Brief Notices

BRIEF NOTICES Eve and the Gryphon. By GERALD VANN, O.P. Oxford: Blackfriars Publications , 1946. Pp. 71. 6/-. The Gryphon is defined as a fabulous creature half lion, half eagle. In these conferences given by Father Vann, 0. P. to St. Joan's Alliance, Oxford, on the vocation of woman in the modern world, the inspiration that marrie~ women must be to men is brought forth with this underlying current that while " the lips are the lips of a woman, the smile is the smile of Christ." In other words, a woman's vocation as a wife and a mother, is to lead men to Christ. Through prayer and detachment women must learn to love the world in God and desire to serve it. They must fulfill in themselves the vocation of tears for if they have the heart of Christ they will have the compassion of Christ. Four conferences are contained in this brief but most provocative study. Through St. Catherine of Sienna women can learn of prayer, detachment, and what it means to have the heart of Christ. Through St. Monica they learn the secret of tears and compassion. The Mother of God will tell them of the vocation of Motherhood, and Eve who turned things to herself through selfishness will tell the modern woman that she must turn things to Christ, that her eyes must be fastened on the Gryphon, Christ, Who in loving the world died for it. No woman, eager to fulfill her role as wife and mother, can read these talks of Father Vann without being moved to the sublimity of her vocation. The lay apostolate will open up to her the necessity of a detachment whereby the more she loves God the more will she love others because the more will she share in God's love of others. False love will be stripped away and in the true love of others, because of the love of God, women will achieve their vocation. Our contemporary world in seeking the emancipation of women has been led into strange and erroneous interpretations of the role married women must play in life. This book is an exhilarating breath of the role theology plays not with the facts of married life but with the theological principles of marriage. It contains a vital spiritual message and uplift for all married women. The Meaning of Existence. By CHARLES DUELL KEAN. New York: Harper, 1947. Pp. 222, with index. $3.00. This work, which the author acknowledges to be written in the tradition of Kierkegaard, is an appeal for the reconstruction of the modern world 531 532 BRIEF NOTICES through a return to the meaning of existence exemplified in the Gospels. The factors in such a reconstruction, according to the author, are on three levels: history, intellect, and existence. History, where man meets nature and his fellow-men, is taken as it " properly refers to the institutional nature of human affairs." (p. 38) Here man finds himself a servant, formed by fate and responding by necessity. The intellect attempts to transcend history by the categories of memory, anticipation, critical judgment, and creativity. But in the end, the struggle to dominate history only overlays it with intellectual categories that, like Kantian forms, do not meet historical r-