For many years, and indeed almost till the end of his life, Bede Jarrett was to me a remote though beneficent figure; important and attractive but in the background. I never heard him preach; I had never read even one of his books; I met him personally but once and then had not the opportunity of conversing with him. I was, however, deeply interested in the striking expansion of the Dominican Order in England, both on account of men whom I knew among its younger generation, and because I saw the valuable impression that the O.P.s were making on English Catholic life and thought.

This is a devout thesis, ‘in sensu composito', and is well worth reading and acting upon. Briefly, the author believes that he has hit upon a great truth in St John's gospel which hardly anyone seems to have adverted to, viz., that on Calvary the Beloved Disciple was entrusted to the care and guardianship of Mary not merely as the representative of the human race but as a priest: it was because he was a priest that he could adequately an” properly be chosen to represent all mankind at the foot of the cross. There is much more to say for this thesis than might appear at first glance. The author has marshalled many persuasive reasons and presented them forcefully. His style is rather alarming, with capitals and thick typ and broken sentences strewn all over the pages, and one fears he would defend it as ‘the psychology of the printed word’ (he does go so far as ‘ speak of the ‘psychology of our Lord on the cross’) but one soon gets use to this, and it has its advantages.

Interest in Saint Teresa of Avila is almost as inexhaustible as that in the little saint Thérèse. Publishers time and time again risk their money—and that is saying a lot these days—upon works dedicated to a study of some aspect of her life and works, and, having done so once, they do it again’ Here we have Messrs Burns and Oates, after recently publishing the Letters, now producing a life translated from the French of Marcelle Auclair. Faber and Faber have brought out a posthumous series of essays upon her, and other matters, by E. Allison Peers. Publishers are wise in their own generation. Why? Because Saint Teresa sells. There is that no sé qué about her which is everlastingly attractive. She is not a saint with a frown.

In the Allison Peers volume, St Teresa of Jesus and other Essays and Addresses, the other essays are by no means negligible. To begin with: the historical problem of Spanish Mysticism. Professor Peers asks the question: how account for the mystical eruption in the second half of the sixteenth century in Spain? He laboriously puts aside a number of partial answers.

Fr Victor White has contributed so frequently to The Life of the Spirit that any attempt to avoid a slightly domestic atmosphere in this account of his work would be forced and unnatural. Not that this present collection of his essays contains more than one which has appeared here already. Some day, we hope, the others which have been published here may also be collected into a book. Such a work would be more concerned with the theological side of the frontiers of psychology and theology than is God and the Unconscious, where psychology is at least the starting-point—thougli never the terminus. Much of the material will be familiar to the readers of Blackjriars, Dominican Studies, and the Guild of Pastoral Psychology pamphlets. But there are several important new chapters; all the essays have been re-worked; and the result is a book of surprising unity.

This life of Fr Bede Jarrett by two of his own Dominican brethren fulfils a long-felt hope. Ever since his death in 1934, his many friends have looked forward to a record of his life and work—especially during his long Provincialate of sixteen years—and a penpicture of his lovable character and his very real holiness.