THE CHURCH

explains the need for, and the constant progress of, the re Church from the age of primitive Christianity through the and up to the present day. What he provides, in fact, is the historical for contemporary investigations of the , biblical, liturgical, and of the Church. His thesis is that the Church, in perennially re by way of reaction rather than on her own initiative, has tended to symptons, rather than with the causes, of internal revolt and of external though McNlly's style is not always graceful nor, consequently, is his with the vigor and clarity that the importance of his work would a small book, by reason of its originality and synthetic quality, is a addition to the literature of ecclesiastical reform. It should find a audience among historians, theologians, and cultivated general .