The Gleam. By Sir Francis Younghusband. (Murray. 12s.) A religious
work of a somewhat unusual kind. It presents to us the doubts, aspirations, difficulties and final beliefs of a small number of persons, all of a deeply religious character, who have not found themselves completely satisfied with the various religions in which they have been brought up. The most important of these persons is Svabhava, a cultured Indian in the Government service, who endeavours to make for himself some kind of faith that will fully satisfy his needs. In order to do this, he searches for the truth in all the estab- lished creeds and philosophies, and " follows the gleam " until he arrives at some sort of conclusion. The history of his search, in which most of the more important modem ideas of God play some part, is of unusual interest ; but his final conception of the universe, though not without interest, is somewhat disappointing. in this conception the ideas of world-consciousness and world-love have a prominent place. The book, as a whole, is marked by great earnestness and sincerity, which more than compensate for some occasional superficialities in the thought.
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