Perfection consists in the love of God, and this is independent of any particular way of life, and can reach the highest degrees where there is nothing demanding or compelling great perfection, through the subjective love which is put into the most ordinary everyday actions. But there is also an objective perfection, a life which, by its obligations and the activities it entails, of its nature requires a high degree of perfection; and where such a life is embraced by a solemn and perpetual obligation, it places a person in a state of perfection. While the Spirit breathes where it wills, and the subjective degree of love of God depends chiefly on individual grace, the objective means of perfection (namely, good works which, so to say, compel the exercise of a high degree of love of God and other virtues which accompany it) can be studied as a pattern of perfection, and organised as a means of perfection.

In the mind of the average Catholic, especially of the average cradle Catholic, a monk is someone who wears a habit. For this reason one constantly hears of Friars, Canons, and even Clerks Regular referred to as monks. Of course this is completely wrong. The only monks in the Church at present are the sons of Saint Benedict and Saint Bruno. Nevertheless, even the best instructed Catholic would find it hard to say what a monk is and in what way he differs from other religious. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines a monk as ‘a member of a community living apart under the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience'. The first part of this definition is all right, but it is hopelessly wrong over the vows. A monk takes a vow of obedience in common with other religious, but he does not take explicit vows of poverty or chastity; in their place he takes the vows of stability and conversation of manners.

This is a new edition of a little book first published in 1881; but it is so much larger than the original production and contains so much added matter, that it must rank as almost a new work on the subject. In the first part the author gives a short history of St Bruno and his foundation of the Carthusian way of life and of the monastery of the Grande Chartreuse, from its foundation by the Saint up to the expulsion of the community and its return, after an absence of thirty-seven years (1903 to 1940). Part II describes the life lived at the Grande Chartreuse with a full account of the monastery itself, its buildings, etc., while Part III sets before us the ideal of Carthusian life in its marvellous combination of the solitary and cenobitical forms of monastic life, designed to avoid the possible disadvantages and dangers of each.

The religion of thy father Dominic is a delightful garden, I broad, joyous and fragrant.’ Admirers of the spirit and A children of Saint Dominic would appreciate our Lord's word ‘broad’ when he spoke to Saint Catherine, for it is said that no two Dominicans are aHke. Whatever that means, something good or something dangerous, it is but one half of a story that is on the surface paradoxical. That St Dominic's spirit and sympathies were indeed broad can never be in doubt if we look at the characters of his first companions, a set of men at once entirely diverse and bending all their diverse talents to one purpose. For seven hundred years that spirit has grown stronger by the very diversity of its followers. Perhaps there has grown with it also a romantic aura that again is half good and hah0 dangerous. In the first flush of youth a young man may set out to follow St Dominic for motives that on the surface are indeed romantic.

The year 1885 saw the passing of one of the great spiritual figures of that century: Mother Thérèse Couderc, Cofoundress of the Cenacle. Her contemporaries witness that at her death ‘there passed away a glory from the earth'—and Holy Church, agreeing with their verdict, will shortly proclaim her Blessed—a model of holiness for the whole world. How did she arrive at that shining sanctity which became so transparently evident as her long life drew to a closee It was simply by being a true Christian—through a complete surrender of herself into the hands of God, allowing him to do with her exactly as he pleased She was a woman of clear supernatural vision and good judgment. But at the age of thirty-three she was subjected to a series of misunderstandings, deposed from her office of Superior, deprived little by little of her title of Co-foundress, and she endured not only personal humiliation of the most painful kind, but the far greater agony of seeing the Cenacle pulled out of its right context and governed by one who possessed neither vision nor judgment.

Here beginneth a sermon of Saint Austin how a man is made to the image and likeness of God his maker, of naught. How great is the dignity of man's making it is known, that not by word alone of God's bidding, man is made of naught, as other works of six days, but in counsel of the Holy Trinity and work of God's majesty, that he should know of the honour of his first making, how much he owed to his maker. The which his maker gave to him so great privilege of dignity anon in his making, that by so much he should love more brenningly his maker, by how much he understood himself made of him more wonderly. He saith: ‘make we man to our image and likeness', not for this thing only, that by counsel of the Holy Trinity man is so made of the excellence of his maker, but that the maker of all things, of nought, made man of nought to his image and likeness, which thing he gave to none other creatures. Which image is to be beholden diligently by nobleness of the inner man, that is the soul.