NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 134, 3 December 1910, Page 13

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

« "BRAID SCOTS IN THE PULPIT." "Sermons in Braid Scots." By D. Gibb Mitchell, Cramond. London : Andrew Melrose, 3, York-street, Covent Garden. There are probably fe^ English children so magnificently uninformed as young George Borrow, who, as he has recorded, when the family removed to Edinburgh, told his schoolmates that he "did not know before that there was such a place as Scotland." As the lads of the Scots capital held Britain north of the Tweed to be as important as all the rest of the world, if not more so, they were petrified at such ignorance. But Borrow, who in a few years had mastered every tongue spoken in Britain and Ireland, surprised them by the rapidity -with which he mastered "braid Scots" and spoke it with the best of them. Apart from their fellow-Britons, who neither know nor care to know the difference between Lowlander and Highlander, there are few who are unacquainted with the writings of authors such as George Macdonald, Andrew Lang, Barrie, and "lan Maclaren," and such can not be ignorant of the literary importance of the lan* guage adorned by the works of men of fenius from the days of Dunbar and .yndsay to those of Ramsay, Hogg, and Burns. "Braid Scots" is no longer to the literary Englishman a Cinderella in the company of tongues. It has the great advantage of continuous existence — the language of the people, unlike the decayed and largely-forgotten Erse, which a number of enthusiasts are in our day striving laboriously to galvanise into semblance 6f life where it* spirit has departed. Time w % as when Scots, though considered by Englishmen quite appropriate for an amatory or < bacchanalian ballad, was not deemed suitable for serious literary use, and such a book as the Rev. W. Wye Smith's New Testament in the vernacular would have been looked upon almost as profanation. Yet that book to-day is rated 1 as perhaps the best extant version of Scripture in "modern speech," with a direct simplicity, a music of diction, and a sweetness and tenderness which it would be difficult to parallel. Therefore, the writer of these lines, though he is not a Scot, did not expect to find in the "Braid Scots" discourses delivered by the Cramond minister, nine of which are collected in this neat little volume, any undignified or barbarous language. The preacher delivers his grand, old message in words all the more effective that they are so often unfamiliar. It comes with the greater force and freshness that it is free from those outworn and too bookish phrases which in many cases have not only lost such vitality as once they possessed, but have been diverted to meanings alien to their first intention. In a preface of only seven lines, the Rev. Mr. Mitchell sets forth his deep yearping that throughout the land his kinsfolk may be "roused to come back toZion, to holier thinkin', an' God-fearin' ways." Wherefore, he says, "I gaithered my flock aboot me an' spak to them :': ' the tongue o' their faithera," and we can quite understand, after reading his appeals, that "nane were huffit at hearin their am tongue preached i' their am kirk. ... It was sib to their fancy, an' gaed' far ben into their hearts." From certain current faults which some contend keep people from attending preaching, these brief discourses are unusually free. The preacher's warm patriotism is characteristic. Scotland is nis Zion, whose very stones are dear ; but this is no drawback to tho reader of holy writ, who finds it quite natural to give national, or even cosmopolitan, application to the hundred-and-second Psalm, and manj similar patriotic Scriptures. But there is, moreover, behind these simple and sincere addresses a fine personality. The writer stands revealed, not as a sectarian or partisan,, of any scheme of dogma," logical or illogical. He is one who declares, first and foremost, the Divine love; his very titles. — "The Ne'er-do-weel" (the old, but ever recurring story of the Prodigal Son), "The Mirk Dale," "The Weepin' Christ," "Peter an' the Maister," "Hamely Thoehts that Mak us Kin" — are enough to give an idea of his methods. Next to nis spirituality and his affection for his fellow-men is the intense love of Nature revealed almost wherever the book is opened ; and his diction is not only eloquent but singularly beautiful in its homeliness. The harvest discourse with 'which the book closes, and in which he develops the perennial analogy between man and his natural surroundings, is a fine example of these qualities. His Scripture translations appear to be based on the Rev. W. Wye Smith's version, which, however, he does not hesitate to modify — probably into a form more resembling the local usage. We hope that tho book, which, apart from its literary interest, has" a message in its lofty tone and inspiriting optimism to a far wider group than those of the land where it was written, will find a demand and hearty appreciation wherever Scotsmen are found or the Scots tongue is read. "Love's Barrier." By Annie S. Swan, author of "Adam Hepburn's Vow," etc. in colours by C. M'lver, R.I. London: Cattell and Company. The author of "Love's Barrier" needs no introduction as the editor of a magazine of high and well-earned repute; as one who has learned the deeper lessons of experience in a life which has had its share of troubles, she is one whose literary influence has been elevating as well, as widespread. Her fiction is of the "domestic" order, and in the everyday annals of the home and social spheie, treated with sympathetic insight, there is a field more appealing and profitable to the descriminating wader than the "romance" of war or splendour, or the tinsel chivalry of a half-mythic past. Helen Revell, whose family surroundings throw her much upon herself, marries a devoted but over-ascetic clergyman, allowing him no room for illusion as to her entire want of sympathy with his views as to things that really count. But he deludes himself with the idea that genuine mutual affection must readily harmonise differences of point of view. Both parties are of strong character, both conscientious, and he does • not realise that it is really conscientious scruples, however misguided, that keep her not only from the parish work expected from a country parson's wife, but from attendance at the ordinary services. Of course the people "talk," the husband worries, expostulates vainly (as he thinks), and just at the moment when, she is recognising that he and not she is in the right, he injudiciously takes counsel with his more injudicious bishop, and when she finds that the prelate has described her as "a public scandal," she displays open resentmentj and slips quietly out under the winter moon fof a lonely walk. She meets a kindly cottage woman, homely, but with a wisdom and an experience sometimes denied to clergymen, and what might have beeen. an irremediable breach is healed. In a later difficulty it is the rector who is in the wrong. Very skilfully the author shows how better knowledge and understanding born of love removes by degrees all estranging "barriers," though not without the pangs of needful self -discipline. The book is sound, wholesome, and its true interest as a story is maintained, and it is worthy of its author's reputation. Several attempts have been made to provide a patriotic son£ for New, Zea-

land children suitable for school use ; but so far they have failed to meet the final test — that of actual trial. The inspired ode, the stirring air, have yet te come. But such are not composed to order, otherwise Britain and the United States would be better off in this respect. America's one great national song came out from the furnace of the war of union, and etrikes a, note too high for the ordinary scholar, who has to I>e content with euch tame ditties us "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." A local headmaster, Mr. Robert J. Pope, undismayed by the difficulty of the >.ask, has essayed a school song which departs from the familiar, conventional lines, and which, if published, should make special appeal to tho native-born. He has sent us a manuscript of "New Zealand : My Homeland." The air is simple and melodious, ' and with sufficient character to be readily learned and at onco recognised. The ballad celebrates the national charms of the land without descending to the catalogue level and avoids the boastful note which too often passes for patriotism. In dispensing with rime Mr. Pope has made a bold, innovation ; but he has a theory that ' children are specially liable to be distracted from the meaning by watching for the jingle of chiming words. Only actual experiment in classes could sup ; ply an adequate test. Mr. Pope's praiseworthy endeavour seems to us to promise to supply the " long-felt want " j better than any of the earlier local experiments with which we are acquainted.