1903-4 by the author, who is a minister of the
United Free Church of Scotland ; and considering that the late Dr. Duff was a missionary of the Church of the Disruption, is appropriately enough "a study of our Lord's missionary methods." Although Dr. Smith wrote his lectures for students, his style is almost as simple as that of a Welsh evangelist. His doctrine—if he can in a technical or scientific sense be said to have a doctrine—is as near as possible, under the conditions of present-day society, that which was taught by Jesus. Consequently it is quite easy to follow and understand him when ho discourses on such subjects as "The Distinctive Method of Jesus," "Christ Dealing with Individual Inquirers," and "Prayer as Bringing in the Kingdom of God." Yet in spite of his simplicity of style and " straight- ness " of appeal, Dr. Smith writes like a scholar who is too much in earnest to strain after effect. His occasional illustrations of the positions he identifies himself with and defends have an almost autobiographic interest. Take this passage :—" There is just one man in Europe to-day that has won the confidence and devotion of the common people of an Empire, Father John of Cronstadt. The people crowd round him in the street whenever he appears. Once I spent a day waiting for my steamer in the harbour of that town, and he was on the lips of every sailor to whom I spoke as I fear no living man you could name is on the lips of our sailors. He has entered into the secret of Christ's holy poverty, and the money which he receives passes into the hands of the sons of want. He is no demagogue, but a solitary, a mystic who lives with God, and whose whole being has been fertilised by that communion."
EDINBURGH.
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