This is a book for our times, whose title echoes with irony the title of Father Merton's famous early work, Seeds of Contemplation. This new book was written in, and for, a time of crisis - the moral crisis of racism and the 'black revolution', and the spiritual crisis occasioned by the passing of the old order. As the author states in his preface, 'It seems to me to be a solemn obligation of conscience at this moment of history to take the positions which are indicated in this book.