IN A FEW WORDS

Great Catholics
BOTH Fr. Claude Williamson, the editor, and Messrs. Nicholson and Watson, the publishers, are to be congratulated on having at length brought Great Catholics into the world.
There are so many contributors— practically the whole list of the Cseratoetc HERALD'S writers and reviewers is among them—that it is rather a problem to know whom to ask to review it for us. Someone has suggested Dean Inge — but would he submit to censorship? And AngloCatholics might be annoyed at not having been included. Fr. Vincent McNabb, together. with Canon Cardijn, enjoy the distinction of appearing while still alive among the " great Catholics " written about by " forty-five great Catholics of today."
I hasten to add that these last are the publishers' words, not my own.
Jesuit Loyalty
I understand that the selection of great Catholics written about was arrived at by inviting the " forty-five great Catholics of today to deal with their own privately selected hero.
This explains some odd omissions, the oddest surely being that of Cardinal
Manning. Apparently the greatest Cardinal of Westminster has no disciple among our contemporaries.
It is amusing to note the choice of writers and to speculate upon the reasons
for the selections. Neither St. Benedict nor St. Dominic has proved the choice of the only Benedictine and Dominican writer invited (Dom. Bede Camm choosing Dom Hildebrand de Hemptinne and Fr. Hugh Pope forsaking his order altogether for St. Augustine), whereas the Jesuits have been more loyal.
Archbishop Goodier writing of St. Ignatius, Fr. Keating of Fr. Plater, Fr. Lewis Watt of Suarez and Fr. D'Arcy of Fr. Gerard Hopkins. Fr. Leonard, the Vincentian, has likewise chosen his spiritual father, St. Vincent de Paul.
An Early Catholic Journalist
Among the lay writers, one can discern obvious connections between artist Peter Anson and Pugin, scientist W. ft. Thompson and Mendel, historian C. Hollis and Lingard and doctor W. J. O'Donovan and Linacre.
There must have been something like a 3-I chance only against E. 1. Watkin choosing the great English Benedictine master of the spiritual life, Dom Augustine Baker, but who would have guessed that Mr. Oldmeadow would choose St. Antony of Padua or Douglas Woodruff the Abbe
Migne? The reason for this last choice becomes clearer when one learns that the Abbe began as a sanguine Catholic journalist declaring his intention of presenting " the most Catholic notions on the most interesting questions of the moment, dances, balls, theatres, novels, loans on interest, divers taxes, divorce, the salaries of the clergy, everything with the
utmost reserve." In the end the great Patrologist died under ecclesiastical suspension which gives us all hope of figuring in a future gallery of Great Catholics, however odd we may become.
Miracle at Buckfast
THE miracle of Buckfast seems to be the right way to describe it. I paid my first visit to the Abbey a week or two ago only to find it positively invaded by a veritable army of visitors arrived by car and charabanc. 1 naturally took it at first to be some special occasion or pilgrimage for certainly five hundred people were there.
I soon noted, however, that the vast majority were mere sightseers. mostly non Catholic. They hovered round confessionals, for example, examining them carefully and explaining to one another what they knew of their significance.
Having elbowed my way round the church—very much larger than 1 had imagined—I ventured to present my card at the Abbey door and was then most kindly taken around by the guest-master. He assured me that the crowd was of the usual daily size in the holiday months.
A Special Grace?
What is it that draws these numbers away from the glorious Devonshire country and coast to pay a visit to a church, large and beautiful, it is true, but after all not so very remarkable or exceptional, particularly in Devon, where the smallest village seems to boast a large and old church of interest? Nor for that matter have I ever seen such crowds visiting Westminster Cathedral or even Canterbury and York. Can it be the mere romance of the monks having built their own church with their own hands? It may he, but for my part I have not ceased to wonder at this strange phenomenon, and I like to think that there resides at Buckfast some special grace attracting all kinds of people to a Catholic centre for perhaps the first time in their lives. If this is so, we may also believe that the visit makes a lasting impression oo a good proportion of the holiday makers.
What a centre could be made there, by the way, for the C.E.G. or the C.T.S.! But perhaps God's message is meant to pass there through the prayer and peace of the Benedictine community unroughenecl by cruder methods of propaganda. The guestmaster was good enough to ask me to stay a few days at the Abbey when 1 could manage it. It is an invitation which I shall take the earliest opportunity of accepting.
The Spirit of Devon
ISHOULD like also to record another aand very different phenomenon during my visit to South Devon.
A local tradesman's hill came to 1014d. On being handed a pound in payment the tradesman returned a ten shilling note as change. "I think I can find four pennies," I said. " Oh! We never bother about small sums like that here," he answered. I don't know whether this is a common custom in the district, but 1 felt that 1 had just heard the finest advertisement conceivable for a holiday in South Devon. " Don't insist on the pennies and the pounds will come in for themselves " may not be such a bad business motto.
C.C.M., Fingleton and Fleetwood-Smith
FR. Martindale — still recuperating-writes: " We went yesterday to Canterbury, to re-meet our Australian friends. Unluckily two of them were not there: but at least we met Mr. Fingleton and re-met
Mr. Fleetwood-Smith. We should hate Australian Catholics to think we had made no effort to see those men. Indeed, Mr. Fingleton asked us to return on Monday to have a half hour's yarn ' about things.'
. . Unluckily, 14 miles forth and back, twice over, were considered too much, and we were forbidden. Eagle eyes observe us. So we can but wish the Australians luck in their cricket and in all their future."
THE JOTTER
Recent Remarks
Wise and Otherwise
" A long sojourn in the realm of pure ideas may lead to an imperfect appreciation of facts."—Reginald J. Doyle.
"Bees will never sting if they know you are not afraid of them."—Life-Long Apiarist.
" On the whole, it seems to us that the international sky is no darker even though it is a little clearer.---Church Times.
" I myself am ready to enter into discussions upon a concrete basis."—M. Litvinov.