At the outset it must be said that there can be no such thing as a Catholic Philosophy any more than there can be a Catholic Science. But there are philosophers who in the matter of religion profess certain dogmatic beliefs, just as there are chemists or medical doctors who are at the same time Catholics, or Protestants, or Jews.

Yet Draper, in his Conflict between Religion and Science, written in 1874, makes the following statement : ‘Then it has come to this, that Roman Christianity and Science are recognized by their respective adherents as being absolutely incompatible; they cannot exist together; one must yield to the other; mankind must make its choice—it cannot have both

Again, Huxley, in one of his Lay Sermons, writes of ‘our great antagonist—I speak as a man of Science —the Roman Catholic Church, the one spiritual organisation which is able to resist, and must as a matter of life and death, resist, the progress of science and modern civilisation.’ It is such statements as these that have provoked Dr. Windle to write his valuable little book, The Catholic Church and its Reactions with Science.

Only the other day, we stood looking at the desolate spot in St. Martin’s Street, once occupied by the happy home of the Burneys, and Dr. Johnson’s dictum about that gifted family came to our mind : I love all of that breed whom I can be said to know, and one or two I hardly know, I love on credit.’ And lo! on returning from our stroll, we found this new and valuable volume of Burneyana with those very words inscribed on its title-page. Mr. Brimley Johnson, who has already delved to such good purpose in eighteenth century quarries, here gives us a delightful miscellany. It is made up of hitherto unused material from manuscript journals and correspondence, and from contemporary newspapers, and the result is a ‘full-length family group’ of all the Burneys. By far the best part of the book consists of a reproduction of the suppressed passages in Madame d’Arblay’s Journal during her stay in France in 1802 and the succeeding years. These are full of interest, and in their vividness are well worthy of one who was at once the greatest diarist and all but the greatest novelist of her period.

The editor in his introduction rightly praises Fanny Burney’s incomparable literary picture-painting, and extols her as perhaps the shrewdest observer of human nature who ever created fictions in the likeness of man. In 1802, Bonaparte was on the eve of the Consulate for Life, and Paris presented a curious spectacle, of which we are here given many glimpses. While some of the entries are of a very intimate character, others were written to be read to Queen Charlotte and her daughters at Windsor, and are therefore of the full-dress order.

Above the col at Saanenmoser there is a mountain called the Hornberg, which the skiers love. The beginners practise all day on its lower fields of snow—’ the nursery slopes they call it, where it is steep straight going and no traps or pitfalls. Higher up there are the dark green fir-forests, and above them again the highest fields slope upwards towards the summit, dazzling white against the blue. On either side below the col the valleys wind away among a sea of mountains, on one side into the heart of Switzerland, on the other towards the Lake of Geneva and the mountains of Savoy.

I had often climbed the hard snowy track up the Hornberg in the early afternoon and run down on skis across the wide easy slopes. It was a jolly friendly mountain, its snow alive with skiers, its silence broken by voices, the upward path marked by occasional huts and chalets, the snow crossed and re-crossed all the way up with the tracks of innumerable skis. The skiers have familiarly named certain places: such as ‘Devil’s Gap,’ slippery with ice under the trees, through which the beginners slither and slide, and ‘Major’s Corner,’ the difficult path through the wood which some old Major was supposed to have made famous with his perpetual falls. It seemed to be a mountain entirely dedicated to mankind, too good-natured to resent the invaders, and appearing to achieve a perfect friendliness by sacrificing something of its dignity. The neighbouring peaks were too high for frequent ascents, and kept their terrors and austere secrets apart.

There is a tragic poetry in the phrase ‘going West’ and not even the apparent banality of a journey to America in a huge modern liner could undo the ancient birthright of that phrase. The wild October dawns came up cold and desolate in the wake of the flying ship, and night after night we plunged into the heart of stormy red sunsets, as if making an effort to keep up with the fugitive daylight—only to be defeated in the race as the starless nights overtook us and shrouded us in bitter darkness and shrieking winds. Perhaps it is because of the thinning of the atmosphere that sounds become louder at night; or it may be a question of emphasis and setting. But the noise of the ship always seemed to increase five-fold with the fall of darkness. The strenuous chorus of engine and screw, threshing and booming, vied with the piercing whistling of the wind and the surge of the waters along the side of the ship. In the midst of this weird uproar, the Italian emigrants on the second-class deck would group together and sing a goodnight hymn before going down below, a lovely plaintive Italian chant with seconds and thirds : ‘O Santa Vergine—prega per me’—pray for me—‘because I am in the midst of the sea.’

After six days of racing and tearing across the Atlantic, the sense of direction became an obsession, and the very soul felt as if it was streaming east and west like a banner in a high wind. As our ship slowed up to go into New York harbour, The Majestic, the largest liner in the world, sailed out on her way to Europe, and it was almost painful to see such an immense object as The Majestic proceeding eastward with so much confidence and weight, opposing the whole Strained direction of one’s being!

No one has ever told the story of Saint Catherine of Siena as truthfully as her own Letters tell it. She is more realistic in those pages of her own composition than within the compass of all the varied ‘Lives,’ from Di Capua’s to the most recent and beautiful one by Johannes Joergensen. It is said that the Sienese artists were never so truly inspired as when they painted her, but it is in the art as in the literature around her name : a succession of glimpses. Andrea di Vanni, her contemporary and a pupil in her school of mysticism, has left us one genuine likeness of her m his famous portrait: pallid oval face, long nose, mouth and chin which give some hint of her sheer courage and resolution, dark eyes with the abstracted expression of one who is solely concerned with the internal reality behind ‘the terrible doubt of appearances.’ So, remote and unresponsive, she probably looked when people crowded round her to kiss her hand; a fashion for which she was severely criticized, and which she defended by saying (somewhat wearily, perhaps) that she simply didn’t see how persons greeted her, she was so interested in them. Passing on to Bazzi’s really exquisite ‘Svenimento,’ this, too, probably represents her as she was in that moment of mystery of the Stigmatization: but through the whole gallery of frescoes and pictures, down to those of the sixteenth century, which depict her with the simper of a debutante, the real Catherine is not seized anywhere. Of necessity, the artists have failed more signally than the hagiographers and essayists.

‘Apellabo martyrem; praedicavi satis.’

—St. Ambrose.

With what emotion must he who travels from the south first break upon the Campagna, and see presently the Appian Way. Here, on the outskirts of the City, is the heart of Rome. Not the centre of her grandeur and dominion, not the seat of justice and power, but the cradle of Christianity suffering and victorious.

‘Now—the single little turret that remains On the plains,

By the caper over-rooted, by the gourd Overscored . . . .

Here is ‘love among the ruins.’ But divine, not human, love. Along the line marked by the cypresses lie the catacombs, untouched by any pious transformation. These were the sleeping places of the martyrs. Who were they, and what have they done for Christianity?

First, they have supplied certain proofs needful for the understanding of the nature and continuity of the Faith and of the Church.

No cause was ever so hopeless as that of Christianity on the morning after the Crucifixion. No religion has ever won a wider dominion in a shorter time.

We may begin by speaking of two books recently published. The first consists of essays on various doctrinal subjects by fourteen members of the Anglican Church. One or two of the essays—for instance, Professor A. E. Taylor’s on ‘The Vindication of Religion’—reach a high level. Others have little claim to be called either Catholic or critical. The only essay, however, that concerns us here is one entitled ‘The Incarnation,’ by the Rev. J. K. Mozley. The second of the two books is a plain, useful exposition of the doctrine of the Incarnation by Dr. J. P. Arendzen.

Mr. Mozley’s essay contains statements which a Catholic could hardly accept, but as an attempt at showing the reasonableness of the definition of Chalcedon concerning the two natures in Christ it seems to us to deserve praise. As Mr. Mozley and Dr. Arendzen both remind us, that definition is nowadays held in contempt by many who would call themselves Christian theologians. The former describes the state of things mildly when he says (p. 190): ‘In the doctrine of Christ’s Person the disparagement of the formula of the Two Natures has become in some circles almost a convention.’ This attitude, of course, is not new. Just twenty years ago Holtzmann could finish a well-known book of his on Jesus Christ with the assertion that’ no Protestant theologian of note any longer professes the doctrine of the Creeds on the two natures.’

We feel sure that readers of Blackfriars will welcome a résumé of the open correspondence between Mr. Charles C. Marshall and Mr. A. E. Smith. It will be forever memorable in the history of English-speaking Catholicism. Mr. Marshall is an eminent Episcopalian lawyer; Mr. Alfred E. Smith, the popular Governor of the New York State, is almost certain to be the next democratic candidate for the American Presidency, and would undoubtedly have been so at the last nominations, were he not a Catholic and therefore a victim of sectarian prejudice. This prejudice, whatever be his disclaimers, must unconsciously have moved Mr. Marshall to publish his ‘Open Letter to the Honourable Alfred E. Smith’ in the April number of The Atlantic Monthly (pp. 540-549).

The general drift of his letter is shown clearly enough in the opening and concluding paragraphs; the Governor’s reply sufficiently explains the rest of the attack.

Sir,—The American people take pride in viewing the progress of an American citizen from the humble estate in which his life began toward the highest office within the gift of the nation. It is for this reason that your candidacy for the Presidential nomination has stirred the enthusiasm of a great body of your fellow citizens. They know and rejoice in the hardship and the struggle which have fashioned you as a leader of men. They know your fidelity to the morality you have advocated in public and private life and to the religion you have revered; your great record of public trusts successfully and honestly discharged; your spirit of fair play, and justice even to your political opponents.

The title page of this book runs thus :—

We venture to speak of this book as epoch-marking because to find a precedent for it we should have to go back to Tatian’s Diatesseron. Indeed, if Tatian’s work was drawn up after his apostasy we have no precedent for Père Lagrange’s Synopsis. Not that scholars have been without the almost indispensable help of Greek Synopses. Pfcre Lagrange, always so courteous in his thanks to scholars, whether believers or unbelievers, is at pains to show how the precedent set by Tatian has been followed of late years by such critics as Tischendorf, Huck, Larfeld. His own words of Latin preface are significant: Verum, quod mireris, ipsi critici a synopsibus graecis conficiendis non desistunt; inter quos Tischendorf, Huck, Larfeld—nullus autem vir catholicus—ab omnibus laudantur.’ (Nevertheless, we may well wonder that these critics have not ceased to draw up Greek Synopses; amongst whom we must give praise to Tischendorf, Huck, Larfeld—but no Catholic!).

If, then, Père Lagrange has ventured upon a Greek Synopsis, and if Tatian’s Diatesseron is the work of a heretic, this Synopsis, dated from Jerusalem, WhitSunday, 1926, marks the close of one epoch of Catholic biblical study and the opening of another.