SAINT MARGARET.

Otago Witness, Issue 1942, 7 February 1889, Page 32

SAINT MARGARET.

By William Tibebuok.

This remarkable little book is the history of many a soul at the present day besides , that of' Julian Jerome. It is the record of the struggle of a spirit, through violent revolutions of thought and feeling, into the calm of on assured faith, a patient confidence, a resolute self-denial for the good of his fellow-men. Apart even from the last injunction of a father to whom he was devoted, to "Be Christ—live Him," Julian Jerome was eleoted by his energy of oharaoter^ his strength of purpose, his large moral nature* and his intense human sympathies to the role of a philanthropist. He began active work by taking charge of a mission room under the ritualistic vicar of St. Margaret. Notwithstanding the seductions of a beautiful church and a perfect service he soon found out the weak points of Ritualism. It appeared to him that his fellow-churchmen were content to make their ceremonial the sole and only expression of an adoration that ought to have been converted into efforts to save, morally and physically, the poor and the degraded around them. His mission room was an agency apa,rt frorri any co-operation, beyond the contribution of funds, on the part of the refined and exclusive parishioners of St. Margaret. He came, at last, to feel that without the hand-to-hand help of the church members he could not make his work a success. His next sphere of labour was a Radical Club in Yorkshire. At first he was encouraged by the earnestness, enthusiasm, and apparent reality of the members. By-and-bye he came to see that their zeal for reform left their own characters untouched. They wanted to re-model the Government, but they had no notion of beginning by reforming their own lives and homes. What the Radicals Forgot. My poor democrats, in their cry against Imperial Government, neglected the government of them^elvcfik According to them, and according to me, there w&s some vast wrong in the land; bub they, tho men, could not keep their owa hearthstones right. Nationally there was always great extravagance; but socially they saw no need of financial reform. They lived in self-imposed wretchedness, expecting from men meeting in & London Parliament House a ready-made felicity for immediate application. By their neglects they seemed to expect that Cabinets 6hould institute some mechanical mean 3by which dirty and clottedhaired children should be groomed by the State. They called kings and queens bad names, as if in munificent contrast the President of a Republic would personally Bee to neglected liuou, make loose buttons hold fast, and altogether acb the part of an excellent husband and a dutiful wife, while they bore chiMrcn for tho good of tho State. After some further vicissitudes, our hero accepts the post of secretary to a noted scientist of Agnostic opinions. Jerome learns from him many things, his conception of the mystery of life becomes immensely enlarged, and he realises tho necessity of waiting patiently for the unravelling of many perplexities. At length his faith comes back strengthened and widened. Though little of a creed is left to him, he believes profoundly in the religion of goodness. Adorable Deeds. To havo part of the great Truth, aud not reveal it, is death; to havo it and spread it from man to man is life—life for me, life for others, life now, and life in the future. I must go forward !—pausing not, doubting notj until Nature's own rest naturally comes. I: hank God, I thank experience, I thank progres-', call it what we may, thab all the .strife has nor, been in vain. I am now at one wifch the adoption of all men, if adoration results in adorable ctaeds. I am Pagan, Grecian, Romau, English, and, like some of the South Pacific tribes, I can worship the first thing I meet in the morning. I can place the simplest hymn book alongside of Homer and Shakespeare, for the volumes of Homer and Shakespeare are only single rhymes in the vast poem of human emotion, as the men Homer aud Shakespeare wore rythms iv the vast measure of mankind. luterwovcn with the stern prose of his life of action and conflict is the face, the vision, the personality of a beautiful, highsouled woman, the " St. Margaret" of the title, whose convictions undergo a change similar to bis own. As the reader turns over the pages he very soon becomes aware that his author .is writing because he has something to say, and that he is writing it in the form of a story because he wants it to be read. The earnestness of the thought impresses itself upon the style; and metaphor, description, and theorising are alike deliberate and premeditated. It is a book that thoughtful, serious-minded persons will appreciate and enjoy.