A Memoir of Acton Wincleyer Silletoe. By the Rev. Herbert
H. Gowen. (Longmans and Co. 5s.)—A. S. Silletoe was a native of Sydney, New South Wales. He graduated at Cambridge, and taking orders a little later than usual (seven years after gradua- tion), spent some time in clerical work in England and in the chaplaincy of Darmstadt. In 1879 he was consecrated to the newly made See of New Westminster, which had been formed out of the diocese then including the whole of British ColumbL► Here he worked indefatigably with only brief intervals of so- called rest—for a Colonial Bishop in England has but little rest —till his death in 1894. He was one of the men who do not show to others, and hardly know themselves, their real condition. Only nine months before his death he wrote home a letter which induced the Monthly Record to announce " a complete recovery." The story of his work is given in this volume by a writer who knows his subject well. That this work was fatiguing to the last degree need not be said. That is patent to every one who ilk has any knowledge of what were the conditions under which it was carried on. A confirmation, a baptism, a service of any kind, cost in most cases many hours of toilsome travel. But it was not the work that killed him. The true cause, it is sad to read, was financial worry. Unhappily, British Columbia was going through a severe depression of business in the Bishop's last years, and the income available for the work of the diocese was sadly diminished. This fact casts a sad reflection on the story; still, it is well worth telling, for it is the story of one who loved his work and did it well. Multis flebilis occidit, lamented by none more than by the Indian converts, for whom he always kept one of the warmest places in his heart.—With this may be read another interesting record of missionary effort, The Trans- formation of Hawaii, by Belle M. Brain (Oliphant, Anderson, and Ferrier, Be. 6d.) Miss Brain tells the story of what was done by American missionaries in the half-century that passed between the first arrival of the missionaries in 1820 and the with- drawal of the Missionary Board in 1870, a withdrawal meaning that the country was fit to take its place among Christian nations. Much is said against missions, sometimes in ignorance, sometimes from mistaken conviction, and not seldom, it is to be feared, from dislike of Christian morality; but the contrast between the Hawaii which Cook discovered, and still more the Hawaii after forty odd years of relations with white visitors, before the missionaries came, and the Hawaii of 1870, is not lightly to be put aside.
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