PASTOR NIEMOLLER

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23302, 12 April 1941, Page 5

PASTOR NIEMOLLER

The Gestapo Defied. By Martin Me-. i| mdller. William Hodge and Co. ] Ltd. 259 pp. (6/- net.) This book contains 28 of Martin j; Niemoller’s sermons, translated from |i one of the shorthand transcripts '\i secretly circulated in Germany. When jj he was arrested, his own manuscripts |,' were destroyed. Although the Ger- ■ man Court which tried him for “dishonourable conduct" as a pulpit agi- .: tator against the State found him not !' guilty, he has remained a prisoner in j the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The origin of the charge may be v traced in such a sermon as that on the | betrayal of Jesus by the council of ■ the high priests and the Pharisees. ;; who accepted the principle that it was ;s “expedient . . . that one man should die for the people and that the whole nation perish not." By this utterance, Niemoller said, Caiaphas proclaimed ■ : the doctrine of the supremacy of the State. "What is now meant by ‘right’? What is now meant by ‘truth - ? They ,i are barren theories, they are psychic inhibitions which the individual must .J get over. . . . This thing here stands j| clearly before us as a warning ;; example. When we place any ideal : : higher than truth—though it be - the best and highest aim. though we call it ‘nation’ or ‘church - —we are deadly certain to come into more n and more serious conflict with Him ■; Who says: T am the truth.’ ” Else- ; where Niemoller clearly identifies with hj the State and the Gestapo "the enemy |! [who] has succeeded in suppressing ij and in binding the message of Christ’s ;; cross.” Every reader will be moved to admiration and encouraged by the " strength of Niemoller’s Christian testimony for his Master against Fuehrerism. " NUDES BY GILL Drawings from Life. By Eric Gill. !! Hague and Gill Ltd. (7s 6d net.) i, Unhappily, this will be among the last books of Eric Gill’s. The draw- j; ings are not drawings of those \[ lovely mediaeval-looking creatures || he drew on his capital letters and ji engraved on glass, but nude studies, 'j 36 of them, of a youthful woman, j, Grace and truth of line i| wilV be looked for and found in the i majority of these drawings. Many of [ the' poses have themselves a lovely | freedom. The faint modelling is beautifuhy done, and a great deal is left to j the reader’s eye. In some, for enhance- j ment,*Gill here and there smudged the , bounding lines with a finger or thick- i ened them with a pencil—it is impos- i sible to tell in these reproductions— | to such an extent that the eye is repeatedly caught by this device, and. | comes to resent it as a trick that does ; not always come off. It is certainly the cause of a jerky effect here; but if ; should be said that the drawings were-. I reduced by half for this book, and this j particular device may be in place in i the originals. i The introduction must .be read with J the pictures in mind. It is written to ■ a text, from a letter of a Catholic priest: “If naked bodies can arouse a I hell-hunger of lust, they can and do kindle a hunger for heaven. May God bring us all thither.” There is a hint of self-consciousness in the sermon that follows, as indeed there is in some of the drawings. There is a tilt at artschools—“those dens of falsity”—and. a chatty postscript on what is “nice” in drawing from life and what is not. GOD AND MAN Honest Religion. By John Oman. Cambridge University Press. 198 i pp. (7/6 net.) j The death of Dr. Oman ih 1940 was | a loss nbt merely to the Presbyterian j Church but "to the whole Church j Militant. Those who know his other i works will ■be pleased to have'thisbook, which contains his latest thoughts on Christian faith and practice. It also contains a memoir of the author by George Alexander and H. H. Farmer. The title “sets forth art, aspiration after what has no limit or j finality, of ' which the essence is j humility towards God and charity to- ] wards man.” No higher praise can be j given this book than to say that it i goes a long way towards this ideal. NEW NOVELS . PRETTY CRIMES Death an the Down Beat. By Sebastian Farr. J, M. Dent and Sons Ltd). : 253 pp. (7/6 net.) | Breathe No More. By Marion Ran- j drlph. Hrinema-nn. 2S9no. (8/-.) j Th-ough Whltcomte a~d Tombs t Ltd. j Sebastian Farr—who will "ive music- I lovers and students of the musical ego many moments- of keen pleasure— i sends Detective-Inspector Alan Hope to investigate the astonishing murder of ! Sir Noel Grampian, shot dead ; while ;4 conducting a performance of Strauss’s “Heldenleben.” Story well and wittily j to’d in letters from Hope to his wife. In “Breathe No Mors” the murder of | nasty A is followed fay a murderous ■ attack on his charming daughter B. i the shooting of* odious suspect C. the \ : arrest of handsome and worthy suspect j D. and then a confounding attack on j A’s second charming daurhter. F. j Amateur F ha° to show Acting-Sheriff j G the wav to a solution which accounts i for murder intended murde r achieved, j murder to cover murder, and a mm- | ment of ma H ness. Very artificial pW. j clearly worked out. with plenty of lively business. f VERY NEAR WODEHOUSE Cloudy Weather. By Joan Butler. Stanley Paul. 286 po- <9/-.) Through Whitcntnbe and Tombs Ltd. The artful Mr Bingley has a shrewd idea of making a bit of profit out of protecting his Uncle Christopher, the celebrated Egyptologist, whether from the outraged spirit of Princess Nefertiti cr from any other and less antique assailant. In the pleasant company of Denise Charteris Mr Eingley has much fun at Mallow .*3ll, before he . touches the profit; and the only thing it is necessary to add is that Miss Butler remains as she has repeatedly proved herself. Mr Wodehouse’s near-' est rival in English comedy. THE GORGEOUS EAST Elephant in Jet By Frank S. Stuart. Stanley Paul and Co. Ltd. 256 pn. (8/9.) Through Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd. . King Chandragupta’s fat and rascally general Janji, a grand mixture of craft and comedy; a terrific fight among elephants; the plots of the Greek ambassador to Chan, dragupta’s court—these provide some of the rich entertainment in Mr Stuart’s novel. This pursues the fortunes of Sama, an engineer, and the tiger-cat Princess Lila, whom he tamed and married.