One of the most satisfactory features in the programme of the Birmingham Catholic Congress is the announcement of the great missionary exhibition at Bingley Hall. We had a missionary exhibition on a smaller scale at Westminster last year. As a first effort of the kind it was very creditable to its promoters, though it had the defects of a first attempt. Its scope was necessarily limited. It was rather a group of small exhibitions bearing on the work of some of our mission organisations, than a well-organised demonstration of Catholic missionary enterprise as a whole. We may hope that the Bingley Hall Exhibition will show a considerable advance in this respect; and further, that it will be the first of a series of Congress Exhibitions, representing more and more efficiently at each of these Catholic gatherings the development of the foreign missions.

Speaking of the missions at the Liverpool National Catholic Congress, Cardinal Bourne said :

A certain man of the world lately astonished his friends by making a pilgrimage to Lisieux. When he was asked what possible interest he had in the ‘Little Flower, he replied with a quotation from Scripture : ‘If I find but ten just souls, surely I will spare the wicked for their sake.’

The thought that lies behind these words was a singularly familiar one in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The world and the cloister were then strangely linked together. In reading the memoirs and biographies of pre-Revolution France, one is struck by the fact that almost everyone, courtier, statesman, financier, soldier, man of letters, man of fashion, had some relation or friend in ‘Religion,’ with whom he corresponded, whom he very occasionally visited, and on whose prayers and penances and vicarious satisfactions he constantly and confidently relied. Those who prayed little for themselves were unaffectedly rejoiced at the thought that there were those who would pray (and suffer) for them, and in their stead. They had little or no religious heroism of their own, but they knew others were heroically offering their lives that they themselves might be saved. And because of this, they hoped to make a good end and climb up into heaven after all. There was not a little presumption in their attitude, and yet somehow it was generally justified by the result. In the brilliant, luxurious, pleasure-loving, inexpressibly-dissolute circles of Versailles, how very worldly and irreligious were often the lives, but how edifying and devout almost always the death-beds! And if this was true of the courtiers, it was pre-eminently true of the sovereigns round whom they revolved. The explanation thereof was perhaps to be found within the walls of Carmel.

The resurrection of a language and the revival of a whole literature, which took place in the middle of the last century, are among the most curious events in the history of letters. After a sleep of six centuries the dead plant put out leaves, and in the course of twenty years shot up to its full growth. This statement must not be taken too literally. During the six hundred years there were doubtless connecting links.

Putting aside the revival at King René’s court, there can be no question but that various forms of the langue d’oc were continuously in use for common speech amongst the people of the South; but as a language, with grammar and fixity of form, Provençal had ceased to exist. Provençal is mysterious throughout : there is no known connecting link between the idiom of the Troubadours and the last semi-classical writers of Southern Gaul.

It would seem that at all times the literary form of Provengal differs rather widely from the spoken tongue. A charge of artificiality is sometimes brought against the writers of the revival. Certainly the language of Mistral and others is not identical with the Provençal of the Bouches du Rhône, such as may be heard in the markets or on the quays; but it is no more artificial than the style of an eminent English or French writer, who does not make use of the language and grammar of a London or Paris porter.

‘Mediaeval theology allowed itself, by the misuse of dogmatic authority, to obscure the real meaning of our Lord’s humanity. The truth came to us in such a book as Ecce Homo, and from countless other teachers, with a fresh thrill of delight. The Gospels and the New Testament have come to live again. One of the most vital districts of Christian truth has been restored to us. But it has been restored to us wholly, or almost wholly, by writers alien to the Roman Church, and often alien to the Christian Creed.’ These foolish words of Bishop Gore (Catholicism and, Roman Catholicism, p. 35) proclaim his ignorance both of mediaeval theology and of Catholic exegesis. It seems incredible that anyone should consider himself entitled to pass judgment on mediaeval theology without having read the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas : yet that Bishop Gore has not read the Tertia Pars, at least intelligently, is patent; no one who had done so could have brought the above charge against that theology of which it is the finest fruit. From the Tertia Pars, not from the often false sentimentalism of Ecce Homo, comes to us the truth about the human nature of Jesus Christ; how poignantly sometimes, a reading, say, of the eighteenth question on the two wills will show. It was not perhaps St. Thomas’s primary concern to bring into relief what we might call certain particular accidental realities which accompanied that humanity in its earthly life. Therein lies one of the differences between the theologian and an evangelist such as St. Mark, a difference well expressed by Pere Lagrange several of whose recent works have, unfortunately, as yet received no notice in these pages.

A latin country which is not Catholic is an anomaly; but Rumania, proud of her Roman descent, language, and traditions, got her Christianity from Byzantium, and was, together with the rest of Eastern Europe, drawn into the Byzantian schism. The Rumanians trace their origin to Trajan, who transformed this fertile land of Dacia into a Roman colony that maintained its racial distinctiveness from the third century to the present day. Transylvania was the cradle of the race, but through the usual vicissitudes entailed by invading hordes and changing alien domination, Dacia was broken up and had a chequered history like her Slav neighbours, with whom she never merged. The capital of ancient Dacia was Alba Julia, situated in Transylvania, and it was in this historic village instead of in modern Bucarest, actual capital of Rumania, that the Rumanian sovereigns were lately crowned. Thus was accentuated the re-union of the three provinces, Moldavia, Valachia and Transylvania, once more into a single State. The ceremony naturally gave offence to Hungary, who had held Transylvania for centuries, and the Hungarian citizens that dwell in these regions viewed the proceedings with disfavour.

Yet Hungary had never been successful in her attempt to Magyarize the persistent Latins who form the majority of the population. King Hermann, who was forced by his nobles to grant the Golden Bull, Hungary’s Magna Charta, took little count of the cowed natives, but invited the Saxons to settle in the land in order to counterpoise the turbulent feudal chiefs.

After a long period of neglect the English Mystics of the fourteenth century are coming again to the light. Patient workers have provided us with accurate texts and greatly helped to show how valuable are the writings of these mystics. One may perhaps apply to their re-birth the words that St. Ambrose used of the birth of St. John the Baptist: ‘Habet sanctorum editio laetitiam plurimorum, quia commune bonum est.’ This is especially the case with the most original writer of the whole school, the anonymous author of the Cloud of Unknowing and of the Epistles connected with it. It is true that Father Henry Collins, so long ago as 1870, edited the Cloud and the Epistle of Privy Counsel; but his text, though sufficient for devotional use, was not very exact, chiefly as regards the Epistle, and it was not till 1912 that the Cloud was issued for the first time in all its genuineness and originality. We must remain very grateful to Miss Evelyn Underhill for her work.

There is room, however, for other editions—as Miss Underhill herself would acknowledge—and Catholics will welcome the news that a new one, containing— I hope—the Cloud and all the Epistles, is now being prepared for the ‘Orchard Books’ by Dom Justin McCann. It will do a great service to contemplative souls, and I believe that there may still be many such among the countrymen of St. Bede, Rolle, Hilton, and Father Baker.

Will this new edition throw light on the question of the authorship of the Cloud and its attendant treatises? That is perhaps to hope too much, for the problem is one that has hitherto baffled every investigator.

Carthage should be a name to conjure with. Yet ‘delenda est Carthago’ has received more than literal fulfilment. Even the Punic wars of which we heard so much as schoolboys have faded from men’s memories, and perhaps few of us would care to have to date them from memory.

Some few weeks ago there appeared in the papers a notice to the effect that a Franco-American archaeological expedition was being fitted out for the fuller, excavation of the great city of Hannibal and Scipio, of Tertullian, Cyprian and Augustine, ‘celsa Carthago,’ ‘civitas ampla et illustris.’ One newspaper report before us speaks of the ‘ruins of Carthage which have for so long been at the mercy of casual souvenir-hunters, speculative builders and Arab tribesmen.’ It might be gathered from this that little or no systematic excavation of the site had been carried out of late. Archæologists, of course, know better. They are well aware of the wonderful work done by Père Delattre who for many years has toiled among the ruins, and who, despite scanty funds and little support, has enriched our knowledge as well as the museums of Carthage. It would be idle to summarise his work here. Suffice it to say that he has laid bare various Punic cemeteries, which have afforded us a glimpse of early Phoenician civilization such as would never else have been suspected. He has also done much to extend our knowledge of Christian Carthage. Now, it is of Christian Carthage that we want to learn more. An archæologist, perhaps inevitably, wants to get back as far as he can; it is a human instinct. But we should like to urge the present expedition to concentrate its efforts on Christian rather than Punic Carthage.

In a time in the golden past, two hundred years or so before Protestantism was misbegot, there stood on the banks of a river a certain fair monastery; a beautiful pale grey building, austere and massive. It hung high up over the water, and deeply rolled the river at its base : in the early morning it swam in mists of palest ivory, what time the sun rose majestic over the hill, and smiled to see so lordly a sight. Though so massive and severe, the building was no wise grim : it shone a pale gem in green meadows and kingly trees.

The dwellers therein were as austere and simple as their dwelling; and they too irradiated cheerfulness, from my Lord Abbot to the latest scrubby postulant: and all met trouble and difficulty with a smile.

All—but one. One there was, as gloomy as a cave at midnight.

One there was as grim as a Donjon. He smiled never—neither did he laugh. He went further! He took scandal at the cheerfulness around him—a grim Brother! Whether he thought on the wickedness of the world, or the severity of the rule, ‘twas the same to him—all things worked together into gloom. A terrible fellow is a scowling Brother. To him a smile was a sin, to laugh a.crime. Saw he a swaggering gay fellow from out beyond, come to see the monastery— his soul shuddered within him : did his eye catch the Guest Master’s smiling welcome on such a one—he gloomed with misery—’ accomplices in crime.’

The very chant of the Office was too gay for him. In sooth a fanatical Brother.

And in his cell at night, he groaned aloud and thumped his chest, and bewailed the levity and brightness of the Brethren. ‘Distinguish between me and those others, Lord!’ he wailed. ‘I am not as they; oh ! deliver me from this house of doom.’

The farmer, who expressed contempt for our national system of education because a lad of school-leaving age in his employ did not know the dental formula of a yearling sheep, was merely giving expression to the thought in the minds of many.

For there are two schools of thought in matters educational. One regards education as the means to an end; the other regards it as an end in itself. To the former school of thought belong most teachers and education officials; to the latter most practical business men. The effect of this conflict between the practical and the ideal is the crowding of the curriculum in both elementary and secondary schools, so that boys and girls leave those institutions with a superficial smattering of knowledge, unrelated to the occupations they intend to follow and not making, in any large degree, for any ethical advance in society.

On the 29th day of June, 1923, the Holy Father, Pope Pius XI, published the Encyclical Studiorum ducem. After extolling the virtues and holiness of the life of St. Thomas, the Holy Father says:

‘From this slight glance at St. Thomas’s great virtues, it will not be difficult to understand the extraordinary excellence of his doctrine and the great authority it holds in the Church. Our Predecessors, as it were with unanimous utterance, have sounded its praises. ... It is not possible to recount all the innumerable documents of the Apostolic See, yet we must not omit to mention Leo XIII, who did so much to revive Thomistic studies. . . . Pius X, of holy memory, following Leo’s worthy example, declared the splendour of St. Thomas in his Motu proprio ‘ Doctoris Angelici,’ . . . Benedict XV, our beloved Predecessor, more than once repeated the same. . . . and it was reserved for him to give in the Code of Canon Law which he promulgated a unique consecration to the method, doctrine and; principles of the Angelic Doctor. We ourselves therefore, in approving these tributes to iso great a genius, consider that St. Thomas should be called not only the Angelic, but also the Common or Universal Doctor of the Church, because his doctrine the Church has made her own.

In an article on French literature during 1921, which was published in this review last April, emphasis was laid on what was named the ‘stationary’ character of present-day French literature. The principal cause of this, it was suggested, was to be found in the abnormal loss of her young writers and intellectuals which France suffered in the war. In the course of the past year a change seems to have come about. Without giving any comprehensive account of French literature for the last twelve months it would be impossible to state all the reasons for this impression, but close students of France’s literary production would probably agree that, although it would be idle to generalise too confidently, more idle still to talk with any definiteness of new ‘tendencies,’ yet there has been a greater spontaneity, a greater virility, less aimlessness or wanton experiment in the past year than during any year since the Armistice.

In the palmy days of the fourteenth century, when Can Grande ruled at Verona, there lay between the Adige and the Brenta a little town called Borgo Sant’ Ignoto. Being mainly Ghibelline in sympathy, it shared in all the triumphs of the conquering Veronesi; and its citizens did considerably more than look on when Can Grande beat the Paduans (who held for the Pope) near Vicenza, and changed the colour of all the neighbouring rivers from jade-green to red.

Borgo Sant’ Ignoto, though it was only a little place, waxed quite fat on the spoils; and the monastery of Sant’ Ignoto himself—which, though the principal shrine of the town, was perched on an abrupt little hill just above it—was fairly set ablaze by the candles of the survivors and endowed (it was hoped in perpetuity) by the broad lands of the slain. Moreover, the captains of the people, anxious to prove that they were none the less devout for supporting the Emperor, voted a handsome gift to the Saint who had seen them (after a few prudent tergiversations) safely through on the winning side. This gift took the form of a mighty terrace, quarried out of the solid rock to the right of the shrine and encircled with a parapet of stone. From this vantage point, the ascended pilgrim, either before or after his devotions to Sant’ Ignoto, might survey the full extent of the territory captured by Can Grande and watch—if the peace lasted long enough—the ensanguined rivers of Vicenza resuming their natural green.

When Dr. Johnson’s manuscript prayers and meditations were gathered together and published in 1785 by his intimate friend, the Rev. George Strahan, Vicar of Islington, the latter expressed the hope that the Doctor’s sermons, ‘none of which have yet been made public, nor is it known where they are extant,’ might be given to the world. He knew that Johnson had claimed for his writings as a whole that they were composed in such manner as might tend to the promotion of piety, that his Rambler in particular had been to him a kind of pulpit, and that he had turned his thoughts with peculiar earnestness to the study of religious subjects. In conversation and in writing, he had owned to having written many sermons, they were likely to be among his happiest productions, and so his friend appealed to those who might then possess them, not to withhold them but to bring them forth, as their seclusion would be ‘an injurious diminution of their author’s fame, and a retrenchment from the common stock of serious instruction.’

Mrs. Humphrey Ward was one of the best-known of recent English writers, though perhaps not the greatest. Genius she had not; talent, yes.

There are two writers both of whom survived her, though one has been lately taken from us. Mrs. Meynell and Mrs. Margaret Woods. They are less known than Mrs. Ward, but to them was given the divine gift of genius—their work will endure. But Mrs. Ward was a great woman, and no one can read her account of her gallant struggle with ill-health, of her extraordinary industry, of her wonderful philanthropy, of her love for home, and her patriotism, without admiration.

Mrs. Ward was singularly fortunate. Her childhood was perhaps the childhood of a ‘misunderstood’ arid rather tiresome little girl. Her father, a most attractive and unworldly son of the great Headmaster, Dr. Arnold, wavered between the Establishment and the Catholic Church, but finally found his peace and refuge in the Church, to the great dismay of his wife and daughter. The Oxford of the seventies and eighties, which has been well described by Mrs. Ward in her Reminiscences, was a world in itself.