22 DECEMBER 1906, Page 25

The Lamp of Sacrifice. By W. Robertson Nicoll. (Hodder and

Stoughton. 6s.)—The keynote of Dr. Robertson Nicoll's sermons is religious optimism; and certainly there was never a time when religious optimism was so much needed. The preacher does not reckon without the sorrows of life—he describes its pains with eloquence—but the book as a whole, and each chapter in particular, impresses upon the reader the conviction of the writer that they are none of them incurable, and are in some sense discounted by religious faith. It is not a subject on which any man can hope to convince another. It is something if he succeeds in bracing him up to R. L. Stevenson's conclusion that "our business in the world is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits."