Ad Clerum : Advices to a Young Preacher. By Joseph
Parker, D.a. (Hodder and Stoughton.)—Dr. Parker is a divine of considerable repute in the communion—that of the Independent Churches—to which he belongs, and in this volume he gives to young men who may be aspiring- to the ministerial office the results of his experience. The precise value of his advice it scarcely lies within our power to estimate, though we may say in general terms that it has the appearance of being sensible and to, the point. For ourselves and for most readers the chief interest of the lies in its references to the internal politics of the communion to• which Dr. Parker belongs. We have no wish to make a controversial, use of it. If we see in it the confession of some of the evils of "eccle- siastical republicanism," we are also quite ready to allow that the author- may be perfectly consistent and reasonable in pieferring this republican- ism to anything that we could substitute for it. In religions democracies,. doubtless, as well as in secular, it often happens that the refined and the cultivated stand aside in indolence or disgust, and allow power to be- usurped by the vulgar and the ignorant, even by the insincere. On the other hand, communities so ordered have always a spiritual life of some kind, and this certainly is not always to be found in aristocratical or- monarchical forms of ecclesiastical discipline. We need not, however,. be seeking for partizan argument to find an interest in Dr. Parker's. "Advice." We must not omit to notice a striking biographical sketch. of Dr. Campbell, with whom the author was for some years on terms intimacy. It seems to us a very vigorous and truthlike sketch of a. character of which we are glad to be able to think better than we had, ever thought it possible we should.
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