REALIZING JESUS AND OTHER SERMONS.

By Dr. Philip Wendell Crannell '82. Kansas City, Mo. Western Baptist Pub. Cos. 1936. 190 p. $1.25.

Dr. Crannell is a preacher; lecturer; President Emeritus of Kansas City Baptist Theological Seminary and former head of the Department of Religion, Colorada Woman's College. He is the author of a number of religious books, among which this volume of sermons is the latest..

There are fourteen sermons here presented, two of which were used on special occasions while the others may be called-in common tongue—regular. These sermons are what the author intended them to bereligious. The topics and treatment confirm this fulfilment of aim. Among these are: The Seen and the Unseen; The Passing and the Permanent; Faith and Knowledge; Love Never Faileth and the one which gives the title to the group—Realizing Jesus. The mind of one familiar with homiletics is evident in all. There is organized thought; concise statement; no lagging intervals and balance. But above the form and infusing both this and the words is the quiet, yet animated spirit of the preacher. He has conviction, sees a worthy goal; is conscious of a mission and goes cheerfully forward, joyous in the feeling that the goal is a supremely worthy one.

Dr. Crannell is now fifty-four years away from his College days and to many will be considered very old-fashioned, quite out of the modern world and a real fundamentalist. To a part of these judgments I would surmise he would reply, that they are true and further deliberately true. He apparently is enough of the Old School to believe that both men and society are reformed from within, and also, that religion and morality are not of this world but are the reformers and creators of what good there is in this world. Hence his religious spirit and motive.

There are murmurings of hope in some breasts today that a new generation of saner, wiser, and more loyal men and women will arise before too long—a people who will find that life does not rise from economics and whose eyes will be opened to see the true wisdom and values. They will sense the things that make a democracy yield a life worth while and they will seek to reveal that higher type of social fellowship wherein no man's hand is against his fellowman nor thrust into his neighbor's pocket-book.

This book of sermons will then be appreciated much above what they may be today. They nevertheless will have a real place in this new birth.