There are four ways in which a preacher or guild speaker can treat any Christian doctrine: (a) proclaim it; (b) explain it; (c) defend it; (d) prove it. This last way is clearly ruled out where the doctrine of the Trinity or indeed any mystery of faith is concerned, though the temptation to try and prove anything and everything is one to which I suspect the C.E.G. mind, so commonly pre-occupied with apologetics, is peculiarly prone. I think it is very important for the C.E.G. speaker to remind himself constantly that there is a world of difference between an apologetic argument in defence or support of the faith and a proof. An apologetic argument, when addressed at least to the unbeliever, can never be more than persuasive, attractive, suggestive. There can never be any mathematical certainty about it, or an overwhelming weight of evidence, and that is what the word proof normally means to most of us.

Next we have a description of St Saturus’ vision, written by himself.

We had suffered (he wrote) & we left the body & started being carried towards the East by 4 Angels whose hands weren't touching us. We weren't going up lying face-upwards but rather like going up a gentle slope. And once we were clear of the world below we saw an immense light & I said, ‘Perpetua (as she was just beside me), this is what the Lord promised us, we've really got the Promise.’ And while we were being carried by those 4 Angels a huge Place opened out in front of us which was like a kind of Park with rose-trees in it & flowers of all sorts. The trees were big as cypresses & their leaves were burning away non-stop. Now there in the Park were 4 other Angels brighter than the first lot who when they saw us paid us homage & called to the other Angels in astonishment ‘Look, they're here, they're here.'

In a celebrated passage Gibbon justly remarks that ‘the profane of every age have derided the furious contests which the difference of a single diphthong excited between the Homoousions and the Homoiousions'. But this unfavourable impression of the preoccupations of the early Church has been shared by more than ‘the profane'. In somewhat less amiable terms than Gibbon the equally Olympian figure of Mgr Duchesne speaks with an oddly similar distaste of the dogmatic developments of the first five Christian centuries when he writes: Since the curiosity of men would investigate the mystery of Christ, since the indiscretion of theologians laid on the dissecting-table the Blessed Saviour, who came to be the object of our love and of our imitation rather than of our philosophical investigation, at least the investigation should have been made more peaceably by men of approved competence and prudence, far from the quarrelsome crowd'.

Persecution from evil men ‘for justice sake’ is hard to bear, and to suffer it patiently is one of the eight beatitudes. St William's way of sanctity lay in the path of persecution from saints and other holy people, with an admixture of interested parties. Almost everything he did, and any circumstance of his conduct, was twisted to his condemnation. These attacks began the moment he was elected to the see of York and ceased only when the grave closed over him.

Little is known of his life before his election. He was the son of a nobleman named Herbert from whom he received his surname, and his biographer Thomas Stubbs, a York Dominican, writing about 1340, adds that his mother was Emma, the sister of King Stephen. On this late authority it has been generally assumed that he was that king's nephew. We have no clue to his age.

All revelation is God's response to our needs. All his truth is saving truth. It answers to the needs of our salvation, of our healing and our health, health of soul and body, of mind and will, both here and in eternity. The truths which he has revealed are not like hurdles in a steeplechase, which are set to test us during the race, but which bear no other relation to the winning post and the prize. The man, well-known to readers of Frank Sheed's Theology and Sanity, who said of the Trinity that he ‘wished there were four of ‘em, that he might believe more of ‘em', no doubt had the purest faith and charity, but his words do not express the true Christian attitude. Again, none of the revealed truths is an optional extra, which can be embraced by a few specialists but is of no particular relevance to the ordinary Christian.

It is a common mistake to visualize Galilee as a small area of country bordering on a lake. In fact it is one of the largest regions of Israel. For travellers who have arrived at Haifa by boat, the first introduction to Galilee will probably be Nazareth. This is a pity because Nazareth is the one black spot in the whole district. Commercialism has reached such heights there that the street vendors have degenerated from nuisance to menace.

Inside the Franciscan enclosure, however, all is well, and the pilgrim kneeling in the grotto of the annunciation forgets any rabble outside. Two pillars mark the places where our Lady and the angel Gabriel stood, and beside the altar of the tiny chapel is a grille through which the rest of the primitive house can be seen.

ONE of the most enterprising ventures in the gramophonerecord market of recent months has been the issue of several notable items from the German catalogue of Cantate, available through the firm of Novello, 160 Wardour St, W.i. These records provide authentic and often outstanding performances of organ and choral music ancient and modern.

Robert Kobler's account of some preludes on the chorale Da Jesus an dem Kreuze Stand by Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654.) is mainly for the specialist and is played on the eighteenth-century organ at Herford Minster. The sleeve-jacket accompanying the disc (T71880F) carries a specification of the instrument. This is music not usually included in the programmes of British players and, on this account alone, deserves consideration.

Heinz Wunderlich's persuasive account of Bach's D Minor Trio- Sonata (T71876F which, like the Kobler record, is a 45-r.p.m., 7-inch), will be greeted by all students and teachers.