The Armour of Light, and other Sermons. By the Rev.
George Prothero, M.A. Revised by Rowland Prothero, M.A. (Riving- tons.)—This book has personal interests which deserve mention. It is a kind of resume of the life-work in preaching of the Rector of Whippingham, edited by his son, and dedicated in an affec- tionate and respectful, but by no means servile manner, to the Queen. The preacher himself thinks his sermons only what any good clergyman preaches ; but readers of them will wish heartily that such instructive and soul-probing words did proceed from many pulpits. Without striving to imitate John Knox or the scarcely gentler Latimer, he has certainly not shunned to declare the truth of God to Royal and courtly ears. The tenth sermon, on "Launching into the Deep," and the eighth, on "Coming to Ourselves," are specially excellent. From the latter we give an extract which fairly represents the preacher's style:—
"Oh the madness of men who will not see ! the delusion of the self-complacent respectable world, which will not believe that Heaven can be lost by mere indifference—by those who are un- chastened in spirit, as well as by those who set their God at open defiance Is it not madness to live in the midst of a world full of toil, anxiety, and exertion, where no prize is won without the exercise of the utmost powers that we have, and yet to imagine that matters of the weightiest interest are to be secured without a day's thought, without any of the carefulness that we bestow so lavishly on some passing pleasures that turn to dust even before they are grasped ? Is it less than madness to hope —at the latter end of life, and as we are nearing that new and spiritual existence, of which we are beginning to feel some faint apprehension—that all the necessary change, all the complete renewal of our moral being, can be effected by a few sentimental sighs ; a few hours of solemn meditation ; a cry of distress, drawn from us as much by regret of what we leave behind, as by fear of the darkness and uncertainty before us ?"
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