Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/28

 differed from her in their religious views. The impiety of its rulers was the root of the evil which plunged France into the throes of a ghastly Revolution. Even on every coin of the realm at the present day,—on every sovereign that changes hands at race meetings, on every penny that the street arabs play pitch and toss with, we are reminded that the reigning monarch is the Defender of our "Faith."

A simple belief in God pervades everything that Marie Corelli has written, and from this devout standpoint she views all those other things which constitute mundane existence—Love, Marriage, buying and selling, social intercourse, art, science, and education.

Her books abound in passages which bewail the fact that—to extract a phrase from the "Master-Christian"—"the world is not with Christ to-day." Her sole weapons pen and paper, the author of that remarkable book is making a strenuous effort to dispel the torpor to which Christianity is gradually succumbing. The keynote of her work is sounded by Cardinal Bonpré, when he deplores the decay of holy living. "For myself, I think there is not much time left us! I feel a premonition of Divine wrath threatening the world, and when I study the aspect of the times and see the