G. K. Chesterton was a great mind and certainly not a "rookie author." I hope I'm reading you wrong there. You may not agree with him, but that doesn't mean he's a rookie.
Sure, he was a great mind. However he was getting started by the time of All things considered, published 1908. Let's put it this way, he published far more after this essay than before, so on a relative level he was rookie author when he wrote the essay.
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton American Chesterton Society: http://www.chesterton.org/