But, it may be argued further, the Church which has the spending of so much money might at least employ the best artists, even if they be few and eccentric. Surely her pictures and statues and extra-liturgical music might be made by artists rather than by commercial firms of Church decorators, even if she be obliged to employ architects and contractors to do her buildings. Why, it is asked, are so many painters competing for customers on the walls of the Royal Academy exhibitions, or why are the younger men so often obliged to sell themselves to advertisement contractors or else to live in penury? Here indeed are faults on all sides! Ecclesiastics certainly seem to show an amazing lack of intelligence in as much as they fail so completely to apply the principles of their own work to the criticism of the works of others, and are often buyers of work which is not only thoroughly unliturgical but also wanting in every quality of intelligence. Upon the other hand, artists to-day are generally both unable and unwilling to do the kind of work which the Church needs. We will examine briefly the history of the matter; then we shall see more clearly the causes underlying the present evil state of affairs.

At the break-up of the medieval system in the 16th Century two great disruptions were acting and interacting—the Reformation and the Renaissance. At the beginning of the century’ the class of persons now called artists did not exist, nor was there such a thing as an architectural profession.

Father Vincent McNabb’s The Church and the Land is a book to be read by all who are concerned and anxious about the pressing problem of unemployment. But it would be a pity if our reading of this stirring book produced no effect except a vague feeling that something was wrong and an equally vague conviction that something ought to be done about it. It would be futile to read it as we might read Vergil’s Pastorals—to be thrilled and charmed by the vision of the sower casting his seed, the ploughman turning over his furrow or the harvester swinging his sickle. The flail song in threshing time and the joyous music of the churn when butter is a-making are fine glowing dreams and visions that must not be allowed to evaporate into airy nothings. Every chapter of this book should stimulate into action. Fr. Vincent McNabb describes his work as a bugle-call. Wherefore sound the bugle if there be none to answer the call?

The gist of the book could be given somewhat as follows : There are at the present moment more than a million workers unemployed. They are being paid for being unemployed. At the same time there are millions of acres of good arable land lying untilled; and there are many more acres unworked than there are men out of work.

The practical person will at once say, Yes, but the men who are employed are neither by temperament, training nor inclination the sort of people who would or could till the untilled fields even if it were possible for them to get at them.

Not long ago I was telling a story to a little five-year-old friend of mine. She listened with great delight till we came to the inevitable fairy, who helps the distracted heroine through her troubles, when she interrupted with ‘Please let the fairy be an angel!’ I thought of this instinctive desire of a child for angelic comradeship, when looking through a number of modern children’s books in a large bookshop lately. I was struck with the entire absence of a reference to any form of religion in the charming and artistic productions which are published by the hundred to amuse and instruct the younger children of to-day. There are fairies in abundance, talking flowers, singing pigs, intelligent carrots, but no saints, or angels, and never a reference, however remote, to Almighty God.

I am not, of course, referring to the numberless story books by well-intentioned writers of all denominations, which are written with a definite religious purpose, to convey a definite religious lesson; many of these are excellent, if some are a trifle tedious; but of the many beautifully illustrated and charming little tales which find their way into any house where there is a child.