Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/246

 We wonder if that saying of Christ's was remembered when the ban of excommunication was pronounced by the Greek Church against Count Leo Tolstoy! We wonder if that saying of Christ's is remembered at Rome when any ban of excommunication is passed, when religious rites of burial are denied to any man! And if the reply be that the words do not apply because the Pope and his priests commit no trespasses, we can only wonder what Christ would say if He came to Rome; and, further, we believe that He would say much that the child-Christ Manuel utters in "The Master Christian."

The text of the book is that charity and forgiveness—the carrying out of Christ's commands in the spirit of the Saviour—should guide mankind to-day, that they apply to-day as they did in the days of Christ's sojourn on earth, and that the conditions of the world to-day are such as render it possible for Christians to walk in His steps. In the "open letter" to Cardinal Vaughan, already referred to, we find in some of the passages a true insight into the spirit of and the aims with which "The Master Christian" was written.

"My Lord Cardinal," she says, "there are certain of us in the world who, overwhelmed by the desperate difficulties of life and the confusion arising