John Henry Newman stood alone among the leaders of the Oxford Movement; he possessed that elevation of mind which helps men to acquire those rare attributes of spiritual cultivation making for the fulfilment of life in Divine terms. Spiritual cultivation demands many qualities, and among the more prominent may be discerned courage, strength of will, sensitiveness, courtesy, kindliness, refinement and enlightened reticence. The last the rarest of all and the crown of the edifice. It is no rhetorical exaggeration to urge that all of these reposed in the character of Newman.

Newman was logical in matters of Religion; he combined the qualities of the scholar and the saint; he was an intellect and a master of the spiritual life. A gentleman deeply read in English literature and with whom I have had the privilege of written discussion on the character of Newman, noted in one of my papers that he regarded it as singular that Newman, more than the other outstanding figures of the Oxford Movement, should have possessed the logical faculty in a degree unusual among men of definitely artistic temperament, as his perfect literary style shews him to have been. My literary acquaintance went on to say that although the criticism and comparisons Froude makes in Volume IV, “Short-Studies,” have encountered much hostile criticism he still thought that Newman was shewn in his proper magnitude as against Keble’s wistful sentiment and Pusey’s hesitation. Newman’s mastery of spiritual values shewed that he was well versed in the management of conduct.

Christ died wholly for me. Christ died wholly for all men. Christ did not die only for me. Christ did not die only for the totality of men. For each and for all, not for a group or a part. This is the way we are made to stand up together, each person aGod’s purchase and all united in Christ: firstly, as it is seen, by His death, by the price that He paid for us. In the price that has been paid for my soul I am equal to the entire human race. In the matter of redemption you don't count one, two, three; you count Jesus Christ.

Hence the Church is Catholic, universal, when its members are contained in one room in Jerusalem, and the historic Church is Catholic even when it is impossible to say in how many souls faith is sincere or one spark of charity bums. We know but cannot understand the identity of Christ with His Church. But it is Christ who is the unity of the Church, its integrity and its comprehensiveness.

One must be either a disciple or a critic. Or, at least, when interpreting the thought of a great man the criterion of interpretation should be indicated. The trouble with M. Nédoncelle’s book is that although it is not a simple exposition—it is in its way an apology—although his personal sympathies are evident enough, his general position is left vague. He writes neither as a theologian nor a philosopher; and no appreciation of von Hügel can help us very much unless it is undertaken from both these points of view. As is stated in the Foreword, certain minor changes have been introduced in this English edition. That they were necessary is evident from the fact that in the French edition (p. 114) M. Nédoncelle stated that von Hügel’s ideas on the limitation of Christ's knowledge were not contrary to the Faith.

In England it is especially necessary to be accurate about von Hügel. His influence has been considerable in religious bodies external to the Church. In some ways this has been good; the massive fact of a transcendent religion has been brought home to them. But since the Baron, although achieving an ever fuller orthodoxy, never eliminated certain heterodox elements in his statement of religion, his life seems to offer an example of what a “liberal” Catholic of the future might be; that future when Rome shall be more “enlightened.” This attitude towards him appears to be common among the Anglican body, now so unhappily in the throes of modernism. It is an attitude which the Baron would have intemperately resented! He was fiercely proud of being an ultramontane Roman Catholic. M. Nedoncefle notes that at the time of the modernist crisis “he did all he could to steady Tyrrell and to dissuade him from joining the Anglican Church.”

We all know that Great Britain is suffering from some ill. We are all becoming rather tired of all the examinations of this fact and of all the cures. Generally we find that the “doctors” are only concerned with bolstering up present economic order by removing the more glaring evils. We find Communists and Fascists all opposing capitalism with another form of capitalism in which they will be the capitalists.

Very rarely do we find anyone questioning the fundamental issues on which Great Britain and the Empire have been built.

We know we have lost a great proportion of our export trade, but we hope to recover it. Few of us ask if this is possible.

Now we have a distributist examining the sick—Great Britain, and wisely pointing out the fallacies of the treatment prescribed by other doctors. In the first part of this booklet we find all the causes; “Small minority possessing property and the vast proletarianised majority ...” “The deadly effect of urbanization possesses a profound biological significance.” “Only a minute fraction of the population is engaged in work on the land ...” “England’s industrial monopoly is on the wane ...” “The beginning of a process which will end in England possessing but a fraction of its present population; and of that fraction, half will be mentally deficient ...”

Mankind may be preparing its own destruction, but in the city where I live it all means more and more employment. On Sunday mornings at all the Masses in our little church you can see scores and scores of new faces—young men, whole families too, from South Wales, from Lancashire, from Glasgow way, from Tyneside, from Ireland—all crowding into our big city (which is so much too big already) and mostly finding jobs in the thousand-and-one preparations to be made before Britannia can put on her armour again.

Don’t think that I am condemning the Government for rearming. It is hard to see what else any Government could do, in face of all the maniacs armed to the teeth who are swaggering round Europe now looking for trouble. What the Government might have done is to carry out its pledge that profiteering would be prevented. That pledge has not been kept, and the speculators are enjoying themselves thoroughly. One company—formed to produce fighting-planes—began in July, 1935, with a capital of £2,000,000, doubled this in May, 1936, and issued a bonus to shareholders, and then in November declared a 30 per cent dividend and made a further bonus share issue of one new share for every ten. As the ordinary shares were issued at 15/- each and by November had risen to 45/-, this bonus issue was worth nearly £900,000, on top of the £300,000 distributed in dividends.

Catching sight of my own name by chance in a periodical several weeks old, I discovered to my astonishment that I had apparently been mentioned in a book by Sir Josiah Stamp which was published this year. Sir Josiah Stamp, needless to say, is not only a director of the Bank of England and a railway magnate, but also an “eminent economist” and indeed the chosen publicity-man who is ever ready to defend the existing financial system with voice and pen and a limitless supply of tact and urbanity.

Curiosity had to be satisfied, and at the first opportunity I looked up his book, which is called Motive and Method in a Christian Order (Epworth Press). As regards myself, the results of the search were very disappointing. The distinguished author had indeed mentioned me (amongst others) and even quoted extensively from a little book of mine, but only by way of illustrating how unwise some of the clergy are in committing themselves to the “Douglas Credit System.” I call this disappointing, because I have never at any time been a follower of Major Douglas or an adherent of his scheme, and indeed was at considerable pains to distinguish myself from the Douglasites in that same little book from which Sir Josiah Stamp took his quotations. I have even criticized the Douglasites quite a lot in their own periodicals; though not in articles addressed to the general public, because it seems a pity to give the impression that moneyreformers are at loggerheads, when they are all united in their exposure of the private Money-Power. Also it is true I have often used the terms “social credit” and “national dividend,” but Sir Josiah Stamp can hardly be unaware that these ideas are common amongst others than Douglasites and by no means involve acceptance of such junk as the A + B theorem, etc., which the Douglasites are now finding it so difficult to throw overboard quietly.