Waters of Silence. By Thomas Merton. (Hollis and Carter. ics.)
A CERTAIN disquieting anomaly pervades this otherwise excellent account of the Cistercian Order. Authorship directs attention to the performer and is s'ot really compatible with ideals of humility and self-effacement. As waders.of Elected Silence are aware, Mr. Merton joined the Trappists.in 1941. He is now a priest and has been officially permitted to publicise the idea of silence and contemplation to the outer world. Mr. Evelyn Waugh, anticipating some bewilder- ment, remarks in a foreword that monks have always made liqueurs and cheeses. We are duly grateful too ; but what chartreuse or Port, du Salut ever bore a private member's name ? Mr. Merton is fortunate in havihg the best of both worlds ; as a monk he has • access to the material for his history, and as a university man he is competent to present it. From the first Rule of St. Benedict, through the developments, perSecutions and dispersals of the monks, Mr. Merton follows a title that is by no means one of simple progress on a chosen road Ii gensions of the order have often been largely dependent on an attitude of busy activity that was less concerned with- the contemplative ideal than with fighting the political and religious animosities, of the day. Indeed, even before the great twelfth century was over, Mr, Merton (whose style is compounded of dignity and impudence) notes that under the pressure of material activities "the contemplative spirit caved in." (A more fortunate present-day Fathers is to' be' seen " sinking his teeth . . . into his Cistercian vocation.") The implicit finding is that among the thousands within these chosen communities only a small proportion will be genuine mystics.
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