My Life Work. By Samuel Smith, H.P. (Hodder and Stoughton.
5s. net.)—This is a thick book containing some six hundred pages. The title and the size both suggest the idea of heaviness, but the bZioli is far from heavy or dull. As a *hole, it is* intisreatine? and parts of it exceedingly' tie. The -worst that Can be said of it 3 is that it is not Very well put together: Mr. Smith has written an autobiography interspersed with digressive treatises upon things" social and political, together with descriptions of foreign travel:. He writes simply and concisely, and he never fails to carry hi reader along. Those who wish to read the histery of - thropic effort during the last half-century, written from a religious point of view, will do well to get this book, the whole effect of which is as of reading a number of Pleasant and well-expressed letters from a frank man of varied experience, who knew intimately the religious and philanthropic, and in a much less degree the political, world. We are sorry that we have not more space to devote to this story of the doings of a man whose public life has been in every sense worthy of our best traditions. But, after all, books of this kind are best read at large. All that is necessary is to put up a finger-post to them and the public will find the way for itself. In this case to erect the finger-post is a work of no little pleasure and satisfaction to the Spectator.
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