Charles Stamford : Memories and Letters. Edited by his Wife.
(Hodder and Stoughton.)—In this volume we have the memorials of a very worthy man, who for a number of years was minister in Denmark Place Baptist Chapel, Camberwell, who is known in religious literature for his biographies of Doddridge and Alleine, and of whom, after death, Mr. Spurgeon said, in his quaint way : —" There was a holy sanctified wit that seemed to twinkle like the Pleiades in all his speeches." Born in 1828, in Northampton, Charles Stanford was not intended originally for the ministry ; but he drifted into it ; his pastoral career was divided chiefly between Devizes and Camberwell. If ever a man was devoted to his work, it was he. He suffered much from blindness and even more painful ailments ; but he was always bright, always in- dustrious, to the last able to sympathise with others, to the last able to write little books of various kinds, instinct with the old Puritanic theology. Perhaps no man of his own time was more respected within his own communion, or, for that matter, beyond it, than Charles Stanford. Why he was so respected is fully shown by the letters which the affection of his widow has collected, and which form the bulk of this volume. They are full of a simple evangelical piety, but they are always cheery, and not infrequently relieved by a quiet humour. This book of necessity appeals to a rather limited circle of readers ; but by that circle it deserves to be thoroughly appreciated.
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