It is thought in certain circles that these two words are the exact antithesis of each other. The persecution of Catholics is called ‘kulturkampf’; and people do not hesitate to say that the prosperity of certain countries dates from the time when they repudiated the Catholic Faith. We are too used to such opinions to be roused by them. Ignorance of Catholic doctrine, usually involuntary, thus once more gives rise to an error, which becomes an injustice. We may surprise certain people when we say :—

(i) That Catholicism insists on civilization and progress as a duty;

(2) That the Catholic Church is the most effectual instrument, and most sure guarantee for progressive civilization.

What is Civilization?

Philosophers and sociologists are on the horns of a dilemma when they consider the nature of civilization. They have complicated the problem by indictments on the subject of ‘Kultur’ and civilization. They say that civilization is nothing else but the help that social man is always giving to nature so that man can live better and better. The expansion of life—by man’s government of nature, by the enriching of his intellectual life, by his artistic, economic and industrial works, by the close connection of the finite with the Infinite—these are the ends and the limits of civilization.

Civilization is a religious duty.

It is enough to have defined civilization, to see that continual effort towards a higher civilization is not only a tendency of human nature; it is equally a religious duty.

God created us. He created us for Himself. We exist for God. He is the only end and explanation of our life. All our efforts should be towards God.

The Scandinavian countries, and not least of them Norway, have long remained strongholds of Lutheranism. That is, in outward appearance, for the Norwegian State Church counts among its members an unusually large proportion of formal adherents, people who are baptised and ‘confirmed’ in the Lutheran State Church, but who remain for the rest of their lives totally indifferent in religious matters, never attending Church services, or otherwise manifesting any interest whatsoever.

This general apathy has now begun to react on the State Church in a marked degree. Methodists and other Free Church sects have steadily increased their influence and numbers, and have drawn over a large proportion of members, who are recruited from the same classes as in England, namely from among prosperous tradesmen and the best section of the working class population.

Catholicism, on the other hand, here as elsewhere, makes her primary appeal to the intellectual section of the community, but as the first movement broadens and deepens, she sweeps with her people of all ranks and conditions.

The first establishment of the Catholic Church in Norway was made in 1856, in Oslo, then Christiania, under the patronage of St. Olaf, the saint who brought Christianity to the heathen Norsemen. Since then Churches and chapels have sprung up in the larger towns throughout the country, and Norway numbers at present nineteen Catholic churches and twenty chapels.

The success of the recent Ninth National Catholic

Congress, held at Westminster, marking as it did the celebration of the Centenary of Catholic Emancipation in this country, lends an added interest to this handy little volume, which contains the pith and kernel of those principles so steadily upheld and so well expounded on innumerable public occasions by His Eminence of Westminster.

Catholics in this country have come to look with confidence and affection towards Cardinal Bourne during the twenty-six years in which he has occupied the chief ecclesiastical position amongst them. They can safely look to him not only for the maintenance of Christian principles, but also for opportuneness in the statement of them and wisdom in their application. To these qualities His Eminence adds others peculiarly suited to his position in this country, strong but intelligent feeling for England and the British Empire, and a thorough sympathy with the English character. He is a thorough Englishman, most suited to guide the destinies of the Church in England at a time when Catholics are becoming increasingly numerous and increasingly free to take an active part in the life of their country and of the Empire. To start from this trait, we cannot fail to notice in the volume before us how His Eminence identifies himself throughout with the national life in its widest manifestations, whilst on the other hand his international outlook and above all his position in the Universal Church do not permit him to remain blind to the particular limitations of the British race and to the dangers to Catholic principles which have arisen at the present stage of British civilization.

A Noble Style in Architecture

The art which endures is that which is greatly distinctive, besides being beautiful. Waiving the first endeavours of primitive man, for these doings are far too remote to be seen clearly, it may be asserted with complete assurance, that never yet did a school of artists ply their craft, who did not begin by relying on a senior school. A very long page would be needful, whereon to show forth the debts which France owed, on the one hand to Italy, on the other to the Low Countries. And if the Greek achievement was fully as individual as the French, in its early stages Hellenic art tells clearly of discipleship of Egypt and Assyria. The architecture called Scottish Baronial is notably among those things, which combine distinctiveness with beauty. But in approaching a tribute to this work, it behoves to remember that it could not have from the start its markedly idiosyncratic temper. Who were the preceptors of the initial artists in the formula?

There is widespread the idea that the Franco-Scottish alliance originated with the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots, to the Dauphin. But the league was ancient on that event, and it would seem to have been David I, crowned King of Scots in 1124, who first brought about intimate relations between his compatriots and the French. Caring before all else for things ecclesiastical, he was founder of most of the Scottish abbeys; and one of his actions was to bring to his dominions a group of French monks who were skilled in building. Thus it was normal that soon there should stand revealed, alike in churches and castles in Scotland, an affinity with French architecture.

Odarkness-Frighted one Let faith thy fears outrun.

Within thy Father’s arms Peace be to death’s alarms.

And on God’s mothering breast Take, child, untroubled rest.

Vincent McNabb, O.P.

Fidelia Vulnera Amantis

In the September number of Blackfriars Father McNabb has attempted to trace the influence of Cartesian Doubt in the development of modern algebra. Now just as philosophy must not be identified with the fallacies of philosophers, so mathematics must not be identified with the mistakes of mathematicians, nor algebra with the absurdities of algebraists. To make such an identification betokens lack of knowledge of the subject under discussion. It is this nescience of modern algebra which vitiates the strictures passed by Father McNabb.

There are treatises on algebra which give a most unsatisfactory account of complex numbers, just as there are treatises on the Eucharist which give an unsatisfactory account of its sacrificial nature. But neither algebra nor theology is invalidated by the inadequacy of its exposition.

The article by Father McNabb affords an illustration of the lamentable lack of understanding between philosophers and mathematicians. A mathematician taking up the study of philosophy labours under the well-known disabilities due to the difference in the nature of proof demanded in each discipline. A philosopher taking up the study of mathematics is bewildered by the many meanings which the same mathematical term may possess in different branches of study. Thus the word ‘number’ may mean a signless integer, a positive or negative integer, a fraction, an irrational number, a complex number, a matrix, an operation. All these are distinct species of number and a mathematician, writing for mathematicians, often fails to state explicitly to which species he refers. Thus’ the statement that there exists no number whose square is equal to —i requires to be elucidated by a definition of the word ‘number.’ The statement remains true for the first four species of number mentioned above, but is false for the last three species.

It is but to repeat the general verdict to say that Miss Viola Meynell has written a worthy memoir of her mother. She has been wise in avoiding the expansive, exhaustive, two-volumed, official biography. Her book is a memoir, a reminder, a brief record of things memorable; her aim is nothing more pretentious than to give fleeting glimpses, lively sketches, running commentaries which enlighten by flashes the rare life and work of her subject. A daughter is not always considered the one best qualified to write the Life of her mother : family affection might stress the unimportant things, discretion might suppress essential features, filial piety might withhold a perfect portrait. But Miss Meynell has kept in an excelling manner the balance between reverence and unreserve, and one may ask— knowing well how the question would be answered—Who else could have done the work better? Love is blind—perhaps sometimes; but more often love is keen-sighted and, according to the inspired text, love rejoiceth with the truth. Anyhow, it seems clear that the intimacy of family affection, far from handicapping Miss Meynell in her task, has actually proved to be her pre-eminent qualification in revealing and interpreting her mother.

Alice Meynell has been hailed as ‘beyond challenge the most eminent woman writer since George Eliot and Christina Rossetti.’ Your wife’s prose, wrote Coventry Patmore to Wilfrid Meynell, ‘is the finest that was ever written, and none but kindred genius can see how great it is .... it is the test of capacity in the reader for the understanding of what prose is ... . If I were you I should go mad with pride and joy.’

A Parable

A few years ago I travelled from Montreal to Quebec in a Pullman car which, strange to say, never contained more than three passengers till we reached our destination. Opposite me sat a McGill girl—a junior I inferred from her conversation with two other girls who were seeing her off On the other side of the aisle sat a young man, one of those handsome, perfectly well-tailored youths, so attractive that you are willing to ascribe genius to them as well as a host of minor perfections. This demi-god was reading. The McGill girl looked across at hjm for some time, till their eyes met. ‘Reading?’ she half queried, after an interval of mute presentation leading to a simultaneous smile. ‘Yes,’ a very uncultivated voice answered, ‘what I want is a love story with a kid in it and lots of devilry in him.’ The book was handed across the aisle, and the girl began to read. The voice had been an anti-climax, and so evidently was the book, yet the girl read on, skimming and skipping. After a while my conscience smote me, and, bending over the love-and-kid-story, I whispered : ‘Have you ever read Vanity Fair?’ The girl looked up, flushed a little, and answered : ‘Dickens?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘Thack------’ ‘Oh! Thackeray, of

course! No, it was not on our list.’

What would I not have given to have Vanity Fair in my valise, open it at random, and watch the girl’s delight at Becky Sharp’s introduction to Sir Pitt’s town house and to his immortal charwoman!