facts speak. In delineating the Christian life, moreover, one can never even approach truthfulness, if he regards only one aspect of character: Christianity, by hypothesis, makes all things new. The book is popular in the sense that I desired its style to be such as would please all readers: but I must beg to state that, in the first part, I endeavor to lay the foundation on the deepest and most stable ground. I have throughout abstained from quotation of book and page. The facts I state in connection with each man of whom I treat, are what might have been embraced in a pretty long review article. I state my obligations to the authors of the several biographic works I have consulted: and it will be no unimportant result, if my essay should lead to a wider and more practical use of the valuable and varied materials afforded by our now rich literature of Christian biography; from such a reservoir, streams might be led off to water many a particular field, and cause many a particular crop to grow. In my first chapter, and in the first of the Second Part, I speak occasionally with a decision and succinctness which may seem somewhat assuming. I must excuse myself by saying, that I have almost entirely given results, and that I did not rashly satisfy myself of their soundness. I may mention that, in defining the nature of happiness, I do not mean to assert that the theory of Sir William Hamilton is identical with that of Butler, but only that they can be shown to harmonize. 1 AP 59 |