SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of the week as have not been reserved for review in other forms.] Sermons and Lectures. By the late Rev. Brooke Lambert. Edited by Rev. Roland Bayne. With a Memoir by J. E. G.
De Montmorency, LL.D. Richardson, Greenwich.)—It is now a little more than a year since Mr. Brooke Lambert died, after holding the vicarage of Greenwich for twenty years. He had previously held the vicarage of Tamworth for six years, and before this he had worked for nearly seventeen years, first as curate, afterwards as incumbent, of St. Mark's, Whitechapel. The three places presented a considerable variety of life and work. In each Brooke Lambert made himself a force ; it would not be easy to say which place owed him most. Probably the Tamworth vis inertiee was the hardest to overcome. Everywhere he was an indefatigable worker, using to the uttermost the facilities afforded by his single condition — he was never married—for regular times were nought to him. It was not only in his parishes that he found opportunities of work. In the labours of the Association for Befriending Young Servants he took a part which will not soon be forgotten. In educational work he was unwearying, and in the problems which social conditions continually present in new forms be took the keenest interest. But it is idle to attempt an epitome of his
labours. To everything he brought an invaluable common-sense, —one hesitates to use the term "hard-headedness," because there was really nothing hard about him. He was full of sympathy and kindness. Mr. De Montmorency tells the story of this full life with an appreciative affection. That Brooke Lambert received no adequate recognition of his merits does not, of course, surprise one. The Crown, it is true, presented him to the vicarage of Greenwich, but it was a preferment of the laudatur et caget kind. But for the liberality of his parishioners, who took upon them- selves, after a while, some of the burden of providing help, Brooke Lambert could not have remained there. An honorary canonry offered him (but not accepted) after forty odd years of work was the one distinction of which he was thought worthy. Of the sermons and lectures we have not space to speak. It must suffice to say that they will be found to illustrate in no common way the biography to which they are appended. There was never a man who spoke with a more absolute sincerity.
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