Certain Nonconformist ministers had a habit--it is now fast dying--of interspersing the reading of the Lesson in service-time with comment and illustration. Mrs. Macandrew has applied a similar method in this volume. Writing to satisfy the needs of an agnostic friend, Mrs. Macandrew retells the story of the four Gospels and supports the narrative with critical expositions of her own or, occasionally, of such authorities as Edersheim. It is not easy to see for whom the book is intended. Mrs. Macandrew is frankly uncritical. She not only ignores the whole body of "higher criticism," but she makes no reference to textual difficulties, and, in discussing such a passage as the Confession of Peter, does not even mention the fact that a considerable controversy has gathered for some years around the precise significance of the promise, "On this rock I will build my Church." It will not be to everybody's taste to have the annunciation described in this way: God the Father sent an angel called Gabriel to that city of flowers--Nazareth in Galilee--sent him to a sweet and good and lovely _but quite poor girl_ called Mary who was soon to be married to a man much older than herself, called Joseph. And when we tried to read Mrs. Macandrew's paraphrases of the parables we recalled with a sigh Mr. Birrell's complaint against Canon Farrar, "who elongated the Gospels." It no doubt gave Mrs. Macandrew some months of happiness to write the book, but we think she was ill-advised in submitting it to the public. SCIENCE CATALYSIS IN THEORY AND PRACTICE. By ERIC K. RIDEAL and HUGH S. TAYLOR. Macmillan & Co. 17_s._ net.