Recollections. By Washington Gladden. (A. Constable and Co. 7s. 6d.
net.)—Dr. Gladden was born in Pennsylvania, in what we should call a humble condition ; his great-grandfather was a soldier in Washington's army, a New Englander, and probably descended from one of the immigrants of the !Mayflower' times. Dr. Gladden began the work of life in a printing-office ; was a school-teacher for a short time ; went to College, where he gave "on an average fourteen or fifteen hours a day to study" ; and finally was retained to the ministry in the Methodist Church. His first charge was in 1860, in the heat, therefore, of the Abolitionist conflict. One Sunday Dr. Gladden had chosen James Montgomery's hymn, "Daughter of Zion, from the dust." A neighbour who was preaching suggested that this should bo shortened by leaving out the stanza (a paraphrase of Isaiah) :— " Rebuild thy walls, thy bounds enlarge, And send thy heralds forth ;
Say to the South, Give up thy charge, And keep not back, 0 North."
He was praised the next day for having rebuked Dr. Gladden's Abolitionist tendencies. About this time a Presbyterian minister preached a sermon in which he argued that Abolitionism and infidelity were identical. Slavery was recognised in the Bible, and to tamper with it—the preacher might have added, with polygamy —was profane. Dr. Gladden has interesting recollections of the Civil War, of the movement in theology with which he has himself been profoundly touched, and of not a few other important matters. His book will appeal first, indeed, to his own countrymen, but with no small force to readers on this side of the Atlantic.
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