Lost Art of Reading

Do you Read? IN A FEW WORDS By Jotter T WELL remember asking .1 1 v C r well-known Catholic writer and literary figure whether he had read a certain book. He answered rather curtly "I don't read books: I write or review them." I could feel a slight sympathy with him because in life one can so easily slip into the habit of only reading for a practical purpose. and concentrating on detective stories for sheer recreation or sleep-inducing asurposes. And certainly it never seems quite possible to recover in later life the ecstasy of sheer reading for its own sake which is (or was) a feature of adolescence. 1 wonder how much a guilty conscience is responsible for the decline in reading. One might be sewing. One might be gardening. One might be working. Yet what a lot we miss when we grow out of the habit of reading for reading's sake. And how often the least likely book turns out to be absorbing when we start it. The recovery of the art of just reading for reading's sake would be. I am sure, a tremendous contribution to the problem of leisure today. Let's get rid of the idea that we muet always he doing something useful, and promise ourselves instead some thorough good reading for the fun of reading. Anyway, we are doing our best in this paper to promote that excellent habit, and this issue, I hope, will help in the good work of promoting the recovery of the reading habit. Oddly enough, reading done for thoroughly selfish motives pays dividends because it feeds the mind, while ceaseless "useful" activity only too often empties it.
Christians in Germany LUNCH1NG last week with an old friend from German, I was able to get a very interesting picture of the relations between German and Protestant Catholics. Unfortunately. I cannot mention names because of the high public position is Germans which iny informant holds. I had rather gathered the Use pression that the post-war "fraternisation" betwo-n Catholics and Protestants had tended to weaken with the years. But it appears that this is not the case. It is still felt that the threat of Communism and the general secularist state of the world should dictate a rapprochement and, as it were, working alliance between all Christians for mutual support.
Mutual Support T"position in Germany is, of course, rather different from this country. Protestantism is much closer-knit, and though individuals may hold personal views that have some resemblance to the different types of Protestantism in this country, the Communions themselves, whether Lutheran or Calvieist, know exactly where they stand. Nor does the problem of Communions like our Anglo-Catholics or higher, who claim to be us, so to say, exist. There remains, too, in Germany the tradition of cujusrcgio ejus religio, in other words, religions divided according to regions. Hence conversion or proselytism is not so manifest. Anyway. Catholicism and Protestantism lend one another organised practical support on many issues, political, cultural and moral.
The family INparticular, I was told, the whole question of family law and morality, 50 far as State protection of the family-basis of society is concerned, is very much a common issue. It is true that some Protestants have less clear-cut views than Catholics. but the differences between Christian bodies are tiny as compared with the difference of outlook between Christians and non-Christians. Hence it is common sense to stand together. As I listened, I could not help thinking, not only of the coldness between Catholics and other Communions in this country, but of the political differences between Catholics themselves here, say over the Welfare State, I enquired Lbout the effect of this close contact between Catholics and Protestants from the spiritual point a view, and I was told that it has made Protestants understand far better the Catholic Church. thus removing many prejudices that have arisen in the course of history. I could not have expected any other result. God has in His keeping final results of Christian co-operation, wherever this is doctrinally possible. but Catholics. if they are sincere, informed and loyal, cannot possibly lose in the long run. Asking my friend about the reel position of the Social Democrats. the opposition party, he said : "I think they are more pro-Marxist than anti-Catholic." Their leader is not a big man, and a lack of any real vision characterises their present negative policy. The truth seems to be that all democratic socialism today is living on the past. The future, for better or worse. is in other hands. East End theology A PROPOS our leading article rilast week on the poor results of costly modern education, Canon Fitzgerald. of Commercial Road, London, tells me that when this week-end he called at his tobacconist. the conversation got round to the subject of the difference between Catholics and Protestants. "The difference," said the tobacconist. "is that Catholicism started in Ireland and Protestantism in England."' The Canon was not entirely without sympathy for an East End tobacconist's view that Catholicism started in Ireland. as it is still said of converts that "they have joined the Irish"; hut when he was informed that Thomas Becket was Henry VLII's enemy at the time of the Reformation, he began to wonder what history means in modem education.
Overheard
" A ND what's this I hear, PI Mrs. Murphy, that you R.Cs, are having a marrying year?"