Pearce ambles along with the reader, slowly, thoughtfully, hiking hills and barefooting through shin deep water, making way to quaint, antiquated places. He especially likes to pause in the cool shadowy remains of castles, colleges and Cathedrals. He ruminates over the demise of the Catholic Faith and reminisces on the lives of England’s greatest saints. Wandering, I found myself wondering about the future of the Catholic Church in this country, blasted by scandal, battling moral decline within and without. Recent statistics reveal that every Christian denomination is feeling the pinch, as more believers become less believing. And so, while others buckle, bend and blend to modernism, the faithful move ahead in purified procession, smaller in number and stronger in faith. In this age of modernization, we are called to be modest, footsore pilgrims, not tourists traveling by the fast train. Slow down. Simplify. Be more. Take less.

Pearce’s gaze recalls days not so far gone, of idyllic landscapes, a time when sheep and cattle filled hilly pasturelands, a time when the family farm provided a living and was itself a way of life. The humus soil and humble toil unified humankind. Unnaturally distanced from nature, we lose a sense of stewardship, of sustainability, of subsidiarity. Indeed, the seed of Belloc’s Distributist society, bolstered and broadcasted by G.K. Chesterton, was planted on English soil.