28 JUNE 1890, Page 45

Geo f frey Hallam. By J. Jackson Wray. (Nisbet and Co.)—This is

a story of early Methodist days. The hero is a parish clerk who begins by hating the movement of Wesley and ends by loving it. His vicar thinks him too valuable a servant to lose, and so to the end of his days he is a pillar of the Methodist cause, and holds the office of parish clerk "with ever-growing respect of parson and parishioners." Very good. This is a better state of things than prevails now. A Methodist parish clerk would find nowadays at least as much difficulty on the side of new friends as on that of the old. We may remark, by-the-way, that the vicar was very much mistaken if he thought his simple fiat could turn the man out of his place. Scarcely the parson himself is more irremovable than the clerk.