The only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, who will come at the end of time to judge the living and the dead, and to reward each according to their deeds, both the reprobate and the elect; all of whom will rise with their own proper bodies which they now bear, so that they may receive according to their deeds, whether good or evil.

‘The first, that with any effectual success attempted a diversion of this foul and overflowing stream,’ wrote Henry Vaughan in the preface to Silex Scintillans, ‘was the blessed man, Mr. George Herbert, whose holy life and verse . . . gave the first check to a most flourishing and admired Wit of his time.’

Perhaps this attempt to divert the ‘foul stream’ and check an ‘admired Wit of his time’ may explain why, as he tells us, he at first ‘sought out quaint words and trim invention, curling with metaphors a plain intention/ since in the Sonnet sent to his mother as a New Year’s gift from Cambridge in 1608, he asks :

for undoubtedly some of his poems in their allegorical obscureness and subtlety of expression rival those of the wearers of ‘Venus’ liverie.’ The subtlety, however, Is only in the form in which he has chosen to express familiar religious truths in order to allure those who would be attracted by it.

But, indeed, as Vaughan’s words suggest, it was his own ‘holy life’ that was the first and most powerful element in the remarkable influence he exercised over his contemporaries, and it was this that gave meaning and charm to his poetry.

His mother, the gracious lady whom Donne regarded with such affectionate admiration and used to address as ‘The Lady Magdalen Herbert, of St. Mary Magdalen,’ was a notable woman in her devotion to the education of her seven sons. Her husband had died when Edward, the eldest, was sixteen years old, and George, the fifth son, was four.

With the beginning of Lent the bishops of nine of the French dioceses in the devastated districts issued an appeal to the public for a loan of 200 million francs. The experiment is in itself a very considerable contribution to solving the problem of reconstruction in the Regions Libérées.

Of the twelve dioceses which suffered partial or complete devastation in the war only nine are included in the list of co-operative reconstruction societies in whose names this appeal for public subscriptions is issued. The diocese of Nancy, which was the first to originate the idea of applying to the reconstruction of the ruined churches the legal privileges accorded to important syndicates of claimants to reparation money, has already successfully floated a preliminary loan for 15 million francs on its own account. It speaks well for the success of this more ambitious project that the whole amount asked for by the diocese of Nancy was subscribed locally within a few weeks. The present issue is the result of an agreement among the nine dioceses which suffered the most serious devastation, that they would make a joint appeal to the public so that none should be penalised by being behindhand in organising the necessary co-operative societies.

The prospectus of the loan has now been distributed, and the first subscriptions are beginning to come in. There is no doubt, however, that the large amount asked for will take some time to materialise.

Even the 200 million francs is only a fraction of the total amount that will be required to repair all the three thousand ruined churches of the Regions Liberies, and it is as well to state at once that the promoters of the loan are anxious to collect money wherever they can find generous friends.

No poet since Francis Thompson has won such immediate acceptance as Rupert Brooke. He came, he sang, he conquered. He was a sudden voice; a voice that died away suddenly far from the land he sang and loved. And his death gave a new life to his song.

In Thompson the critics had found a poet complete, crowned in his own right with his own imperishable bays, a poet’s poet. They were denied the luxury of watching him grow. While they slept he had taken Parnassus at a bound. They woke to find him with nothing to learn and everything to teach. He let loose upon them The Hound of Heaven, and from that moment they were prepared for anything. His vision had no limitations but the horizons of beauty and truth; it was a spiritual unity that had no parts; it was so comprehensive that it could enclose eternity in a poppy's fragile cup. His moods were all one mood : a mood towards God by which he interpreted everything aright.

Brooke was saluted in his own day as a poet who would become great. Certain undoubted successes convinced men that he would undoubtedly be a success. Until then he was the most interesting of the younger poets. He conducted his emotional and poetical education in public; that, was the abiding interest. He faltered and swerved and failed many times. But always the conviction prevailed that he would one day find his feet and run in the straight and find with certain eye the goal.

The English Catholic squire of the eighteenth century, when he came to decide on the future of his sons, found his choice a very restricted one. His first-born would, no doubt, succeed to the patrimonial acres; and carry on the old traditions. Another, perhaps, might develop a vocation to the priesthood, and be satisfied with that then very humble, very obscure, and often dangerous calling. But what to do with the rest? and those were the days of large families.

Trade might claim one, and (during the first half of the century, though not so later on) without any loss of prestige, or any injury to family pride. Thus a fourth son of Sir Francis Jerningham, of Cossey, became a well-known goldsmith in Covent Garden; while the younger brother of Alban Butler, although born of an old Northern family of gentle stock, set up in business as a linen-draper in the City. But the cruel penal laws against Catholics altogether excluded them from the public services, the Universities, and the Army. The oaths of supremacy and abjuration put parliamentary life out of the question, and the Test and Corporation Acts closed the municipalities. Finally, the statute of William III forbade Catholics to exercise the professions of barrister, attorney, and notary. Hence the usual career of a younger son was found in foreign lands, and many were the English Catholics who fought for or served the Kings of France and Spain, the Emperor at Vienna, or the princes of the small Italian states.

By the time that these lines are in print Mr. Belloc’s latest book will have been reviewed in many papers; and I cannot but fear that, if it is taken as gravely as it deserves, it will provoke impatient comment from both English and Jewish readers. For it has been written deliberately to raise the Jewish question, to make it a conscious issue, and to insist that only by the frank acceptance of this issue on both sides can an impending calamity be forestalled. At the moment, for reasons which Mr. Belloc explains, there is only one section of the community alertly conscious of the Jewish problem, and anxious to raise it, namely the Anti-Semites, who are eager to take the first opportunity of attacking the Jews. The rest of us, including the Jews themselves, do not want the question raised at all, and even deny its existence. They severally declare, or wish it be assumed, that the Jews are not an alien nation, but fellow nationals only differentiated by a religion peculiar to themselves. It would not be surprising therefore if the first effect of the book were to excite an irrational Jewish protest, scepticism and annoyance in the general mass, and among the Anti-Semites embittered disappointment that one as alive to the issue as themselves should yet deliberately dissociate himself from their antagonistic policy. For in matters liable to acute controversy the disinterested seeker after truth and consideration is rarely welcomed.