Here is a history of our times written on an unfamiliar theme ⏤ a history filled with love and happiness and vision and strength, telling of triumphs gained and wider triumphs yet to come; and whatever it holds of darkest tragedy it leaves mankind at its close not facing a grim inhospitable future but marching out from the shadows on the high road of an inevitable destiny towards the opened gates of the Promised City of Eternal Peace.

These hundred years as we have known them have been distinguished by human achievements and marvels unparalleled in any annals, and also by unparalleled disillusion and loss. But this history tells of wonders greater, mightier, more beneficent, wrought in the same period; and its tidings instead of tears and sorrow are of long forgotten joy and vanquished power descended from heaven once more into the world of action and the lives or mortal men. It tells of things divine: of the birth of a new World Faith in our midst ⏤ a Faith which comes in succession to all the World Faiths of the past, acknowledging all, fulfilling all, carrying the common purpose of all to its consummation: and bearing to the Christians, "the people of the Gospel," a special summons to rise and help speed its propagation through the whole earth.

The narrative centre round one majestic lone Figure, and its animating motive is the infinite transcendent love He bears for all mankind and the answering love which He draws forth from the hearts of the faithful.
⏤ George Townshend