Poet’s Tribute to Pius XI

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 154, 25 March 1939, Page 1 (Supplement)

Poet’s Tribute to Pius XI

-HE man,” writes Mr. Alfred Noyes, the poet, in the “Daily Tele- | graph,” “who, in his earlier life, had been an intrepid mounI taineer in the physical world—the first to ascend one of the most Jt perilous heights of Monte Rosa—was an explorer, in later life,

of many untrodden heights and lonely fastnesses in the world of thought; and his earlier experiences—his lowly birth, his ascent through arduous work and study to positions of ever greater responsibility—stood him in good stead when, to his own surprise, he reached the summit that overlooks the world.

“Love had he found in huts where poor men lie, His daily teachers had been woods and rills, The silence that is in the starry sky, The sleep that is among the lonely hills. “In all the outstanding events of bis life there is this feeling of the great simplicities and wide horizons, the feeling of the mountaineer rejoicing that, though in his human frame be is but an insignificant speck upon the Alpine snows, be is losing himself, as he ascends, to gain the vision of the universe. . . .

“From bis lonely height be was able to look both before and alter: and lie has sometimes been criticised (by those who would be the last Io accept his Faith) for not delivering ‘infallible’ utterances on subjects about which his own Church would declare him to be entirely fallible.

“A mathematician may be regarded as fallible on the majority of subjects. What we can justly affirm is that, within certain limits (the multiplication tables, for instance) no mistake is possible. We might even go beyond that with safety. The tables in this other case are the tables of the moral law and a certain deposit pf faith. Beyond that he cannot legitimately go.

“No harm can be done, in the present crisis of the world, by a just recognition of what the claim really is; and when the outside world actually criticises him for not going beyond the imposed limits in certain political crises, the wisdom-of his restraint may be illustrated by an incident of bis mountaineering life.

“On one occasion, when he had to make a very perilous crossing of a glacier, he deliberately waited till darkness came, with a fall in the temperature, and crossed it by the light of a lantern, because he knew that in the warmth of the sun there would be more risk of a loosening of the snows ami an avalanche.

“His first encyclical on War and Peace was timed with scientific precision. Whether the world will listen remains to be seen. But he has pointed to the only way; and, again, it is based, not on nationalism or internationalism, not on Leagues of Peace and Leagues of Force, but on the simple moral principles of right and wrong, which are constantly neglected in political affairs.”