CURRENT LITERATURE
ATONEMENT. By H. Maynard Smith, D.D., Canon of Gloucester. (Macmillan. 12s. 6d. net.) CANON MAYNARD Smrrn, with wide parochial experience and a thorough if conventional theology to guide him, has written thisconsiderable volume to show rational grounds for believing in
the Atonement. His purpose rightly does not end there, for he holds that such a belief must be practical and should issue in a new life, in which men feel their responsibility towards their Redeemer, who, -being God, became Man for their salvation, and devote their powers and gifts to His service. The writer is a strong sacramentalist, and urges the Sacrament of the Altar as the great means of receiving and realizing the benefits of the Cross. The whole treatise is plain and simple in expression, and breaks no new ground. Much is made of the universality of the appeal of the Cross, but that appeal, while powerful at every street-corner, is not, the author thinks, pre- sented to the ordinary church-goer as it used to be, and should be. He holds also that it is whittled down by the " modern
mind." The book will win its way by its earnest sincerity, and its theology, though it runs on limited lines, is always competent and sure. It is specially forcible when dealing
with such questions as " Is Man worthy of God's pity ? "—less so in restricting the motive and effect of the Cross to one aspect
only, and when it turns aside to discuss, as perhaps it was bound to do, a doctrine such as that of the Virgin Birth. The
difficulties which surround this subject cannot be dismissed in an authoritative sentence or two.
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