Dr. Archibald Scott of SE. George's, Edinburgh, and his Timm•
By Lord Sands. (Blackwood. 16s. net.)—This book by a Scottish Judge about a popular Edinburgh minister, who died in 1909, is a very unconventional biography. -Lord Sands, summing up in a judicial manner, gives us to understand that Dr. Scott was a good man but not a great leader or a profound scholar. It is refreshing to come upon a biographer who is as
innocent of hero-worship as he is of malice. To English people the book may be commended as a very faithful though uncon- scious reflection of the temper of the Scottish layman who is interested in the affairs of the Kirk. The personality of a minister is much more important in Scotland than in England, and ecclesiastical controversy is conducted as a rule with a serene detachment from worldly affairs. Lord Sands's chapters on the Act of 1905 which empowered the Established Kirk to revise its Formula or subscription to the Confession of Faith, and his account of the movement towards a union between the Establishment and the United Free Kirk, illustrate the philo- sophic calm with which such problems are debated by Scottish Presbyterians.
Previous page
