Father Bede Jarrett and America would probably appear to most of those who knew him as a natural juxtaposition. Yet it ought perhaps to be rather surprising, for he was so completely and even so typically English. The truth is, of course, that though he was English he was not insular, and he escaped the narrowness of insularity because he was also so typically Dominican. (We call him typical not in the sense that he was like many others cast in the same mould, but in the sense that he was himself a model from which a true mould might well be fashioned.) He was thus tvpically Dominican not merely in his apostolic spirit, but also in his discernment and appreciation of truth and true values. It is this, more than anything else, that explains his interest, and perhaps his success, in the United States. He, who loved youth for its fineness, its enthusiasms, its unaffected (even if sometimes quixotic or unformed) idealism, and all its possibilities of greatness as yet unspoiled nor disillusioned, saw and appreciated these qualities of youth in the American nation. He was big enough, too, not to expect perfection but to overlook the failings which were the outcome of unbounded energy and activity, and not of malice. And if he found there a more eager response than in England, it was because we have perchance grown old and sluggish. He did not cease to love what was old and set, but he saw greater hope for the future in what was young and still plastic. He found this in America; but he found, too, the signs of a fruitful maturity, evidences of a true scholarship, of new-born literature and art, and above all a vigorous and sincere Catholic life. It is still the purblind fashion of many of us to think of Americans in terms of gangsters, racketeers, and go-getters, or of superficiality, hustle, and graft. Perhaps we are not helped in this matter by the American movies or tourists that do not always show us the true American. In any case, it is high time we should remove the beam out of our own eye and stand prepared, as Father Bede was, to find in the United States a new Saul amongst the prophets, a source of rejuvenation for the hardening arteries of Western life and culture, a ‘New Deal’ for civilization at large.

When, from the clouds of our actual vantage-point, we consider the date 1535, we are immediately conscious, because of the glorious event which illuminates this present year of suspense, of a scaffold and a block. Four hundred years intervene, and we shall perhaps congratulate ourselves on their passage, since the use of the headsman's axe as a means of religious persuasion has vanished with them and physical danger in the practise of our faith is at an end. We look back with humble reverence and gratitude to that scaffold set in the midst of our country and our history, where the two Blessed Martyrs, now to be canonized, welcomed the ultimate opportunity; and although we may be thankful that such an opportunity comes no more to Englishmen in England (since, by a curious paradox, we would often more willingly choose a life of heroism than a heroic death), we reverence them the more for their fortitude in a trial we are spared.

Their fame shines for us across the centuries, and we love them for holiness and wisdom, for wit and prevailing courage, timeless attributes displayed by them in a vanished time; for everything of that day has disappeared, the frame of life and its preoccupations, the look and sound of it. Gone is that world of individual efforts and harvests, and we think of it as a pastoral picture painted in clear tones, the green English scene enlivened by the peasant in his homespun, made ceremonial by the daily silks and velvets of the great. Its arguments and sufferings, its discoveries and abuses, are only knowledge for us.

But it was a time like this in which we live; new power, new danger, and new tyranny were abroad, and established things were threatened with disruption.

The world in which we live and the social order which regulates its movements has for some time been passing through a crisis, a period of transition. We cannot see into the future, and we know not what it may bring. But we are aware that every change implies a passing-away and a coming-to-be, a re birth following on death which is its price. Only the divine Nature is exempt from the invariable law of change or destruction leading either to the building up of a new life or the falling away into decay by disintegration. Yet God in His goodness has as it were placed limits on His omnipotence and will by not suffering His creatures to be annihilated. Every variation is therefore based on a permanent structure which is itself eternal and unchangeable.

In human nature, whatever modifications a man may undergo, the spiritual element of necessity dominates the material, since in his composite being the soul is created to rule the body. Similarly when the spirit is elevated to the supernatural plane it will by divine ordination and of necessity supersede the purely natural and temporal. The supreme application of this principle, and indeed a reflection in time of the eternal mind of God, is found in the God-man. Here in this most wonderful of mysteries a human nature was made to be the instrument at hand of the Divine Person of the Son.

That which God the Father realized in the Person of His Son He intended in like manner to be accomplished in every Christian. For in being incorporated by baptism into the Mystical Body, the Church, of which the head is the living Christ, each is become a partaker of the divine nature and life. That which is accomplished in each living member must similarly be effected in the body politic, which is the Christian commonwealth.

Works of art have been thought of in two very different ways. According to the modem view, the artist is a special or even abnormal kind of man, endowed with a peculiar emotional sensibility which enables him to see what we call beauty; moved by a mysterious aesthetic urge he produces paintings, sculpture, poetry, or music. These are regarded as a spectacle for the eyes or a gratification for the ear; they can only be enjoyed by those who are called lovers of art, and these are understood to be temperamentally related to the artist, but without his technical ability. Other men are called workmen, and make things which every one needs for use; these workmen are expected to enjoy art, if they are able, only in their spare time.

In ideal art, the artist tries to improve upon nature. For the rest, the truth of the work of art is held to be its truth to an external world, which we call nature, and expect the artist to observe. In this kind of art there is always a demand for novelty. The artist is an individual, expressing himself, and so it has become necessary to have books written about every artist individually, for since each makes use of an individual language, each requires explanation. Very often a biography is substituted for the explanation. Great importance is attached to what we call genius, and less to training. Art history is chiefly a matter of finding out the names of artists and considering their relation to one another. The work of art itself is an arrangement of colours or sounds, adjudged good or bad according to whether these arrangements are pleasing or otherwise. The meaning of the work of art is of no significance; those who are interested in such merely human matters are called Philistines.

The new regroupings of the future are forming themselves round two clearly defined rallying points. One of these is materialism, which attracts those who have ceased to fix their eyes on a life beyond this life. The other is Christianity, towards which are gravitating those who cannot be satisfied with a materialistic explanation of the world, and who believe that in, and around, and beyond its life lies another and more perfect life, in which we are in some way sharers. The materialist grouping is as yet only a nucleus, but it has a coherent creed, a crusading spirit and definite unity of aim. In strong contrast with this small, active, homogeneous nucleus, steadily extending its circle of influence, is the huge army of Christendom, full of supernatural vitality and heroic effort, but handicapped by internal dissension, reduced sometimes almost to impotence; and unable to move forward in strength and unity on its mission to convert the world to Christ.

Is it any wonder that there is an increasing number of men and women in every one of the many sections into which Christendom is divided, who are turning their thoughts more and more to the problem of reunion? They see that to remain as we are, divided and crippled in our efforts, is not merely to court the disaster of being overwhelmed by the forces of pagan materialism, but is a betrayal of our Blessed Lord’s commission, who has bidden us go and teach all nations, not go bewilder them with the multiplicity of our doctrines and the conflict of our many opinions.

I am not over-assured as to the happiness of my title. For the New World, especially of late, is becoming more like the Old World to which we look for tradition. Indeed, I would venture the opinion that the eagerness on the part of the Old World to shed her ancient traditions is parallelled only by the desire of thinkers in the New World to gather up the best lessons of European history before they perish.

Again, I fear that territorially, at any rate, I am going to be confined to a very small and, if we are to credit authoritative American critics, a very unrepresentative portion of the New World—New York City. Personally I am satisfied with the conviction that New York is American and of the New World; for only America could produce New York City.

Furthermore, centuries before the happenings of the facts which I try to appreciate here, practically the whole of the New World knew Dominic and Francis. It knew these thirteenth century patriarchs of religion through the numerous friars who, together with the intrepid sons of the great Ignatius, preached the faith in Northern and Southern America. Your American high-school child, Catholic or Protestant, knows the associations of the friars with Christopher Columbus even as he knows the history of the civilizing influences of the Jesuits, especially in North America.

As a matter of fact a source of bewilderment to me, after many years spent in the United States, is exactly why the term ‘ New World’ is applied to-day to the vast lands lying on the other side of the Atlantic.

Id Quod Visum Placet: “That which pleases when seen.” The simplicity of St. Thomas’s definition of beauty is bewildering, embarrassing; and the modern mind which cares so much for aesthetics is likely to be shocked to find that beauty, from which, for some at least, the remnants of all absolute values seem to hang, is dismissed in four ordinary, even commonplace words. The Thomist who seeks to show that this treatment of beauty is neither contemptuous nor insignificant is in danger of appearing to found a complex system of aesthetics on a base incapable of supporting anything of the sort; therefore of failing to convince. And it will probably be admitted that the phrase considered in itself seems almost to give carte blanche to the Thomist aesthetician. Its implications are immensely wide, but if a more acute examination of them is likely to reveal unexpected precisions it becomes a duty to make it.