If we consider objectively the question of whether in practice meditation should be the proximate or remote preparation for prayer, what are we to say? In deciding, two factors should be taken into consideration:

(i) In practice when following formal meditation it is difficult, frequently impossible, to decide such questions as: When should I begin to make acts and for how long? Am I using my imagination enough or too freely? Am I thinking too much or too little? When I cannot think at all what shall I do? This last question is the nodal point of the whole problem. Most of us find it possible to pray when it is quite impossible to think. At morning prayer simple ideas in the form of acts can be elicited by the will, whereas constructive thinking often cannot. We have control of the one, too little control of the other. For this reason formal meditation imposes such a strain on average Catholics (and not least on over-worked religious sisters) that they give it up in despair, either because they cannot think or else because they want to pray; often it is both.

There was recently discovered in the library of Llanarth Court, Raglan, a Book of Hours of the early fifteenth century which is of more than usual interest. The chief contents of the book are those customary in a Book of Hours of the Sarum Use, namely, the Little Office of Our Lady, the Penitential Psalms, the Office of the Dead, a collection of prayers to our Lord, and one to a Guardian Angel. A considerable number of leaves is missing from the MS., which in its present state begins at once with Lauds and lacks part of Prime and the whole of Terce and Sext. There are no miniatures, but there are a number of elaborately decorated initials, with floriated designs in gold, blue and red, some of which have been damaged by a later binder's trimming of the upper margins. Twenty leaves have been heavily annotated in the lower margins by a sixteenth century Protestant owner of the book. Presumably the same owner was responsible for the erasure of the commemoration of St Thomas of Canterbury at Lauds, in conformity with Henry VIII's suppression of liturgical honour to that saint.

Langland has vividly portrayed the life of sin in the world. From the realm of vice, social as well as individual, the soul steps into the realm of grace through what is known as the first conversion. By this act the dead is quite literally raised to life; it is quite literally an event of a standing with the raising of Lazarus—a miracle. As with all miracles, the act can be examined on the purely natural plane; the psychologist can describe what he discovers on the human side of the process. It is well to look at conversion in these test tubes first, even if it comes to be regarded in the partial light simply as a process of unification or of a vital synthesis.

Conversion has been described as the shifting of the centre of gravity of the inner self, a psychological phenomenon common to science, art, letters… as well as to religion. The individual's ideas are first of all grouped in bunches, more or less isolated and independent like the amoeba in a very low form of life.

It is a commonplace to talk of death as the Great Change, but even men who revert quite often to the life of the spirit may sometimes realise with a kind of mild shock how utterly spiritual our lives must then become. We have before us an altogether unique experience, and it is natural enough that we should await its inevitable advent with interest and curiosity.

Yet the liveliest imagination will not help us in a matter so completely beyond the veil of the senses. In Paradise Lost Milton uses all the mighty imagery of a great poet to depict the war of the angels, and yet leaves us with a profound sense of unreality. We find ourselves in the position of being able to imagine almost any set of circumstances on this side of the grave, and yet quite unable to use such power to illumine conditions on the other, simply because it is a realm of the spirit. Neither does it help us to reflect upon our entry into this world, for that was the beginning of life and thought itself.

After our Lord's ascension the Apostles were separated and went to preach in different countries. Andrew went to preach the Gospel in Scythia. From there he came into Europe and preached in Epirus and in Thrace, and after that in Achaia which is a part of Greece. There he converted many people and established churches. Among those whom he converted was Maximilla, the wife of Aegeas, who was governor of that part and chief judge. Aegeas was angry when he found that his wife had become a Christian and began to try to force Christians to sacrifice to the heathen gods. Then St Andrew went to him in the city of Patras, and said:

'You who are a judge should know your own judge, who is in heaven. Knowing him you should worship him and withdraw your support from false gods'.

Aegeas answered: ‘You must be Andrew, who preach the false law which the princes of Rome have ordered to be destroyed'.

“The princes of Rome', said Andrew, ‘have not known how the Son of God came and taught that idols are devilry, and support of them an offence against God. Those who cling to idols will be left by God.

The discussion consequent on the challenging article of Père Nicolas in the July and August Life of the Spirit has centred round two main issues. The first is concerned with the general view raised by Fr Scott-James (September) who suggested that the French Dominican took for granted the subjective emphasis of the post-tridentine spirituality. The true basis, he implied, should be centered on objective beatitude, the end which gives meaning to the whole action of religious life. The love of God in himself must be set before the young religious, rather than the perfection of the religious himself. This is the goal if he is to avoid strain and break-down.

Against Fr James's thesis it has been argued that St Thomas himself, sufficiently pre-Tridentine and objective to satisfy most, constantly regards the religious life as a school of perfection; and as perfection in his theology stands for charity, the love of God itself, ‘the school of perfection’ carries no subjective stigma with it. It is a slur too on the Council of Trent and the theologians who have since considered religious life.