It requires no great reach of faith to apprehend that the time has fully come when the words of the risen Saviour may become our assurance respecting tropical Africa—“Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it.” * * * * * LIFE OF EDWARD NORRIS KIRK, D. D. The appearance of this biography renews our remembrance of the honored man whose life and work is chronicled so well by his former pupil and friend, Rev. David O. Mears. As the President of the American Missionary Association for nearly ten years—from 1865 until death sundered the relation—it is fitting that there should be a notice of this published record of his career in the organ of the Association. Dr. Kirk was born in New York City, was graduated from Princeton College, and pursued legal studies for a year and a half, living a life which he characterizes as profligate. His conversion, after a severe struggle, was complete, and the purpose of his life was utterly changed. He immediately devoted himself to preparation for the ministry of the gospel. Handsome, gifted and ardent, he at once took a leading position. His two pastorates, at Albany and in Boston, were full of fruitfulness. While yet a pastor, he did the work of an evangelist, with a power and success which has been seldom paralleled. He was a direct and pungent preacher, sometimes, as in Albany, stirring up opposition, and yet wonderfully tender and conciliating in his manner, and so gaining friends even from those who antagonized him. He was always a reformer, but a radical only in the best sense. He spoke manfully of the slave, and of the possibilities of the African race, in 1820, when only in his eighteenth year, a student at Princeton. Not until much later was he in sentiment an Abolitionist. He was never a denunciator. In opposing a false system, he made all charitable allowance for those involved in it, and was careful to recognize the fact that there were slaveholders who became or continued such that they might protect and benefit the slave. In the summer of 1860 and in the spring of 1861, when the South was peculiarly sensitive, Dr. Kirk was traveling in Virginia, North Carolina and beyond, expressing his sentiments frankly, and yet so courteously and wisely that he was always met with kindness. In 1865, when the emancipation of the slaves had opened to the A. M. A. the work of their instruction and Christianization, Dr. Kirk was chosen its President, as a man representing its aim and spirit most fully. His sympathy with its work was deep and earnest, and continued to the end. But this was not a specialty. He was equally earnest in the cause of Foreign Missions, of work among the Roman Catholics, of Education (as shown by his interest in Amherst College and the Mount Holyoke Seminary), of Temperance, and of evangelistic work at home.