The Keys of the Kingdom

THIS is a stirring book, a virile book, and yet a wistful and tender book. It is dramatic in narrative, but soothing in its style and its philosophy. It is filled (though never crowded) with contrasting people and contrasting scenes, with all the adventures that a European resident in the interior of China during the last half century could meet; but it has one binding and engrossing theme in the maturing of a singular personality, which seizes upon you and will not let you go. So it is a book to be read in different places: in homes and clubs and college dormitories, on trains, airplanes, and boats. And it will be appreciated most of all, perhaps, in rectories and (rules permitting) in conventual refectories. For it is the odyssey of a humorous, indomitable, and saintly Scotch missionary priest. One may not agree with the suggestion that Francis of Assisi is Father Chisholm’s prototype; but hagiography is well stocked with saints who, wandering afar in God’s service, overflowed with individualism, activity, and enterprise.

Apparently in our time, as in the times of Trollope and Mrs. Humphry Ward, religious questions are too much in the forefront to be ignored in the higher ranges of fiction. A priest’s life offers rare material to a novelist in being made up so largely of conflicts — the clashing of Christian individualism with the claims of legitimate authority, of Christian humility against the pride engendered so easily by power. In The Keys of the Kingdom, Father Chisholm’s real martyrdom is from sources such as these, rather than from Chinese civil war, famine, disease, and banditry. Moreover, Hr. Cronin’s book further illustrates that Catholic novelists are doing real service. To those ot other faiths there too often seems something covert, and therefore suspicious, about the Catholic clergy. If all Christians are to pull together against the paganism of our day, this feeling should be dissipated as soon as possible. Dr. Cronin exhibits examples ot half a dozen different types of priest, very unequal in virtues and failings, but verv human in both, and no more covert and suspicious than the rest of us. father Chisholm himself concludes one prayer: ’Give me humility, dear Lord. . . . You see, I am resigned. But, O God! You must admit it was

such damned ingratitude after all!’ There are a few speeches and incidents in the book (especially an episode that has to do with spurious miracles) which some readers may find implausible and perhaps unfortunate; but it will be difficult for anyone to resist Dr. Cronin’s shrewd psychology, his humor, and his sympathy. He can find saving graces in men of almost every type.

The book contains few prayers of any kind, and not a single homily; but wrapped up in the swiftly moving narrative, and in the occasional extracts from Father Chisholm’s diary, is an outcry against pride and greed, against brutality and intolerance. Above all, against intolerance. Intolerance orphans the missionary in his early years, and, after his ordination, disturbs his relations with a pastor who is apparently ignorant of such friendships as that of W. G. Ward and J. S. Mill; but tolerance sweetens and enriches his labors in China. Pictures of his Methodist neighbors, and of a friendship in adversity between the two missions which doctrinal differences could not disturb, fill some of Dr. Cronin’s best chapters. It may seem unusual that a Catholic priest should teach ‘Toleration is the highest virtue. Humility comes next’; but at least the two are fit companions. And if anyone thinks that the inculcation of these or any other virtues will detract from his enjoyment in the reading of this powerful and refreshing novel, let him try a chapter or two and see!

HERBERT C. F. BELL