It has been said of the Dictionary of National Biography that its compilation has permanently put out of employment the writers of what used to be called the Miscellanies. Drudging, uninspired work it was, this labour of the writer of miscellanies, yet one may have a feeling of sympathy for the painstaking and reasonably honest workman who might have earned his bread for a day or two by quarrying in the pages of the Greville Diary.

My edition of Greville is that of Philip Whitwell Wilson, published by Heinemann in 1927. The editor informs us that nothing printable has been suppressed, and that only a rare and irrelevant vulgarity of the stables has been omitted. There is since, I believe, a more complete edition.

Within the limits of the edition before me, there are occasional passages of interest to any Catholic with a relish for the quaint or the unexpected. There are the usual reactions characteristic of the fair-minded Protestant of the period, to Catholic persons and institutions, and to what we may call Catholic aspirations, whether religious or political. We know the kind of thing a Protestant Englishman of the period would think and say about the Popes and the Temporal Power, Daniel O’Connell and the Irish, Mazzim and united Italy. We know all this, and need not trouble to reproduce what Charles Greville thought, said, or wrote on these matters. But it may be at least of passing interest to read of a few of the contacts made with the Catholic Church by a cultured man of affairs in the early Victorian age of the world, the English world.

The author of a book on how to write advertisements for selling goods came to face the question as to what was to be done if the advertisement writer simply could not think of anything to say. His solution was—start an argument with yourself.

It is said that one of our great preachers prepares his sermons in the following way. He writes at the top of the paper the statement which he wishes to teach. Below this he writes : ‘But it seems that this is not the case, because . . . .’ and here follow various objections and difficulties. The truth is there is nothing like an argument, or objection, to make one think, or to arouse interest, as the middle ages so well understood. Every article of the Summa of St. Thomas begins with objections—that is, it is cast in the form of an argument with an invisible opponent. His articles are headed, not by a statement, but by a question. For example, ‘Whether the Eucharist gives Grace? And every article has three distinct parts : (1) objections; (2) the magisterial solution of the question, with arguments; (3) replies to the above objections in the light of this solution.

Why did he do so? The answer is, roughly speaking, that St. Thomas wrote like that because he taught like that, and further, he taught like that because he thought like that, as indeed do most of us. First we are set thinking by some problem, next we consider the whole subject and come to some conclusion, and, thirdly, we solve thus the problem which originally set us at work.

It is March, and an uneasy armistice rules in Shanghai. Now that the dust and heat of the conflict have subsided, passions and prejudices run a little less high, and the demands of the actual moment are less insistent and exclusive, there is time to look back on the events of the past five weeks; to attempt to arrive at a considered judgment on the rights and wrongs of the situation; to ask whether the chorus of condemnation with which Japan’s actions have been greeted in certain quarters is justified, if the disapproval, tacit or otherwise, which the West seems to have chosen to exhibit, is fair.

The first thing to be remembered is that the provocation suffered by Japan was considerable, far greater in fact than appears to be realised except by those who were witnesses of it. Not only was there the boycott with all its attendant illegalities of confiscation and intimidation, there was also the constant outpouring of a rancorous anti-Japanese propaganda of the most hostile and insulting character, which was condoned, if it was not actually inspired, by the Government; and there were the constant outrages and indignities suffered by Japanese residents. To secure redress by the ordinary methods of diplomatic intercourse was impossible. Protests were unavailing, for the Government, even if willing to control its subjects, was unable to do so. Moreover, with the overthrow of Chiang Kai Shek’s administration there was only a very shadowy government to protest to and negotiate with. Nor was China’s past record such as to inspire trust.

Some people seem to thrust a disappointment aside, as one brushes mud from clothes; their attitude agrees with the saying that it is a poor coat that will not bear brushing, but it is possible that they never envisage the amount of brushing that a life-time calls for. Others can find a cynical satisfaction in disappointment: it affords support to pessimistic expectations, for one of the strangest possibilities of the human mind is to feel a disappointment that was halfexpected, and then to salvage a pleasure from contemplating bewrecked schemes. Such a hardness of the mind is a defensive armour of dangerous heaviness, and it may become the permanent covering of the spirit—a prison rather than a vesture.

Disappointments in a sequence accumulate a power of destruction which only a corresponding growth of resilience or a developing fortitude can counteract. Infinitely various are the means by which we evade or overcome the worst malignities of Fate. On the chessboard of life, whereon We range the black pieces of Despair and the white pieces of Hope, the most transparent cheating will satisfy us: White must win, of course. The first move is with Hope and the last also must be, or who would play this game? The calendar serves us well as a team umpire, though it can be a little stubborn soon after midsummer. Every twelvemonth the conventional division of time gives capital letters to a new year. This is as good as restoring the Queen to Hope; for what else is a New Year but to encourage Hope?

In an age triumphant in mechanism, thought tends to run on mechanical lines—on railway lines, in fact. Sometimes we refer, with a pitying smile, to the Victorian idea of progress, which had as its favourite text ‘Go from strength to strength,’ and which was admirably epitomised by Tennyson, the characteristic Victorian poet, in such phrases as :

‘Forward, forward let us range,
Let the great world spin for ever
‘Adown the ringing groves of change’;

or:

‘Men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things’;

or a world

‘Where freedom slowly broadens down
From precedent to precedent.’

All very tidy, orderly, and regular. And all very ridiculous ....

We tend to smile at all this now. We now describe ‘progress’ as rhythmic; and a rhythm has its ups and downs, its systole and diastole, its oscillations. Nevertheless, the theory of evolution still binds us with its spell, though some of the Germans are beginning to question it. ‘We are all evolutionists nowadays,’ in ‘progressive’ circles, that is; and we do not usually import German thought until it has become a bit stale in the country of its origin ....

The Service was in no way in excess of the meal: bird broth; candied and pickled fruit and vegetables; and the expected goslings, tasting of lemon; There was great variety of biscuits; the wines were sweet and not strong; and there were delicate morsels of cheese looking like wooden matches, taken at any time during the meal. At the end there were fine peaches; and sweets which no one took.

When, as has been said in certain times and places, the cloth was withdrawn, for there was never any sign of any cloth, Koti said :

There are several reasons why we cannot address questions to the most honoured present, and doubtless his wisdom has divined what they are. But nothing prevents his asking questions of us. Talk at table is sacred talk.

So Park began:

There is the surface population of this island. Is it denser in other parts than in this part?

Its density varies exactly with the productivity of the soil.

The soil feeds the whole population?

Yes, and it is the greatest thing done in la.

The moors and hills are uninhabited, said another speaker; except by wild creatures.

What?

Different kinds with antlers, including the great kinds.

Wild swine and bears.

Hunting forests?

Yes.

Who use them?

The nobles.

How are they hunted?

Mostly with dogs.

What’s the name of that long-legged feline?

Svillig looked pleased and said : N’ti. Have you seen it?

Yes, in captivity.

In captivity?

Yes, and often in pictures. I saw it in a picture the first day I was here, on the eve of the Assumption. Did you though?

‘And He said : the Kingdom of God is as if a man should cast seed into the earth—and should sleep—and should rise night and day—and the seed should spring and grow up whilst he knoweth it not.

For the earth of itself bringeth forth fruit—first the blade—then the ear—afterwards the full corn in the ears.

And when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.’ [Mark iv, 26—29.]

10th May, 1932. Eureka! To-day in a home of contemplative nuns to whom I am presuming to give a retreat, I seem to have found what for years I have sought in vain to find. St. Mark, who has so few parables, has yet this one that is to be found in no other gospel. The questions that have troubled me for years were, first, if St. Matthew and St. Luke knew of this parable, why did they pass over it? and, secondly, why did St. Mark, that is St. Peter, think it should not be passed over?

On the Feast of the Assumption in the year 1498 Columbus discovered this island and called it Conception Island. But it was not till two hundred years had passed that resident missionaries, French Dominicans, were established, as we learn from Père du Tertre and the famous Père Labat, in their accounts of those early days, 1651-1657. During two intervals they were replaced by Capuchins, 1657-1663 and 1763-1784, and by a series of secular priests, French, Irish and Spanish, till the English Dominicans formally took over the mission in 1901. So long as the French occupied the island its Catholic history was peaceful, but when the British seized it in 1762, and again, after an interval of French occupation, secured it finally in 1783, the Catholic Church in the island entered on a long period of storm and trouble. The whole forms a dramatic picture which is well set out by Fr. Devas, who has for years been occupied with the history of the island, and who has spared no pains in accumulating materials for its compilation.

Ecclesiastically the island was under the jurisdiction of the Vicars Apostolic, Challoner, Talbot, Douglass and Poynter, up to 1819, when the West Indian Diocese was erected and Dr. Buckley was appointed as first Vicar Apostolic with his residence in Trinidad. But long before that date troubles had arisen. The British regime started well—on paper : Catholics were to be Members of the Council, one was to be assistant Judge and one on the Commission of Peace in each town or parish.

A desire to identify the Kingdom of God with the dominion of good taste, to give the authority of divine inspiration to an honest prejudice, can plainly be recognised. Whether or no the strong distaste for the products of vineyard, brewery and distillery is the cause or effect of the prejudice against fermented liquor, it is clear that the prejudice is a compelling force in the ‘free churches’ to-day. Hardly will a minister be called to the pulpit unless he be a trusted professor of total abstinence. The layman who takes his ‘modest quencher’ cannot hope to become a deacon or local preacher when the Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a society of total abstainers in full and constant session. Much liberty of departure from the old paths of creed and catechism is allowed to nonconformist ministers, always provided they hold stiffly and expound eloquently this prejudice against intoxicating drink. True religion, in fact, in the minds of many is merged with the personal distastes of the believer, so that ‘prohibition’ is proclaimed the hope of this world and the glory of the Kingdom. A prejudice unchecked, smiled upon rather than discouraged, is contagious. There is no telling in what fanaticism it may end.

We recognise also that it crops up periodically in the history of Christianity, this conviction that an enlightened few alone possess the truth of the Kingdom. The esoteric doctrine is held by the few, and they are God’s elect.

The choice of a career for his son is, in general, a problem of great perplexity for a man, and, often, one which he is ill equipped to manage. He probably makes large sacrifices to defray the cost of a ‘good education,’ and is liable finally to sacrifice his boy’s chances of happiness and success by an injudicious decision about his future. His difficulties may be increased, curiously enough, by his failure to realise that conditions of entry into a career are radically different from what they were thirty or forty years ago. He perhaps is still sufficiently romantic to talk about, and even to believe in, the ‘self-made man’ ideal, although the impracticability of it in these days of combines and over-population is surely manifest. Or he is likely to adopt one of two favourite attitudes; either, that his personal experience of the exigencies of his own calling determines him not to allow his son to follow it, or that the only reasonable thing for a son to do is to step into his father’s shoes and continue the work built up for him. If he is neither romantic nor obstinate, he will consult his son’s inclinations and, in all probability, he will find them either fantastic or completely unformed.

A normal boy rarely shows a marked aptitude for one particular business or profession in his early or middle school-days, and if he forms an opinion about his future it is usually much influenced by a limited knowledge of his father’s occupation.