The Life and Times of Bishop White. By Julius H.
Ward. (Dodd, Mead, and Co., New York.)—William White was the first Bishop in the English line of the Episcopal Church in America, and the great work of his life is said to have been completed when that church "had been developed into a good working organisation." Born in 1748, he died in his eighty-ninth year in 1836. Although living through a most exciting period in the history of his country, few men can have passed a serener and a happier life. Through- out its long length he had never a day's illness until he took to his bed to die, Firm, moderate, dignified, and a perfect gentle- man of fine presence and of old-fashioned courtesy, be won the respect of all good people by his unfailing gentleness and large- hearted liberality. White in his younger days became acquainted with Dr. Johnson, as readers familiar with their "Boswell" will remember ; he was also intimate with General Washington, who, when in Philadelphia, attended his church. Mr. Ward's narrative tells us more about the Bishop than the man, but the personal -details recorded will make the reader regret that they are so few in number. One looks, however, with some suspicion on a biography which represents its hero as perfect, and it will be a comfort to erring mortals to know that the Bishop liked mince-pies, -enjoyed a good glass of wine and a cigar, and was an intemperate drinker of strong green-tea. The teetotalers could not make a convert of Bishop White. "If he had one application to take the temperance pledge, he had five hundred. His reply was that he had taken this pledge two or three times in his religious vows, and that he did not see why he should take it again. He held that when a Christian man had promised to keep his body in soberness, temperance, and chastity, he had gone as far as language permitted him to go."
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