Conversion, E. Stanley Jones, Abingdon Press, Nashville, Tennessee, 253 pages, $3.25.
The author, always a vivid speaker and writer, is not here concerned with the theological background of conversion or with Biblical proof texts. He deals wholly with the experiential, which to him is the imperative thing if life is not to end in shipwreck.
Seldom is a book so packed with apt and powerful anecdotes. In many places the author strings his paragraphs together, each with a grippingly new experience. He swings with skilled touch from India to Japan to China, from place to place in the New World. Then we meet the electrifying transformation of conversion in the high, the low, in rulers, statesmen, scientists, philosophers, students, soldiers, beggars. Some are positively astounding, and preachers will use many of these incidents to illustrate their own ideas and sermons.
This book is easy to read. More references for outstanding statements and an index would have been preferable, but the absence of these will not worry the preacher who is searching for ideas and illustrative material, which are here in abundance.
H. W. Lowe
Great Women of the Christian Faith, Edith Deen, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1959, 428 pages.
Edith Deen, author of All the Women of the Bible, has presented within the covers of the above book a regiment of Christian women who have bent their talents and their energies to the task of bringing to their fellow men some deeper knowledge of God's love.
With accurate yet sympathetic strokes she has painted quick biographies of 123 women whose lives have molded the course of mankind to lesser or greater extent. Her honor roll reaches back to the second century after Christ and continues through to the twentieth century, including in its number the name of Ellen G. White.
Of Mrs. White the author writes: "Penniless but filled with faith, Ellen G. White helped to found the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which has established itself in 185 of the world's 205 countries. . . . For her public ministry, her personal labor for souls and her solicitous care of the church, Ellen White has become one of its best-loved figures." Seven pages fill out a portrait of this Adventist pioneer that is complimentary both to her and to her church.
Edith Deen has placed her women extraordinaire in six categories: (T) Women of the Early Centuries; (2) Women of the Middle Centuries; (3) Women of a Time of Awakening; (4) Women Who Pioneered; (5) Women Who Built; and (6) Women Who Advanced.
Vibia Perpetua, an early Christian martyr of about 181-203, holds the lead position in the book. 'Her blood became the seed of the church," the author writes. "Vibia Perpetua was in her early twenties when, singing a psalm, she went forth with joyful, radiant countenance to a martyr's death." How she lived and how she died for Christ is a story that grips the reader from the opening sentence onward.
Catherine Booth, Mary Moffatt Livingstone, Ann Judson, Elizabeth Fry, Susanna Wesley, Anne Hutchinson, Margaret Fell Fox, Katherine Von Bora— these are only a few of the people whose lives move briefly across the pages of Great Women of the Christian Faith.
Miss Deen and Harpers have done an outstanding job of gathering facts about these outstanding people and presenting them in a manner that both thrills and inspires the reader to raise his sights above the things of mere earthly value.
M. Carol Hetzell
Try Giving Yourself Away, David Dunn, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, revised and enlarged edition 1959, 128 pages, $2.95.
More than twenty years ago David Dunn wrote an article with the above title for Forbes magazine, which was reprinted in condensed form in the Reader's Digest in 1945 and reprinted again by request in August, 1959. Between those years this article was expanded into the present book, which presents a philosophy and workable suggestions for happiness for oneself through enrichment of the lives of others. Not by monetary means, but through "little sparks of appreciation," obeying "warmhearted impulses," "citizenship giving," "the investment of influences," "the second thanks," "the habit of noticing," the giving of tolerance and loyalty to friends, et cetera.
Pastors would do well to have copies of this book in their church libraries, recommending it for missionary workers in visitation, Share Your Faith, and Dorcas Welfare contacts. Many of the illustrations portray true Christianity in action even though it is not written as a religious book.
A few excerpts from the book presented to the congregation may lead those who are completely wrapped up in themselves to find pleasure in the cultivation of kindliness, considerateness, thought-fulness, tolerance, and good nature.
The pastoral family will gain many valuable ideas for good neighborliness in community and city by reading this book. Bertha W. Fearing
The Cross-Reference Bible, edited by Harold E. Monser, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids 6, Michigan, 1959, $14.95.
After carefully examining The Cross-Reference Bible we agree with the publisher that "this is one of the most complete analyses of the Bible ever produced in a single volume. It was prepared with just one thought in mind: What does the Bible teach?"
Originally printed in the year 1910, Baker Book House has produced a 1959 reprint of excellent craftsmanship. Since this work is highly recommended by ministers and teachers who for several decades have become conversant with its well-organized sections and student features, we merely draw attention to its main helps:
1. A footnote arrangement of the entire teaching of the Bible on practically all the important subjects.
2. Marginal references, which guide the user to the page on which is found a complete analysis of other subjects of significance.
3. Variorum readings, which are helpful to an understanding of words, phrases, or entire verses of Scripture.
4. An analytical outline of each book of the Bible.
5. A cumulative index to the hundreds of subjects analyzed within its pages.
The text is that of the American Standard Version of the Bible. Cooperating in the preparation of this tremendous work we find listed some of the outstanding Bible students of the century. The needs of the pastor in the preparation of sermons, and those of the average Bible student as well as the layman, are here met in a satisfactory way. The size of the volume is 6 by 9.25 inches. College librarians, please take notice. l. c. k.
History of the Jewish Nation, Alfred Edersheim, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1954 reprint, 553 pages, $4.20.
The author is a well-recognized authority on the history of the Jewish nation, and here covers the period after the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus. This book is worthy of an honored place on the reference shelf and as a textbook. Alfred Eder-sheim's conversion to Christianity from Judaism helped him to see the history of his own race in proper perspective. His presentation of fact and his lucidity in expression make this work valuable and most interesting reading. If sheds light on the Gospels and the book of Acts, and on subsequent church history. The author describes the state of society, of trade and commerce, agriculture, arts, sciences, and theology during the first years of the Christian Era.
Teachers of poetry, music, and science will want to become well acquainted with Edersheim, and every minister and Bible instructor should- be conversant with this historian. The book is included in the Baker Book House Co-operative Reprint Library, which is designed to save you money.
The Miracles and Parables of the Old Testament. by "A London Minister," Baker Book House, Grand Rapids 6, Michigan, 1959 reprint, 427 pages, $3.95.
"This book abounds in seed for sermons." The publishers' catchy statement is not overdrawn, for a perusal of the book immediately satisfies the reader that it has value. Supplementary material from sermon masters of the past include illuminating selections from Matthew Henry, Charles Simeon, Krummacher, Lange, Erskine, Fatrbairn, John Owen, Bishop Hall, and many others. We were surprised to count more than a hundred miracles and parables of the Old Testament, and in the main these are given a sound spiritual interpretation.
The preface suggests that before this work appeared in 1890, according to the best authorities no book had ever been published on the miracles and parables of the Old Testament "answering to the large number of works on those of the New Testament," The foregoing is an interesting statement in the light of the fact that it was made toward the close of the nineteenth century. For the studious minister these homiletic sermon outlines will do more than "prime the pump." (Overseas workers kindly take notice.) l. c. k.
All the Men of the Bible, Herbert Lockyer, Zonder-van Publishing House, Grand Rapids 6, Michigan, 1958, 381 pages, $4.95.
Nowhere in the world do we have a more superb portrait gallery of human nature than in the Bible. What a mixture of personalities from all walks of life are there—"Kings and knaves, princes and paupers, the tenderhearted and the traitorous, saints and sinners, the courageous and the cowardly." God in His wisdom has allowed inspiration to reveal, like a clear mirror, the sacred record of human character.
All the Men of the Bible is a unique source book and reference library of more than three thousand Bible characters. This volume is a cyclopedic work packed with sermonic material. Some of the attractive, thought-provoking titles used for the headings of the various Bible characters will suggest intriguing sermon subject titles. This work reveals careful research. It will be of practical value to ministers who need interesting information concerning Bible characters at their finger tips, a. c. f.