The subject of the Hebrew Prophets and National Crises is one that could hardly be exhausted in a book of slender bulk. I can, therefore, only sketch out some outline of this great and, at the present time, very important matter.

First of all, we have to consider the wonderful phenomenon of these Prophets. It is not just a natural thing. It has a supernatural element, made up of all that is natural. The supernatural is not built on the natural, but with it. To some, the prophecies, as recorded, would seem to be nothing more than a very fine forecast by one who paid attention to the laws of nature; just as you might account merely by chemical laws for the writing which a person makes on a page, but that would not account for everything, all the intellectual and spiritual values, contained in it.

Another unique element is that, in almost every page, there is a denunciation of the people that recorded those things. You have the phenomenon of a little people transmitting to posterity only one group of writings (I do not think we have any other Hebrew literature of the time of Isaias), and those writings a most appalling account of their own doings. Now that is a very strange phenomenon because, in point of fact, if you asked England to-night to set up a book in English about the size of the Bible, and to transmit it to posterity, what would they put in it?

The Franciscan Bonaventure of Bagnorea and the Dominican Thomas Aquinas are typical of their respective Orders.

St. Bonaventure has been described as ‘one of the most lovable figures in the whole history of mediaeval thought, the great doctor of mystical contemplation, the most perfect exponent of Franciscan theology, that is of a theology thoroughly imbued with the religious genius of St. Francis of Assisi.’ St. Thomas has been characterized as the architect of the most perfect philosophical synthesis, ‘one of the three greatest metaphysicians who ever existed,’ whose only love was the quest for and the championing of truth, unice veritatis amator, the most eminent personification of St. Dominic’s ideal, that is, to uphold, to spread and to defend the Truth.

If it is true that St. Francis never condemned learning for itself, it is equally true that he had no desire to see it developed in his Order. The pursuit of learning was always considered by St. Francis to be more dangerous than useful, and desired it neither for himself nor the members of his Order. His personal influence, profound as it was, did not, however, and could not prevail against the pressure of facts; and the Franciscans soon realized the necessity of developing theological studies.

Writers have more than once pointed out that the ‘Ancren Riwle’ is far from being a mere set of austere regulations for a unique and now obsolete type of contemplative life. They have shown that during the later middle ages this Rule was regarded in England as a spiritual classic for every type of Christian, for it is in fact, chiefly concerned with the principles of a good Christian life which it sets forth with great charm and ability. But it is perhaps not so often realized that this fact follows from the very definite conception of the meaning and value of any rule, which the author outlines in his Prologue. All those who are resolved to fulfil their lives as good Christians should study this concise and attractive treatment of the meaning of rule in a good life. The ‘Ancren Riwle’ was written half a century before St. Thomas wrote his Summa Theologica, but the fundamental truths of this Prologue are endorsed by him. Thus those three sisters for whom the Riwle was written, and all those of every station in life who have since read it, have been inspired by truly Thomistic principles. It may, therefore, be of value to set forth the ideas contained in the Prologue of this Rule of Anchoresses.

Sir Arthur Eddington in his recent book has presented a relatively non-technical account of the theory of the fundamental laws and constants of physics which he developed in his Relativity Theory of Protons and Electrons. But he has also embedded his contributions to science, which are recognised to be of the greatest importance, in a philosophical setting which carries by no means the same authority. It is unfortunate that physical advances, the brilliance of which it would be impertinent to commend, should be obscured, by reason of this embellishment, as seems to have happened in recent controversy. It seems useful, therefore, to discuss what is the real status of Eddington’s results, what points of interest arise from his reflections on the method of physics, and what is true in those parts of the book which deal with genuinely philosophical questions. We shall be mainly concerned with the philosophical setting, and scientific technicalities will be reduced to a minimum.

At Belshazzar’s feast ‘there came forth fingers as of a man's hand, writing . . .’ The last volume of Charles and Mary’ Beard’s enormous work is scarcely as epigrammatic as the ‘Mane, Thecel, Phares’ of the Book of Daniel; indeed, each of the three volumes contains more than eight hundred pages; but the writing on the wall can clearly be discerned in the vast accumulation of the authors’ erudition.

With patience, unending research, fine organization of material, real eloquence, detachment, culture and an occasional pleasant acerbity, the two authors have traced the cultural history of the United States from before the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers until the day before yesterday. Their first volume covers the whole period from Elizabethan days until the eve of the Civil War; the second from 1860 until the Harding Administration; the third extends to the winter of 1938. Somewhat mysteriously entitled ‘America in Midpassage,’ this last volume was published in the Autumn of 1939, near the beginning of this latest war.