Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/178

 edition. The book has not only been read by representatives of all classes in all countries, but is valued and loved by many thousands who, by the wonderful power of this single pen, have been forced to think; and, by meditating upon the problems which make the book, have found themselves better men and women for the exercise.

"Thousands and tens of thousands throughout English-speaking Christendom," declared Father Ignatius, "will bless the author who has dared to pen the pages of 'The Sorrows of Satan'; they will bless Marie Corelli's pen, respecting its denunciation of the blasphemous verses of a certain 'popular British poet.' Where did the courage come from that made her pen so bold that the personality of God, the divinity of Christ, the sanctity of marriage, the necessity of religious education should thus crash upon you from the pen of a woman?"

Courageous, indeed, is any author or speaker who attacks the selfishness, the materialism, the insincerity of much of our social life and of many of our social customs. And what made the attack so successful, what caused such bitter resentment on the part of those who hate Marie Corelli for her exposures of shams and impostures, and her valiant upholding of virtue and of truth, is the fact that the author has not only the courage which her convic