LIFE AND RELIGION

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22081, 1 May 1937, Page 17

LIFE AND RELIGION

My Way of Faith. By M. D. Petre. J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd. 312 pp. (10/6 net.)

t This is a book of surpassing interest to anyone who is concerned ' with the religious history of our . time. Miss Petre's father was a [ younger son of the thirteenth Lord ' Petre. Her family first came into history in the person of Sir William Petre, of evil fame as Cromwell's ! right-hand man in the suppression i of th ■■ monasteries. Despite this, the ; Petres have been for the most part t staunch Roman Catholics. Miss . Petre was brought un in an old- , fashioned Roman Catholic house- '. hold, and later became the friend of 1 Henri Bremond, Baron F. von Hupel, \ and Father George Tyrrell. Miss j Petre edited the autobiography of Tyrrell and had remained his faith- , fui friend when he was excommunicated for Modernism. In this book I she tells the tale of her religious . development and of her friendship , with these notable men. She found [ Bremond a fascinating personality, whose differences with ecclesiastical r authority were personal rather than j intellectual. Von Hiieel she consid- £ ers to have been a liberator rather j. than a leader. In her opinion, von Huge! led Tyrrell astray , when he , nersuaded him to take part in re- ! ligious controversy. As a spiritual j writer, left to himself. Tyrrell would have effected a resolution in the nnj derstandine of religious truth withx out any rebellion. As it was the \ outcome of his onposi+ion to Rome ~ was tragic, as Miss Petre was to I find to her cost. Quite against her " wishes, she is now cu'o 1 " f ~orri communion with the church to which, she admits, she owes much more [ than she can tell. Incidentally, this I book contains many interesting reflections on matters of lasting im- ' portance. such as the nhilosophv of " religion, the meaning of immortalitv, * and the nature of eternal punishment.