ANCIENT WAYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20620, 19 July 1930, Page 8 (Supplement)

ANCIENT WAYS.

A FAMILY RECORD. " Beauty vanishes, bcauly pusses and there was much that was beautiful in the olden ways of life. Readers then should be grateful that there are patient historians like Mrs. A. M. W. Stirling to record for us the histories of some fine old English families, ller present volume, " The Ways of Yesterday," with its punning title is a chronicle of the Way family from 1307 to 1885. Their history is a real history of England in those centuries, much more truly so than the books which record mainly the shedding of blood and the passing of kings.

But the most noteworthy member of this ancient house was undoubtedly the Rev. Lewis Way, friend of the famous Ilenry Drummond. Lewis Way became the possessor of an immenso fortune by (lie whim of <1 certain John Way, who, though no relation, liked to imagine himself a kinsman of the more illustrious family. The name seems to lend itself to punning and the comic papers of the day did not fail to notice that, " Where there's a Will there's- a Way. The luckv legatee, however, though the father of a large and constantly increasing family, became, by another curious chance, passionately interested in the conversion of tho Jews and sought to turn his beautiful country seat Stansted into a college for training foreigners and others of pious disposition for the purpose of being sent forth to Jew and Gcntilo to declare tho truths of the Gospel. The book tells of all the travels of this fiery apostle in furtherance of the cause, his'visits (o the Emperor Alexander of Russia, and his entertainment, in Palestine by tho formidable Ladv 11 ester Stanhope, So full and so varied, indeed, is the, life described in " The, Ways of Yesterday," that readers of however varied tastes will be able to find something to suit their particular humour. " The Ways of Yesterday," by A. M. \V. Stirlin'tf. (Thornton Dutlenvoith.)'