On the other hand, our thoughts, aspirations and prayers belong entirely to the realm of the inward. It is natural for one who thinks in terms of this dualism to be constantly afraid lest the inward should suffer some kind of contamination in contact with the outward, to emphasise the value of private or mental prayer at the expense of sacramental acts, to be on the whole suspicious of sacraments in general as being liable to superstitious abuse and the danger of materialism, and so finally to restrict his positive doctrine of sacramental grace within the limits of a carefully fenced Receptionism. But does not this whole line of thought and argument depend for its validity upon the separability of space from time which Descartes assumed and Einstein so weightily denies ? For though our thoughts and longings are not apparently in space, they are certainly in time; and, if time is only a dimension of space-time, then evidently it follows that our inmost thoughts are as much in space-time as our chairs and tables. And this same philosophy, which makes our thoughts thus seem almost 'outward,' dissolves the solid grossness of matter itself into a bewildering phantasmagoria of electrified motion, in which it seems impossible to detect where one thing leaves off and another begins, or whether there is such a thing as a thing at all.

It is all very confusing. There are philosophers who think that the ultimate distinction between spirit and matter is being rendered doubtful, that mind is appearing to be more material, and matter more mental, than we supposed, and that both have their origin in some neutral stuff.' This notion seems to me fantastic. I cannot suppose that the ultimate distinction between spirit and matter is in any serious danger. Electric energy, after all, is no more spiritual than lead. But it is quite possible that Descartes put the dividing line between spirit and matter, so to speak, in the wrong place. It is conceivable, for instance, that the real difference between them is not that one is extended in space and the other not, but rather that matter is being which can be described apart from terms of absolute value (truth, goodness, beauty, etc.), whereas spirit is being which is properly described only in such terms. In that case it may well be true that all things in space-time require both sets of terms, ' material’ and spiritual,' for an ultimate interpretation of their nature, and the very structure of this world may be more inherently sacramental than we have been wont to imagine. In the end it may seem a commonplace (yet none the less mysterious for that) that under certain conditions what we call material things may be truly spiritualised within the pure, spiritual activity of God.

We are concluding our discussion in realms of pure speculation and guess-work. But enough perhaps has been said to indicate the danger, in present circumstances, of rigid and exclu

sive definitions about the relation of outward to inward in the sacraments. Let us stick to the old terms, efficacia signa, as the best general description of their nature which has yet been devised. Let us frankly and fearlessly examine all theories, new and old, as to the manner of this efficacy and signification. But if frankness compels us to use hard names, such as 'magic,' let us be sure at least that we use them with a scientific precision of meaning. And, above all, do not let us pretend that in the long controversy between Catholic and Protestant traditions modern philosophy and science are all on one side. That, at any rate, is simply untrue.

VOL. CII-No. 610

OLIVER C. QUICK.

3 H

WOMEN BOLSHEVIKS, AND HOW THEY ARE MANUFACTURED

A LADY was sitting one day in a fashionable tearoom feeding her much-bedecked poodle with little sponge cakes, lavishing on him the while tokens of devoted affection. She dropped the cakes one by one, and he caught each one as it fell-caught it, however, with a languid, half-contemptuous air, as if merely to give his mistress pleasure. The two were evidently playing some game and in full view of all passers-by; but the dog was much too well fed to play it with zest and much too warmly clad. For in the tearoom it was hot, although outside in the street it was bitterly cold; and there some half-dozen little urchins were standing with their faces pressed against the window, near which the lady and her dog were having their game.

They were but poor little fellows, born C3 unmistakably, and with not much chance of ever being anything but C3, unless a C4 should be formed. They looked half-frozen; their clothes were thin, although not quite so thin as their wearers; for about all their wearers there was, more or less, that something which always betokens short commons. And as they stood there, watching the poodle in his furs toying with his biscuits, there was an oddly envious gleam in their bright, eager eyes. Not one among them, it was easy to see, but would have given his right hand gladly to exchange places with the dog, and be a poodle instead of a boy.

The lady was much too busy fondling her pet dog even to glance at the children as she passed them on her way to her car ; and she would no doubt have been unfeignedly surprised, as well as indignant, had she been told that she had, as the faces of some of the passers-by proved, just done a good stroke of work for the Soviet cause had given a helping hand, in fact, to the manufacturing of Bolsheviks, had given it through sheer heedlessness. Probably it never even occurred to her that the sight of a poodle being pampered and petted, while little children are standing by uncared for and starving, is the very sort of thing that makes converts for the Bolsheviks, makes more converts for them among women, indeed, than the preaching of all Lenin's disciples com

bined. And it is precisely among women, we must not forget, that the Muscovite dictators are most anxious to make converts. For they are now alive to the fact that, until women are converted, there is but little hope of converting the children; and it is on the children that the fate of their cause, as of all other causes, depends.

Curiously enough, the little-dog cult that is now rendering such good service to the Bolsheviks is essentially a latter-day phenomenon. Even twenty-five years ago no one dreamed of installing poodles in the place of children as chief objects of devotion-so at least an Englishwoman who returned home a few months ago, after a long sojourn abroad, maintains. She was as surprised as she was shocked, she says, at a little scene she witnessed the very day of her arrival in England.

She was in a railway carriage with four elderly ladies, when a mother and her two little girls got in. The children were most attractive, quite charmingly pretty; none the less, as she remarked, not one of the four gave them even a glance, not one took any more notice of them than if they had been little pavingstones. A moment later another lady appeared at the carriage door, and then all the four were at once in a flutter of excitement ; for she had in her arms a little dog, a real Pekingese, and from the moment they caught sight of him they practically prostrated themselves before him; they had neither eyes nor ears for anything else. They patted him, stroked him, made much of him, showered down on him loving epithets. Evidently he was to them something infinitely precious: had he been their nearest and dearest relative, indeed, they could hardly have been more lavish with their demonstrations of affection. And when his owner, having reached her destination, left the carriage, taking him with her, of course, one of them cried after him fervently, 'God bless you, you little darling!

The returned traveller, who, thanks perhaps to her long sojourn abroad, had old-fashioned notions as to what is seemly, rubbed her eyes in amazement. Could those four ladies be English? she wondered. If they were, an odd change must have come over the English nation during the years she had been abroad. For when she left England no sane Englishwoman, she was sure, would ever have dreamed of putting a dog on a pedestal and adoring him, much less of calling down a blessing upon him. She was sorely puzzled, and more puzzled still when she learned, from advertisements in The Times, that there were not only such things as nursing homes for dogs, and homes to which dogs may be sent for trimming, shampooing, pedicure, etc., but training homes too, where dogs are made' comfortable and happy' while being taught how to demean themselves as 'affectionate com

panions.' Things must be quite oddly out of joint, she began to think, for those homes had no lack of paying guests, she found, although the terms seemed to her very high; and at that time there was, as she knew, none too much money in England-all classes alike were complaining.

Before long she went to stay in a health resort, one to which the wealthy betake themselves gladly, one in which dog worship is rampant and little dogs abound. They were never from under her feet. The late Sir John Kirk used to say of that town that its Poor Law problem would be solved, so far as children are concerned, if only every lady who lives there could be persuaded to banish her dogs and install in their place a little child. Unfortunately for the ratepayers, however, although not, perhaps, for the children, nothing short of the sight of a guillotine, or at any rate the sound of the wheels of a guillotine cart, would ever induce most of those ladies to part with their dogs.

In that town there are districts where there is a dearth of children—a child is quite a rarity there; districts, too, where children are as plentiful as rabbits on moors. And as the returned traveller wandered about from district to district she saw what she had never seen before, little dogs being trailed in luxurious perambulators and little children trudging along bare-foot or being carried by weary elder sisters hardly bigger than themselves. She saw poodles in costly array with trinkets around their necks and boys and girls in threadbare clothes, all tattered and torn sometimes. And, as she soon discovered, every day the dogs had regular meals, dainty food-she saw it being bought; daintily served too, whereas it was only on red-letter days that some of the children had a good meal. On most days they must depend on scraps for their dinners, or perhaps even on bread and jam.

As time passed she became not so much puzzled as sorely distressed by what she saw and heard; for, let her try as she would, she could not shut her eyes to the fact that it betokened decadence, and with it danger ahead for England. All that petting and pampering of dogs, treating them as things better than children, of more value in the world, more worthy of care and affection, must inevitably-or so it seemed to her excite the envious indignation of the poverty-stricken, set their nerves a-jangling, turn them into Ishmaelites, in fact, and thus make for Bolshevism, Communism, and all the other 'isms' that go to fan the flames of disorder. And in that she was right, so far, at any rate, as poverty-stricken mothers are concerned.

Many a poor mother sees without animosity, nay, with a certain pleasure, other folk's children in beautiful clothes; just as she sees gorgeous royal processions with real enjoyment, and seems even to take a personal pride in them. Why there are