The Life of Dr. A. Duff. By Dr. G. Smith.
(Hodder and Stoughton.)—1 is, of course, nearly impossible to review the .first volume of a biography, completeness being the essential condition of the study of a life. All we can say is that, judging from the first volume, this will be a very thorough biography of a very considerable roam. Dr. Duff was one of the greatest of Missionaries, and one of very few who have adopted original methods for the propagation of Christianity. A man of singularly fervid eloquence, and possessed
of an exceptional faculty of persuasion, he gave his life to the work of placing the youth of the Bengal seaboard, through careful educe- tiou, in a mental condition to comprehend Christianity,—a most un- usual instance of self-sacrifice. His views, his early struggles, and his success are related by his biographer out of a fullness of knowledge which thoroughly satisfies the reader, even if he thinks, as we do, that Dr. Duff's hostility to all religions but his own marked the narrowness, and not the power, of his character. Dr. Smith has given a full account of the circumstances which surrounded his friend, without overlaying too much that friend's own thoughts—a great difficulty with biographers. No one can road this volume without beginning to understand the man as one in whom great original powers and over. boiling energy were devoted to a single end—the evangelisation of Bengal, and the development at home of a keen interest in that groat work. We hope in the second volume to hear still more of Dr. Duff's oratory, it gift which he possessed in a measure very rarely granted oven to Highlanders, and one which, had he remained at home, might have made him one of the first of British preachers.
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