BOOK NOTICES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14213, 14 May 1908, Page 4

BOOK NOTICES.

"Come and Find Me." By Elizabeth Robins (C. J'l. Raimond). Loudon: W. Heinoinann. (3s 6d, 2s 6d.) "' You men arc all babies,' cried Mrs Mar, springing to her feet ; 'and if the women didn't look after you, you'd be dead babies.'" Such is one of the many lessons of life contained in Mrs Bobins's wonderful book, showing that (ho eternal .feminino iu woman is .tlways "going out to the battlefield in the evening to look after the wounded," and that "a girl in good health who hasn't been kept in cot'ton and who hasn't been scared . . is far abler to cope with the real difficulties of li'fo than the average man." And if this fact is not move generally acceptcd it is because the truth of it is so seldom proved, since the ordinary woman has as little chance of knowing about real life .15 " kings and queens" have. " She is an outsider whenever she comes out of her own front door." " Tho only way of getting judgment is by having to judge; . . . and the only way <o know life is by knocking up against it." Therefore Aire Robins'a heroine is allowed to put the question to tho test and to set out a,lone on a mission of such difficulty and danger as might well daunt the stoutest hearted man. That she succeods is doubtless owing to her own matchless initiative and perseverance, and also perhaps to the fact —though her creator does not quite allow this—that sho is young and beautiful. Mrs Robins is a stout defender of the rights of her sex, as was abundantly shown in her last book, " The Convert"; but she is no fool wilfully blinded to the facts of life, and she cannot but own that Hildegarde Mar and her mother are of the rarer type of women, who "would never fit into small places." Mrs Locke is a better example of tho ordinary woman who has " to fend, for herself," and who, expecting trouble, finds it at every corner, and is soured though not beaten by it. " Butterfly Bella" is a study in conventions, and the proper contrast to Hildegarde Mar. Tliece are the four principal women characters. The men aTe more numerous, and startlingly lifelike and original in treatment. Chief among them is Nathaniel Mar, the giint in mind and person, who for 30 long years bends his spirit to drudgery because of his lameness and tile demands upon him of a wife and family; ever brooding over the Great Discovery at- which all men scoff, until he himself begins almost to doubt the evidence of his own senses, and tries, though in vain, to silence "tho call of the north," of the "unexplored lands" that are for ever crying " Come and Find Me." John Galbraith, Louis Cheviot, : Plumpitty, O'Gorman, and many others, 'A including Hildegarde herself, feel the same n call, and obey it. Tho goldfields of Nome, K in Alaska, afford the excuse for their ally thusiasm; but, as the author points out, 0 it is not the gold only; there is gold in § plenty in other parts of the earth quite | easily come at: it is the desire for the | Unknown—the search for that which no h man lias as yet found, "the finest game B in the world," the amazing spiritual forcc B which draws men onward and ever onward H to the Unseen—which makes "Come and | Find Me" the supremo force of the world, | Mrs R-obins has found this out, and she 8 shows it more or less in all her characters, ft as the moving spirit in their lives and H actions; and most of all she shows it in a the climax, that grand final scene in 1 which the dying explorer, deserted by all | but his faithful dog and the woman who B accidentally comes to his aid, destroys the J i proofs of his discovery so that he' shall I not spoil for others "the finest, game in ! the world," beside which all others seem ! to him poor and colourless, and which must surely be a type of a- still greater !' and longer search on which men are only J just consciously entering. John Galbraith dies alone, destroying'the record of incredible suffering and toil in order that, he I; may give hir, " kingdom baek to the j oldest of the godij , . , tho Unknown God," whose worship was so t much more ancient than that of the I Greeks, or even the Egyptians, and 1 1 whose cult will never die while orcation lasts. Here, too, we touch perhaps on some solution of the "mystery of pain," for, as the dying man r>ays, '"It almost seems as if nothing in the world-scheme were so precious as suffering. Men feel I that when they Tecall their early hardships. Dimly they see that nothing they have found later was of such value to' them. . ... Beside the days of struggle the days of the harvest are dull." It "is not what we get, but what we seek, that makes for greatness and true happiness. It is always the Ideal, the Unknown God, "Come and Find Mo," who calls; and the call is ! always being responded to, but the discovery is not yet. Such is the central teaching of one of the clevei'est novels of the year; and a number of minor issues - arc also touched on and discussed, as, for ~ instance, that of women's friendship and the curious sentimental attraction felt by many young girls for men whom they have never seen or only slightly known in the fksh, but for whom they cherish a .peculiar type of horo-warehip, which often lasts until a truer knowledge of the man ■himself destroys it, Mrs Robins's story, as a story, is extremely interesting, though it does not really take complete hold of the reader until about the middle, when Hildegarde dccidce to seek her father in the Magnetic North, and is most unexpectedly supported by her mother, though violently opposed by her lover and by others, who", man-like, suppose that if a woman touches pitch sho is for ever defiled. '"Yes, I know what you mean,' said Hildegarde gravely; 'miserable women have done it for horrible ends. Can't a girl venture as much for a good end as' those others for—" So she ventures, and adds tho crowning grace of knowledge and sympathy to an already splendid character. Tho description of her adventures, of the placer-mining at Nome, where tho vevv scum of the earth is collected, of the ship that bears her thither, of the amazing Plumpitty family, of t.he unexpected appearance of a friend on board, and of the apparently chance discovery of the discoverer dying alone in his hut, without food or fire, watched oveJ by his aged and crippled dog," the gTeat explorer Ky." All this gives a mass of excellent material, of which the author has made the i/iost and the best, the result being one of those tales which not only hold the reader entranced for a time, but which iiiako an indelible impression on his memory. " Come and Find Me " is a book that will not easily be forgotten, and is worthy of a place beside "The Open Question" and "The Magnetic North." "Common Sense in Religion." By Martin R. Smith. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. (Cloth, 2s net.' Tho author of this carefully-reasoned little work claims that his convictions arc founded upon "common sense," which assures him that "manv of tho doetrines of the Christian Church are necessarily false as they aro in clear negation of the love and justice of God and of His universal Fatherhood." Ho then proceeds to consider sundry points springing out of tho original statement. In some cases it must be confessed that he is "beating the air," as the doctrines of which he complains have for some time ceased to be practically taught in most Christian churches, and are gradually

dying out. Others again, especially these that are concerned with "tho continuity of life," are now receiving a great deal l of attention. Ho makes full use of the : scientific .statement that every faculty presupposes its use, and that "common 3 sense unhesitatingly declares that the 3 existence among men of lovo, self-sacri--1 lice, compassion, wisdom, justice, and, s still more emphatically, of indcecribablo . sorrow, Buffering, and sin, makes it self- ] evident that ii future existence, in which [, will be carried on the manifestly educa- ; tional processes of this life, ir> guaranteed i to the Taee of men by tho love and . justice of the Creator. We know 3 that moral improvement is a. task of cnor--3 moi!6 difficulty . . that one of the 3 most certain of all facts in our nresent 5 lifo is that knowledge upon any subject ; can only be attained by individual personal e exertion . . . that there is nothing 5 less conceivable, nothing more certainly i impossible, than that a man should r attain knowledge on any subject without , having to go. through the personal labour , of acquiring it for himself." He points ; out that the proccss is infinitely long and , , slow, and as there is seen throughout 3 Nature "a continuity in God's metho<ls, 3 thero is not a shadow of reason for 6up- . posing that we shall find this law sud--3 denly changed into its direct opposite on 1 the transference of our life into another 8 sphere of existence," In fact, " there are j no short cuts to righteousness" here or (, horeafter. The same arguments that go to r prove the continuity of a future life also go to prove that the present life is not 8 the " genesis of existence." That heredity (r does not account for all tho differences ; between man and' man, but that "man j at birth possesses an intuitive sense t, which must either bo miraculous or the e result of previous experience. When we r find some among us already possessing a n moral and spiritual sense far in advance i, of their fellows, common sense assures us that tlijp pre-eminence has been attained by a longer experience or more earnest ' endeavour in the past, and is not a . miraculous preferential endowment, coni. forred upon them by the Creator at birth." 1 The whole book is wrtten in a simple, e argumentative, "common-sense" manner, j It is in no way didactive, nor does Mr „ Martin Smith try to force his views down j other people's throats. According to him s the Religion of Common Sense postulates s " the worship of one Almighty, all-holy j Lord God," also spiritual evolution and t progress in "slow and stately march" ] towards perfection and complete blessedc neiss. "It recognises that the 6tate to ; which we have attained in our present if life is but low and elementary, and that » the future for an indefinite period must d be occupied with our education"; also ■ t "that the foundation of such a clmrch / must ho reason, not credulity; facts, not j fiction; for the day is fast coining when , the intellectual powers of men will reject with contempt such spiritual pabulum as ■ t i 6 now offered to them. The ministers of n tho 'New Reformation' will have to ade dress their arguments to the reason of e their congregations, rather than to their 0 superstitious hopes and fears." . . . c There will bo but one article in the creed ;o of the new church—"l believe in the j Fatherhood and love of God." d -