The Elusive Quest of the Spiritual Malcontent

Book excerpt: Timothy C. F. Stunt has gathered a range of his essays, both published and unpublished in a collection of largely biographical studies. His subjects range from discontented Quakers hesitating over their identity, to respectable Anglicans who were fascinated with the charismatic phenomena of tongue speaking and healing. Some of the characters with whom he is concerned can be described as "mavericks" on account of their strikingly individualist inclinations. Occasionally their unpredictability takes on a quasi-comic identity, which could even qualify them to be described as "loose cannons." On the other hand, some of them like Edward Irving, Norris Groves, and John Darby played a crucial part in the development of nineteenth-century evangelicalism. In their quest for the ideal church of their dreams, they were often disappointed but one cannot but admire the single-mindedness of their quest.