REVIEWS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIX, Issue 18, 30 April 1913, Page 49

REVIEWS.

Cotne Rack I Come Rope ! : By Robert Hugh Benson. (London: Hutchinson's Colonial Library. Auckland per Wildman and Arey.) Be the reader of Mr Benson’s book Catholic or Protestant, he will not read this impressive story unmoved. In these days of . religious tolerance or apathy stories of the type of "Come Rack! Come Rope!” are needed to remind men of the anguish of body and spirit their fathers endured that they may worship or refrain, as they list. Mr Benson’s fine, if harrowing, story, is laid in Tudor times, at the period, in short, when Mary Stuart was being held in durance vile by her Royal sister, Elizabeth. The story opens where Robin Audrey, a Catholic gentleman, but a loyal subject of Elizabeth, is confounded by the news that his father is about, being tired of fines and persecutions, to abjure the Catholic religion. Robin is engaged to Marjorie Manners, who is also a Catholic, and a. woman set in heroic mould. To her Robin tells the story of his father’s defection, upon which Marjorie bids him be true at all hazards to his faith, but to be obedient in all other matters to his father. Robin’s father, however, insists upon unconditional obedience, witht the result that Robin determines to become a priest. And, though Marjorie loves him so dearly that the thought of his becoming a priest is anguish, she upholds and strengthens him in the resolve. It would scarcely be fair to Monsignor Benson to divulge more of his story, which may be read by every reader in Christendom with profit. And it constitutes, moreover. a valuable and faithful series of pictures of the troubled times in which its many stirring and poignant scenes are set. A Babe in Bohemia : By Frank Dauby. (London’s Stanley Paul and Co.) This is a new reprint of one of the most popular stories in Frank Danby’s repertoire. It details the history of a girl born in lower Bohemia, who, inherently pure at heart, is literally forced to become the mistress of a man she loves in order to escape worse horrors. The story is distressing, though probably true to life. But one could wish that the undoubted talent Frank Dauby possesses were turned into more ideal chanin!-.