The World, the Flesh, and Father Smith
 | |
| Author | Bruce Marshall |
|---|---|
| Country | Scotland |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
Publication date | 1945 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 191 |
| Preceded by | Yellow Tapers for Paris (1943) |
| Followed by | George Brown's Schooldays (1946) |
The World, the Flesh, and Father Smith (also known as All Glorious Within) is a 1944 novel by Scottish writer Bruce Marshall. The book was a June 1945 Book of the Month Club selection and was also produced as an Armed Services Edition.[1]
Plot summary
This is the fictional life story of a parish priest, a man of God “conscious of the indwelling of the Trinity,” living the life of grace in a drab industrial town, bringing the grace of God to weak human beings seduced by the devil’s ancient lures of the world and the flesh.
It covers the activities of Father Thomas Edmund Smith in his urban Scottish parish from 1908 until his death in 1942. On this framework, the author hangs the glowing tapestry of Father Smith’s spiritual life, a life of sanctity, humility, and burning love of God. He interacts with a wide range of people, children, adults and other clerics. It also tracks the lives of two particular youths from their innocent childhood affections to their respectives lives as a priest and an actress.
From the dust jacket: "This is the story of Father Smith, priest in a Scottish city - of his friends, the exiled French nuns, of the Bishop, of Monsignor O'Duffy who wages simple, violent war against simple sins, of Father Bonnyboat, the liturgical scholar, of all the people who come into the gentle orbit of Father Smith - from Lady Ippecacuanha, that tweedy convert, to the slut Annie who drives her husband to murder."[2]