A Pioneer and Founder. By A. E. M. Anderson-liorshead. (Skeffnigton
and Son. 5s. net.)-The " Pioneer and Founder " is Dr. Robert Gray, the first Bishop of Cape Town. The writer of this book is one who knew him personally in the last years of his life, and had many opportunities of hearing about him from others. The " reminiscences " that concern his personal character may be read with unmixed pleasure. The questions that concern his episcopal action are another matter. His position was a very difficult one. He " maintained," we are told, " the great principle that there is no such thing as the Church of England [as a legal entity] anywhere but in England." And yet he relied on letters
patent, which can hardly be said to have rested on this principle. Then he had to deal with a controversy which was, so to speak, born before its time. Bishop Colenso certainly laid himself open to Matthew Arnold's criticism that his utterances did not tend to edification ; yet, putting aside sundry asperities and crudities, and what may be called doctrinal eccentricities, many things that he contended for are practically conceded. No critic of any weight really holds that Israel in the wilderness practised the elaborate ritual of Leviticus. More than twenty years ago Dr. Ginsburg, contributing to the " Old Testament Commentary," edited by Bishop Ellicott. was permitted to write in his Preface to Leviticus that " he should best serve the student of Holy Writ by showing him how the laws here enacted were adminis- tered during the second Temple." The author of this volume does not give adequate weight to those facts. Still, her narrative may be read with much interest and profit.
Previous page
