_Roding Rectory_ (Stanley Paul) is in many respects the best novel Mr. Archibald Marshall has written. Those who remember _Exton Manor_ and the three books dealing with the lives and deeds of the _Clintons_ will consider this to be high praise, as, indeed, it is meant to be. Mr. Marshall preserves the ease and amenity of style which we have learnt to expect of him; he creates his characters--ordinary English men and women, animated by ordinary English motives--with all his old skill, and he sets them to work out their destinies in that pleasant atmosphere of English country life which no one since Trollope's death has reproduced with greater truth and delicacy than Mr. Marshall. This time, however, the clash of temperaments and traditions is more severe, the story cuts deeper into humanity, and the narration of it is, I think, more closely knit. The Rector of Roding, the _Rev. Henry French_, is a fine figure of a man honourably devoted to the duties of his parish and abounding in good works. It is sad to see him cast down from his pride of place by the sudden revelation of an ill deed done in his thoughtless youth at Oxford. In an interview managed with an admirable sense of dramatic fitness he is faced by a son, the living embodiment of his all-but-forgotten sin, and soon the whole parish knows of it. But the Rector, with the aid of his wife, fights his fight and in the end wins back his self-respect and the respect of his neighbours. He is helped, too, by _Dr. Merrow_, the Congregational minister, a beautiful character drawn with deep sympathy. Indeed, it is _Dr. Merrow_ who has the _beau role_, and, I must add, deserves it. For the rest I must let Mr. Marshall's book speak for itself. He has written a very powerful and interesting story. * * * * *