In Season, Out of Season

This latest collection of sermons by Eric James is also the best, drawing as it does on a lifetime of experience, a deep personal faith, and a love of people, music, literature and the richness of life. It also has a valedictory quality, since during the period covered by the collection the charity Christian Action, of which Eric James had been director, closed down after fifty years, and he resigned from being Preacher to Gray’s Inn, an office which he had held for nineteen years. Here too is a farewell to an era, with ‘In memoriam’ sermons on a number of distinguished figures who embodied that era, and constant references to a world which is passing away.áHowever, that is only part of the story. In Season, Out of Season is dedicated to an ordinand preparing to preach to the next generation, and like Eric James’s favourite collect, ‘0 God, who hast prepared for them that love thee such good things as pass man’s understanding…’, it is full of hope for the future.