' “THE OLDEST GOD”

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12423, 17 April 1926, Page 12

' “THE OLDEST GOD”

Onco more Stephen McKenna lias returned to the task of converting the world by painting evil in its true colours. The colours this time are mo-re weird than attractive. This is to the clever author’s credit. Me has succeeded, hut not without the weakness or invoking.. the aid of the supernatural -worm. The “muckle de’il” appears at. critical moments in the story, frightening the decent folk and making the wicked folk worse than ever. These folk of two kinds are assembled in an old English castle, at the invitation of an American lady millionaire who' pretend:-, to be.wicked in the modern “fast” fashion, without quite knowing- what wickedness really is. The major portion of her party, who. do know, become very wicked indeed. They air stimulated :by the presence of a guest of sinister aspect and wend manners, lAtun nobody knows, not even the most wicked man of the party, who introduced' him. This is the Mr D. ( Be appears just at the moment y when the party has passed a .resolution condemning Christianity, and extolling paganism ns the only possible cult for reasonable people. It ‘requires very little imagination to realise the practical consequences in n house where civilisation is not ranked as righteous 1 living. Mr McKenna does not leave it to any imagination. Ho draws lurid pictures of the “goings on.” He makes the Satanic presence felt, and of course in tho end the hostess discovers what is afoot and orders the culprits off the premises, and the oulprits refuse to go. It iB "the beginning of the inevitable madness,, and the leaders in evil all go mad, offear, remorse, and (disenchantment. It ’s a book which the fashionable wicked will probably scoff at, nnd the righteous will avoid, and the selfrighteous will conlemp and read diligently. The sermon is brilliant. The author has strung together in ,hiß original plot, with its turning allegorical point, a teries of dialogues about Christianity and the old god Pan, a sermon capable of moving %be .wickedest stones, if they will only ’read it as the author intends them to read it. (Thornton Butterworth, London.)