The Calvert Series

...and we also fail upon it, for we do not make ourselves clear to them...

...No attempt is being made in this place to review his arguments...

...As Mr...

...second, that the Church has used material which she knew to be false...

...Belloc builds his book...

...If a wind extinguishes one of them, The other two blink and sputter for a while, Then die silently, leaving the heart in darkness...

...And this jour- nal stated that it was a spiritual and even a patriotic duty for those who believed in Christian principles to make an effort to apply their conserving and regenera- tive forces in opposition to the spread of the contrary set of principles...

...Very reasonably they may ask why it is that a series of books entitled The Calvert Series should include to date nothing but English au-thors, and that no intimation has been given that Amer- ican writers and American subjects are to be considered ? The intellectual expression of Catholicism is not a merely national fact...

...There is a particular reason for recalling what The Commonweal had to say in its first number, and the quotation from Mr...

...With this suggestion to the publishers and the editor of The Calvert Series, there is nothing left but to recommend most heartily and enthusi-astically the first four books of the series already pub- lished, and to express the hope that American readers will prove that the editor and the publishers were not mistaken when they launched this enterprise...

...But it can be said without much fear of contradiction that whether or not intelligent, educated non-Catholic readers agree with him, that at any rate they will find presented for them in language consonant with their own mode of thought the Catholic position...

...The time is ripe for such a thing, and if certain negative rules were observed, it could do nothing but good...

...Individuals who for personal reasons become deeply interested in the question of whether the Catholic Church is indeed the truth, turn more to the study of its doctrines in relation to their own spiritual needs than to its public record...

...HENRY MORTON" ROBINSON...

...The main question remains, namely : Are Catholics sufficiently competent, so far as literary expression is concerned, to describe and to elucidate fundamental questions concerning the Catholic faith in a fashion that can be understood and appreciated by non-Catholics...

...Belloc says: That last point is most important...

...for as Mr...

...Again, as in that time 1,7oo years ago, we stand solid, while everything around us is in flux and dissolution...

...The Church claims divine authority...

...Belloc proceeds to outline a number of fundamental subjects in connection with the Catholic Church that require this method of clear explanation to those outside the Church whose minds are troubled by apparent but not real difficulties...

...Sherman's view is--or has been--a correct one has to be, I think, admitted...

...If these four books and the fifth, which is now on the press--The Catholic Church and Its Reactions with Science, by Sir Bertram Windle--attract sufficient readers to warrant the continuance of the series, there will be a large number of other subjects dealt with by competent writers...

...I alone am that society wherein the human spirit reposes in its native place...

...Belloc's thesis is sound, and whether there is sufficient public interest in the funda- mental questions suggested by the Catholic Church in its relation to the common weal to justify its continu- ance...

...Arundzen, which is the very best thing of its kind I have ever read...

...A rose puts forth new shoots, but they are the shoots of the rose...

...The purpose of this little book is rather to suggest certain lines along which a non-Catholic student might profitably travel in order to gain a general view of the age-long controversial war which has been waged about the Catholic Church...

...There will have to be, for example, a number of books dealing with questions of property, the guild system, what usury is, and why usury is wrong...

...it goes to the root of the matter, leaving to sincere inquirers their own task of investigating doubtful cases, or inquiring into particular applications of the general principles so lucidly described by Mr...

...Intelligent and educated readers, who at least have sufficient good will to try to continue their education so far as the Catholic Church is con-cerned--about which the majority even of highly edu- cated and intelligent non-Catholics are so much in the dark--are perhaps more concerned with the objective facts, in a word, the history, of the Church in its rela- tions with human society, than with any other aspect of the subject...

...Belloc himself begins his book by point- ing out, the Catholic Church is not something vague, something simply "spiritual...

...Belloc's explana-tions or definitions...

...Men are more likely to obtain a book which belongs to a series, than they are to obtain an isolated book in such a connection, and the books of the series help to sell one another...

...A second question is connected with this first, which is: Are there a sufficient number of people outside the Catholic faith who are sufficiently interested in these fundamental questions to support such a series of books ? I do not know...

...For the word "martyr" means "witness...

...Upon this foundation Mr...

...In his article in The Commonweal, Mr...

...and by the Catholic Church I mean that visible society real, one, and dearly present before the world today, which is in communion with the Apostolic See of Rome, and accepts not only the supremacy of that see but also the infallibility of its occupant when, as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, and speaking in that capacity, he defines a matter in faith or morals...

...No one else provides an answer...

...Sherman...

...but even for such readers that public record is apt to be radically involved with the spiritual aspects of the Church...

...In a review of Anatole France, quoted by us, he said: Sometimes I am convincednalmost convinced--that nothing can finally resist the full seduction of the rising tide of pagan hedonism but the Petrine Rock...

...Here, in me, alone is reality...

...It is a most admirable general introduction to the immense subject with which it deals...

...There will have to be a defense of growth in Church usage, discipline, and form--called in an earlier gen- eration, "development...

...He insists upon the point that he is not attempting a positive apologetic drawn from history in favor of the claim of the Church, but a rebutting of the evidence drawn from history opposed to this claim...

...The most searching criticism of Anatole France which has yet appeared, the best informed, the most appreciative and at the same time the most destructive, comes from French-Catholic writers, whom English popu- larizers plunder without acknowledgment, beating to the English public the honey of their appreciation and leaving the sting of their criticism behind...

...Mr...

...That Mr...

...It remains to be seen whether or not Mr...

...If there appears in England, France, Italy, Spain, or anywhere else, a writer com-petent to express in a fashion appealing to general readers throughout the world, the fundamental doc-trines and ideas of the Catholic Church, well and good...

...Belloc himself, in his essay in The Commonweal, he mentions a few of the more important subjects...

...Our oplxaaents either have the intelligence to maintain the thesis that no answer is obtainable, or (the greater part of them) unintelligently support divers answers which ex- perience has already shown to be ephemeral and of no value...

...We have individual ex-amples which are of the first merit, and among these, I suppose, is that extraordinary little book on the Gospels, by Dr...

...For it was in The Com- monweal, a little later on, that Mr...

...it is not an atmosphere or a mood...

...It makes us appear aloof from the life of the nation, as if sectarian, and in this respect alien, with little or no part in public af[airs...

...Among the subjects suggested by Mr...

...It is at this point that it seems necessary to say that American readers, if they are to be tested, so far as their interest in Catholic literature is concerned, by their response to this very valuable series of books, are also entitled to an answer to a question which must be in many of their minds...

...For I alone am not man-made but am of direct divine foundation and am by my divine Founder perpetually maintained...

...Mankind cannot feed upon itself-- for that is death at last...

...Belloc...

...The first four books of the new series have appeared.* Other volumes are promised...

...Sr.oo each...

...third, that the Church being proved to be not only organized but increasingly organized from the beginning of its existence, is thereby shown to be different from the simple thing which a divine institution of the sort should be...

...We now have before us the first four books, and are in a position to estimate the practical value of Mr...

...They study the invader: see him as Achilles, and find his heel...

...Fortunately, a publisher was found who did think it worth his while to organize and publish such a series...

...for I alone stand in the centre whence all is seen in proportion and whence the chaotic perspective of things falls into right order...

...It would be very difficult, indeed, for any writer to try to improve upon Mr...

...Belloc...

...In France, Christian ideal- ism has long been accustomed to formidable adversaries...

...I alone provide external sus-tenance from that which made mankind...

...and, second, the general agnostic argument that the Church can be proved historically to be but one of many religions, to have grown up like any other religion, with the same illusions and similar rites and mysteries, and it is therefore man-madenwhich last form of attack the author regards as today the most serious...

...If it is successful, Mr...

...Belloc cannot be improved upon as a statement of the aims and purposes of the new series...

...Belloc states the mat- ter thus : By the term "The Church" I mean the Catholic Church...

...This general thesis is maintained by Mr...

...not little tracts, of which we have, upon the Catholic side, a very" large number-- most of them excellent and enjoying an immense and in- creasing circulation--but books...

...It would be useless to catalogue all the subjects that suggest themselves as being part and parcel of this general program...

...A living thing changes perpetually, but changes only within its norm...

...I wonder whether it would be worth anybody's while to organize at this stage of the great controversy in which the world is engaged, a series of short clear books upon apologetics suited to our time...

...She says: "I alone know fully and teach those truths essential to the life and final happiness of the soul...

...344 THE COMMONWEAL February2, x927 THE CALVERT SERIES By MICHAEL WILLIAMS N THE first number of this journal, the statement was made that there was being promulgated throughout the world a theory, and a practice of the theory, of what civilization is, or what it should be- come, which if it proved successful meant the end of Christendom, at least so far as the expression or in-fluence of Christian principles and ideas in the insti-tutions of civilized life are concerned...

...As the author says, the book is an essay rather than an argument .9 Any attempt to present an adequate argument for Catholicism in the space of ioo pages would indeed be an insult to the reader as well as an irreverence to the subject itself...

...An American publisher has issued this series of books, which is linked up with other series published by French, German, Austrian and English publishers, but which in a particular fashion, because of the name "Calvert" attached to it, belongs to American readers...

...Belloc's own book, The Catholic Church and History, may properly be considered the foundation-stone of the series...

...And they are pretty nearly the only powers which oppose to the point of view of Anatole France a definite point of view of their own...

...And Mr...

...This is for us a grave disad- vantage and a grave disadvantage for the world at large...

...We are still a small minority, but we are the only body with something definite and permanent, continuous and unchanging, pro- found and multitudinous to say, and what we have to say answers the great questions which mankind is driven to put to itself...

...He divides his thesis into two parts, the first dealing with three arguments that might be termed moral arguments: first, that the Church has made pro- nouncements which history can prove to be false...

...The soil of my country alone can fully nourish mankind...

...Who can know...

...Inevitably so...

...But it does seem as if the contributions of the Catholic Church in America, particularly in the United States, and the problems which have to do with the develop- ment of faith in the United States, are of such signifi- cance that they should be recognized in a series of books published in the United States...

...The forceful clarity and expres-sion of logical thought is the root of the matter in Mr...

...Belloc's thesis deals with the intellectual argu-ment, namely, that the Church can be proved by history to be man-made, not God-made...

...The Church of Rome and its champions still stand fast in their ancient faith...

...for we need today a clear book explaining to everybody what not one man in ten outside our boundaries has grasped--namely, that the apparent novelty of Catholic practice proceeding in true lineage is no argument against its value or its essential foundation in truth...

...The Catholic Church and the Appeal to Reason, by Leo lizard...

...There will he a book upon the doctrine of marriage...

...its apologies are not, as generally with us, defenseless babes, going down helpless and speechless before the spears and banners of an overwhelmingly superior enemy...

...Leo Ward's contribution to the series is, The Catho- lic Church and the Appeal to Reason...

...Men take each work in it the more seriously because it is supported by its fellows in the regiment...

...Belloc's style...

...and/es Prayer and love and poetry Are three candles burning on the same altar...

...It deals with g46 THE COMMONWEAL February2, I927 the fallacy so deeply rooted in the modern world out- side the Catholic Church that there exists a natural antagonism between the Catholic system of thought and the conclusions, positive or negative, of the human reason working independently and dealing with prob- lems of the universe in which it finds itself, and coming to its own final judgments irrespective of the authority of the Church...

...Stuart P. Sherman gave a name ta the anti-Catholic philosophy--that of pagan hedonism...

...The editors of the Universal Knowledge Foundation--who are also editors of the Catholic Encyclopedia--and who are certainly authoritative on this question--have just issued a statement in which they unequivocally confess February 2, 1927 THE COMMONWEAL 345 that Catholics exercise little if any influence in the field of general literature...

...It is an objective institution...

...The Catholic Church and Philosophy, by Vincent McNabb, O. P. The Cal,~rt Series...

...The second part of Mr...

...As Mr...

...It does not attempt to deal with details...

...We take it for granted that with the expansion of the series these American subjects and American writers will appear in due proportion...

...Chesterton's volume deals in its author's most brilliant fashion with the tremendous subject of conver- sion-namely, the phenomenon so strikingly evident in the world today of hundreds and thousands of men and women, born outside the Catholic Church, who are coming into it now...

...But there is something about a series which adds greatly to the value of its component units...

...The phenomenon of conversion apparent in every class, affecting every type of character, is the great modern witness to the truth of the claim of the Faith...

...Our con-temporaries fail on this point, I think, more than upon any other...

...see him as Goliath, and plant their white pebbles between his eyes...

...Sherman's statement that English-writlng Catholics are generally defenseless babes will be satisfactorily re-futed...

...Nezv York: The Macmillan Company...

...Belloc said: *The Catholic Church and History, by Hilaire BeHoc...

...though indeed it has an atmosphere all its own, and as many moods as there are human souls...

...This quotation from Mr...

...The time is ripe because the controversy between Catho- lic truth and its opponents has reached today, certainly in England, and the English-speaking dominions of the Crown, but still more, I believe, in the United States, a position comparable to that in the Mediterranean world a century before the conversion of that world...

...Mr...

...The admiration which the born Catholic feels for their action is exactly consonant to that which the Church in its earlier days showed to the martyrs...

...Belloc's idea...

...He ex-amines the value of the arguments drawn from history to prove that the Catholic Church has varied or erred in her teaching or has made it depend upon immoral methods, and he says that such arguments have no force...

...This again is divided into two sections: first, the Protestant argument that the Church gradually corrupted the original message of Christ and from it has deviated...

...In the same number of The Common-weal, the late Mr...

...This question can only be settled by American readers...

...Hilaire Belloc ex- pressed the idea which now is being partially realized-- or, at least, is being tested as to its capability for reali- zation-in that new library of small but potent books, The Calvert Series, edited by Mr...

...to the fact that the Faith is reality, and that in it alone is the repose of reality to be found...

...The Catholic Church and Conversion, by G. K. Chesterton...

...Belloc says in his introduction to Chesterton's book: Such men and women converts are perhaps the chief factors in the increasing vigor of the Catholic Church in our time...

...The Catholic Church and Philosophy is dealt with by that trenchant and illuminated Dominican writer, Prior Vincent McNabb, who, with Father Martindale and Father Ronald Knox, is a proof of the fact that a priest who is a real writer can reach and interest the layman's mind even better than a lay writer...

...Belloc in his most characteristically clear, strongly reasoned, vividly phrased fashion...