The Rev. Dr. John Clifford says:—“Magnificent as the offspring of fancy, it is mightiest as the product of faith. There is not a false note in it. It rings with sincerity. Figures crowd its pages in pleasantest setting, like flowers in a sunlit landscape, but it is the blending of the forces of genius and faith which charms and binds men, and makes the booklet immortal.”
The Very Rev. the Dean of Salisbury says:—“I think it in all respects most certain to make a profound impression.”
The Rev. Dr. R. F. Horton, M.A., says:—“In Mr. Kernahan we have a strong writer who will one day be great. He has the grand manner. He has the touch of Jean Paul Richter in him, which is not elsewhere found among his contemporaries.... No laboured apology for Christianity will go so far or accomplish so much as this impassioned utterance, this poem in prose, this thought of the years distilled in one pearl drop of purest water.”
The Daily Mail says:—“Resembling in many respects his ‘God and the Ant,’ this new book of Mr. Kernahan’s is an even finer example of imaginative brilliancy, poetic eloquence, and fervent spiritual appeal.... There can be no doubt that his little book must make a very deep and abiding impression upon the hearts and minds of all who read it.”
Miss Frances E. Willard says:—“This beautiful and helpful book will do enormous good in this age when faith is weak.”
The Sketch says:—“Mr. Coulson Kernahan is a man of very large imaginative gifts. He is a dreamer of dreams, yet human love begets them. There are few delivering an apocalypse to-day who have a tithe of his literary skill. He affects nothing, seeking rather to appeal to the heart of his reader, and in his simplicity finds his strength. How great that strength is a perusal of ‘The Child, the Wise Man, and the Devil’ very clearly shows.... As dramatic and as finely realised as anything in the fiction of to-day.... A masterpiece of prose and imagination.”
The Rev. F. B. Meyer says:—“It is powerfully conceived, and thrills with passion; but its chief value is its exposure of the hopelessness and impossibility of the goal to which modern infidelity would conduct us. It will arrest and convince thousands.”
The Rev. Canon H. D. Rawnsley says:—“This noble parable.”
The Illustrated London News says:—“All, of whatever school, must recognise the boundless charity, the literary power, and the intense sincerity of one of the most interesting books of the year.”
The Rev. Hugh Price Hughes says:—“I recognised in it at once Mr. Kernahan’s striking genius. I have no doubt that he will reach many who cannot be approached by any of the ordinary agencies or modes. From every point of view I regard it as a very valuable and remarkable book.”