SOME BOOKS 01? THE WEEK.
[Under Ode heacTimg we notice such Reeks of the wadi as hoof not bass reserved for review in other forms.3 Dr. Arthur Jackson of Manchuria. By the Rev. Alfred J. Costain. (Hodder and Stoughton. 2s. net.)—Arthur Jackson, who had. volunteered to join the Medical Mission of the Free Church of Scotland in Manchuria, arrived at Moukden on November 13th, worked hard among plague patients, and died of the disease on January 25th. That would be a sufficiently tragical story in any ease; but when we read the story of his life—he was a few weeks short of his twenty-seventh birthday when he died— when we see of how fine a clay he was made, it becomes pathetic in the highest degree. He seems, indeed, to have been nothing less than admirable. A fine physique, a magnetic personality, a practically effective intelligence—he was placed in the first class in his Tripos at Cambridge—a blameless life, ruled but not in the least saddened by religious convictions—what more could be looked for? And this man, when he is just beginning the work of his life, catches the breath of a plague-infected coolie and dies. It is indeed a mysterious ordering of things. All that we can say is that there have been events even more unintelligible. 1114 death did at least make a profound impression on the people for whom he was working. It made them more ready to trust these strangers from the West and to receive the message which they brought. And there is the larger truth of the gain which underlies such seeming loss. Did not the two travellers to Emmaus think that the death which was to regenerate the world was nothing but the end of a hopeful life ? Mr. Costain has done well to give us the pleasing and interesting details of Arthur Jackson's early days. It helps us to realize him, and so gives a deeper meaning to the whole story.
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