BOOK REVIEW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 83, 8 April 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

BOOK REVIEW.

This is the latest book (Hodder and Stoughton) from the pen of Mr. Leslie Weatherhead. It is a reverent and thoughtful study of the Saviour, and of the significance of His life for us. Written on original lines, it is characterised by the freshness, ability and charm for which M/. Weatherhead is noted, its frank and conversational style and apt illustrations helping to sustain the interest of the reader from first to last. Each of its fifteen chapters is preceded by suitable poetical quotations, a prayer, and suggested passages from the Gospels and Epistles, the whole closing with a questionnaire on each chapter. The book is admirably adapted for Group Movements and Senior Bible Classes. It will be no less stimulating to preachers and helpful to thoughtful readers in general. Modernist in his standpoint, writer endeavours all through to keep in harmony with the New Testament, and not only' to attract his readers to Jesus, but also to convince them of His deity. There are chapters that are of distinct valne, such, for example, as that on healing, and some of the most helpful and impressive passages are those in which he sermonises with an earhesfr ness and passion that sugges* the preacher rather than" the writer. Many of his readers will not agree with all his views, for instance, those regarding our Lord's birth, the time when he realised that He would be crucified (his view is hardly in keeping with the Gospel record), His resurrection, and the identification of Mark with the angel in the empty tomb. Some of the phrases he uses, such as Jesus and His "men," and Jesus trying to get the Gospel into the "ductless glands" of His baarers, will jar on them. "His Life and Ours" is, however, one of the most impressive and illuminating of recent theological books. No one can read it without being attracted to the Saviour, and feeling something of what another writer felt when he said that His coming was the one great event for which the past had been preparing and from which the future was to spring.