HUMAN DOCUMENTS.
Human Documents. By Lionel North. (Robert Caney. 2s. 63) —"Lives Re-written by the Holy Spirit" is the sub-title of the book, which relates a number of spiritual experiences. Now this is a subject on which it is hard to arrive at a satisfactory con- clusion. The writer of this notice once heard an Anglican preacher declare that there was but one authentic record of conversion, and that was St. Paul's; on the other hand, there are religious bodies which demand experiences of conversion as a qualification for membership. The truth probably lies, as usual, somewhere in the middle. Even here we find one of Xs. North's Mends declaring that he could not remember his conversion ; he had always been a good boy. Probably many experiences of the kind are artificial, supplied, so to speak, to order. But it would require great hardihood to reject the stories which we find in this volume. There must be something out of the common to amount for the marvels which Mr. North, on the testimony of his own eyes and ears, relates. One man recognises the justice of the divine dealings in what he suffers and puts up with from drunken sons : he was himself a drunkard in his youth, and his sin has found him out. Another gives up his drunkenness at once, and never feels a craving. This, it is true, is described as uncommon ; most of the converts had to straggle. Still, it has to be accounted for. Some think, and they are not without reason for doing so, that while Christian evidences are in some respects failing, this evidence of changed lives is assuming greater importance. Can systems hostile to religion show anything like it? They may be able to help a man to keep upright, but can they appeal to him when he has fallen? There are some powerful desicriptions of the submerged, and indeed of cases to which this term cannot be applied. What of the earpetmaker who was thrown out of employment at thirty-five. And there is an inexpressibly painful chapter, which yet every grown person should read, entitled "Mary Magdalene and her Sister." This is a very striking book."
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