Book Reviews
The Mind of the Master Builder: An In terpretation of St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. By Rev. H. B. Durant, M. A. A brief treatise, by a veteran missionary, on the world-wide Gospel of the great Apos tle to the Gentiles. Mr. Purant brings out in an inspiring and practical manner the salient points,in the missionary gospel, and mind and heart are quickened even by a rapid survey of its pages. The volume closes with a reassuring word for dogmatic certi tude and assertion with regard to the funda mentals of the Christian faith: The Crea tive-word, born of a woman, died an ex piatory death; had a bodily resurrection; and will return and reign in glory. The Chinese Revolution. By Arthur Jud- son Brown. Student Volunteer Movement, New York. Cloth. 212 pp. 75 cents. To them who would be intelligent re garding the situation in China, the revolu tion, the causes th at led to it and the forces now operating to mould the future, we com mend this full sketch by one thoroughly competent. A historical and contemporary description could scarcely be more readable and certainly not more timely. Here we see how intellectual, social, commercial and po litical transformations wait on missions and follow the missionary. Bent only on eternal redemption of peoples from the thralldom of sin; unavoidably the missionary's gospel transforms temporal conditions and liberates mind and body. It Is the main purpose of these Book Reviews to persuade the readers of “THE KING'S BUSINESS” to secure and read the volumes commended for their per sonal edification and the quickening of their zeal in the spread of the Gospel. The critical opportunity in China is vividly set before us in “The Chinese Revolution." Get it. Thinking Black. By Dan Crawford. George Doran Co., New York. 555 pp. Cloth. $2.00. This unique book has received the highest praise and taken a place in the missionary library from which it will not be dislodged. It will be read when “thinking black” shall have been sanctified by thinking Christian, and black thinking shall have become a sig nificant factor in the progress of mankind. A period of 23 years in the “Heart of Africa” has given Mr. Crawford an insight into the African heart, discovering th at "think ing black” is very like thinking white and quite superior thinking in some lines. Of the half thousand pages there is not one dull one. The last 25 years have wrought
more changes in central Africa than the preceding 25 centuries; but have only hinted of the resources, and possibilities of the heart of Africa and the African heart. Mr. Crawford’s experience in “boring” the con tinent (let him tell it to you from his amusing, pathetic, and informing pages) 23 years ago include more obstacles than would now be met from either man, beast or jun gle, and so in “boring” inward to the Afri can soul the word of God’s grace is now making more progress in a day than in a decade formerly. The African song to the pioneer, to the pathetic little “dew drier,” who, drenched with chill and heavy dews from the tall dank grasses, opens the trail to the long Indian file th at follows, suggests the less difficult work of “ Mr. Second," who follows the “dew drier” in the person of the present-day missionary; though he still has a “hard road to travel.” The State of the Church. By Rev. An drew Murray, D. D. James Nisbet & Co., London. Cloth. 75 cents. Two main points of view brought into the limelight a t the late World’s Missionary Conference, in Edinburgh, gave occasion td the earnest appeal to Christendom which is the burden of this book: First, the appalling and critical need of the unevangelized world, and, second, the appalling Indifference of the evangelical Church. Doctor Murray .cites the utterances of the leading spirits of the Conference, men whose familiarity with the field a t home and abroad gives all the weight of competent authority to their words, to show both the condition of the field abroad and of the Church at home, as presenting a problem the Lord of the harvest alone can Bolve. The w riter then proceeds to show th at Divine provision is fully made, adequate to all our needs, conditioned only upon the consecration of the Church to her God-given ministry, and to be supplied to her for the asking. The grave question is raised, Is there vitality In the Church, equal to the work before her? The almost inevitable answer, according to the author and his Conference report, we dread to utter. Doc tor Murray’s call is one to PRATER', to waiting for “the promise of the Father” for that “power” which wrought the wonders of Pentecost, and will work them again through a Church with as vivid a faith and vital a love. The book has passed into its fifth edition and, like Doctor Pierson’s “The Crisis of Missions,” should mark an epoch of prayer, power and progress in the only business of the Church in this age. Order from Bible Institute Book Rooms.
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