Those who oppose the acceptance of supernatural truth through the medium! of Faith take up their position, theoretically at least, in the interests of Reason. Speaking largely there are three groups in the opposition. There are those who maintain that the so-called ‘supernatural’ is a mere myth of traditional superstition, rather less crude, no doubt, than the fetishes of uncivilised tribes, escaping the grossness of classical mythology (though lacking the artistic merit with which Greeks and Latins adorned their legends), yet nevertheless merely the more or less finished and elaborated results of a tradition ‘derived from semi-barbarous Hebrew peoples.’ We are told by modern Rationalists that ‘we must cease talking of God in the Biblical sense and, as the foundation of the new order, must supplant theology by mental hygiene. Space is too crowded with stars and universes for heaven above and hell beneath.’

If the supernatural is in truth such a myth, then Faith is mere credulity. It is no better than a child’s belief in bogies and fairies, and is far less excusable because it is exhibited by those who should have the intelligence to know better. Proud Rationalism frowns upon the puerile fantasies of Faith !

The more intelligent antagonists of Faith, however, realise that what is called ‘the supernatural’ cannot be thus easily and conveniently disposed of. To some extent it has to be reckoned with as an aspect of reality. They attempt, therefore, to eliminate Faith on the ground that what is called the supernatural is in fact nothing more than the higher reaches of the purely natural.

It is now some thirty years since the Summa Theologica began to circulate in an English translation. Little or no notice was taken of it even by those whom it was calculated to serve in their service of scientific truth. But the lack of welcome which befell it had no dismays for those responsible for an enterprise which seemed on the verge of folly. They were not moved when they were told that no good and little profit could come of an attempt to put the clock of modern progress back seven centuries to the age of Aquinas. Such friendly dissuasion as they were offered they met by silence and a more dogged resolve to forgive even their enemies by offering them not a cup of water but a wine-cup of the best!

Experience and instinct had taught them that after the bewilderment of modern materialistic expansion had settled, the human mind would begin to ask questions, that is, to seek ultimate causes. Some sort of unity would be demanded by the finer minds who could not brook a mere welter of multiplicity. Men would seek to discuss with their fellow men the What and Whence and Why. They would desire both a Synthesis and the power to discuss that synthesis with minds of like desire. All this meant that they would demand such a Synthesis if it existed and accept some standarised vocabulary in order that discussion might become a possibility.

Someone has said that all bad Americans go to Chicago when they die; hence perhaps we may infer that all good ones, granted they have any choice in the matter, go South. Even the Semitic gentleman pounding out popular songs in a grubby office just West of Broadway, has caught something of this tendency tp localise the national heart, and is perpetually admonishing the homesick, regardless of their original habitat, to wend their erring footsteps thither.

Yqu cannot understand America unless you know something of the South; and you cannot know the South unless you understand something of the Negro, for it is the black Mammy who is really responsible for the shy friendliness, the gentle courtesy, the lovely mysticism of the little white boys and girls who grow up under her care.

The oversight on the part of my otherwise estimable parents, which prevented me from being born in the South, was partly mitigated by the amply proportioned Mammy who came to rule over our nursery. Aside from her red bandanna and her gold ear-rings, her great fascination lay in the tradition that she was the daughter of a very gorgeous and very black African king. We were convinced that nothing but generations of the purple robe, the homage of prostrate natives and a possible diet of evangelical missionaries, could account for her supreme dignity or the proud lift of her white-haired head.

After the manner of children, we loved and feared her alternately. There were moments, when in her simple piety, we were sure that she walked with the Lord, and others when we were equally positive that she consorted with the devil, beliefs coloured possibly by our own state of grace at the moment.

Let me begin by setting down a passage from the now well-known One God and Father of All, by Eric Milner-White and Wilfred L. Knox (pp. 46, 47):

With some things in this passage I could not, of course, agree, but with one thing at least I do agree, and that is with the dislike expressed in it for calling Christ’s prayer a ‘creative prayer.’

If there is one thing which, above all others, impresses the mind of the casual traveller through post-war Hungary, it is the amazing resistance to an adverse fate which the people of this Central European country are presenting. Rhapsody—the word most frequently thought of in connection with Hungary—according to my dictionary means : an enthusiastic, high-flown utterance or composition. Well, in so far as its application to post-war Hungary is concerned, this word means something totally different. Hungary’s greatest rhapsody, something infinitely finer than Liszt ever dreamed of, is the slow, firm, unwearying heroism with which she is meeting the trials of Trianon.

Before attempting to show what an amazingly plucky fight Hungary has made since the war, it is necessary that I sketch very briefly the condition of the country before that upheaval.

A thousand years ago the Magyars crossed the Carpathians and settled in the fertile lands to the west; and, from, the time of King and Saint Stephen in the eleventh century, when the nation embraced the Catholic faith, to the commencement of the last war, these people have gone on and on, steadily building up a national culture and a national feeling second to none throughout the world. As early as the fifteenth century, under the rule of Matthyas the Magnificent, Hungary was known as the most brilliant renaissance kingdom in Europe. By the fourteenth year of the present century the country had achieved a civilisation which could not but deeply impress all who came within its influence.

For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.—Romans I, 20.

There is a Roman road going from Cambridge towards the south-west; six miles out of Cambridge it passes between the villages of Harlton and Little Eversden, climbs a hill and drops down on the other side to the Ermine Street. A hill, a little over two hundred feet high, is usually an insignificant feature, but in Cambridgeshire, with its great expanses of open fields, things appear different; and one has only to ascend a mere few feet up the slope to command the whole of the plain towards Cambridge, with the chapels of King’s and St. John’s Colleges on the horizon. The view is of great charm; its predominant features are breadth, serenity, quietness and repose; there is just the plain of large fields, broken by the clumps of trees surrounding a few villages, with church towers rising from their midst, and the road stretching out between low hedges. There are many times when the view is not only charming but beautiful; one such time is on an autumn evening when it is growing dark, with a clear sky overhead and a white-grey mist creeping over the fields. Such an evening was Tuesday November the fourth, of last year. I remember it vividly, for I was out on the low hillside until five o’clock.

Perhaps I should not have remembered the day so exactly but for the fact that Sir James Jeans was to deliver the Rede Lecture at half-past five.