On a ship in mid-ocean, buffeted by the fury of the waves, only the presence of an experienced captain, certain of his course and sufficiently master of himself to brave the storm untroubled, can stimulate the crew to action and inspire confidence in the passengers. But should the bridge be struck by lightning and the captain killed, then the danger is suddenly brought home to everyone in all its stark reality.

For nearly half a century, amongst the unceasing and furious storms loosed against Catholic exegesis by the excesses of unbridled rationalism, Père Lagrange stood facing the danger, his eyes fixed unwaveringly on the safe beacon-light of the Church’s divine authority, never taken unawares by the most violent or most insidious assault. He was an unfailing source of confidence, because of the intensity and energy of his scientific labours, and an attractive and fruitful example, because of the steadfastness of his faith founded on a most fervent practice of his Dominican religious life and nourished by unfailing prayer. And now, in a supreme act of abandonment to the Divine Will, this voice has been forever silenced here below. Père Lagrange entered into eternal life on March 10th, and his going from this earth has plunged in sore dismay those whose course he has guided among the rocks and the perils of the storm which now more than ever before rages against Truth, that is to say against Christ and His Church.

Of the various religious revivals of present-day Catholic Germany the biblical movement has, next to the liturgical, attracted most attention, even among Evangelical Christians. For centuries “Bible-reading” has been so marked a characteristic of Evangelical Christianity that those groups of Evangelical students which correspond to the various Catholic student youth-associations were spoken of as “B.K.’s” (Bibelkreise), i.e., “Bible-circles.” Since the Reformation, Bible-reading has been part of the daily life of every devout Evangelical family, at a time when, even in the best Catholic families, one could search in vain for an unshortened edition of the book in which the word of God was shown forth. There are to-day signs that this particular tradition among Catholics is weakening. Hundreds of thousands of copies of the “book of books” are sold every year; everywhere vigorous “bible-circles” are springing into life.

The 22nd of September, 1932, marked the foundation of something entirely new. On that day there came into being in Stuttgart a central organisation to deal with all matters connected with the propagation of Bible-knowledge. Stuttgart then became the centre of the Catholic Bible Movement. Was it the result of a novel imitation of Evangelical forms of piety, or did it mark the return on the part of Catholics to an ancient Christian custom, which was only discontinued for a short time when the Bible was in danger of being seriously misinterpreted?

In an age in which no special premium was placed on experimental science St. Thomas did not feel the urge to submit the Christian life to a process of psycho-analysis. He was as convinced of the validity of reason, and the principles derived therefrom, as that the sense are to place us in touch with reality which would otherwise remain a blank to the human mind. In this sense he was an experimentalist, though his aim was not merely to classify phenomena and to place them under generalizations, but rather to deduce from them principles which in the light of reason would be valid at all times and under all circumstances. He believes in basing his conclusions on tested facts, and when it is a question of pure reason he is unwilling to draw conclusions in advance of the evidence. He is more than usually aware that an attitude of mind may be easily coloured by desires, but he is equally assured that under the influence of grace the desire of charity may give a deeper insight into divine truth by immediate intuition.

Through conscious or unconscious prejudices and preconceived attitudes of mind in matters pertaining to the spiritual life, the intellectualism of Thomism does not appeal to all, while many become wary of impending danger. Even those who might well be expected to know better, are afraid of the intimate connection which Dominicans hold to exist between speculative theology and contemplation. This doubtless is in some measure due to the marked contrast which is observed between the writings of St. Thomas and of those who are classified as mystical writers.

When the old pagan civilization in the West went down with Imperial Rome there was one institution which, surviving the general decline, gathered together the fragments from the wreckage and incorporating the new elements rebuilt again more solidly, more splendidly than before the edifice of Western civilisation. So intimate was the union between that institution and the new civilization in the West that we may call Christianity the soul of Christendom, for Europe is the Faith and the Faith is Europe.

Till about the beginning of the 16th century the Christian revelation and ideology were accepted universally even when their precepts were not always adhered to. Though disagreement and conflict might arise between Prince and Pope, the basic principles on which society reposed remained unchallenged. But after the decline of the later Middle Ages revolution came, a reaction set in.

Holidays with pay is an idea which performs the almost impossible—it pleases everybody. The only people who really ought to object to it, on their own principles, are a few Catholic Distributists who display an excessive veneration for work and thrift and a rather puritanical hatred of the very words “leisure” and “plenty.” But even these, I feel sure, will not have the heart to be too consistent in this case.

We who preach the new economics naturally welcome the holidays-for-all-with-pay movement as a sort of miracle that confirms the truth of what we say. It is not consumer-credit, to be sure; essentially it is no more than an increase of wages with a shortening of hours. But it does prepare the way for consumer credit, and it does mean more purchasing-power in the pockets of the consumer as such. It does distribute money through some channel that is not exactly production. Above all it does make a beginning of a psychological break between the idea of work and the idea of a living or income. Or (to put it another way) it educates people towards the idea that work is something to be desired for its own sake, not because a living has to be earned by some drudgery or other.