It is a gray day when young Johnny Fletcher arrrives in Barryfield to take up his new ministry after the war.  The mining and industrial community is covered with a heavy pall of smoke and smog which seems to indicate its defeated spirit.  Its people do not take kindly to this good-humored and resourceful man of God, whose Christianity infuses every act and word.  But his uncompromising faith which disturbs their complacency is not the only unsettling thing about Johnny; there is also his "family," a group of five orphaned refugee children whom he adopted while an Army chaplain in Europe in the hope of winning them back to a meaningful life by understanding and love.  These are strange children, robbed of their innocence by the brutalities of war, and bearing in their hearts the scars of that conflict - a fear and mistrust of all but each other.  With kindness and patience Johnny gradually rebuilds security for his shattered brood.  He also wins the confidence of a few of Barryfield's inhabitants: the Catholic priest, the Jewish rabbi, and bluff and embittered Dr. McManus.

But there remains the apathy and hostility of his congregation, and, beyond this, range far more powerful forces against the minister - forces of selfishness and subversion which find their voice through the Barryfield Press and its editor and publisher, MacDonald Summerfield.  Under the leadership of this twisted man the opposition increases:  a frenzied mob attempts to drive the minister from the town; and, on Christmas Eve, the parsonage is set on fire.  Even as Lorry, Summerfield's beautiful, talented, and unhappy daughter, finds in her growing love for Johnny a new purpose in life, the malicious attacks continue.

McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., Book Club edition, 1956, 374 pages, hardcover with dustjacket, G-VG condition (chipping and wear to dustjacket otherwise VG).

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