MODERN PARABLES

This is a collection of true stories about real people each of which brings out a moral and spiritual truth. Fulton Cursler says that he ""offers these tales that illustrate great truths in constructive living in the confidence that in every life there is significance and that, every day and every hour man walks in the midst of living parables, himself an actor in them."" Many concern people alive today and identified by name. Gene Tunney, Professor Lgon of Union College, Blackstone, the Magician, and many others. They are well told -- some of them are gems of the story-telling art, the one about Franklin D. Roosevelt's classmate, for example. One suspects that some of them, at least, have appeared in Guideposts, that little periodical edited by Norman Vincent Peale, which has gained such wide circulation and to which Fulton Cursler is a contributor. While Oursler is a Catholic, there is nothing sectarian about this book. Indeed it is only in the broadest sense a religious book. The stories will no doubt provide illustrative material for many a sermons, many a lecture. If the sermons and lectures are as well written as these parables, the hearers will sit up and listen. But if they are of the name spiritual depth, no one will find himself beyond the life lines.