ew, turned totally round. I am left saying,
"Give me an explanation, first, of the towering eccentricity of man
among the brutes; second, of the vast human tradition of some
ancient happiness; third, of the partial perpetuation of such pagan
joy in the countries of the Catholic Church." One explanation,
at any rate, covers all three: the theory that twice was the natural
order interrupted by some explosion or revelation such as people
now call "psychic." Once Heaven came upon the earth with a power
or seal called the image of God, whereby man took command of Nature;
and once again (when in empire after empire men had been found wanting)
Heaven came to save mankind in the awful shape of a man.
This would explain why the mass of men always look backwards;
and why the only corner where they in any sense look forwards is
the little continent where Christ has His Church. I know it will
be said that Japan has become progressive. But how can this be an
answer when even in saying "Japan has become progressive," we really
only mean, "Japan has become European"? But I wish here not so much
to insist on my own explanation as to insist on my original remark.
I agree with the ordinary unbelieving man in the street in being
guided by three or four odd facts all pointing to something;
only when I came to look at the facts I always found they pointed
to something else.

I have given an imaginary triad of such ordinary anti-Christian
arguments; if that be too narrow a basis I will give on the spur
of the moment another. These are the kind of thoughts which in
combination create the impression that Christianity is something weak
and diseased. First, for instance, that Jesus was a gentle creature,
sheepish and unworldly, a mere ineffectual appeal to the world; second,
that Christianity arose and flourished in the dark ages of ignorance,
and that to these the Church would drag us back; third, that the people
still strongly religious or (if you will) superstitious--such people
as the Irish--are weak, unpractical, and behind the times.
I only mention these ideas to affirm the same thing: that when I
looked into them independently I found, not that the conclusions
were unphilosophical, but simply that the facts were not facts.
Instead of looking at books and pictures about the New Testament I
looked at the New Testament. There I found an account, not in the
least of a person with his hair parted in the middle or his hands
cla