The cleansing of the temple by Our Lord described by all four evangelists presents many problems, exegetical, moral and historical. Some reject the whole story as a fabrication, laughing at the idea that the money-changers and other traders in the temple would have so meekly borne the insult with hardly a protest. And of those who accept the story at its face value many are in difficulties because St. John puts it at the beginning of Our Lord’s ministry while the other three Gospels put it at the end, that is, just before the Passion. Hence it is said that either St. John or the other evangelists have changed the chronological order, some saying the former, others the latter. Finally, there are still others who say that both St. John and the other evangelists are right, because there were two cleansings of the temple, one at the beginning, the other at the end of our Lord’s public life. But many raise strong objections to this on account of what they call its extreme unlikelihood.

It is not our intention here to discuss this exegetical problem, or to give the arguments for and against a double or a single cleansing of the temple. Our purpose is simply to present certain historical data which throw light on the circumstances contemporary with the life of Christ, especially in relation to his attitude towards the buyers and sellers in the temple. These historical data will enable everyone to solve the problem for himself, not only with regard to the genuineness of the incident but also with regard to the likelihood of a repetition of the incident.

St. Luke, xii, 16-20.

Ah, One there was who thought within his heart,

‘What shall I do, my barns are all too small A room wherein to store my goods apart?

This will I do : destroy them one and all,

And build them greater, safely then to hold My grain and fruits in plenty, so shall be Rich competence assured when I am old,

And to my soul will I speak secretly :

Thou hast much goods laid up for many a year,

Eat, drink, and make good cheer, take thy repose,

O Soul, for whose but thine shall these things be?’—

When swift upon his boast, death hovered near,

God said, ‘Thou Fool! Whose shall they be—who knows?

This night do they require thy soul of thee!’

Edwin Essex, O.P.

One of the most ancient cities of the New World, a tribal centre from time immemorial, a seat of government long before the coming of the Spaniards, witness its ruins of the buildings of the Incas, San Francisco de Quito, to give it its full title, is one of the highest-placed capitals in the world. It lies at an altitude of over 9,300 feet, at the foot of the volcano of Pichincha and is almost on the equatorial line. The name Quito is said by some to be derived from the term Quitu given to the chief or cacique of the tribe of the Quichua who. inhabited it. Since their evangelization by Spain—it was annexed to the crown of Charles V in 1534 by Sebastian de Benalcazar, a lieutenant of Pizarro, and erected into a bishopric some nine years later—the inhabitants have ever been conspicuous for their loyalty and devotion to Holy Church. Its university rivalled that of Lima; its beautiful churches and monasteries are still remarkable. When that glory of the Western Hemisphere, Saint Rose of Lima, was called to her heavenly home, she would seem to have cast her mantle on the neighbouring capital, for shortly after was born there Blessed Mariana of Jesus, the ‘Lily of Quito,’ who spent her twenty-six years of heroic charity among its favoured people. During the last century it was a veritable beacon of light to the whole of Christendom. In the October number of Blackfriars reference was made to the official protest which, alone among nations, the Government of Quito issued against the unjust usurpation of Rome in 1870.

There are some places, so it seems to me, which have in them the quality of eternity. They are, as it were, little plots from the garden of Heaven to be reinclosed when the fitful breeze of time has blown itself out, and the universe is left undisturbed again with God.

One of such places is known to me, and there may be others; for I cannot think that one spot alone in the world can be thus singled out for eternity to the exclusion of all others, though for my part I know only one. For convenience I will call it Knights-at-Rest, since there are indeed knights at rest in one at least of its quiet fields; and to give it its true name savours of sacrilege, as if one were to speak intimately of a dear friend in public. For to me it is truly a dear friend and—which is a far greater thing—it is holy ground. And if it be said that this holiness, is a figment of my mind and not inherent in the place itself, but induced by long sojourning there and happy associations; I answer that, though I have often visited it, and never unhappily, I have passed no more than a few nights there in all; that the very first evening I saw it there fell upon me in some measure at any rate a sense of the presence of eternal things; and that one other human being at least, who has even less close associations with it than I have, has known the same sensation and holds it true.

As in the soul that is near to God there exist a wide calm and a silence that pervades the jangling noises of life, so, whenever I come to Knights-at-Rest, I am caught up as on to a mountain top, where even the loudest sounds beat harmlessly upon the protecting silence, and the voices of the village come to my ears muted and full of peace.

Tempora mutantur . . . Vergil knew the proverb; yet what a theme for his idyllic muse had he foreseen the restoration of the crumbled ruins of his Tiber city to recall the Golden Age! Even Nemi must be drained for its gold and galleons . . . . ‘Tempora mutantur........’ There is a hungering for the charm of antiquity, a charm which progress cannot destroy. Nor is it peculiarly Roman. The castles and cathedrals of Old England, signs of a lingering greatness, call to the heart of every genuine traveller with the same age-old voice.

Older civilizations, too, are not without this attraction. What of Spain, relic of the Ice Age, one might say? There is no need to resurrect her former glory by excavative endeavour, for the Plaza de Toros still rears its lofty, red-brick walls in disdain over the presumptive football ground that has ranged alongside. The gaudy artistry of cigar-box lids has yet its inspiration; the mantilla still survives, on occasion, the ubiquitous toque; nor has the automobile altogether ousted the bullock-cart off the country lane.

Of course, one does not realise this immediately. Every country has its own type of ‘red tapestry,’ and at Irun one makes acquaintance with the peculiar Spanish texture. It is a nuisance. International relationship seems to demand it. But why, in these enlightened days?

Then, the fresh beauty of the Pyreneean scenery soothes one’s ruffled feelings, and Iberia’s stronghold is entered.

Now love to this unloving breast

Has come, abandoning a throne; And trustful as a child at rest He lays His head—upon a stone.

The Holy One to this foul cell

Descends to banquet there with me. What can I offer but the smell And running sores of leprosy?

Ah God! Ah Son of Man! Without A miracle how can it be?

Make now the very stones cry out,

The leper clean to welcome Thee..

Theodore Maynard.

The state of Ireland a hundred years ago was sad. Acute, and widespread poverty, hunger, rags, hovels met the eyes of travellers at every turn in every town, village and roadside. The Irish knew the causes. Visitors and those who there sat in the seats of the mighty knew that all evils in Ireland and elsewhere came from one, and only one source, the Catholic Church.

Hence with an overpowering zeal the State-paid Church in Ireland, with its followers, judges, lord lieutenants, army officers, landlords, land agents, squires, government officials, and parsons, banded themselves together to cure permanently Ireland’s woes, to extirpate the Catholic Faith, to convert to Protestantism of any shade all the Irish from Cork to Derry. It was rather a big programme, a big campaign, and had proved for centuries a failure disastrous. New methods were adopted. The sword had failed, eviction had failed, well engineered poverty and crime had failed. An appeal to the souls of the poor misguided Papishes, a big campaign of Bible distribution, of blasphemy by well-trained bigot parsons, by tracts deriding the Mass, Confession, the Pope, Mary, the Mother of God. Every market and fair had its street preachers, with their select blasphemy, lies, filthy stories about convents. In Westmoreland Street, Dublin, in a window of a leading shop was a picture in two parts, a hideous Indian idol, and a mouse gnawing a Host, and beneath were the words, ‘Two Idols.’ People were pestered by insulting remarks on Catholic doctrine, with tracts galore, and were pained by the reports of the sermons, the speeches, the boastings of the thousands and thousands of converts flocking daily to the services in Protestant churches, renouncing Rome, embracing the Bible, reading it hourly and blessing God for the light of the Gospel denied them by the accursed church of Rome, the harlot of the Seven Hills.

I

We had been sitting in the galerie through the lovely August afternoon, watching the wind ruffle the grasses in the fields before us, and gently swing the trees. Better, we felt, under that hot sun, to contemplate beauty, than to waste energy in dissecting it. So we sat in the flickering shade of the wisteria, breaking now into tardy hesitant heavenly blossoming, and; saw the acacias foam on the brink of the steep to the south. Above them, the crosses on Calvary hill were steadfast amongst the changing verdure. Higher still, the Pyrenees leapt to meet the sky.

As we sat at ease, a woman came into view along the path fringed by the acacias. We leant forward a little to watch her, wondering what friend this might be. She wore black, she was slender, she was unusually graceful; and none of us could remember having seen her before.

She approached the gate; and, as I ran down to greet her, she smiled at me from under her drooping hat.

I am Mlle. Deschamps,’ she said. ‘Forgive me for coming to call on you first. I came because I was told you would be glad to see me, to talk about the pilgrimage.’

She was charming, I thought, and distinguished, with delightful gestures. Her head was small and beautifully poised. The forehead was broad and low, the eyes so dark a brown as to make one think them black, the nose aquiline, the mouth strong and tender.