Thoughts on Religion
SEVERAL books have appeared of late which would seem o group themselves round this or that aspect of religious thought rather than to contribute to theology in the stricter sense. Thus, we have two volumes of personal dicta, The Seen and the Unseen (Hodder and Stoughton, fis.), extracts made from the writings of the late Sir W. Robertson Nicoll by his wife and daughter, and arranged under various headings, and Thoughts on Religion, compiled by the late Professor Samuel Shattock (Kegan Paul, Os.) and collected by his son, Mr. Clement E. Shattock.
The extracts from the religious writings of Sir W. Robertson Nicoll will be valued by those who knew his books and articles and were aware of the forceful personality of a many-sided man. The arrangement and printing of the book are attractive, but the thoughts themselves on the whole not so penetrating in quality as might have been expected. We looked for more illuminating comments on books and on the Book ; on characters and on the Greatest Character. Hale White, by he way, is always spoken of under his pen-name of Mark limherford, with no indication that it is a pen-name.
The work of Professor Shattock, on the other hand, is qangely arresting, for more reasons than one. That the l'iofes.sor of Morbid Anatomy in the University of London and athological Curator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in England should, for nearly fifty years of life, -e kept a record of his thoughts on religion, and have ndcred and repondered them every Sunday afternoon with creased and absorbed interest, awakens curiosity, and a udy of the thoughts themselves merges curiosity into Oiling much more vivid and enduring. The prose work Coventry Patmore, a co-religionist of Dr. Shattock, is, course, a world of its own, but in their use of logic, of Wive paradox, and of reason that is deeper far than mere nalizing, these aphorisms come as near to " The Rod, Root, and the Flower " as anything we have ever read. original mind has worked over the grounds and implications its faith again and again, and the result is a book worth sell reflection and study.
In Sacramental Principles (A. R. Mowbray and Co., 2s. 6d.)
• W. J. Sparrow-Simpson publishes lectures given to clergy Brighton, Eastbourne, and•" elsewhere on the doctrine of Eucharist. Those who are familiar with his work know he clarity of his style and his excellent arrangement of terial. He employs them both here in defence of the High nglican (it is necessary to use the phrase) definition of the Ring and operation of the Holy Sacrament, as against Modernist conception of value--with special reference some recent expressions of Bishop Barnes--:the Evangelical stxdical interpretation, and the views of Continental 'es such as Holtzman, Weinel and Heitmfiller. And brings in Schweitzer and Loisy very effectively as allies. views which Dr. Sparrow-Simpson champions have always had a foothold in the English Church, though we do not think he could cite Hooker in aid of them, and the ground he traverses will continue to be an area of controversy.
In the Christian Church the ministry of the Word accom- panies that of the Sacraments, and, in the mind of the English people, really good preaching is so important a factor that we welcome the volume, Preaching in Theory and Practice, by Samuel McComb, D.D. (Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 7s. 6d.), as a valuable contribution to a great subject. Dr. Fosdick, wino rightly observes that " we have preached too much, and not well enough ; we need less quantity and more quality," contributes an introduction. And one of the most practical of the chapters, " The Psychology of Preaching," is reprinted from The Modern Churchman, and is full of. excellent counsel for tine preacher, who lives in an age when " authoritarian " sermons are things of the past. Of course, the root of the matter must be in every speaker who is to move his audience, but, that granted, preachers will find much to inspire, as well as something to warn them,. in Dr. McComb's pages.
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