Thomas Chalmers : a Biographical Study. By James Dodds. (01i-
phant.)—Mr. Dodd's idea in writing this book is good, though 'some exception may be taken to his way of working it out. It is to give the essence of a biography,—what may be called a portrait in miniature of a man's life. He has in this case admirable materials, to the merits of
which he bears due testimony, in Dr. Hanna's Memoirs of Chalmers, and, on the whole, he uses them well. Sometimes he intrudes himself too much ; lets us know, for instance, that he disapproves of Church Estab- lishments, and anticipates their downfall, when it would have been much more to the purpose to point out the remarkable results of the disruption ; how theories have adapted themselves to the fait accompli of disestab- lishment, so that those who look up to Chalmers almost as their founder make themselves the advocate of the Voluntaryism, which he hated as much as he hated anything, except wrong-doing. Nor do we think him justified in using language so contemptuous about the "Moderates" of the Scotch Church. It is impossible for some of the men who boar that name to have belonged to a party so utterly mean and worthless as he declares it to have been. Apart from this fault, and a certain pomposity of language, Mr. Dodds has written a good book. He appreciates his subject ; finds, indeed, no fault in his hero—and it would not be easy to find fault—but yet does not give us tho idea of being possessed by that blind, foolish adulation which is the besotting sin of biographers.
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