The World of Prayer. By Dr. D. G. Mourad, Bishop
of Lolland and releter, Denmark. Translated by Bev. J. S. Banks. (T. and T.
Clarke, Edinburgh.)—This book, which is translated into good English, yet retains, after its double filtration, much of the sim- plicity, by no means to be confounded with shallowness, which seems to mark the theological writings of Northern Europe. Though it would be found a great help to the devotions of the devout, there is in it much of thought which those who fancy they live outside the "world of prayer" might well ponder. For them, we quote the author's words on pp. 82 and 83 :—" As long as any one has faith in the being and government of God, and in the immortality of his own soul, I cannot but deem it great folly if, in the thousand needs of body and soul, he does not flee to God, and pour out his heart before him, even supposing that the divine glory of Christ, tho mild radiance of God's love in the face of his Son, has not yet dawned upon his soul." And to those who share his faith and joy, we commend the admirable teaching on pp. 1164, of which we can only give a fragment :—" God grant our lamp of life to go out, ere our heart turn cold; for when once the heart has become cold, all joy dies out. A cold heart is one of the most dangerous maladies with which we mortals have to contend. It is, indeed, eve.
dally the old who suffer from it ; but youth is often attacked by it, when some bitter disappointment is encountered. Nay, many a human soul, in the midst of its restless activity, is made desolate by this disease." Then, after speaking of the remedy as alone found in Christ's love, the anther goes on to say, "By loving Him—the Son of Man—we learn also to love men with unfeigned love; not with the
transient, precarious love that comes and goes—comes while good-will is shown us, and goes again directly ill-will and disfavour meet us ;
not with the feeble love that is extinguished by the first evil word, blown away by the first injury; not with the self-righteous love that will love none but the good, excellent, perfect, but with the love with which God loved Where this love dwells, a love which at the same time is joy in the Lord, there the heart never freezes and withers. It remains perpetaally young, for the glow of eternal life streams through it."
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