SOME OF GOD'S ENGLISHMEN.
Some of God's Englishmen. By the Rev. A. T. Bannister. (Jake- man and Carver, Hereford.)—Mr. Bannister puts forcibly some truths about the moral and spiritual aspects of human life, and illustrates them with examples from English history. His "Poet" is, of course, Shakespeare, and his "King" Alfred. The "Priest," not so easy a choice, is Anselm, and his "Prophet," hardest of all, is Carlyle. Perhaps the best of the five lectures—the first is, introductory—and the most needed, is that on the Priest. There is no subject on which there is more confusion and ignorance :— "The true authority of what the Bible calls 'a teaching priest' [is] the authority which the expert has always over the inexpert, the wise always, and by right divine, over the ignorant. But if the priest presume to say, I have got the heavenly treasure safely locked up in my sacrarium. Come obediently to me, and I will dispense it to you from week to week '—then he has stooped to priestcraft." Only we must not forget the representative character of the priest. He is what he is, and does what he does, because he stands for the whole body of the faithful.
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