On the Third Threshold
ON THE THIRD THRESHOLD THIS is children's week. It is also the momentous occasion of our own third birthday. At first we viewed the coincidence with some dismay, feeling that such a confusion...
...A journal resting on the conviction that a sufficient number of literary men affiliated with, or interested in, Catholic tradition could be found to take the measure of the established antagonistic intellectual press...
...Well, we have been here and have attracted some attention...
...There are at least two matters which we should like to offer for their consideration...
...The principles of social justice are clearer if we find our way toward them through the baffling difficulties of shop and farm, through the remedial experiments now earnestly being made...
...But the layman as a representative of the courtesies, the standards, the virtues of his church has all the power and pertinence of an ambassador...
...The vast eclecticism of modern life, distracting and overwhelming though it may well seem, can be the field through which we find our way back into the city...
...At first we viewed the coincidence with some dismay, feeling that such a confusion marred our standing among matters of moment...
...They are, to a large extent, the words that recur constantly and happily when talk comes round to a conclusion...
...Perhaps we shall not be construed wrongly when we say that evidence supports this conviction...
...We are confident that there will be an advance...
...And we notice with some pride that these remarks have been read and heeded far more widely than we ever hoped they would be...
...The situation is one for which none of us is immediately responsible...
...What...
...In the second place, fellowship among men is often regulated as much by trifles light as air as by grave fundamentals...
...Now The Commonweal would enjoy claiming these attributes of infancy as it is quite conscious of...
...Today the work of the Calvert Associates may well claim to have arrived at a certain maturity...
...But tempests have come and spirits are scattered— like wild-fowl on the wind or hungry eagles...
...When this magazine was born, there were many who gazed at it incredulously...
...Thus it is with any number of things...
...Testimony to that fact, at least, has come from all parts of the world...
...others—conscious of the fact that it toddled along, finding its way toward the task it had set for itself but which was not always easy of realization, and conscious of many faults in its conduct which came from excess of good will rather than from chilly indifference to duty...
...It is a modern activity, suited to laymen who never speak authoritatively, but always tentatively...
...A journal of outspokenly religious ideals which actually hoped to find subscribers...
...and not so many end happily at home...
...Our remarks on the Calles regime were based on information supplied by many persons of rare ability, within the Church and out of it, who came to us with offers of assistance, with knowledge, and with no desire for pay...
...But is there anything which so visibly lives and grows, which so energetically inquires into and prepares for tomorrow as childhood...
...Unrest creeps up to the very threshold of sanctity...
...We shall be controversialists through simple practice of the art of conversation...
...Think them out with our fellows in a spirit of charity, even while ourselves conscious of a great inner reality which is ours as a gift and not a reward...
...The layman as a saver of souls is as out of place as a grandfather on a football field...
...We have gone out to win, and it is now the turn of our natural corps of supporters to say if we shall win out...
...Where shall the spirit be housed...
...Chesterton, "is too loud for men to hear...
...No other magazine frankly Catholic in character ever recruited so many good writers from outside...
...Similarly, we look back with pleasure to what has been said here concerning such matters as rural cooperation and the Mexican situation...
...And in a different way, the human universe is restless with a similar search...
...What is done in the name of art is likewise also the best system of mile-stones back to the definition of art...
...One can arrive at the full significance of the Benedictine motto, "Peace," if one examines a little the modern anxiety to end war and the obstacles that bar the way...
...Nothing can be done excepting to sit down and think out all the old conclusions again...
...It is often true that the best place to begin is squarely with a practical problem which the crowd cannot get round...
...And so we would emphasize to friends as well as to those who have not yet formed the Commonweal habit, those words of Lincoln which should be the creed of every American enterprise: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in...
...Within what walls, through what windows, shall we gaze upon the things that pass...
...It has the secret of confidence, of wonder, of that most beautiful thing called innocence...
...The year that now opens must tell once and for all the stride our youthful venture can take...
...At the risk of repetition we would say that this magazine exists to accomplish some of the things which authorities beyond number have declared only business, professional, and literary men can do...
...Because it seems to have been taken for granted that they could not possibly be interested in the minor concerns of life, they were voted not interesting on topics of basic importance...
...In this case again the final mandate of opinion was papal opinion—the plea for peace and prayer...
...The ultimate victory, however, is dependent simply upon the sturdiness of those who join hands with us...
...Nothing in the 2 THE COMMONWEAL November 10, 1926 world is finer or more exciting than this adventure in quest of a place where the beautiful sacredness of life may be housed, where one may escape from the roar of the street into that shout of seclusion and safety which, to borrow a phrase from Mr...
...All these are the ultimate topics for discussion...
...We shall be interested in life...
...This is not the place to analyze plans for the coming year...
...and the quality of our pages is due in considerable measure to the fact that men and women of other beliefs have come here to talk things over, in a spirit of friendliness toward the age-old Church which has a membership of the spirit as well as of the body...
...We shall be interested in it the more because we are foresworn to a great and living tradition...
...Children, to return to the tone of the passing moment, rely instinctively upon community strength...
...Christendom is fellowship, and its influence depends upon its ability to create confidence, harmony, respect...
...Think them out, that is, in terms of the present age...
...Religious, intellectual, spiritual odyssies are today the rule...
...Now it is unfortunately true that a sense of isolation, of difference, of inferiority if you will, has often governed the attitude of Catholics toward society round about them...
...It can be carried on with a firm resolve to hate the Pharisee while taking the arm of the man in the street...
...Thinking in this sense is what The Commonweal aspires to do...
...Will it be a weakling, undeveloped or prematurely old, or will it grapple with the burden, of its days in masculine ashion...
...The first is suggested by a random glimpse of a newly-married couple looking about for a home (it was really not the couple you noticed, but that is no great matter...
...We believe that such activity does not usurp work which others are trying to do, and that nobody else is at present so well prepared to do it as we ourselves...
...The experience of the past is a satisfactory augury...
...Like years of war, like social chaos, it is a legacy which an older revolutionary generation thought we should like better than Christendom...
...A journal dedicated to the intellectual interests of Christendom as these are reflected in the events of the day...
...To some extent, the answer depends upon A>hethe.r we can associate a greater number of people with ourselves—people who have at heart the things we love, who are nurslings of the same principles, who stand at arms in the same impasse...
...But we are perfectly ready to admit that this maturity is not yet majority...
...Time was when the European man who tilled the ground and awoke when the stars were dim and high, found shelter for his soul under the roof of Christendom as simply as a dove sleeps under its cote...
...Therefore an opportunity exists for each one of us to develop what influence he possesses as an individual so that some, at least, of the corporate business of Christendom may be carried through...
...And there, of course, are the towers whose bells ring ceaselessly even though few listen— ring in the great encyclicals, the philosophies, the maxims of the creed...
...If you ask us to say whether we believe these people can be found, our answer is a hearty "Yes...
Vol. 5 • November 1926 • No. 1
