Memoir of Alexander J. Ross, D.D. (Isbister.) — This is an interesting
memoir, written throughout with studied moderation and with a complete effacement of the author in her subject. (It is only from the preface that the reader would know it to be the work of Dr. Ross's widow.) Alexander Ross had a somewhat eventful life. After supporting himself from an early age, he was ordained to a Free Church charge in Dumfriesshire (the ceremony was performed on the hill-side). From Dumfriesshire he went to Brighton, where he found many things" in the air" which he does not seem to have had any inkling of on the northern side of the Border. Among other potent influences must be reckoned that of F. W. Robertson, who was then at the height of his influence. The end of it was that the Presbytery of London summoned him before them, and ultimately expelled him from the Free Church. The Church of England affords a refuge for many ecclesiastical refugees, and Mr. Ross, reassured by the "Essays and Reviews" judgment, took shelter in it. Some twenty years' work in London, and three of peaceful retirement in a Derbyshire parish, made up together his clerical life. His chief literary work was his Life of Bishop Ewing; but his pen was pretty constantly employed, not unfrequently, in past years, in the columns of this journal. He was an accomplished and amiable man, with a full share of humour, well read in many departments of literature, whose almost sudden death last year left a gap in a large circle of friends.
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