Rise & Decline*

SINCE CALVARY--Lewis Browne--Macmillan ($3.50).

Without actually saying it in so many words, Lewis Browne has based his history of Christianity on the assumption that the Church is aged, weakening. Some modern readers, few modern Churchmen will agree with him.

Author Browne's viewpoint is skeptical from the start; says he: "The stand taken by the present author is influenced by the most recent school of New Testament criticism . . . which maintains that the Gospels are valid sources only for the history of the Primitive Church, not for the life of Jesus." The Resurrection, the Ascension he calls "comforting delusions." Though he thinks St. Paul "superb nonetheless" he dubs him "a fanatic, a stubborn, heedless, Christ-drunk agitator." Browne deprecates the establishment of the priesthood, thinks it was "as ominous as it was inevitable. Created so to 'bank' the fire of Christian faith, the priesthood threatened after a time to extinguish that fire altogether. Yet had not some form of organization developed, the fire might have gone out of itself immediately."

Browne finds an interesting analogy to Christianity under the Roman Empire. "Like Communism in the twentieth century, the new religion was made the bugaboo and the scapegoat of the age. . . . There was a frowardness about it, a loud insurgency, which made it seem a thousandfold its size. (The analogy with Communism is disconcertingly close.)" When Christianity became legal, then official, it began what Browne describes as a reign of terror. "Of all the virtues possessed by the Christians, tolerance was last and least." Under Julian the Apostate's empery came a brief interregnum. Even St. Augustine is flayed by Author Browne. "The extravagance of his belief in the innate wickedness of mankind leads one to suspect that he may have suffered from some psychic maladjustment. Perhaps the root of the trouble lay in his peculiar emotional relationship to his mother. . . ." The period of troublous popes (904-963) he says "is often spoken of even by Catholic historians as the Papal Pornocracy;" but he does not credit "the curious legend that one of the popes was a woman in disguise."

"Christianity in the beginning was like a warming glance that strove to light up the gray face of a spent civilization. . . . When the old Roman Empire passed away, the gleam remained, evoking a face of its own, the Roman Catholic Church. . . . For many years it shone like the morning sun struggling to break through a lowered sky. But then the face began to harden. . . . The features stood out in grotesque distortion, the mouth very wide from shrieking anathemas, the nose long and sharp to detect heresies; and the skin was covered with the scabs of corruption."

With what Protestants call the Reformation, says Historian Browne, began the breaking up of the Church which has continued to our day. "A century after Luther's death a contemporary . . . was able to list 180 different sects!" The late Great War "did bring about a perceptible the of the re establishments. Naturally enough, Catholic Church profited the most, for the stress of the war days, and even in the confusion that came after it seemed the one stable thing left the world." Author Browne concludes: "the foolish of the world" now have religion they can believe in.

The Author. Lewis Browne, 34, was in London, came to the U. S. in 1912, to Hebrew Union College Rabbinical Seminary and later became rabbi of the N. J. Free Synagogue where he associated with Liberal Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise. Five years ago he from the rabbinate to write; in the Orient and Russia to gather on comparative religions. Other The Story of the Jews, This Be World, That Man Heine.

Threnody

AFTER LEAVING MR. MACKENZIE--Jean Rhys--Knopf ($2).

If you and your environment are both in cheerful mood you may safely expose yourself to Author Jean Rhys's infra-red rays. Otherwise, take a brisk walk before and after. After Leaving Mr, Mackenzie is a story of such completely hopeless despair that there is nothing to do about it except close the book, admit Jean Rhys has given you a bad hour and a half. Whether you will also admit she has added to your experience is between you and your conscience.

When you first meet Julia she is alone in a dingy Paris hotel room, her latest keeper, Mr. Mackenzie, having recently left her. A respectable though not a likeable person, he still sends her money through his lawyers. Julia does nothing with the money but spend it foolishly, indifferently. She lies late in bed, drinks too much, buys clothes she cannot afford. Gradually it dawns on you that she is not merely constitutionally shiftless but has given up. She is nearly middleaged, her first lover left her when she was 19.

Mr. Mackenzie's lawyer sends her a final payment. Knowing it is no use, Julia goes to look for him, trails him to a restaurant, returns his check, slaps his face. An Englishman at a nearby table follows her and gives her some money. She goes back to England to see her paralyzed and dying mother. Julia's sister is not glad to see her, gives her many a hard word and look. When her mother is dead, when she has borrowed all she can from ex-lovers, Julia goes back again to Paris. When you see the last of her she has not yet committed suicide but it would probably be the best thing.

The Author's real name is unknown but something quite different from "Jean Rhys." Born in Dominica, B. W. I., she went to England at 16, went to famed Actor Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree's Dramatic Academy, then for two years toured the English provinces in the chorus of a musicomedy. After the War she married a Dutch poet, wandered with him from European pillar to post. She has been an English tutor, mannequin, model, nursery governess. Other books: The Left Bank, Quartet.

Quid Ireland

THE GARDEN--L. A. G. Strong--Knopf ($2.50).

This novel about a Dublin that has gone forever has little in common with James Joyce's masterpiece Ulysses. Author Strong's Dublin is a pleasant pre-War summer-holiday place seen through the eyes of a boy who spends his vacations there; the slums and sordidness of the city are in the background, rarely stumbled on. Author Strong regrets the passing of this old easy-going dirty Dublin but mildly thinks it a good thing; there is no violence in his book or in his Hibernian patriotism.*

Dermot was really Irish but his father had lost the habit of it, lived with his family in Plymouth, took them over to his wife's relations in Dublin for the summer holiday. Dermot was only a little boy when he first began to look forward to the summer. Every year he had a little better time, learned to like more things. At first his best friend and chief amusement was his grandfather's pet monkey; when one year he found the monkey relegated to the zoo Dermot thought his heart was broken. But it was the monkey's heart that broke. Dermot's grandfather was an Irish Protestant gentleman of the old school, free in his language, narrow in his conduct. His favorite expression: "I declare to me God." But it was Dermot's Uncle Ben and his family that really won him to Dublin. They were religious too, but they laughed all the time, liked to play jokes on each other and the world at large.

Dermot was an unlively, delicate boy. He found no friends his own age. but three Dublin loafers became his great cronies. They were never too busy to help him fish. Though it cramped their conversation, they scrupulously respected his innocence. When Dermot came home from school with the facts of life they were greatly relieved, talked freely thenceforth. Only one of them worked: his self-appointed task was to break up meetings of the Salvation Army by hanging on the outskirts and muttering obscene insults. As the Army nourished his job grew harder, but he never ducked it. Most exciting adventures Dermot had in these summery years was helping to catch a conger eel and seeing a bad motorcycle smash. But Author Strong makes it appear a very good kind of life and far from dull. The War brings this pleasant reminiscence up to date with a wrench.

The Author. Leonard Alfred George Strong, like the traditional Irish literary man, lives in England. Onetime cartoonist, ballad singer, broadcaster, actor, member of the Oxford literary colony (others: Aldous Leonard Huxley, Robert Graves, Richard Hughes, Edmund Charles Blunden), schoolteacher, he now cultivates exclusively a less & thankless muse. Publisher Knopf believes in his future to such an extent that he is publishing four of Author Strong's books this year. Other books: Dewer Rides, The Jealous Ghost, The English Captain.

The Garden is the July choice of the Book League.

Old-Fashioned

DWARF'S BLOOD--Edith Olivier--Viking (82.50).

Nicholas was a fine figure of a man and came from an old English family, but he was born in Australia, never saw his native country till the death of his uncle left him the family estate. He fell in love with the place at sight, though it had fallen into wrack & ruin. Its restoration became his career. When he and his neighbor's daughter Alethea fell in love everybody except one disappointed suitor thought it was splendid. For a time everything went swimmingly. Alethea bore Nicholas a bouncing daughter, later a boy. When the boy turned out to be perfectly formed but a dwarf Nicholas refused to see him, hated to have him around.

Alethea could never understand the violence of Nicholas's feeling until one day his mother arrived from Australia. She was a hideous dwarf. Nicholas hated her, hated the thought that he had dwarf's blood in his veins, was morbidly afraid he himself had a dwarf's soul in a man's body. After a terrible scene Alethea took the little boy and ran away to her aunt in Germany. Though eventually she went back to her husband, for years she did not dare have her son in the same house with him. The boy grew up with a talent for drawing; his first exhibition in London was a great success. When the War came Nicholas went to it, got through unscathed, returned to his family a wiser man. Alethea risked bringing the family together. When Nicholas saw the portrait his son had painted of Alethea his heart was changed; he realized his son was no real dwarf, but a big man.

The Author has written her tale in a manner that seems oldfashioned, courtly, Victorian when compared with contemporary styles. At times reminiscent of her friend, David Garnett, she has none of Garnett's slyness; her implications are altogether moral. Member of an old Huguenot family that has lived in England for generations, daughter of a Victorian clergyman, Edith Olivier lives in Wilton, on the edge of Salisbury Plain, in a house that was once the dairy on the Earl of Pembroke's estate. Near neighbor is Siegfried Sassoon (Memoirs of an Infantry Officer--TIME, Sept. 29). Authoress Olivier rarely goes to London; when she does, Sylvia Townsend Warner and many another writer are glad to see her. Other books: The Love Child, As Far As Jane's Grandmother's, The Triumphant Footman.

Dwarf's Blood is the July choice of the Literary Guild.

Sentiment

THE SIXTH JOURNEY--Alice Grant Rosman--Minton, Balch ($2).

Nothing sells like sentiment. Three weeks ago Publishers Minton, Balch emitted this "Prosperity note'': ''Last year the American News Co. ordered 7,500 copies of | Alice Grant Rosman's] The Young & Secret in advance of publication: this year they have ordered 10,000 copies of The Sixth Journey."

Architect John Falconer had behind him a guilty secret and the beginnings of a successful career. The secret was an illegitimate daughter Judy, and his recently dead wife had discovered it, had insisted on adopting Judy as a niece. Falconer thought his wife was a saint, especially after she died. But when he met Hilary on a boat from South Africa he fell hard for her, was soon engaged.

Meantime Judy had been handed over to Falconer's unco guid sister Gertrude and was not having a very happy time of it. Judy had never been told who her real father was or what was wrong with her, but at 13 she had begun to worry. When Falconer arrived in England Judy was whisked off to a farm in the country, where she was made the slavey of an ill-natured old nurse who treated her like a moral leper. When one night in a fit of rage the nurse explained to Judy what a bastard was, told her she was it, Judy was horrified, ran away. When they finally found her, unco guidness and her own adolescent fears had almost addled her little pate; it took all of Hilary's affectionate tact to mend matters.

The Author. An Australian "of early pioneer stock," Alice Grant Rosman went to England as a young girl, has lived there ever since. She wanted to write fiction but found newspaper work better pay till 1928, when her first novel, The Window, went up with a bang. Other Books: Visitors to Hugo, The Young & Secret.

* New books are news. Unless otherwise designated, all books reviewed in TIME were published within the fortnight. TIME readers may obtain any book of any U. S. publisher by sending check or money-order to cover regular retail price ($5 if price is unknown, change to be remitted) to Ben Boswell of TIME, 205 East 42nd St., New York City.

* Unlike Author Joyce, who called Ireland "the old sow that eats her farrow."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.