That there is something seriously wrong with the world and that this could and should be put right, are two commonplaces so commonly held as to verge on triteness. This universal consensus however is quickly turned into a discord of clamant and contradictory voices, when, preparatory to any attempt at curing the ill, an explanation is sought of the cause and origin of it.

On the one hand there is Jean Jacques Rousseau and all his spiritual descendants, who premising that man himself was originally perfect, happy and free, believe that man lost his happiness and his freedom when first he bowed to authority. In this line of thought we get philosophical anarchists, like Kuropatkin and Tolstoy, who go the whole way, maintaining that if only one did away with all government all ills would automatically disappear too and the Golden Age of humanity reappear. Some do not go as far as that, though agreeing that government must be reduced to a minimum if things are to right themselves: to which tribe belong Proudhon and the syndicalists who consider local government permissible but rule out anything approaching government on a national scale. There are also the doctrinaire liberals who, without becoming specific, hold generally that the less government there is the better. From this we shade off into rugged individualism and into the belief that, to make the world happy, all that is needed is to give it the vote.

The conservative Catholic critic of socialist thought in this country is inclined to argue that at the level of explicit theory the neo-marxism of, say, Professor Laski is representative; but that the inarticulate masses in the Labour movement feel differently and would, were they articulate, express a theory more in line with the traditional Christian social philosophy. I dare say there is much truth in this argument, though whether it follows from it that the Conservative Party is closer than the Labour Party to the Christian tradition in politics is another matter, and one I do not propose to discuss. It is perfectly true that Professor Laski, with his uneasy combination of liberalism and marxism, is on the whole representative of the socialist intelligentsia. But it may be worth noticing that there is at least one socialist thinker of eminence whose work derives from the Christian tradition and is plainly of the highest order. I have in mind Professor R. H. Tawney. Certainly, his work has been less immediately influential than that of Professor Laski or Mr John Strachey. He has not been ‘put across’ by any publicity machine and, indeed, his thought is unsuitable for slick generalisation. What he writes is always the work of a scholarly historian and is academic in the best sense.

There was once a time when people who wanted to make the working life of the working man more tolerable called themselves socialists. Fourier was not concerned with industrial efficiency so much as with establishing conditions in which the worker could take a pride and pleasure in his work. Robert Owen at New Lanark was primarily concerned with improving the conditions under which his employees lived and worked, even though his expenditure on houses and schools for his workpeople may have reduced the output of his mills’ per unit costs; that is, reduced their efficiency. In his projected Villages of Co-operation he wanted to replace the plough not by the gyrotiller but by the spade because he considered that the settlement of as many people as possible on the land raised their ‘standard of living’ in the literal sense of the words even though it might not always lead to the largest possible output of consumption goods per man per hour. In later years William Morris and others reaffirmed the view that the primary purpose of socialism was not to produce the largest possible quantity of goods but to change the quality of the life of the nation, to place a full and satisfying life within the reach of all, to free the people from the narrow struggle for a living wage and teach them to value freedom and responsibility.

Anti-Semitism is the most horrible blow our Lord has received in his Passion; it is everlasting, it is the most bloody and unforgivable, for he receives it on the face of his mother and from the hand of Christians.—Léon Bloy.

Destinees D’Israel was written during those war years when anti-Semitism reached a greater degree of virulence than Léon Bloy anticipated even in his most pessimistic prophecies; and he has foretold only too accurately the great disaster of our time. The Abbé Journet’s book which completes and corrects the ideas set forth in the Salut par les Juifs offers an exhaustive theological explanation of the destinies of the chosen people.

‘Salvation is of the Jews.’ These are the words of Christ to the Samaritan woman. This race has been preferred to others by a mysterious choice, incomprehensible to human intelligence; consequently its spiritual and temporal destinies are for ever dependent on the great mystery of the Redemption. This dependence is made clear in the course of history in a manner always supernatural but varying according to the three successive attitudes of Israel towards its Messiah, first expectation and preparation, then denial, finally acceptance. (This last has not yet taken place, but we know by divine revelation that it cannot fail to come about.)

When Vespers are over, the afternoon sun and the keen air are themselves an invitation to walk. Today it shall be one of the other six hills of Rome that lie to the north of our convent on the Aventine. As I pass along the road which curves gently down the hillside I see the Palatine; and the heavy ruins of the imperial palaces catch the late sunshine, giving their brickwork a mellowing of gold, in contrast with the dark pines that group themselves along its low hilltop. Away to the right the Alban Hills still carry a covering of snow; and the wind that blows from them has a bite in its breath. The Circus Maximus lies below; and on its far side a tram jolts noisily on its iron track, where formerly the chariots drawn by their racing horses sped along the course beneath the watching eyes of Virgil:

Ut cum carceribus sese effudere quadrigae,
Addunt in spatia, et frustra retinacula tendens
Fertur equis auriga, neque audit currus habenas.