A Happy Anomaly
320 THE COMMONWEAL August 4, 1926 or the nucleus of fact to be drawn from them, as a To imagine that this...
...The instances adduced in support of this Canada...
...But let him withhold his criticism much account...
...Leaving aside elements whose hostility is an conclusion are often interesting...
...Perhaps their American writer apparently not of Catholic faith, mythological systems were guesses in the direction of takes the trouble to examine these grievances seriously a philosophy of the human story...
...Its very four-square bulk-the complete- is both a challenge and a needed lesson for the worldly ness of its achievement, compel respect from the world- mind...
...That an efficient and economical individual mind and will...
...Not to mention the affair of race and religion, there is a certain body of astonishment caused by Schliemann's demonstration of opinion, very moderate and reasonable on the face the reality of Troy, there are such matters as the of its arguments, which regards the Church in Quebec real existence of the Egyptian king, Menes-long as an "imperium in imperio"-a venerable but tireconsidered mythical but now proved quite historical some anomaly in an age when the state, having evoby a gold bar in the possession of the Chicago Uni- luted to its possible limit in the direction of popular versity-and the marvelous water-clock according to control, has entered upon its final stage of absorbing all which King Tutankhamen regulated his daily existence...
...A hundred and thirty years ago the great orator ly visitor today as they enforced it upon the alien Burke told the British Commons that "the cheap deconqueror 16o years ago...
...where else save in the Eternal City itself...
...human functions and gathering them within its polity...
...that The Commonweal believes it deserves mention in other than the columns usually devoted to book A HAPPY ANOMALY reviews...
...until he has had time to learn something of the great But Catholicism in French Canada is something that work performed by these institutions-work which, if every year makes more unique...
...Other attempts to found fense of nations" is best secured by leaving undisturbed the Kingdom of God upon earth have been driven those primal loyalties which have nothing to do with by all-pervading materialism into the recesses of the written constitutions...
...Its tradi- French Canada, as it exists today, and as it may tions are imperishably bound up with a national and piously be hoped, it will exist for generations to come, racial ideal...
...It will cona threatened nationality entrenched itself, and en- tinue to avert them, we must suppose, until the intrenched itself successfully, it persists today as a power evitable bankruptcy of human institutions which do that must seriously be reckoned with at each and every not seek first the things of the spirit (or, dare we say, crisis of social and political life...
...He is also someshrouded windows are like so many meditative lids times inclined to criticize the government that allows closed upon the glare and swirl of the street, tell of such valuable properties to exist for the most part lives lived within that do not take this world into free of taxation...
...There are many in the business districts of large cities, its author, Mr...
...320 THE COMMONWEAL August 4, 1926 or the nucleus of fact to be drawn from them, as a To imagine that this unique position of privilege is body of sources now to be restored to their proper accepted gratefully and graciously by every Canadian chronological position in the succession of surviving would be too much to expect...
...reasons why a visit to Montreal, Quebec, and the Frank Oliver Call, has this to remark: homes of the "habitant" should be felt as a relief to "Two mere facts, first, that this privileged church a certain aridity, which, when all our blessings have should have satisfied most legitimate demands for been counted, at times induces a mood of aesthetic three whole centuries-half British and half Frenchdepression among some citizens of the great republic and satisfied these demands so well that no repealing that lies to the south of them...
...It is pervasive as no- left to the government, would cost millions...
...More and more proof is given by our scholarly in- It is because a recent very charming and pleasantly vestigation of the past that the poets of antiquity were written book of travel, The Spell of Canada, by an historians rather than fiction writers...
...act has even been debated . . . are proof that this In the first place, there is the stimulus of contrast, uniquely privileged church has used, but not abused, which comes from the sight of two worlds living side its quite peculiar powers...
...It is true that some- And again: "The stranger who visits Montreal is thing of this contrast is to be observed in big cities sometimes struck by the great number of large buildnearer home, where many a tall, gaunt building, whose ings belonging to religious orders...
...Dealing with the commonest form that discontent takes-namely the existence of a church that T HE attraction of French Canada for the American enjoys "rights without responsibilities," and the freewho is blessed with the gifts of imagination and dom of religious property from taxation, which leaves sympathy seems to be perennial, and books that record large tracts of "unimproved" (i.e., coveted) property it are both frequent and popular...
...However cohesive and evidences which reveal to us the past career of man homogenous French Canada may be, it is not all on earth...
...by side in apparent harmony...
...But, in the province of conduct of its domestic life might lie along the same Quebec, largely owing to the fact that under Provi- lines is a possibility from which the contemporary dence the Church became a rallying point round which world rather stubbornly averts its eyes...
...God) forces them upon its attention...
Vol. 4 • August 1926 • No. 13
