Article September 28, 1899 Issue

Religious Wave Sweeps the World

Hall Caine, the Manx novelist, holds very strong, and what some people conceive to be uncommon, opinions on practical religious problems. Mr. Caine is not always willing to discuss for the public prints the religious ideas he has developed in his works. He is fearful of being misunderstood. He prefers to picture in a character or a situation the striking tendencies and phases of modern life, rather than to lay down bold theological dogmas. He is the psychic artist rather than the ecclesiastical metaphysician. This quality of the novelist's mind was strongly manifested when Mr. Caine talked reluctantly on live religious questions with a Press reporter.

"Do you think that there is so great a personal conception among Christians in these days as might be fairly inferred from your published treatment of the subject?" queried the reporter.

"I should not like to answer that question directly," was Mr. Caine's reply, after a thoughtful pause. "One can scarcely say how much is read into one's writings. It is the work of the novelist to portray, to picture character. It would not be fair to draw a general conclusion from a particular character. A character stands for a class—the corrupt Christian, for instance, representing a type. He is one of whom there at "any, but he is not the whole race."

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