MAN OF COMPASSION, MAN OF PRAYER:
The guiding hand of God in the life of John Harris of the Leprosy Mission
By Doreen Sharp. Paternoster. 121 pages. £7.99
ISBN 1 85078 431 0
This is a short biography of a 20th-century missionary hero. Dr. John Harris clearly made an impact on all he met; indeed I remember meeting him: he seemed to me to be a lively and yet very kind man. This impression is fleshed out in detail from his childhood to his death soon after retirement, written by someone who was there: his sister.
Who would like to read this book? Anyone wanting confirmation of God's goodness over a lifetime; anyone wanting to model their lives on a man who was gifted and gracious, and determined to serve his God in all he did. Anyone reading Evangelicals Now, then? Well, with one caveat. I think the minimum age of the reader is 40 something. The foreign world of duty, of strict separation of men's and women's roles; the absence of any context such as loss of Empire, decline of Christendom, loss of belief in authority and indeed in mission, all these aspects would make readers under 40 something give up.
