25 JUNE 1904, Page 13

The Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Orford. By the

Rev. Henry L. Thompson. (A. Constable and Co. 8s. 6d. net.)—It was certainly a happy thought in Mr. Thompson to take for the subject of the sermons which he was called upon to deliver the University Church, of which, qua parish church, he is, it should be said, the vicar. Of course, the place and time imposed a certain reticence upon him; the story of the University Church in all ita aspects has yet to be told. But Mr. Thompson has given us a very interesting book; his subject touches upon history on some important occasions ; it touches upon questions, educational and other, which have not by any means lost their interest. After an introduction in which he explains the standing of St. Mary's as the University Church, Mr. Thompson passes to the "Beginnings of Oxford," in which both "Town and Gown," and the relations between the two, are discussed ; from this, again, to the "Friars," "John Wyclif," "Growth of the University in the Fifteenth Century," "The Oxford Martyrs," "St. Mary's as a Burial-place" (with an account of the Amy Robsart affair), and "Royal Visits." It would have been interesting to hear candid answers, if we could only have got them, to the question with which the preacher concludes his "Oxford Martyrs" sermon: "How is that you, my brethren, sorrow for Thomas Creamer, as in this church you recall him, with an interval of three centuries and a half between our days and his P Do you sorrow as friends, or as enemies, or as strangers P"