Parsons and Weavers : a Study in Lancashire Mental Work.
By the Rev. F. B. Smith. (Skeffington and Son.)—Much of this volume is of general application. Good sense, the resolution to do every- thing as well as you can—as, e.g., to spend as much pains on an address to children as on an ordinary sermon—and other counsels are not more needed in Lancashire than elsewhere. It must be remembered, however, that the Lancashire working man is harder- headed and more wide-awake than the Southern peasant. The parson, therefore, must take him more into confidence. The Wessex rustic who really desires to have, and can take, a share in the management of things is an exception. Some of the ex- periences which Mr. Smith relates are not universal. The funeral customs of Lancashire are an instance. Generally our author's remarks are shrewd and sensible. His observations, for instance, on the necessity of the priest being able to pray without the book, are undeniably true.
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