This month has seen the death of two Englishmen, the poet T.S. Eliot, and the statesmen, Winston Churchill. In his own way each is a man of the century. Eliot was born American but became the authentic type of a cultured Englishman. Churchill was the very essence of the British Empire, but his mother was an American. The tiny island, in our times is no longer resplendent in glory, is still capable of producing giants.

Both could use words; as President Kennedy said of Churchill, he mobilized the English language. In a thousand composition classes across our land young people are learning to write, but in a million commercials, song lyrics and gossip columns, the “media of communication” are letting them down.

Eliot, as the spokesman of the despairing generation after World War I, wrote such unforgettable lines as these from “The Wasteland:” April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land...

and, in “The Hollow Men:”

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but with a whimper.

And this one leaps out of the page: “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”

In 1927 Eliot became a member of the Church of England. The early despair evolved into a quest for the spiritual. The poems, “Ash-Wednesday” and “Four Quartets” and the plays “Murder in the Cathedral” and the “Cocktail Party” are addressed to the same embittered generation, but with an assurance of religious hope. Eliot spoke for the Christian almost in prayer:

Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood,

Teach us to care and not to care,

Teach us to sit still...

Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

Churchill, on a far different and wider stage, spoke and wrote a more muscular prose. Many Americans still remember 1940 and this offering of nothing but “blood, toil, tears, and sweat,” and his tribute to the Royal Air Force, “Never was so much owed by so many to so few.” From “This was their finest hour” to his fellow Britons to “the Iron Curtain” drawn by the Soviets, he put words to their most rugged test -- to express man’s spirit.

The world owes much to Eliot and Churchill. Let us not forget their strong and vibrant use of language. We have grown sloppy and profuse in our expressions. We proliferate the jargon of each trade. In 1940 the crisis was great, but in this case the speaker rose even above the occasion. Churchill said in wartime England:

Do not let us speak of darker days. Let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days -- these are great days. And we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.”

Commentary: Seven Year Critic

In a parish where the liturgy is really living, a young fellow of seven was attending daily Mass with his mother. He seemed interested in hearing the English Introit, Kyrie and Gloria. When the celebrant started “Dominus Vobiscum” and the Oration (in Latin), the critic summed up the whole vernacular problem:

“What’s he saying?”

Visitors To Atlanta

Among visitors this month have been Bishop Tracy of Baton Rouge, Msgr. John T. Ellis of the University of San Francisco’s History Department, Msgr. James Shannon, president of St. Thomas’ College in St. Paul, Minn., Henry Jackson of the Municipal Court’s work on alcoholic rehabilitation; Dr, Fuhrman, the Calvin scholar. They are exceptionally gifted men, but I found most exhilarating their interest in the archdiocese. They assured me of a wide understanding, across the country, of the vision of the Church shared by our priests and people.

How Long Does One Wait?

At the historic civic dinner in honor of the Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Dr. Martin Luther King, there was both dignity and humor. When the guests lined up to march in to the head table, our arranger apologized - ‘There’s a delay because of seating the crowd of 1,500. You’ll have to wait about ten minutes.”

Out of this situation came a wonderful truth in the form of a gag. One of the city officials said, “You seem to forget that about half the people here have been waiting a century.”

Paul J. Hallinan

Archbishop of Atlanta