7 JUNE 1924, Page 20

A FRENCH GLADSTONE.

Tills book recalls Mr. Gladstone's incursions into theology. Both he and M. Bapst take their respective subjects with great seriousness ; both are frankly and completely uncritical both are alive to the importance of religion, and profoundly conscious of the ideal side of life. It might be too much to say that this attitude is rare among public men ; Mr. Gladstone tells us that they are seldom sceptics. But it is difficult to imagine Lord Palmerston writing on Moses;or M. Clemenceau composing a Life of Christ. Mr. Lloyd George might conceiv- ably do so, but he belongs to a versatile race. - Though his work professes to be purely historical, M. Bapst

deals with his sources with a certain naif freedom. The omis-

sions of St. Luke, he informs us—among which he includes the Flight into Egypt, and the Raising of Lazarus—perplexed the Christians of the first age :-

" Consequently, towards the end of the first century of our era, a certain number of Bishops requested the Apostle John, the last survivor of the original disciples, to compose a fourth'Gospel which should complete the former three."

This is certainly a new solution of the Johannine problem, and may be commended to the consideration of the Schola. In general, however, the writer's purpose is to present us with a consecutive and chronological narrative of the human life of Christ. He does not touch either on dogma or morals : this

is the work of the Doctors of the Church, who for 1,900 centuries have devoted themselves to it successfully ; in particular, he patriotically adds, in France. It is probable that his design is one which is incapable of realization ; the materials for it do not exist. Nor is it possible to avoid the questions on which he feels himself debarred from entering. With all its

faults, Renan's famous work is the nearest approach we have to a Life of Jesus. Bad is the best, it may be answered. But it is a book which has been uncritically praised and uncritically disparaged. Habent sua fata libelli. The last word on it has not yet been said.