LAURENCE OLIPHANT.

Otago Witness, Issue 1915, 3 August 1888, Page 31

LAURENCE OLIPHANT.

The Commencement of His Promising Career

—His Mysterious Eetirement from the World— Propagating a New Faith— Hia

New Book— lnspired by his Dead Wife.

For a considerable period of years, whereever there was commotion or disturbance in the world, Mr Laurence Oliphant somehow managed to be in the heat of it. Beginning by thrilling encounters with elephants and tigers in Ceylon when he was only a boy, he swept over the globe, generally in mischief with a tendency to the rebellious side, but often in diplomacy with all the state of an Imperial mission to steady his adventurous instincts. We cannot but think that he liked William Walker, of Nicaragua, and other filibusters in the Far West, and that legitimate and authorised filibuster Garibaldi, better than his position in the suites of the various Excellencies whose achievements he has recorded. But these were all confusions of a youth certainly not wasted, but put to the fullest use. A graver period opened upon him when he settled in London as member for the Stirling Burghs ; where his familiar family name and the reputation he has already acquired gained him at once a seat. He was thus, while still early in life, placed in the most advantageous position.