This book explores the intellectual contexts for Mr Casaubon, a central character in George Eliot's classic and much-loved novel Middlemarch.

Scientific and historical studies in the Nineteenth-century challenged Christian believers to restate their faith in ways which took account of new knowledge. An example of this is the influence of philosophical idealism on a generation of writers and theologians, principally centred around the University of Oxford. However, these optimistic and socially-privileged men and women failed to come to terms with the mass movements and rapid changes in fin-de-siècle England. The Church moved out of touch with national life and is reaping the consequences today.

Vols. 227-230, no. 2 include: Stuff and nonsense, v. 5-6, no. 8, Jan. 1929-Aug. 1930.

We often dismiss history as dull or irrelevant, but our modern disengagement from the past puts us fundamentally out of step with the long witness of the Christian tradition. Yet, says Margaret Bendroth, the past tense is essential to our language of faith, and without it our conversation is limited and thin. This accessible, beautifully written book presents a new argument for honoring the past. The Christian tradition gives us the powerful image of a vast communion of saints, all of God's people, both living and dead, in vital conversation with each other. This kind of connection with our ancestors in the faith, Bendroth maintains, will not happen by wishing or by accident. She argues that remembering must become a regular spiritual practice, part of the rhythm of our daily lives as we recognize our world to be, in many ways, a gift from others who have gone before.