Robert Laws of Livingstonia
by James Johnston, F.R.H.S.,
Glasgow: Pickering and Inglis, Bothwell Street. Price 2/-
This interesting volume is one of the Bright Biographies series. It has much to say about the devoted labours of Dr. Laws and gives a graphic account of the great change wrought by the gospel in Nyasaland. It was the power of the gospel that broke the inhuman, cruel slavetrade in Nyasa and drove the slave-raider beyond its boundaries. A brief account is also given of the taming of the wild ‘Ngoni with which work Dr. Elmslie’s name will forever be associated. Dr. Laws belonged to the United Presbyterian Church though he began his great life work under the Free Church as early as 1875. He had a godly upbringing and an interesting story is told of him as a schoolboy. One morning he slept in and in the hurried rush to get to school in time he forgot his prayers. While on the way to school he remembered that he had failed to say his morning prayer and there and then he knelt down on the pavement quite unconcerned and offered up his prayer to God. Dr. Laws’ name will go down to history as one of the great figures in the missionary field. In saying so we are not to be understood as endorsing all his views nor his ecclesiastical view-point. He was a keen unionist in Scottish ecclesiastical movements.