ost brilliant of Chesterton's novels; it is an argument
between a Christian ass and a very decent atheist. Atheists, if they are
sincere, are on the way to becoming good Christians; Christians, if they
are insincere, are on the way to becoming atheists.

The book opens with a theological argument in the air between a
professor and a monk. This becomes to the professor so wearisome that,
with great good sense, he leaves the monk clinging to the cross at the
top of St. Paul's Cathedral while he disappears into the clouds in his
silver airship.

Having successfully climbed into the gallery, the monk is arrested as a
wandering lunatic and taken off to an asylum. Meanwhile, a great deal of
excitement is agitating Ludgate Hill, where an atheistic editor runs a
paper that propounds (with all the usual insults at Christ, which
culminate in an attack on the method of the birth of Christ) the creed
of atheism. A particularly slanderous attack on the Virgin Mary results
in an ardent Roman Catholic throwing a stone through the blasphemer's
window.

The result is that they are both brought up before the magistrate, and
the two men decide to fight a duel.

The whole book really, then, consists of a theological argument between
the two, interspersed with attempts to settle their differences by a
duel, which is always interrupted at the crucial moment. Finally, after
queer adventures, the two arrive in a lunatic asylum, in which they are
kept until the place is burned down. It so happens that the chief doctor
of the place turns out to be Professor Lucifer, who had left the monk
clinging to the Cross at the top of the Cathedral. He is burnt to death
in an airship disaster, and the atheist and the Catholic end their
adventures.

'The Ball and the Cross' is very full of fine passages. It presents the
side of the atheist and the Catholic in a brilliant manner. The chapter
that describes the trial before the magistrate has got the atmosphere of
the police-court to perfection. Not less good is the Chestertonian
satire of the comments of the Press on the case, in which Chesterton
makes some pungent remarks about Fleet Street 'stunts.' Perhaps one of
the best things in the book is the argument between the French Catholic
girl and Turnbull the atheist on the doctrine of Transubstantiation.
This passage must be quoted; it is one of the best arguments for the
Sacrament that has been written for those people who can see that (even
in these d