SOME RECENT FICTION

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 77, 27 September 1924, Page 17

SOME RECENT FICTION

WORKINGS OF THE YOUTHFUL ■" .. : MIND, ••■'■■

; -"Wanaerlighfc." By Ernest Baymond. London and Melbourne/. Cassell and Company. Mr. Eaymond, who;, by the way, was the writer of "Tell England," has written in "Wanderlight" of the workings of the. youthful mind on the Christian religion. His chief character is Hilary Down, a young man who was only 23 .when, in 1917, he was on duty in the Roy-, al Engineers near Passchendaele. Com- j ing out of the war with the distinction, j of which he was not a little proud, of haying fired one of the mines at Mes- j sines, he looked around for an occupation and elected to become a clergyman in the Church of England. This decision was come to as the result of a talk with a padre of that Church—a remarkable man of whom the reader obtains but. a glimpse in the prologue to the novel. Like every character in "Wanderlight," Padre Eudabec will long live in the. memory of the reader of "Wanderlight." Acquaintance with him begins and ends in the prologue. So with'the many other characters described by,Mr. Eaymond: They appear to be drawn from life, and it is very hard indeed to accept* the author's assurance that "every character in this book is imaginary." However, there tho matter must, remain. If the characters are imaginary then all that can be said on that point is that Mr/ Raymond has an imagination far beyond the ordinary. Fifteen feet underground, yet not beyond the vibrations of the German's falling shells and high explosives, Hilary Down is discovered in coming to a decision to take up the work of saving men—not destroying then—once he is out of the war. He is moved to do this in _the pleading of Padre Eudabec,'who has come to him cold, huugry, weary, in the service of men. The outcome^ is a decision to enter the Church of England on the ground, to quote the chaplain, that, "You and your kind^-would be a source of fresh life and renewed youth . . . Yes—you might go and see if she has a place in her priesthood for such as you." The war ending, Down drops khaki as soon as he possibly can and enters a theological college in a cathedral town. Here he meets with a number of fellow-students, all utterly dissimilar, all entering the Church with different ideas of their vocation. The

life and men at the colleg6 are described "*" with the pen of a master writer. The men live,, become people that the reader feels to have known in the.flesh. So it is with the clergy whom 'Down meets when he is admitted to.holy orders; so it is with the two girls, who figure so much in his life, viz., Esther, the post office girl with an American-accent, daughter of a German father, and Millie, ' the well-educated daughter of a wealthy and unconventional clergyman, are "-likewise, it seems, drawn from life. But Mr. Raymond does not profess to go very i deeply into the characters of the per- . sonages to which he introduces his. readers,' -\ r except.in the case, of Hilary Down.' . Him he analyses with uncompromising thoroughness, tabulating his strong points and his weaknesses; laying out as 'dri the laboratory bench his emotions and inspirations for what they are, not what they may seem, whereas'the other'::characters are -described from their;; superfices, as it were, more as •< they: appear than as they may be. Yet there' is nowhere any trace of cynicism, no suspicion of bitterness, and any .. amount of sympathy seen in the descriptionof scenes from clerical life in this the first, quarter of the '20th ctntury. There are passages relating to clergymen and clerical life that are not ■so sombre as George Eliot has written, but that would have interested Anthony Trollope. Like the 'orders giverP by Oliver Cromwell to the artist who painted his portrait, in depicting his characters, Mr. Raymond has painted them "warts and all." • " - -' The author does not adorn his'tale with a moral, but leaves that for his readers to do.. But there is abundant good in the book for serious thought on the par,t of those who feel that youth is having a hard time just now in the matter of religion. It does not (it seems) quite like to bum its spiritual boats and yet does not seem over keen about using ' them either. That the Church of • England as an institution is losing its grip over youth seems evident to readers of this thought- ( ful and well-written novel. It is shown as a house divided against itself; lacking in power and authority to preserve domestic discipline and order ; and with freedom interpreted as' license to accept _ or reject as much, or as little, of divine revelation as each individual feels disposed... For all this, Mr. Raymond _ does not assume the office of censor of the Church; ho impeaches nobody; condemns nothing. He merely tells of what he has seen and about men he has met in the Church and leaves it there. He has no brand new system of reform to .offer, he suggests no specific, he offers no remedy. He merely states fictions which have tli6 disquieting appearance of facts. If there are some poignantly pathetic passages in the novel, there are some fine touches .of humour, not subtle humour some of it, seen, noted, and described by an advanced student of human nature. "Wanderlight" is nothing if.it is not real, a series of etchings from deeply bitten plates. " It is. imtten from the heart, in all sincerity. Its lessons are numerous, End it will be found painful reading >by many, but it is an honest endeavour to expose the workings of the mind of. youth to-day. v