4 OCTOBER 1873, Page 24

The Life of John Thomas, First Baptist Missionary to India.

By C. B. Lewis. (Macmillan.)—Mr. Lewis tells us in his preface that he has long " felt deep interest in the character and history of Mr. Thomas." Such interest is perfectly natural, and not in the least ill bestowed. He was a notable man, and one of the pioneers of a notable work. And if Mr. Lewis could have made a really good study of his character, putting it into about as much space as Lord Macaulay gave to his four "Biographies," the world, or anyhow, some considerable portion of the world, would have thanked him. But these four hundred and twenty

large and closely printed octavo pages are impracticable. Through this mass of petty details—squabbles, for instance, told at most pre- posterous length—none but the most enthusiastic readers will ever

struggle. It is to be regretted that it is BO. Mr. Thomas was a wild, hot-tempered, scatter-brained sort of person, passionately in earnest

about his work, in which he most devotedly believed, but in-

discreet, difficult to deal with, and eccentric even to the verge -of madness, into which indeed he did at one time actually lapse. Just

imagine a profoundly religious man, as Mr. Thomas was, actually risk- ing the few rupees he had left in the lottery 1 "With the few rupees left I intend to put into the Madras lottery, accounting that very lawful

in exigency which would be otherwise questionable and sinful." Money affairs, indeed, were a sad hindrance to him all his life. He was in a chronic state of debt, and was always busy with ways of getting rid of

it now setting up in his profession-it was as surgeon on board of an Indiaman that he made his first acquaintance with the country-now planting indigo. Friends and co-religionists at home looked coldly on him, and gave him but indifferent support, either of the material or the moral kind. As for the authorities, they were of course hostile. Preachers other than the regular chaplains were not in favour with the Directors, who looked upon them much as Roman magistrates at Philippi and elsewhere looked upon the men who were "turning the world upside down." Still out of all the confusion of the man's life there shines out the likeness of something fine and noble. We regret that the biographer's sympathy has not evoked in him something more of graphic power.