LIVING CHRISTIANITY
The Church and the Sex Question. By John W. Coutts. (James Clarke and Co. 6s.)
MAGEE used to say that there are sermons we can listen to,
sermons we can't listen to, and sermons we can't help listening to. Canon Roberts's sermons must all belong to the third division, if one may judge by his Faith and Life. There is a man's voice ringing out in each of the sermons, making religion real by giving a message that answers the questions which human life forces us to ask. Too many sermons by teaching religion in the abstract offer for men's acceptance a religion unequal to any of the duties of life, unable to satisfy the mind or the heart. Canon Roberts gives his readers new thoukhts on old truths and expressing old truths in new words. There is a sanity and a sense of proportion in these sermons which is too often lacking in pulpit utterances.
The Church and the Sex Question is one of the volumes in " The Living Church " series. Mr. Coutts has undertaken the task of showing that the Church can answer the questions which arise out of the great fact of human love. The Church, of course, has actually answered these questions from time to time, but not always wisely nor with proper consideration either for human nature or for its Founder's attitude to human life. Mr. Coutts will compel everyone to think out the problems of sex as if they had just arisen. In any age but our own the book would probably have been condemned. To-day, it will not meet with universal approval, but it deserves a welcome on all sides, for it treats the whole question not from isolated utterances of Christ but from His entire attitude to human nature and His consecration of all human faculties.
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