With the admirable design of developing and making avail- able
for study circles and popular teaching the findings of the Lambeth Conference, Messrs. Nisbet have begun the publication under distinguished auspices of a " Lambeth Series " of booklets (1s. each). The first six numbers, which have now appeared, suggest to the lay reader that those who wish to take St. Ignatius' advice and " think with the Church " must at present dwell much on the subject of birth-control. • In the' pamphlet on Marriage, the Bishops of Liverpool and St. Albans discuss with the utmost abandon the pros and cons of this practice. Dr. .Raven,.. in Looking Forward, prophesies that the Conference of 1940 will have the " courage of its convictions " and push to its conclUsion the view of married life at which 1980 hints. Of the books on " Applied Christianity " recommended in the Bishop ' of Winchester's general survey, one-third deal with this nauseat- ing theme. It is a relief to turn to the three excellent essays on God in the Modern Mind, in Worship, and in Science, respectively written by the Archdeacon of Westminster, by Mr. Francis Underhill, and by the Arehbishop of Armagh. These are lucid and useful interpretations of the first section of the Lambeth Report. The series as a whole, however, falls below the level of Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode's admirable little Handbooks of Religion (2s., paper), a second series of which has just begun. It includes two small master- pieces : Dr. Raven's monograph on " The New Testament," in which the assured results of reasonable criticism are simply expressed, and Rev. Anthony Deane's " When Christ Came," an illuminating study of the background of the Gospels.
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