PREFACE. THE HE purpose of this Memoir is to prolong and extend the usefulness of a life of rich promise, which to human seeming came to a most untimely close. Some explanation seems needed of the delay in its appearance. This has resulted from the ever-pressing literary duties of the author's office, from a succession of exhausting illnesses, from the abundance of the material, and from other inevitable causes. It is believed, however, that the delay will not diminish either the utility or the interest of the book. The combination of high intellectual culture, and the boldest reading and thinking, with the most simple, steadfast faith, and the most ardent, plodding, evangelic earnestness-the possibility of which is here proved, and the effect of which is here illustrated-is still one of the most urgent desiderata of the Christian Church. The quickened interest in the life of our Universities which is now taken by the various Nonconformist Churches will add to the immediate interest of the successful University-career of a young Nonconformist preacher. CLAPTON, March 17th, 1885. |