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tradition of the Church and narrowed its borizon.

Perhaps this phase of experience was necessary to the development of the Church. At all events, it is so far advanced that it is to be hoped it may run its course to the end.

Pius X will never waver before the consequences of his doctrines. In him and through him the mechanical idea of the Church will give battle upon issues before which all other Popes would have quailed, sought evasions and conciliation, and have lost.

And such a rout does not lack grandeur. One may have ideas entirely opposed to those of Pius X, but, knowing him, one cannot but admire the obstinacy with which, alone, personally unregretful and unconscious, he goes his way, without even taking heed of the warnings of his confrères, piling up the ruins about him.

Strange, is it not, that while the Pope folbows this course, which he can never retrace, some bishops and a large number of loyal Catholics find in the traditions of their Church a totally different inspiration: a need of communion so strong, so suffused with reality, that the eucharistic communion seems to them but a preface to real communion with men, their brothers. The life of the Church becomes for them a part of the day's experience, an experience which has neither beginning nor end, but is a continual growth, a perpetual progression. For them, byalty to the truth is not the passive acceptance of a proposition to which one submits without understanding it; it is the mysterious act of a man longing for the good to be and asserting it through his mind and his acts. Francis d'Assisi, Philip de Neri, Joan of Arc, and Pascal, among a host of others, are characters toward which they strive. They constitute a lineage which has a peculiar value.

While this movement follows its course within the Church proper, without, in the midst of Protestantism and liberal thought, a new order of things manifests itself. There, religious hatreds have greatly diminished: even the current speech bears traces of this amelioration of antagonism. The terms Papism" and "Papist" are no longer in Vogue: they are employed only to make sport of those who formerly had these words constantly on their lips.

In circles but recently vigorously antiCatholic one now hears the Papacy and the Holy See spoken of with the greatest defer

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ence and respect. This is because the idea of unity has made much progress, and also because, without regard to its confessional aspect, one feels that the Church has created this aspiration toward which the masses are turning with increasing fervor and devotion.

One may say that, if the idea of unity is the very foundation of Catholicism, France has never been as truly Catholic as at this moment. Considering even her most incongruous and complex efforts, one finds in them a soul, so to speak, and this soul is in pursuit of unity. At times there are tentative efforts towards establishing an exterior and liturgical unity; more often it is a sort of missionary fever which drives us to wish other people to adopt our political and social ideas.

But what is remarkable in all these tendencies is their mysticism. They are perfectly disinterested, and free from all alloy. The Frenchman does not wish to conquer new territory; he wishes to pass on his faith to others.

Apparently I have wandered far from Pius X, the Conclave, and the future Pope; in truth, I am in the very midst of the question.

The future Conclave, particularly if Pius X lives several years longer, will assemble under conditions absolutely new.

For one thing, the sovereign Pontiff will have pushed to the limit his idea of Divine, Absolute, and Universal authority, and will have practically demonstrated its dangers even to those who, intellectually and doctrinally, are in perfect accord with his ideas.

On the other hand, many Catholics who are resolutely loyal to their Church, who have found in their faith not only a little treasury of truths acquired forever, but also an inspiration to work, to love, and to live, will continue to investigate the practical worth of dogma. For them the dogmas concerning the Church, its unity, and the obedience due her are facts which never really grip their intelligence until they have first, through experience, found root in the heart. Therefore they do not conceive of the unity of the Church as an exterior unity, disciplinary and bureaucratic, but as a unity of life and of progress; unity of aspiration where harmony is obtained through the myriad of voices, each one giving his note freely, joyously.

Now, these convictions, far more common than those inside the Church may believe to be true, coincide with laic thought in its deepest and most helpful aspect.

Such is, it seems to me, the actual position

of the Church at the moment when the question of a successor to Pius X presents itself. Readers may find all this rather vague, and they will not be far wrong. But I do not wish to state in precise terms that which is, at the historic moment we are facing, so complex, confused, unorganized; although, doubtless, from these confused and confusing tendencies orderly, concrete efforts will one day ensue.

It is very evident that, for centuries, circumstances and, above all, combinations of interest have worked to the end that all Popes should be Italian. It seems to many Catholics, and even to some eminent Italian prelates, that the interest of the Church, as also the interest of the Papacy, the eternal symbol and center of unity, demands that the future Conclaves renounce this existing order to erect in its place a rule of simple precedence.

An American Pope! Why not? How can the Church maintain its title of "Catholic" if, deliberately, she continues to declare ineligible the citizens of a country where the Church is progressing more rapidly than anywhere else in the world?

If I have succeeded in painting the state of affairs in their true light, readers will recog

nize that the Roman Church is rent internally by influences which may profoundly change its exterior and perhaps alter the course of its destiny.

The question of authority looms large. Pius X solved it in the most logical, reactionary, and severe sense. One might have believed for a time that he would sign the decree divorcing the Papacy and the Roman Church from the Modern Spirit; but in the instant that the head of the Church attempts that, other voices, of a different sound from his own, will be raised about him; voices which clamor, not only for the reconciliation of the Church and the age, but which proclaim that the most ardent aspirations of our time are blessed by the Church and have their source in her; that the spirit of the age can find peace only in the Church; and that the Church will not be a true mother to her children if she fails to understand the age, the soul of which she has created.

The date of the election of a successor to Pope Pius X will be a historic one in the religious history of the world. Let us prepare ourselves to consider it in a high sense, and not permit ourselves to become absorbed by the detailed chronicle of daily

events.

Spiritual Message of Dante (The). By the Rt. Rev. W. Boyd Carpenter. Harvard University Press, Cambridge. $1.50.

In justice both to Dante and to his great poem, this volume of lectures at Harvard should be read by those to whom its best known or only known portion is the "Inferno." Bishop Carpenter modestly disclaims a purpose to contribute to the critical study of Dante, though he has not avoided it, and could not. He aims simply to express his thoughts on religious experience as exemplified in the "Divina Commedia;" others are suggested by "pregnant fragments of thought which Dante has left hanging, as it were, on the hedges of the way along which his pilgrim feet have trod." What Bunyan's allegory was in the seventeenth century Dante's was in the fourteenth, a pilgrim's progress in experiences that reach the heights by a path that first leads through the depths of evil self-revealed. "According to Dante, hell is the region from which love is being slowly banished. . . . The lack of love is the disease of the soul, from which all life's worst lives

flow." The keynote to the whole poem is the word "love." Whispered in the dark shades of the Inferno,' it is enunciated with clearness in the 'Purgatorio;' it becomes music and perpetual song in the 'Paradiso." This reading of Dante by so eminently qualified an interpreter takes its place among the specially valuable.

Essays on Faith and Immortality.

By George Tyrrell. Arranged by M. D. Petre. Longmans, Green & Co., New York. $1.40. Father Tyrrell was excommunicated in 1908 for criticising-though with good Catholic precedents-the papal bull against modernism. His autobiography was published two years ago by Miss Petre, his literary executrix, with a memoir and supplementary documents-the story of a noble struggle for a free intellect and conscience. Further memoranda of that strug gle appear in the present volume. Drawn and rearranged mainly from Father Tyrrell's notebooks and journal, they give chief prominence to the subjects named in its title. The essays on

Faith ran largely on the line of the so-called new theology that is modernizing the old Protestantism. He writes: "The Christianity of the New Testament is as little Catholic as it is Protestant. . . . It was not a religion but a spirit... which might be found in various religions." The essasy on immortality cast their sounding-line into waters too deep for it to fathom. Their inconclusive questionings fnd vent only in faith's conviction that the final merging" of human life in the divine will prove to be not the extinction but the enlargement of personality. Father Tyrrell denies that the beral Catholic is making more slowly for the same goal as the liberal Protestant, but both are represented in him.

Roman Idea of Deity (The). By W. Warde Fowler, M.A. The Macmillan Company, New York.

$1.4%

In this short course of lectures at Oxford an arcomplished scholar discusses a part of the istory of religion not hitherto so systematically treated. He finds Cicero's well-known book, De Natura Deorum," far from satisfactory the work of "an amateur" who did not really believe the subject to be of vital interest. Dr. Fowler pronounces the modern investigator's task to be one of enormous difficulty, and one that yields only a meager result from thorough scrutiny of all that Latin literature contributes to it.

The Roman idea of Genius as a divine force active in man and nature must be counted as an element of spiritual religion, and a tendency toward monotheism appears in the cult of the Capitoline Jupiter. From this a door opened to the Stoic idea of a universal Reason, Law, and Order. The Italian way of regarding the ivine as "something solid and practical" kept the men of the West from the extravagant worship of the reigning emperor that prevailed in The Eastern provinces. While this is the most That Dr. Fowler has gathered for the main purpose of his research, his examination of the great prose writers and poets brings out many Fenst of interest to classical scholars.

History of Philosophy (A). By Frank Thilly. Heary Holt & Co., New York. $2.50.

In giving under this title a connected account of the attempts of thinkers to solve the probTems of existence and experience Professor Tilly follows the historico-critical method. Regarding the history of philosophy as exhibiting philosophy at work in self-criticism and self-correction, he lets the philosophers present teir thoughts with little criticism by him to interrupt. Greek, mediæval, and modern thinkers having thus been heard from, the historian pronounces for rationalism. By "rationalism" he means more than intellectualism-reason that includes more than the processes of the

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discursive understanding. "Living consciousness is an event in the world which living consciousness alone can know." He dissents from Bergson's intuitionism, but insists that science is not limited to external objects and outward perception. His rationalism protests against the naturalism which mechanizes all of life and mind, and leaves no room and play for freedom in a "dynamic and developing universe." In view of the rational need of one supreme dynamic to realize such a universe and control its development, why should Professor Thilly's rationalism turn a cold shoulder to all monistic schemes, whether materialistic or spiritual? Eucken's conception of a universal spiritual life as the unitary ground of all being and of its evolutionary processes secures both place and control for all the oppositions, changes, and free development that pluralists recognize, and that Professor Thilly would provide for. His book does credit to the department of philosophy at Cornell.

Collected Essays of Rudolf Eucken. Edited and Translated by Meyrick Booth, B.Sc., Ph.D. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $4.

The nineteen essays in this volume are upon widely different subjects, and view them from the German standpoint. The problems treated are of universal interest, and the personalities contemplated belong to the literature of mankind. The inner connection that unifies the whole is the central principle of Eucken's philosophy—namely, an Absolute Spiritual Life as the ultimate basis of all reality. Eucken views human existence as one vast process of realizing and appropriating this spiritual reality as a principle that claims for itself every branch of human activity, surmounts all difficulties, harmonizes all discords, and alone can impart consistency and unity to the chaotic confusion of the actual world.

Chambers's English Dictionary. Edited by Thomas Davidson. The J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.

In its earlier and much smaller form The Outlook long ago commended this work for its clear definitions, numerous useful appendices, and compact methods. In the present edition, with its supplemental vocabulary and other improvements, the work fulfills excellently its claim to be a library dictionary" in one volume. The typography is vastly better than before.

Lad of Kent (A). By Herbert Harrison. The Macmillan Company, New York. $1.25.

The story of this English lad who lived in Kent a century ago tells in stirring manner and excellent literary form of highwaymen and smuggling, of the press gang and war at sea. The action is vigorous and the incidents are varied and exciting.

A great department store in Chicago, according to a writer in "Collier's," never advertises reduced-price goods in the familiar form, “Was $5; now $2.50." "We take the position," said an official of the store, "that things are worth what they will bring." If the store gets a lot of coats that were meant to sell at $40 but which it is willing to sell at $22.50, it never advertises "Worth $40," but "just points out that these are exceptionally good coats for the money.` This advertising pays, the official said, because in the long run it teaches the people to rely absolutely on the store's statements.

་་

Vorticism is supposed to be the latest thing in art, Cubisim and Futurism being regarded as too photographic for the taste of the Vorticists. They are largely English, and publish a magazine called "Blast." "The Cape of Good Hope," a picture by Edward Wadsworth, reproduced in the magazine, shows a medley of shapes remotely suggesting lifeboats, funnels, marlinspikes, and anchors, without perspective, coherence, or intelligibility.

Spain has a car-building plant which employs 1,800 men. In 1913 it ran nearly to its full capacity-3,000 freight and 200 passenger cars per

year.

Mexican dishes as Americanized along the border are characterized by a writer in" To-Day" as most delicious. Frijoles are called much better than our baked beans, Spanish rice is described as very palatable, and chili con carne as a troublesome and elaborate dish, but one well worth the effort of making. Cooked cucumber salad is a novelty that is said to be well worth imitating.

"There is no mistaking the influence of the English Bible on Conrad's prose style," says James Huneker in an appreciation of Joseph Conrad's genius. "He is saturated with its puissant, elemental rhythms, and his prose has its surge and undertow. That is why his is never a 'painted ship on a painted ocean.''

"Please give me a lift," a familiar appeal by a pedestrian on a country road to his more favored brother in a vehicle, is sometimes varied in New York State, a newspaper writer asserts, to "Please give me a hitch." Apropos of this the story is told that Lincoln once asked a man driving along a country road to carry his overcoat. Certainly," said the man, "but what about yourself?" "I intend to remain in it," was the laconic reply.

Here is "Life's" characterization of the situation in Mexico: "Sentry-Flag of truce, Excellency.' General- What do the revolutionists want now?' Sentry-'They would like to

exchange a couple of generals for a case o cigarettes and a pack of cards.'"

Starlings are not liked in Australia, according to reports from the American Consul at Mel bourne. Besides being destructive to fruit, they are charged with turning valuable native insect eating birds out of their nests. Starlings ar said to be rapidly increasing in the United States, and are, it is thought, destined to be come among the most numerous of our birds, ranking with that other objectionable exotic the English sparrow.

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"The omission of remarks from funeral serv ices," says the "Christian Register" in an edi torial on "Post-Mortem Proprieties," ". . . i a protection against well-meaning excess o praise, and it preserves the minister from ghastly, but blameless, mistakes. . . . In ou recollection the services that have brought th greatest personal comfort have been those i which there was the least personal reference. The "Register" commends the "great ser tences" of the Scriptures as the best service saying that what is worthy in the life that i departed is called up by them, and from wha may have been unworthy we are withdrawn b their noble guidance.

A subscriber writes to urge the claims o Richard Trevithick as "entitled to the empt glory of having designed and built the firs successful locomotive." The date of its triawas February 21, 1804. As with other inventions however, fate is whimsical in awarding popula glory to this or that individual where severa are working on similar lines, and Stephenson'. fame as the originator of the first practicabl railway locomotive seems secure.

Paragould, Arkansas, a city of 8,000 people is building a $100,000 hotel and reaching out fo business through what its Chamber of Con merce describes as "the Baer plan." The pla in brief, it says, is the donation and purchas of idle real estate in any community for th business advantage of the city. In less tha a week, the descriptive circular says, the con mittee has secured for this purpose donation of real estate amounting to more than $15,00 Little Rock, it is stated, has raised $250,000 b this plan.

The Rev. Alan Pressley Wilson, President c the Society for Social Advance, Baltimor Maryland, suggests a campaign in favor of pe suading country boys and girls to stay on th farm. Mr. Wilson claims that country yout make up a large portion of the victims of th social evil, and that by making life on the fart so attractive that they will not desire to leave! the traffic in souls will be reduced, if not curbet