow. The medieval poet has the direct and candid speech of the child; he possesses a like wisdom and sincerity. The themes of his sons are simple. He loves his Mother’s beauty; he cries to her to aid his helplessness; he pleads to be delivered from sin, and from Hell; he echoes, though less perfectly, that poignant cry of yearning which concludes the Salve Regina.

Such lines sing themselves into men’s minds, and are not easily forgotten.