CURRENT LITERATURE.
"Shepherd" Smith, the Universalist. By W. Anderson Smith. (Sampson Low, Marston, and Co.)—This "history of a mind,"- as the author describes it, is not easy to understand. The. mind was of a strange sort, moving in unexpected ways, and its historian is not very lucid in his exposition of its characteristics. James Smith was brought up in the straitest school of Scotch orthodoxy ; but he was not long in breaking loose from it. One of his early departures was to the Southcottians. The prophetess Joanna herself had passed away before this ; it was her successor, John Wrae, to whom he attached himself, and whom, in course of time, he seems to have superseded. But it would take us too long to follow his movements,—movements which have an eccentric look, but follow nevertheless a certain sequence. Socialism, Spiritual- ism, Universalism, and we know not what other "lams," were taken up and preached in language abounding with the strangest paradox. Perhaps the dominant influence with him was Panthe- ism. "Justification of the Divine Nature as the Source of Good and Evil" was one of his favourite themes. Nor could anything be more significant of the bent of his mind.
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