Of the many imperfections which will be found in the following pages I am only too painfully aware. In extenuation, however, I may perhaps be permitted to plead that they have been penned amid many distractions, and in the somewhat scanty leisure which the manifold claims of pulpit, pastorate, and platform have left available for literary work. With unlimited time at my dis posal I could no doubt make the book better than it is; but, as my temporal limits show a decided tendency to contract rather than to expand, I can but hope that the intrinsic interest of the subject written about may, in some measure, atone for any shortcomings on the part of the writer.