The noble quality of the sentiments of this book will account for its having received on the whole a far more indulgent treatment by the reviewers—even by those writing on behalf of the Churches—than it properly deserves. There might be a strong temptation to follow this general lead, if it were any less easy than it is, while attacking the book, to maintain entire respect for the author. The doctrine is completely untrue to the principles of the Anglo-Catholic Creed which the author professes. It is in fact but a travesty of Christian doctrine. But this clearly is a mischance that has come about through an undisciplined cavalry charge by the Left wing of the author’s mind. A reviewer can take his stand comfortably between the author and his book.

Christ as portrayed in these pages shows Himself to be first and foremost a socio-political revolutionary. An order of social well-being, of justice and plenty achieved for all men, does not appear to Him as an effect that should naturally follow upon and be as the fulfilment and expression of the spiritual life He brings to men, but rather as an essential constitutive means for the formation of a state of “salvation.” That is to say, it is only by a successfully achieved reordering of social conditions that the salvation He offers can become a “saving” thing at all. If He is to be called our Saviour (in any sense that He Himself would approve) it can only be through a salvation which in fact delivers our bodies in this world from the evils of injustice and poverty and the rest.