Nullum Quod Tetigit . Non Orna4t My Guided Life. By John
Scott Lidgett. (Methuen. 103.:41..) Da. Scorr Linceri: tells us that he is in his .eighty-seistriad year. This would seem to be a misprint for s, hundred'apd eighty-second ; for, the age of miracles being past, it is really incredible that such a multitude of activities should hsvebien crowded into so short a time. He has been student, Meth - minister, theologian and author of a standard theologikal work, warden of the Bermondsey Settlement, member of t re London County Council, Vice-Chancellor of London Unive editor of an influential newspaper, President of the Nat'.
Council of the Free Churches, twice President of the Methodjst Conference, a prominent worker for the reunion of Christianity, and much besides. That, in addition, he should have fontid time to-write an account-of-it, is a feat paralleled in histelry only by John Wesley, and in fiction only by Clarissa Harloste. Ikredity, beyond question, has had its say in it. He is tile grandson of John Scott, a name familiar to all students {of the history of education. John Scott was a scholar, a pek*e- maker, a saint, and a man of great business capacity; and, Ilke his grandson, he was twice chosen President of the Methodist Conference. Among Dr. Lidgett's ancestors was a Pierrepn1tt, of the kind which old Fuller would have loved to commemorate, as well as a Mackintosh who fell fighting for Prince Charlie. Another was a Courtauld, of the Huvenot family which needs no introduction.
Among the formative influences of his life Dr. Lidgkt mentions Professor Draw of King's College, London, CroOm Robertson in philosophy, and Professor Marks in Hebrew. Later, he came into close contact with that great Greek Testament scholar Dr. Fiddian Moulton, and with that miist profouncLtheologian Dr. Burt Pope. With such teachers-if:in apt pupil was bound to gain wide sympathies and a seise of the value of aecuMte scholarship. But he ascribes still more to the Divine guidance which the title of the book is meant to suggest. One very remarkable chapter relates some ineidgiits which go far to justify this belief in' a Providential oversight of his life.
It is surprising, at first, to read that Dr. .Lidgett felt little disposed to public life of the sort with whit he has been"‘so long identified. Probably he was, and felt himself to be, esAn- tially a minister and a scholar. However this may be, it is by this external work that he is best known, and the chapters describing it will perhaps -be those most widely appreciatOd. It has brought him into contact with distinguished met; of the last 50 years, of all creeds, of every political partyjof the most various characters ; and his sketches- of these inert, always acute but always charitable, are full of interest, aired will be useful to the historian. Dr. Lidgett is a convin4ed Methodist, but his sympathies are 'wide enough to enable hire to form friendships with men of views widely different from his own. It is this that explains his enthusiasm for Christian :reunion. Having seen the-Teunion of.the.Methodiskquirches triumphantly acconifilished,- 116 is naturally anxious that a still larger unity may be made externally visible. What one can say with confidence is this; that if all churchmen were like him such a union would be at once easy and unnecessary.
E. E. KELLErr.
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