Floud marvelled that this author could retain his orthodox standing, for he viewed the Bible as a purely human collection of imperfect writings, the wonder-stories concerning the birth and death of Jesus as deserving no credence, and denied to Christianity any supernatural foundation.

Polytheism was shown to be the soil from which all trinitarian conceptions naturally spring--the Brahmanic, Zoroastrian, Homeric, Plotinian, as well as the Christian trinity--the latter being a Greek idea engrafted on a Jewish stalk.

The author's conclusion, by which he reached "an undogmatic gospel of the spirit, independent of all creeds and forms--a gospel of love to God and man, with another Trinity of Love, Truth and Freedom," was particularly irritating to the disturbed Baptist, who spoke bitterly of the day having dawned when the Church's most dangerous enemies were those critical vipers whom she had warmed in her own bosom.
Suffield, the gaunt, dark, but twinkling-eyed Methodist, also sniffed at the conclusion of the ethnic-trinities person.

"We have an age of substitutes," he remarked.

"We have had substitutes for silk and sealskin--very creditable substitutes, so I have been assured by a lady in whom I have every confidence--substitutes for coffee, for diamonds--substitutes for breakfast which are widely advertised--substitutes for medicine--and now we are coming to have substitutes for religion--even a substitute for hell!" Hereupon he told of a book he had read, also written by an orthodox professor of theology, in which the argument, advanced upon scriptural evidence, was that the wicked do not go into endless torment, but ultimately shrivel and sink into a state of practical unconsciousness.
Yet the author had been unable to find any foundation for universalism.
This writer, Suffield explained, holds that the curtain falls after the judgment on a lost world.