DOMINION LIBRARY.

White Ribbon, Volume 36, Issue 429, 18 April 1931, Page 5

DOMINION LIBRARY.

* 1 * “WHO IS THIS JESUS?” "Who is this Jesus?” is the title of [ji t»ook recently published by Hodder land Stoughton. The author is a woman —a Miss Kirkland, who presents a most forceful argument for the reality of the Christian faith. She tells us she herself is described as a “presentday mystic,” and perhaps that phrase l»est summarises the main thoughts of the book. She emphasises the need for an interpretation of the Gospel for the solution of present day problems. She sees humour in one going about with a Bible in one hand and a bayonet in the other. She pays a tribute to the miracles of science and its co-operation in attesting the truth of Christianity. She realises that the spirit of “adventurous humility” and an intrepid love for our fellow-men is the solution of much of our unrest. While apologising for the cramping mediaeval conceptions held by the Church and its relegation of the Kingdom of Clod to some ‘fcnisty post-mundane future,” and thus wholly exonerating itself from building it, Miss Kirkland emphasises the need for adherence to a Church, for “without fellowship we become eccentric.” Her definition of mysticism rings with reality. Thus she says: “If mysticism described as the determined unremitting attempt to make the bravest Man in history live beside you, then mysticism Incomes a stern and vigorous intellectual practice. . . . Mysticism is not mush; it is the vigorous .sifting over of all the data of life to one end. namely, living.” Miss Kirkland bases all her ls>ok on its opening lines: “I believe there is no one in the work! to-day so alive as Jesus of Nazareth. ... If Christians had ever l>een brave enough to make Christ alive nobody would now be saying that Christianity is dead.” The whole b<*ok is u challenge to all who read it, and more especially to those who call themselves Christians *n a world that is crying out for a faith that is real, practical, and Christ-like. The above review is of a new l>ook just added to the Library. It can be had from the Librarian, Mrs Field, The Rocks, Port Nelson. Postage prepaid, 2d.