Worship and the Common Life. By Eric Heyman, M.A. (Cambridge
University Press. 7s. 6d.) THE need for the integration of religion and life, of the devotional attitude as expressed in worship with the ethical as expanding into social action is, or should be, dear enough to all who are convinced that apart from religion there is no highway through life and no end that either explains or justifies it ; and, therefore, to Christians Mr. Hayman's book is written round this central theme. The author is a member of the Society of Friends, who combines in a remarkable way a deep sense of the value of the witness of that Society and the belief that in the work of integration it has a particular vocation to fulfil with a very strong hold upon those con- ceptions of churchmanship with which the term " Catholic " is generally associated. He is, in particular, profoundly Sacramental in his whole outlook, though he has his defence of the Quaker disuse of those Sacramental ordinances which mean so much for the great majority of Christians. He feels keenly the need for Christian unity. If " the common life of man is to be integrated with the life of worship," the one method will be " in the experience of sacramental worship," and for this there must be " the effective reali- sation of intercommunion between all who are one in Christ." In the final chapter, the question of the relationship of the Society of Friends to the Christian Church as a whole, and in connexion with re-union, is., posed, if not solved. Earlier chapters, such as " The Individual in the Common Life " and " The Worshipping Church in the Common Life," rather suffer from an attempt to say too much, and what is said is not always. said- with sufficient simplicity. But much is said wisely and arrestingly, as, for instance, when Mr. Hayman criticises the extremes of humanism and of the Borkian theology. The reader who will take trouble over it will find much in this book that will make him think and help him to think.
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