To a Disappointed Pilgrim (verse)
Bynner, Witter
July3, I929 THE COMMONWEAL 257 There seems to be reasonable hope for the success of the new bill. The Buddhists will, on the whole, give it their wholehearted support, although some individual...
...The Protestants also find less fault with the new bill than with the old draft...
...Other points objected to are the qualifica-tions of religious workers and the requirement for religious bodies to report their basic doctrines and the structure of their organizations to the Minister of Education...
...She further attempts analogy between the latter and the Action Fran~aise...
...A couple of students asked me some days ago if they might sum up Dr...
...The individual Protestant or Bible Christian believes in neither, but interprets Revelation after a fashion hostile to both...
...Certainly they might...
...Mencken does not matter, notwithstanding an occasional "community of interest between Catholicism and himself...
...O the Editor :--You say that Dora Walsh in his excellent little study, Professor Barnes and Secularism, "examines some of the evidence underlying the discussion" of the science- religion problem...
...Therefore it is necessary that pagans and Catholics should ally themselves to resist the increasing tyranny of the Bible Christian...
...Father Tsuchihashi, S.J., of the Catholic University, Tokio, and Bishop Kogoro Uzaki of the Methodist Church, were members of this commission...
...If, by any chance, she could care for a more detailed treatment of the subject she will find it in the epilogue of my little book on The Inquisition...
...Menck- en's recent attack upon Protestantism...
...WITTER BYNNER...
...You came with suitcase and with manuscripts And spread your luggage in a spacious room And leaned on a railing over a pepper-tree, Over cornstalks and banana plants taller than yourself...
...This article provides that the Minister of Education may, when-ever it is necessary for the promotion of public inter- est, undertake to maintain order among organizations of different religions...
...This is true...
...COMMUNICATIONS MR...
...Speaking in general, it is highly desirable that the relations between the state and the Church be regu-lated by definite law, and for this reason the new bill is to be welcomed as a fairly good solution of this delicate problem...
...July3, I929 THE COMMONWEAL 257 There seems to be reasonable hope for the success of the new bill...
...ELIZABETH S. KITE...
...One must also acknowledge the fact that the government has represented at least two Christian denominations in the special research commission for the revising of the old bill...
...You faced a mountain range holding a lake ; But in all the great homes of cloud you had nowhere to go...
...I say "illuminating" because the connection between the crude, though virile, "200- percent-Amerlcan" type of the latter's intellect, and the subtle nihilistic philosophy of the lately-condemned Action Frangaise, had quite escaped me...
...The Catholics also apprehend that Article 8 may possibly lead to unjustified governmental interference, but we have nothing to fear concerning the require-ments for religious teachers or the obligation of re-porting the bases of our organization, because all Catholic religious teachers are highly educated and sectarianism is out of question in the Catholic Church...
...This appearance of similarity of interest, based as it is on ideals differing as night from day, as good from evil, when stressed by The Commonweal carries with it a sense of confusion of issues...
...Barnes's views for a week's work...
...T PROFESSOR BARNES AND SECULARISM Notre Dame, Ind...
...MENCKEN ONCE MORE Oyster Bay, L. I. T O the Editor :--In your issue of June 5, Louise Carey Rossett most unjustly attacks you for saying a few deserved good words of H. L. Mencken...
...The Presbyterians declare that the law in-creases the opportunities for the governors to abuse their power...
...It is to be put down as an improvement that the Church may, according to both the old and the new bill, incorporate as a moral person...
...The difficulties and necessary limitations of co6peratlon between those of different faiths are obvious enough...
...I respectfully submit that it is high time to bring this controversy down to first principles...
...Instinctively all along, I have shrunk from the grossness and crudity of the American Mercury as from something evil, only occasionally glancing down its columns in order to assure my- self that prejudice was not warping my judgment...
...Yet the Presbyterian Church considers Article 8 as an interference in the self-government of religious organizations...
...If the bill should be passed Buddhism could no longer complain of not being treated on an equal footing with other beliefs...
...Articles 6 and 7 are also ob-jected to, because they invest the local authorities with power to supervise the affairs of religious organiza-tions...
...The Buddhists will, on the whole, give it their wholehearted support, although some individual members may disagree...
...HOFFMAN NICKERSON...
...This shows, at all events, that the government was eager to please all of the parties involved...
...T Washington, D. C. O the Editor :--As one who profits by constant reading of The Commonweal, permit me to congratulate you for publishing, in your current issue, the illuminating communica-tion of Louise Carey Rossett, re your editorial on Mr...
...With due reservations, the Catholic believes in both, plus Revelation...
...The result has been an increasing conviction that for the clientele of The Commonweal the opinion of Mr...
...Surely your correspondent must know that Catholic ethics are enlargement of the noble pagan foundations of Aristotle, whereas it is the melancholy fact that the ethics of Bible Christians seem to be falling to the level of irrational taboos...
...he believes in human instincts and in the human reason...
...To a Disappointed Pilgrim You had nowhere to rest your discontented heart, Loving that heart too well to set it free...
...it was a live topic, and I only requested them to...
...Mencken is, I suppose, a pagan...
...Such an arrangement, it is pointed out, would put the Governor practically in the position of a Pope...
...he sifts the evidence in a small part of this big field, and I think his willingness to look for and at the evidence, and to be guided by it, and to wait for more--in a word, to be open-minded--is as striking as the pertinent facts and theories which he cites...
Vol. 10 • July 1929 • No. 9
