William Ralph Inge, the English ecclesiastic and religious thinker, was born at Crayke, Yorkshire. Educated at Eton and Cambridge, he was fellow of Hertford College, Oxford, from 1889 to 1905, vicar of All Saints Church, Knightsbridge, from 1905 to 1907, and professor at Cambridge from 1907 to 1911, when he was appointed dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, London. During his long tenure of this high office, he became one of the best-known Englishmen of his generation. He continued his lifelong studies in philosophy and mysticism, and his penetrating comments on the events of his time, especially on the foibles of contemporary civilization, earned him the sobriquet of "the gloomy dean." He retired in 1934 to Brightwell Manor, Berkshire, where he spent twenty years more of thought and activity before his death.

What provoked Inge's criticism of contemporary culture was its preoccupation with material progress; against this, he pleaded for...