INTRODUCTION. FEW books, perhaps, are more instructive, or hold out more encouraging motives to zeal in well-doing, than the lives of eminent Christian pastors. It is scarcely to be expected that the records of the early Church should have preserved those minute incidents of biographical history, which enable us to see the Christian minister in his daily walk and conversation. Much must there be left to the imagination: and our views of ministerial labors and usefulness must be derived chiefly from the accounts of more recent times. Our own Church furnishes many bright examples: and even the contemplation of the zealous labors of the ministers of other communities besides our own,— the devoted zeal of Xavier, the piety of De Sales, the munificence of Borromeo, or the daily labors of Oberlin or Neff,-has a powerful efficacy in calling up the spirit of emulation in hearts which require the influence of every available motive to stimulate them to persevering exertion. The Editor trusts, therefore, that the present volume, containing a somewhat detailed biography of a parochial clergyman of the English Church, will not be unacceptable or unprofitable. How he came by the materials from which the narrative is compiled, it boots not here to tell: some may think, perhaps, that he has ransacked the goodly folio volumes from which Mr. Warlingham draws his copious and valuable stores of incidents.* He trusts, however, that many future productions from the same quarter will prove that that source of pleasure and improvement is not yet exhausted. The present volume sets forth in its progress an account of the great change or modification of opinion which has taken place within the last ten years. The clergyman whose course is depicted appears to have entered upon his ministerial duties in the condition of a man biased to no school or party, but prepared to adopt the views to which experience or enlarged knowledge should lead him-a condition which in the present day may seem unnatural, but which was common enough at the time when our narrative commences. * See the first page of the introduction to "Tales of the Village," by the Rev. F. E. Paget. |