Book of the Week

Christianity is No Mere " Pastime for the Pious"
Concludes the Reviewer after reading Michael de la Bedoyere's New Book No Dreamers Weak. By Michael de la Bedoyere. (John Miles, 9s. 6d.)
Reviewed by PR. AGNELLUS ANDREW,
ONE of the results of our war time propaganda has lately been seen in the pained surprise among the ordinary tolk of this country when everything has not smoothed itself out quietly and tidily on the arrival of the Allied Liberating Armies. Let's put away the nasty Germans, we thought, and all will be well. Of course, there is Russia—sinnedung of a problem perhaps. But Russia has reformed And besides, bears, especially Russian bears, are kindly and wellmeaning animals, in spite of their claws—buns and Toddies and that sort of thing—and often having to defend themselves against the baiting of savage and snarling dogs.
At home, too, all was to be well, for we were to have Beveridge and the new. Health Service and the Education Bill. Hard DIneE might come, of course. One ought to expect them after a great war ; but if we could get Churchill to make a speech, they might become almost as attractive as Blood, and Sweat, and Toil, and Tears.
Michael de la Bedoyere believes with St. Thomas that Peace is the Tranquillity of Order ; that "Order " means running the world according to God's plan and purpose; and that His Plan is contained in the Christian Revelation.
THIS is an important hook. Its
main thesis is unquestioned by any Christian, but even those more particular ideas that will be questioned by many are thought-provoking and stimulating. The title is taken from the lines of Keats:
" Those whom thou spak'st of are no visionaries.
—they are no drea,mers weak."
And leads you. right into the author'st main theme. Christianity is no mere " pastime for the pious." "it is the pattern or plan of the Universe, the expression of God's 'will for men and women, individually and socially, yesterday. to-day curd to-morrow. Obviously. no one could suggest that there is any part of reality which falls outside the concern of the Creator Who designed and willed everything that is. But it Christianity's claim to be the expression in time and space at God's design and will be true, notiaing can fall outside its concern."
He proceeds to demolish the idea that this plan is impractical and idealistic, and " hopelessly remote from the roughand-tumble of practical affairs." It is its opponents whohave promised an impractical Utopia, an earthly Paradise. Liberalism, Socialism, Fascism, Bolshevism, each has claimed to have the solution. Utopian dreams have led leaders and peoples to. the perfectly logical step of enforcing their Utopia on the unwilling and doubtful.
" The promises of Christianity, as regards this world. are limited in comparison, bur, given the full co-operation of men with the Divine Plan, it can at least guarantee that it would save the world from immeasurable horrors which the search for Utopia has inflicted on it during the lifdlime of those born in this century, horrors, of whose ending there is at present no sign."
The grunts and gurgles and swearing of O.T.C. boys working themselves up to the necessary hatred and anger at bayonet practice at a great Catholic school during the last war ; the
endless Pacifist debates of the 1930's; Poland's tremendous challenge to evil and might in 1939, which made possible the overthrow of 'he Axis; the great and ever-repeated deterioration of aims and methods as the war goes on ; all these lead to a brilliant analysis of the Christian dilemma in wat, and to the statement that •' (lie resolution of the ditemnza can only be found in one way, namely, by preventing the development of the situation in which the dilemma presents itself."
THE rest of the book is a discussion
of what call be done in our postChristian world—and the important time is the years immediately after the war. Perhaps the. best chapter is that on the " fifolitical and Social Consequences of the Incarnation." (The present reviewer, as a good Scotist, has always regretted that the necessary insistence on :he Soteriological character of the mediation of our Blessed Lord has often blinded Catholics to the tremendous significance of the fact that God chose to achieve His purpose by the method ad incarnation.) There is also an interesting "characterreading of the Great Powers." shrewd and discerning ; and a good chapter on " Christianity and Modem Technique." Till the end the challenging note is maintained and many illuminating points are made with Bedoyerean courage: " At no time in history has the aristocratic ordering of society overcome so completely the popular or democratic. And the technicians aml planners ore the modern aristocrats. . , And while I must insist once again that it is vain for Christians to imagine that in the modern work, we can reject planning and its consequences 0.1 wide compulsion on the citizen, I also repeat that the Christian should be very far front being content to leave matters to the planners, the politicians and the' experts."
" An honest analysis of European history would undoubtedly reveal that
all progness, whose worth can be tested over a period, is the result of the human spirit working out God's pattern and modifying customs. laws. plans, tailorianisms, The real tragedy, in .the end, I take it, is 1101 in the condition of the world but in the truth that the spiritual and moral effectiveness of Christians is'at present remarkably low."
IHOPE. this book will be read by
thousands and that they will realise. as the author has clearly done, that the Christian man has the master key, others hammer the door down and destroy as they go.
Three modest requests to the author, or to whoever cares to read.
One, give us, please. what this book gives, but in a form and in language suitable for the great crowds of Catholies, still the vast majority in any parish, who look to anyona rather than to Christ for guidance and inspiration in the leading of their everyday lives, They won't read 168 pages of closely-reasoned thought, however brilliant. (Incidentally, I heard a month ago, a Catholic schoolmaster remark to his staff that he couldn't see what Christianity hail to do with housing or the living wage.)
Two, give us a book telling us in detail how you think these ideas can be worked out to-day. ?that are the chances of a Christian Democratic Party as opposed to our present system of working as fat as we can in the existing parties ? Would a Catholic daily paper help ? Is it practicable ? Can we develop the Catholic film ? Is there any way of using the radio without incurring the limitations that a State-coptrolled Corporation necessarily impose ? And how, oh how. are we going to persuade our ordinary Catholic people that all this is really their job ?
My last request is the most modest of all Will you, please, produce a great new saina who will live and maybe even die for all that this book so splendidly proclaims. A saint who would teach by demonstration could .save the world for God, as Francis and Dominic did 700 years ago. I dtpi't think anything less will do_