Three time Nobel Literature prize nominee William Ralphe Inge pens this collection of essays looking at Western society from a religious and political view point. The essays cover topics such as 'Patriotism', 'The Birth Rate', 'Bishop Gore and The Church of England', 'Roman Catholic Modernism' and 'Survival and Immortality'. Writing in the period just after the start of the World War 1, he opines that his views were only reinforced by the politics leading up to the war.