14 JANUARY 1944, Page 18

George Adam Smith

Tins record of the long and varied life of_ Sir George Adam Smi may well receive a welcome both from his old students in Glasg and Aberdeen, now scattered around the Seven Seas, and from- marl whose contact with him was briefer or who knew him only throu his books. In her Foreword Lady Adam Smith says: " A wife not the right person to assess her husband's work, and I have n tried to do this " ; and the scope of the book is further defined b its sub-title, " A Personal Memoir and Family Chronicle."

The record, so planned, has been compiled with marked liter skill, especially in the earlier chapters, which draw a graphic pieta of the young scholar wandering through Palestine with an Ara muleteer as his sole companion and learning from all whom he me fellaheen or sheikhs ; and of his return ten years later with wife for a more thorough exploration of the same country! was thus able, before he was forty, to bring a new picture of th Holy Land and a new understanding of the prophets within-rea of the men of his day.

A characteristic story belongs to an earlier time. When Scarce. twenty-five he went to Aberdeen to take the place for a time Robertson Smith, who had been suspended from his chair f alleged heresy. He called on the fiery little scholar, who asked, wh the young man would do if he insisted on taking the classes himSelf spite of the Church's decision. " Then," was the reply, " rtvou be proud to go and sit athong your students," after which they,heca good friends.

Soon after, George Adam Smith became minister of a newl founded church in Aberdeen, and in ten years, before he went to professorship in Glasgow, he showed himself not less outstand as preacher than as scholar and teacher. Deeply influenced Mazzini and the English Christian Socialists, he applied the old teaching of Amos, Micah and Isaiah to the social wrongs of t nineteenth century with a freshness and force that were altogeth new. After moving to Glasgow his interest in the social miss of the Church took still more practical forms, of which a brief adequate account is given in these pages. In this way he carried one side of the work of Henry Drummond, the close friend—for t short a time his colleague—whose Life he wrote. After Drtnnmori

death the teaching of three men gave their college a high place among schools of theology—T. M. Lindsay, James Denney and George Adam Smith. More might perhaps have been told of the co-operation of the two laver, since their unity of aim and endeavour, combined with their very differences of temperament, made a unique impact on their students.

By this time The Historical Geography of the Holy Land had appeared. In spite of its bulk, 35,000 copies sold, and it not only lit up the whole field bf biblical history, but was used by Lord Allenby's staff as a guide to topography during the campaign in Palestine.

The last twenty-six years of Smith's active career were passed as Principal of the University of Aberdeen. After his death his successor, Sir W. H. Fyfe, wrote: " The University has lost the greatest of all its Principals, the greatest perhaps it is ever likely to have." Of these years a full account is given. The loss of his two elder sons in the first world war left a deep mark on Smith's sensitive nature, but this did not prevent his doing signal service as an emissary of Anglo-American friendship during a crowded six months' tour in the States in rgt 8. More than once Lady Adam Smith points out that the preacher's vocation was never forgotten amid the constant travel and administrative work which fell to the Principal. Of the last years in retirement, a true picture is given by Professor Dover Wilson, who first met Smith in his eightieth year: "He was, as I have found with the few great men it has been my fortune to know, withoift complexes. I doubt whether it ever occurred to him to think about himself."

The production of the book deserves a word of praise, as does the choice of photographs, not least the delightful portrait of the old Principal bidding farewell to a group of students after his last