The novel tracks the life of Father Campbell, a convert to Catholicism from a wealthy family, from his ordination to the priesthood just before the First World War until his death many years later, as a Cardinal.

In his first parish assignment, Father Campbell found himself pitted against his Rector, a canon, in a kind of running conflict the first of a series of minor entanglements and setbacks which lay in the path of his vocation like boulders.

Father Campbell was patient and humble; but in his early years his essential characteristic was a rebellious intelligence, challenged by Catholic discipline and eventually mellowed by the experiences which befell him after he had been created Cardinal.

A study of the complex problems facing the world and the church, the book presents a dramatic and absorbing reality to subjects the layman rarely sees and often feels kept from.

A famous writer has said that only the truly good can understand evil and Father Campbell is a man for whom the glory of God and the truth of the Church are the ultimate realities.