d that my
account of it might lead you to make such a criticism. The trouble
with me is that my emotions and judgment are always quarrelling. I
suppose you might say that is true of most people. It's like the
palmist who tells everybody that he is ruled by his head or his
heart, as the case may be. But when one approaches the problem of
religion (let alone what is called the religious life) one is
terribly perplexed to know which is to be obeyed. I don't think
that you can altogether rule out emotion as a touchstone of truth.
The endless volumes of St. Thomas Aquinas, through which I've been
wading, do not cope with the fact that the whole of his vast
intellectual and severely logical structure is built up on the
assumption of faith, which is the gift of emotion, not judgment.
The whole system is a petitio principii really.

I did not mean to embark on a discussion of the question of the
Ultimate Cause of religion, but to argue with you about the
religious life! The Abbot Paphnutius told Cassian that there were
three sorts of vocation--ex Deo, per hominem, and ex necessitate.
Now suppose I have a vocation, mine is obviously per hominem. I
inherit the missionary spirit from my father. That spirit was
fostered by association with Rowley. My main object in entering the
Order of St. George was to work among soldiers, not because I felt
that soldiers needed "missionizing" more than any other class, but
because the work at Chatsea brought me into contact with both
sailors and soldiers, and turned my thoughts in their direction. I
also felt the need of an organization behind my efforts. My first
impulse was to be a preaching friar, but that would have laid too
much on me as an individual, and from lack of self-confidence,
youthfulness, want of faith perhaps, I was afraid. Well, to come
back to the Abbot Paphnutius and his three vocations--it seems
fairly clear that the first, direct from God, is a better vocation
than the one which is inspired by human example, or the third,
which arises from the failure of everything else. At the same time
they ARE all three genuine vocations. What applies to the vocation
seems to me to apply equally to the community. What you stigmatize
as our pseudo-monasticism is still experimental, and I think I can
see the Reve