New-York tribune., 1922-09-17

end into Rome and at the other end
into methodism---the lack of capitaliza-
tion is Mr.. Northumberland the weak
joint of Apostolic Succession, though
braced by history and saintliness. can
not save John Henry Newman from
the DOGGY of the Monophysite heresy.
The father of the unfortunate younp
Mark. having given TO his son a most
dangerously religious education, found
himself rather in the position of the
reverend Laurence Armitage, in "Poor
RELATIONS, who was not prepared to
60 one Jot or title beyond the Five
Points of the Eastward Position. the
Mixed Chalice, Lights. Wafer Bread
and Vestments. but not the ceremonial
use OF Incense, except that he was
prepared to accept anything except the
eehoacy of the clergy. Not having,
IKE cardinal Manning, received a spe-
cial mercy In the death of the wife of
ms TOO protestant youth, the Reverend
James Lidderdale went out to the
heathen and there died: his Cornish
wlfe died of pneumonia; her father
nerolcally died trying to rescue 10
drowning sailor; and Mark came to one
OF those uncles and one of those schools
SO often met in English fiction that
they presumably exist-such an uncle
and an even worse school than Am
prose MeyrlckS.
On a properly adolescent Sunday
morning, in the Church of Meade Can
forum, Mark knew that he must be a
priest, after one of those religious ex-
periences so incomprehensible to less
spiritual beings, and his further his
tory IS the history of his soul and of
the various vicarages, Anglican monas-
fpr1nq thpnfOUJfal
provement, at any rate, upon the sem
mary which assisted in bringing julien
Sore1 to the guillotine-and emotions
which led him to the altar steps, an
other victim, though there is none of
the new psychology, none, at least, of
| its vocabulary, in his story, Of the
Gdipus complex; a fellow in his ago
nizing childish nights to Michael Fame
and to M. Marcel Proust's little seeker
after lost times.
There are not many more Americans,
probably, who know their Compton
Mackenzie so we'll that q new book of
his is a happy rapprochement with all
of the characters that one loved long
since and lost awhile. But when Mark
went to the Cotswolds and walked up
from Wychford in the valley of the
Greenrush, when he encountered the
admirable Richard Ford, those people
who find Pauline Grey one of the love
liest of all English heroines can scarce
ly wait two pages for him to find
Wychford Rectory and Monica, who was
! by Luini, Margaret, who was by Peru
glno ana Faullne who was just
St. Cecilia herself at fourteen. "The
Altar Steps" is only the prelude to "The
Parsons Progress" and almost one may
hope that Mark will some day console
Pauline for Guy, whom Mr.. Mackenzie
would surely never have left dead in
Serbia except in his one book, which
must be forgiven as reaction to the war
There are echoes of Michael's Father
Viner, of Philip Iredale, whose wife
| Sylvia had just run away from him, and
there is actually upon the stage the
Rev. Oliver Dorward, who said a mass
for Napoleon with a special intention
for the conversion of the present gov
ernment in France, and mass for
Shakespeare, with a special intention
for an Improvement in contemporary
verse. mass for the Rev Laurence
Sterne, with a special intention for an
Improvement in the contemporary
novel, is charming idea, but the con
temporary novel, after all, is doing so
we'll that perhaps Mr.. Dorward cele-
brated it book or two ago; at any
rate, though, "The Altar Steps" is not
for every one. Such q suggestion is
unthinkable when one has lust read
Explicit Praeludium