Your Letter (verse)
Dolson, Eugene C.
November 4, 1925 THE COMMONWEAL 645 ment, the second on the Eucharist and the alleged communion rites in pagan cults. To judge by the highly laudatory newspaper articles which appeared on the...
...During the interval to elapse before the next re-assembly, he urged the organization of smaller national conventions of three or four days, instead of international meetings of a week's time...
...Et~6ENE C. DOLSON...
...November 4, 1925 THE COMMONWEAL 645 ment, the second on the Eucharist and the alleged communion rites in pagan cults...
...But I hope I am not alone in feeling that most of the other contributions suggest a quite different interpretation of the word "my...
...Your Letter The words in your letter Are sea-shells-Castaways that whisper Unmistakably Of the home whence they came...
...Would not this, in fact, be a happy solution of the problem for America and England, in both of which an international congress now seems impossi- ble by reason of depreciated continental currencies...
...Compton Mackenzie replies to the editor's question by offering some of the considerations which led him to become a Catholic, it explains itself naturally enough...
...As it is, you never know which stories are new and which are old...
...Mackenzie writes about "my religion" just as a Dane (say) might write for the English public about "my country...
...The phrase, of course, is a perfectly legitimate one...
...For it is, surely, one of the accidental glories of any religion, true or false, that it should be a bond which unites men in the observance of it...
...MY IRRELIGION By RONALD KNOX W HEN the millennium arrives, as there is every reason to think it will before long, there will, no doubt, be an Index Jocorum, or official Joe Miller, which will be a blessing to writing fellows on both sides of the Atlantic, and still more to the public...
...Note Step-anov's recent work in Russian, Principles and Methods of Anti-Religious Propaganda...
...Conventions such as that of Milan have the double virtue of doing honor to Cath- olic learning and of preparing select workers in this field...
...This one, for ex-ample, that I am leading up to, about the man at the Cowes Regatta, who met an acquaintance of humble origin and plebian speech, wearing the blazer, or pea- jacket, or whatever it is, of the Royal Yacht Club...
...It has shown, as on its part, the Vatican Exposition showed, the incomparable re-sources secured for the service of science by the col- laboration of missionaries...
...It is certain, in any case, that the defense of our Faith demands the development of this study...
...The president of the congress, however, in the closing session suggested a means of remedying this defect...
...and when Mr...
...and the next day met the same acquaintance in the same blazer, but with the letters, M. O. R. Y. C., embroidered over the pocket...
...To judge by the highly laudatory newspaper articles which appeared on the congress, notably in Italia, the Corriere and the Osservatore Romano, and by the congratulations offered by numerous Church digni-taries, the impression produced by the gathering at Milan would seem to have been excellent...
...Even a tribal cult, which does not pretend that its god is the god of any neighboring tribe--would regard it, indeed, as plagiarism if neighbors were to adopt its own tenets-- nevertheless identifies itself eagerly with the whole life of that one tribe...
...I have been irresistibly reminded of this story by the recent action of an English morning paper in start- ing a series of articles by well known novelists under the heading My Religion...
...Soviet Russia is not the only land in which the history of religions and that of primitive religions in par- ticular (religious ethnology) are used as a means to propagate indifferentism and atheism...
...It is unfortunate that present circumstances and lack of funds will not permit, as was possible in the past, the publication of a report of the meetings, use- ful as such a document would undoubtedly be to extend the action and increase the fruits of this scholarly re- union...
...it has nothing proprietary in it, nothing egotistic...
...One point deserves special stress...
...False science must be opposed without delay by a science that is better informed and impartial...
...Thus would be avoided the difficulty of high traveling expenses as well as that of multiplicity of languages...
...The more re-cent and reflective religious organizations of the world go further, and insist that if things were as they should be, not one tribe only, but the whole of mankind would be united in holding this or that creed, however tenu- ous, fulfilling these or those religious duties, however...
...He protested in horror, explaining that that sort of thing wasn't done...
...The others write of religions which are their own invention, for which they themselves are responsible--their religion and nobody else's...
...To the Italians, who have nearly abandoned the field of ethnology and history of religions to the rationalists, the congress has revealed the existence of a Catholic science very rigorous in its methods and most con- fident in its conclusions...
...All jokes, but especially anecdotes, will have to be en- tered at the Library of Congress here, or at Stationer's Hall, in England, and it will be illegal to release one without giving its age--"strictly fresh," "storage," "pre-war," and so on...
...consequently, a greater number of writers, professors and mission- aries would be enabled to take advantage of the op- portunity...
...Birth and coming of age are alike marked by ceremonies which bestow a religious and a political status, make a man a communicant (so to speak) and consequently a citizen...
...there is no mistaking his attitude...
...The wearer, when challenged for an explanation, said the first two letters stood for "my own," and that he meant to go on wearing it...
...The praise and encouragement lavished on the congress by the Holy Father and his representatives will, it is to be hoped, help to multiply these workers...
Vol. 2 • November 1925 • No. 26
