Faith for Living

THE point of this book (and none could be more appropriate) is that we should undergo conversion, experience a change of heart, exercise repentance, and spiritualize ourselves and all our activities, both individual and collective. To clear the ground for this excellent work we should first take up the sword of the Lord and of Gideon and hew Agag in pieces; that is, we should sally forth armed to the teeth, exterminate the Fascists and Nazis, and put an end to their abominable practices. Mr. Mumford seems aware that the reaction from this démarcbe might hold up the spiritualizing process a little, which of course would be quite too bad, but must be put up with for the sake of the Larger Good. As long as Fascism and Naziism exist even in theory, apparently, there is no hope for us or for the sinful world.

Thus Mr. Mumford presents himself as a rather fractious compound of Solomon Eagle, Savonarola, and Peter the Hermit. He does not write well, chiefly because he does not think clearly; his thought is seldom ‘worked through,’ as the Germans say, or controlled by a sense of what is due to the logical stringency with which a philosopher must proceed. Emotionally, however, he is almost always to be found on the side of the angels — his lapses from this state of grace are very few and easily identified — and his book, like all his previous work, faithfully reflects this merit.