Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/242

 romance, or mysticism of the Roman Catholic Faith. If it were purified from the accumulated superstition of ages, and freed from intolerance and bigotry, it would perhaps be the grandest form of Christianity in the world. But the rats are in the house, and the rooms want cleaning." She attacks neither the Roman Catholic Faith nor even the Church. She makes a terrible onslaught upon the rats.

"The Master Christian" is both a novel and a sermon. The story of the book is intensely interesting, in "plot" clever and original. It is one of the refreshing features of Miss Corelli's books that the plots always are original. She does not go to the British Museum or to the productions of Continental novelists to find her themes. Wherever, in "The Master Christian," the mission of the book can best be emphasized, even though what critics call the "art of the story"—as to which we should like something in the nature of a clear definition—gives way to it, she pursues the mission. After all, we have an idea that if literature possesses merit, it is rather because it is followed as a means of influencing men's minds than as an attempt to write a story, the lines of which fall together as harmoniously as do the notes of a perfect string band. Such a book if produced