Speaking at the annual meeting of the Wimbledon branch of the Catholic Evidence Guild, Fr. Geoffrey Bliss, S.J., who is the Guild's Director of Studies in those parts, made a point that C.E.G. speakers did not speak in public because they liked standing on a soap box, but because they believed it to be their duty to do it. it could have been added with no less truth that even if the rostra from which the speakers direct their efforts were literally soap boxes, certainly nothing in the nature of " soft soap" would be handed out!
What the Guildsmen at Wimbledon do, in common with their confreres in the good work elsewhere, is to study hard in order that they may expound well. About twenty keen members, on an average, attended the Monday evening study classes at Donhcad Lodge during the past year.
It was a pleasure which the branch had hardly expected that the Bishop of Southwark found himself able, at the last minute, to attend and preside at the meeting. His lordship has from the first given warm encouragement to the Catholic Evidence workers in his diocese, and at Wimbledon his presence was greatly appreciated. Fr. Matthew Ingram, Si., Rector of Wimbledon College, was also present on the platform in support of the work; likewise the Master of Westminster C.E.G., Mr. R. G. Flaxman, and Messrs. B. J. Cunningham and P. Rorke of the Wimbledon branch.
The Only Way
The reception of the report, and the speakers' remarks thereto. did not constitute the full interest of the evening's pro. gramme. The meeting heard also an address from the lay president of Catholic Action, Dr. W. J. O'Donovan, 0.B.E., a tireless worker. His was a speech which, serang, as on many previous occasions, from religious conviction reinforced by professional knowledge, dealing as it did with matters such as birth control. sterilisation, infanticide. and other evils due to a loosened moral outlook. To oppose such a state of things, he said, the only successful way was to bring back to England the faith of their Catholic forefathers.
Pitches are being run regularly by the Wimbledon branch at Brixton, Kingston Market, and Tooting, and speakers have been sent also to Bermondsey, Clapham, Lewisham, Putney, Sydenham and Woolwich.