This excellent history of the evangelical tradition of Anglicanism should go a long way in dispelling the enormous ignorance that characterizes much of our American church in regard to this important part of the Anglican Communion. From Wycliffe and Tyndale, Cranmer and the prayer book, Latimer and Ridley, Hooker and Herbert, Whitefield and Wesley, Newton and Simeon in England; Devereaux Jarrett and Alexander Griswold, Philander Chase and Charles McIlwaine in America; to quite recent events in the Episcopal Church, and Lambeth 1998, and Archbishops Donald Coggan and George Carey, the story of Anglican evangelicalism is responsibly and even charmingly described.

Roger Steer has a wonderful feel for the telling anecdote. Once when George Whitefield was invited to preach to the 18th-century congregation of the indomitable William Grimshaw, the latter interrupted Whitefield' s complimentary introduction: "For God's sake don't speak so," cried Grimshaw, springing to his feet at the reading desk, "I pray you do not flatter them. The greater part of them are going to hell with their eyes open!"

Overall the book's treatment is sympathetic and appreciative. However, there is no absence of criticism in a "warts and all" approach. Significant space is even given to James Barr's trenchant criticism of conservative evangelicals.

The decline of evangelicalism in America, until recently, accounts for much of the ignorance which this volume can correct. A symptom of this ignorance is the assumption of most Virginia Seminary graduates that the motto of the school is William Sparrow's slogan: "Seek the truth, come whence it may, cost what it will." Actually the motto is: "And the Word became flesh" and "the Faith once for all delivered." It marks the transition from a religion of revealed faith to one of seeking faith.

One regrets such omissions as William Meade and Sam Shoemaker. Philip Hughes' remarkable influence on Anglo-Catholics deserves attention. Space does not allow an adequate description of the author's tendency to treat justification as a matter of balance rather than depth. Yet these are small issues in this much-needed scholarly work.