A Lost Cause

The hard-hitting literary defense of the Catholic Church.

“Has all the elements of a great and popular success. In the guise of fiction, we are presented with a graphic picture, from the High Church point of view, of that ill-starred campaign which quite seriously disturbed the faith of many. Mr. Thorne has managed to invest his principal characters with a real and sympathetic interest, and his story is keenly interesting and vividly alive.” -The Standard

“Written vividly, succinctly and effectively, the book is a fervent defense of the Catholic party in the Church. Guy Thorne exhibits in this work to a great extent the definite Churchmanship that was shown in ‘When It Was Dark.’ The Hamlyn family is sketched with admirable humour and sarcasm, and Miss Pritchett, the shrewish old woman who joins the agitators through disgust with the vicar, is an excellent sketch. Of the other side, the two most successful characters are Father Blantyre, the little Irish priest, and Lord Huddersfield, the peer who is so forward in the Church work. The author gives his readers a subsidiary love-story, which has more charm than is usual with a book with so evident a purpose.” -Pall Mall Gazette

“This remarkable book succeeds admirably in its object – that is, in beating Protestant fiction on its own grounds. This vigorous and piercing polemic will probably create as great a sensation as ‘When It Was Dark,’ and be as great a success.” -The Morning Leader

“Decidedly clever. It is a better book, too, than that much-talked-of ‘When It Was Dark.” -The Daily Telegraph

“From whatever point of view his object may be regarded, it must be admitted that Mr. Thorne has performed his task, both of defense and attack, not only with the marked literary ability of which he gave evidence in his former book, but with evident sincerity, a thorough grasp of his subject, and – rarest attribute of all I a work of this order – an alert sense of humour. Ecclesiastically, Mr. Thorne’s work is sure to create a sensation; but its conspicuous strength and cleverness can be recognized even by those who are not specially interested in the cause which it supports or the conflict with which it deals.” -The World

“The book treats this theme with dramatic intensity.” -Book Review Digest, Volume 2, 1906

“At no period in modern Church history has the Church been assailed with such malignance, slander, and untruth as at the present. "Protestantism" within the Church is a lost cause, it is dying, and for just this reason the clamour is loudest, the misrepresentation more furious and envenomed. Shrewd opportunists are taking their last chance of emerging from obscurity by an appeal to the ignorance of the general public on Church matters. Looking round us, we see dozens of uneducated and noisy nobodies who have elected themselves into a sort of irregular prelacy and dubbed themselves "Defenders of the Faith," with about as much right as Napoleon crowned himself emperor.

“Finally, the noisiest "Protestants" are hitting the Church as hard as they can. The author has endeavored to hit back as hard as he can—of course, in that spirit of Christian love in which the "Protestants" themselves tell us these controversies are always conducted.” -Guy Thorne