Of the latter, there are many things to emblazon, to palliate, and expatiate upon, which may astonish the mind of the former, plain matters of fact are all which are required; and these we hope may benefit the heart of the reader.

INTRODUCTION.

IN presenting this work to the public, we are actuated by no ambitious motives or any desire to obtain notoriety or fame as an author. On the contrary, we have a deep sense of our inability to do the subject that justice which is demanded, and which an abler pen might accomplish. This consciousness of inability has begotten a self-distrust oppressive to our feelings. Still we perform this work as a long-neglected duty, at the earnest solicitation of friends whom we dearly love, and for whom we are willing to make any reasonable sacrifices.

The work is done at this late day, having been delayed from a variety of causes not necessary to be specified here, that the present and future believers in the great salvation may know something of an individual minister of Christ, to whose ardent and faithful labors the cause of the Redeemer has been greatly indebted. The past, present and the future, are inseparably connected; the prospects and interests of each may be seen to be blended with all the

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parts constituting the great whole. Hence to strike out the past from the history of our denomination would seriously affect our present condition, and exert a deleterious influence upon our future prospects. We would rather view them as a unity, constituting a three fold cord, not easily broken.

It belongs to the present occupants of the Master's vineyard to collect and preserve the history of those who lived in by-gone days, by whose labors the soil of Gospel truth was prepared; those who sowed the good seed of the kingdom, and who watched its germination and progress, exhibiting "first the blade, then the ear, afterwards the full corn in the ear." We can hardly overrate the labors of philanthropists, statesmen, civilians and divines, as they tell upon our interests and our destiny. We cannot, any of us, tell what we should have been had not those labors been performed. Who can estimate the arduous labors of a Paul, or describe the influence of those labors upon his own, and all succeeding ages? Who can rise to the inconceivable height of his Christian philosophy, or penetrate the arcana of the divine mysteries as he did, and not feel an indebtedness to him for some of the highest conceptions and the purest joys which heaven has allotted to man?

So of other men in the various departments of litera

ture, science and religion. They have contributed largely to the improvement of human society and welfare; they have made their mark for good in the world, and the influences they wrought out have come down to us, and it becomes us to cherish their memories, and avail ourselves of all the benefits resulting from their labors.

Every denomination of Christians has had its lights, in the persons of its ministers. They have held up those lights by publishing memoirs, which have been read with profit by millions. If it was an imperative duty for the primitive disciples of the great Master to let their light shine before men, the obligation is binding, with equal strength, upon Christian disciples in every age of the Church; especially should this obligation be realized in reference to those who have performed important labors in the ministry, that those labors be not confined to the age in which they lived, but exert a power for good in all coming time.

Thus the Catholics have held up the life and the pious labors of a Fenelon, a Massillon, and others equally distinguished for learning, piety and Christian zeal. Protestants have done the same. Who has not read, with great satisfaction and moral profit, the memoirs of a Wesley, a Clarke, a Whitefield, of the Methodist Church? Who

has not felt his heart warmed, and his spirit refreshed as he has read the glowing pages of a Channing?

In our own denomination, we have the Life of Murray, with the record of his various trials, in his native land; of his expatriation from the home of his fathers, on account of his faith; of his lifting up his voice in proclaiming the great salvation in the wilderness of America, and of his wonderful success in spreading a kuowledge of the true gospel, until the "wilderness was made to rejoice and blossom as the rose." We see, and in some measure feel, the power of that heaven-descended religion that sustained that eminent "man of God," as he labored and suffered reproach, trusting in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe. Truly we may say of him, "though he is dead, he yet speaketh."

We have also, in our libraries, the Memoirs of Elhanan Winchester, who emerged from Trinitarian Calvinism into the broad and brilliant light of Universal restoration. Many are the aged Universalists throughout the length and breadth of our land, who refer with pleasure to his "Dialogues," as instrumental in opening the eyes of their understanding, and of giving them "good hope through grace," of the final triumph of the Prince of Peace over the kingdom of darkness, and of the final