WHAT IS FAITH P* THE writer of this original book
tells us that he is a country parson who lives in a country parish quite out of the world. He is what is called a good Churchman; but it is evident that many of his best friends, those with whom he feels most sympathy, are not, and that, unlike the majority of parsons, he has the power to attract the confidence of those who do not agree with him. The book is written for such as live in doubt by a man who, without spiritual pride and without false modesty, is able to declare that he lives in faith. No stickler for a bard-and-fast literalism, for dogma in its most uncom- promising form, will read the book with any satisfaction. On the other band, Mr. Shine is not one of those trans- cendentalists whose method of denial is the tedious one of explaining away. He starts from the supposition that
• What is Faith? By John Huntley Skrine, London : Longmans and Co. [5s. net.] "all religions thinking is a thinking in metaphor. Our formularies of belief are not the very image of the things spiritual, but only 'patterns of the things in the heavens,' made in an earthly material of human letters and syllables : they are but figures of the true." He. tells his readers how by bard and complicated thinking, and how by the direct and simple experience of everyday life, he has arrived at his present position of mental peace. Canddur lends a charm to his words, and his literary skill is very great. We have seldom seen a picture more touching or drawn in fewer strokes than the one he shows us of an "ignorant old peasant, a just man and neighbourly, but whose thoughts moved only between his day-long farm- work and his evening ale," and who, he believes, died in faith, while making no more definite confession than "It's all right, Sir; it's all right." The author's attitude towards the Sacraments is that of a filial Anglican, yet it involves no condemnation of the doubtful or the dissenting point- of view. To him the Eucharist is not merely commemorative, it involves in some sense a Real Presence; but for those whose intellectual scruples keep them from the altar he has no words but of kindness. "You are," he says, "as some keeper of our Christmas rite, stayed by storm or snowdrift, by sickness or sick-bed care, who cannot win to the church door and the chancel-rail; but alone in his dusk room under his narrow window, with no table spread, no hallowed fare, no robes or ritual or music or manual acts performed, yet holds his spiritual commune with the Incarnate, and eats and drinks in their very reality and might the Body and the Blood of Christ." Labels are often misleading, but if any of our readers desire to see the point of view of a liberal High Churchman set forth in exceptionally beautiful English, we should advise them to read this book.
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