The following pages are the fruit of meditations entered upon with the desire to lessen the distance painfully felt to exist between my own life and ministry and those of the primitive Christians. This fact may, in some measure, account for the plan of the work. Many topics which would have been fully discussed in a treatise on the work of the Holy Spirit, or on the character and usages of the primitive Christians, are passed by, or very slightly touched: while some others have greater prominence than would have been given to them in such a work.
As to the mode of conceiving of events and characteristics, nothing has been adopted without deliberation. In several cases I should have felt interest in discussing other modes of conceiving them; but this would have diverted me from the direct practical aim with which I set out.
The work has been interrupted by travel and sickness; and, at one time, seemed likely to be cut short by death. Spared to complete it, though feeling how far it falls short even of my own ideal, I humbly trust that it may not be useless.
Kensington, April 24th, 1856.