In the last six cantos of the Purgatorio, Dante describes the Earthly Paradise upon the summit of the Mountain of Purgatory. It is the most allegorical, and therefore the most difficult and fascinating, part of the Commedia. A. F. Ozanam called it the ‘apex’ of the Commedia.

Six times in the course of it the poet tells us that this was the ancient Garden of Eden, the ‘nest’ of the human race. And the emphasis he thus lays upon this identity of place must give us the right key to the interpretation of the wonderful scenes he there witnesses and takes part in. We propose, therefore, to follow the example of the older commentators who saw their theological and spiritual, rather than their political, signification. Here as elsewhere it is necessary to remember that the poet was, primarily, not a politician but a theologian.

In the closing lines of the twenty-seventh canto, Virgil has addressed to Dante his famous last words, ‘Now is thy will free, upright and whole; therefore with crown and mitre I make thee sovereign over thyself.’ And the twenty-eighth canto opens with that most bewitching description of the loveliness of the ‘divine forest,’ its foliage and its birds, which Ruskin quotes in Modern Painters, where he points out the significance of the contrast between its freedom and joyousness and the ‘wild and gloomy wood’ of the Inferno, which even in remembrance, said the poet, still dismayed him.

I imagine that there is hardly a living mortal, be he poet or acknowledged critic, who, called upon for an appreciation of Mrs. Meynell’s poetry, will not approach his task feeling as might a surveyor called in to take the measurements of the Holy of Holies. The everyday reviewer will have the shamefaced consciousness of hobnail boots added to that of the surveyor’s incongruous calling.

Mrs. Meynell was undoubtedly one of the greatest poets of an age of great poets. The greatest we may not call her, since some extra merit must be accorded to the difficult achievement of excellence sustained throughout bulky volumes; but making necessary allowance for differing tastes, perhaps it were not too much to call her the most perfect poet of the nineteenth century. What other has so matched the perfect word to the perfect thought? Where else than in the hundred or so brief poems she gave to the world, shall we seek vainly for a commonplace line or phrase, or a word put in merely to fill up the measure of rhyme or rhythm? Had she chosen to put her art before her life, her vocation as poet before her vocation as wife and mother, possibly the inimitable quality of her poetry might not have lost by quantity—wherein, however, such rare excellence as hers is hardly to be looked for, perhaps not even desired. We best appreciate the faultless specimen of some rare flower in its cloistral solitude of the hot-house.

Heresy and schism are not a novelty of the sixteenth century, they exist from the beginning, and always in the East. The national Church, self-governing, refusing all obedience to Rome, abiding in its own decrees of faith and morals, and owning na allegiance to any power without its borders, can still be seen and studied in Armenia and in the Monophysite Coptic Church of Egypt. Plainly they are not Catholic, but national or racial these separated brethren. So too the Donatists in Africa sought to set up a national non-Catholic Church. And political nationalism, it would seem, was chiefly responsible for the schism that rent the Orthodox Church of the East from the Catholic communion of Rome; as it is responsible in our own times for the independent national Churches of the Balkans.

Under the heading, ‘A Wonderful Demonstration,’ the English Churchman for April 19 gives an account of a meeting held at the Albert Hall nine days previously, announced as a ‘Great Protestant Appeal against the proposed Royal Visit to the Pope and to demand the withdrawal of the Envoy to the Vatican.’ The gathering ‘was a magnificent one.’

and according to another authority, the Protestant Woman, the announcement of the royal visit ‘has stirred them to their depths.’

From Tuesday, July ioth, to Friday, July 13th, during a summer heat of unparalleled ferocity, the men and women who look upon themselves as the heirs of the Tractarians held a Congress in the Albert Hall. The things said and done by these successors of Froude, Keble and Newman give food for thought and prayer.

The Congress, merely as a social and religious phenomenon, cannot be ignored, and should not be belittled. It is a social and religious fact of no little interest that, during a heat-spell which welted our tropical visitors, one of the largest halls in the world was filled for even the less important meetings of a religious congress.

Moreover, this Congress was representative not of a Church, but only of a party within a Church. It was assuredly a religious phenomenon of significance that this section of a section of Christians could brave tropical heat for a religious idea. This is all the more interesting to us Roman Catholics, because, if we may believe our experts in organisation we, the Roman Catholics of England and Wales, might undertake the task of filling the Albert Hall at general, but hardly at the sectional, meetings of any congress.

Even in the ages of faith, servitude was never a congenial atmosphere for the growth of sanctity. Chattel slavery and serfdom bred an impoverished character, and rare is it to find in the calendar the name of a saint in the middle ages born or brought up in bondage to a master,—save in the case where freedom had been achieved or granted in early life.

Not that the miracle of the grace of God is withheld when social or economic conditions are unfavourable. The holy and humble of heart are discerned amongst rulers in high places, men and women of great estate, and are found in the most unlikely places. Many are the bishops, not a few are the kings and queens, and at least there is one emperor in the ranks of the saints. Even the Borgia family could produce a St. Francis. But the slave and the serf were, it seems plain, always hampered in the quest of holiness, badly handicapped in the struggle to bring the will into complete conformity with the Will of God. Compelled to subordinate the will to the devices of another or to the caprices of society the soul can hardly yield the fine fruits of sanctity.

In looking through some old papers, the present writer one day unearthed a contemporary account of the Coronation of William IV in 1831, and in it occurred the following rather striking passage:—

This is an age of revivals, and many of the minor writers of the past were never more appreciated than they are to-day. The Restoration dramatists are read in preference to the Elizabethans, and Mr. John Gay walks, where Wordsworth fears to tread. It is not merely a revolt against accepted standards that we are witnessing, it is rather a fresh outbreak of the adventurous spirit and that insatiable curiosity and methodic doubt, which serve to distinguish man from the beasts.

So much is, perhaps, needed as an apology for voicing the desire for a fuller measure of recognition for the works and, above all, for the personality of William Cobbett. Those who know his name are not iare, but those who have read him are probably very few.

The four stanzas given by Wade have formed the basis of every English translation, from the earliest— which, according to Julian, is that beginning ‘Draw near, ye faithful Christians,’ in the Evening Office of the Church (1760)—to the present time. The rendering, however, upon which the version in most general use is based, and indeed which it mostly follows, is that made by the late Canon Oakeley in 1841 for Margaret Street Chapel (the forerunner of All Saints’, Margaret Street) of which he was then incumbent. According to Julian, ‘it was never published by the translator, but came into notice by being sung in his chapel.’ This began,‘Ye faithful, approach ye.’ The usual version, ‘O come, all ye faithful,’ appeared in Murray’s Hymnal (1852); Neale, in the Hymnal Noted (1854), has ‘Be present, ye faithful’—a much less singable rendering. (One sometimes wonders whether the quality of singableness appealed to Neale : it will be remembered that the first line of the hymn universally sung as ‘O come, O come, Emmanuel,’ was rendered by its translator ‘Draw nigh, draw nigh’ — almost impossible to sing with pleasure !) The general popularity of the Adeste undoubtedly dates from the publication of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861); the second part of the Hymnal Noted in which it appeared was not as widely used as the earlier portion. A slightly altered version appeared in The Church Psalter and Hymn Book (1854) by the Rev. W. Mercer, to whom the translation is sometimes attributed; this was at one time the most popular collection in Anglican use, and was in many respects a great advance on those—e.g. Bickersteth’s Christian Psalmody and Brady and Tate’s ‘new version’ of the Psalms appended to the Book of Common Prayer—which had previously held the field.

In the September issue of Blackfriars we took occasion to point out the fundamental and very serious error of Pere de la Taille’s book, Mysterium Fidei, on the Sacrifice of Calvary. Our last argument against the new theory of Père de la Taille was drawn from the Gospel of St. John. We said: ‘If there is one Evangelist who seems concerned to bring out the fact that Jesus was a priest and that His death was the act of sacrificial redemption, it is St. John . . . Yet St. John does not mention the Last Supper’—which, according to Pere de la Taille, was the ‘unbloody Oblation of the bloody Immolation to be made on Calvary.’ We have therefore felt it might further our readers’ thought if we made a study of St. John’s attitude towards the Sacrifice of Calvary.

The purpose of this brief article is simply to draw attention to the new church recently erected at Droitwich, and to suggest that its basilica form is more suitable than the Gothic for small village churches. For there can be no doubt that the great Catholic revival which this century is witnessing will lead to a large increase in their number, and that before the end of it there will be a Catholic church in nearly every village in England. And therefore the type of ecclesiastical architecture with which our Catholic descendants will be made familiar is an important question.

This new church, dedicated to the Sacred Heart and Saint Catharine of Alexandria, can be easily seen by all, for it stands by the side of the high road between Birmingham and Worcester. Its erection is due not only to the pious generosity of its founder, Mr. W. L. Hodgkinson, but also to his wisdom and ‘vision,’ for the architect, Mr. Barry Peacock, of Birmingham, was instructed by him to embody the idea of ‘the early Christian basilicas as they may be seen at Rome and Ravenna’ ; and this not through any mere artistic preference, but because they are most suitable for a country congregation and provide scope for the mural decoration—the ‘illuminated Missal,’ as Ruskin called it—which is a feature in an Italian basilica. ‘The Mosaics,’ said that great art-critic, ‘were its illuminations, and the common people of the time were taught their Scripture history by means of them.’

Again the great day particularly assigned to Bobby comes round with its wealth of honours, gifts, and carefully-chosen distractions—a picnic, if in summer, a matinée, if in winter—the day of days, his own especial feast, the most notable day of the year for him, the birthday of Bobby.

The cultivation of children’s birthdays is of evident importance for their development as self-assertive citizens. It entertains in their juvenile minds a proper sense of individual merit, the necessity of their existence to the rest of the world, and the right which is theirs to pleasures and luxuries. True, the event commemorated, the benefit conferred upon mankind, is not of Bobby’s own volition; but as men are born to glory, as men have, often unwittingly, greatness thrust upon them, so is Bobby made cognisant of his part in the great scheme of things by distinguishing the auspicious day on which he first saw the light. On that day he became the centre of interest in the family circle, an object of complacency to relatives and parents, and a hypothetical cause of joy to the universe. Bobby realises that on his anniversary he is entitled to the fulfilment of all his wishes. Not only does he expect and exact treats and presents of varied description; but his whims may not be thwarted. Everybody yields to him; his brothers and sisters play the games of his predilection, wait on him, court favour with him, admit his claim to be the hero, for this is the day on which Bobby, noble Bobby, has been born into the world. The magnification of self gives to Bobby a poise which will stand him well in the battle of life, and preserve him from an altruism detrimental to his material interests.

Thomas Carlyle never could pass by the church of St. Clement Danes without thinking with admiration and awe of Samuel Johnson ‘in the era of Voltaire’ purifying his soul within its walls, full of genuine devotion, sometimes in fear and darkness, at others in patience and quiet hope, but ever with intense and burning conviction. ‘Religion,’ says Mr. Birrell, ‘was to Johnson an awful thing; he never learned to take his ease on Zion. Yet is his trembling piety and utter sincerity a true haven of refuge for the student of the heartless scepticism of the eighteenth century.’

It is a singular fact that for more than forty years Samuel Johnson dwelt within a stone’s throw of the most venerated and conspicuous English Catholic of his day. They must inevitably often have passed each other in the street. But they lived in totally distinct worlds, and we can hardly presume that Dr. Johnson and Bishop Challoner ever exchanged a single word. Yet had they very many acquaintances in common.

The Decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites (12th January, 1921) authorising the Office and Mass of our Lady ‘Mediatrix Gratiarum’ (Mediatrix of Graces), has given rise to a theological discussion on the nature of this mediatorship of our Blessed Lady.

The most common, and perhaps the most convenient, formula of this mediatorship is :

Monitor Wyndup swore, he, at least, would avoid swift generalizations when he started on his combined honeymoon and political trip to the Continent. As writer of a remarkable letter on Road .Transport to the Limechester Gazette, he felt called upon to apply his insight to a wider field; and the conditions of South Eastern Europe clearly demanded what light he could throw on their problems. He was not one of those lightning tourists who confound Bucarest and Budapest, or Teschen with Wreschen (the latter being, of course, the Polish name for Warsaw); and he understood that the Balkan and Baltic Republics were to be kept quite distinct. Their fusion, he declared, would endanger the peace of Europe almost as much as the German Reich had done. Now, however, casting a discouraged look at the monotonous chairs and tables of the stereotyped, modern restaurant in the twenty-fourth town he had inspected, he found he was a little too early on the scene to guage things properly.

One of the most satisfactory features in the programme of the Birmingham Catholic Congress is the announcement of the great missionary exhibition at Bingley Hall. We had a missionary exhibition on a smaller scale at Westminster last year. As a first effort of the kind it was very creditable to its promoters, though it had the defects of a first attempt. Its scope was necessarily limited. It was rather a group of small exhibitions bearing on the work of some of our mission organisations, than a well-organised demonstration of Catholic missionary enterprise as a whole. We may hope that the Bingley Hall Exhibition will show a considerable advance in this respect; and further, that it will be the first of a series of Congress Exhibitions, representing more and more efficiently at each of these Catholic gatherings the development of the foreign missions.

Speaking of the missions at the Liverpool National Catholic Congress, Cardinal Bourne said :

The book before me opens with the following words: ‘In the year of the Incarnation of our Lord 1879, and of the Hegira of the Prophet 1296, and on the Eve of the Feast of St. Patrick, an only child was born to Sir Tatton Sykes, Baronet, of Sled-mere, in the county of York, and to Jessica Christina his lawful wife. Mark Sykes was this only son, and he always remained the original child of original parents.’ It may be added that he ended by securing an original biographer. When a biography begins with a sentence like that, we know, long before such guesses are commonly possible in more conventional cases, that the author is not a hack or a humdrum eulogist, but a man with a sense of history as a background to biography. We know that the author is as interesting as the subject. And we could distinguish this quality of distinction, even if we had not seen on the title page the name of Shane Leslie. The first sentence, recording nothing but a fact such as is found in a directory or a genealogical tree, yet gathers round it a crystallisation of creeds and influences, like the conjunction of stars in some horoscope of a happier and more Christian astrology. We have foreshadowed, as in a dissolving view of historic visions, the influences inspiring the subject and his biographer; beginning with the greatest of all influences, the mystery and majesty of their common creed. The date is stated not only as a date, but as a dogma.