Unless Ye Become . • .

The Creed in Slow Motion. Bv Ronald Knox. (Sheed & Ward. 8s. 6d.)
Reviewed by The MASTER OF CAMPION HALL
THF, only thing wrong with this book is its title. The suggestion that there is anything sluggish or leisurely about these sermons is belied by their speed and urgency. Here is Mgr. Knox at his breathless and brilliant best. There Were times, I must own, when the companion volume, The Mass in Slow Motion, bothered me. It was not merely, or even primarily, that a certain jauntiness seemed a little out of place in the sanctuary; what worried me was that the idiom somehow did not seem quite right. But I am always so certain that Mgr. Knox knows what he is about that I was prepared to admit that the schoolgirls to whom the contents of that book were originally addressed did use rather out-of-date slang. Here and there in the present volume, the same whispered question suggests itself. But it is quickly silenced by the astonishment that is evoked by the fertility of illustrative parallel and the appositeness of remembered anecdote, combined with the spiritual insight and theological penetration so increasingly characteristic of the author.
There is no satisfactory way of reviewing a book like this. For a review can only tell you what a book is about (well, this is about the Apostles' Creed) and how well or ill it succeeds (and anyway I've already made it clear what I think about that). But if I stop here, the reader who cheats by quickly glancing through his CarnoLic HERA1 n in the church porch whilst he is waiting for the sermon to finish. will presume that this isn't an important book because it hasn't been given a long review. And so. as I think this is as important as anything its author has written (always excepting the translation of the Bible) I will go on to say just why I think it is important.
It is important because it deals in a masterly way with the most fundamental problem of our time. For the most fundamental problem of our time is: How can we get people to think straight? Indeed, how can
we get them to think at all? So many Catholics, even, are in some danger of rushing out and getting things done without stopping to ask where they are rushing, that it is immensely edifying (and by that I mean constructive) to find a Right Reverend Monsignore, the delight of Oxford common-rooms, the pride of the Union, the acknowledged master of English style, and the envy of journalists. sitting down and talking quietly to a group of children, Sunday after Sunday, and using every pedagogical device at his command to keep their attention fixed on the basic verities by which the world must live its life if it is to remain in being. 1 here was a time when " R. A. K." was almost synonymous with enfant terrible. This was followed by the phase during which he was "a chiel among ye, taking notes." Now he is become the sort of ageless child to whom is promised entry into the Kingdom. It is no accident that he has always been "Ronnie " to the hundreds who have turned to him for enlightenment and encourage ment. It can scarcely be doubted that his words have profoundly affected the lives of many of the children who first heard these sermons. They can scarcely fail to bring understanding and hope to thousands more.
In the delightful "Conferences of Comfort " entitled Lift Up Your Hearts (B.O., 7s. 6d.) Fr. Christopher Wilmot, Si., a happy octogenarian, gives us " the Root, the Rod, and the Flower ' of a matured philosophy—the blossoming of a well-spent Christian life. It should be " wrappered " and made available at half the price to twice the number of those who need it most The Conference on " Imitating the Saints" is excellent; and we think that Fr. Wilmot could himself compile a book palled Heaven opened to Christians " which he suggests as a counter-balance to its lurid
opposite number."