Page:Distinguished Churchmen.djvu/11



We live in an age when people are prone to the idea that there is nothing new under the sun. Be that as it may, a spirit of emulation is rife. Day by day we witness a growing disposition on the part of men and women to value the efforts of others who achieve success in laudable walks in life, and who, in vindication of the philosopher's theory that imitation is the sincerest form of appreciation, copy their ideas and seek to disseminate good with the same gratifying results.

Holding tenaciously to this view of things, I trust no apology is needed for the presentation of the accompanying unpretentious volume. In the matter of Church life and Church organisation the ways and means which have answered with profit in the past, and are still doing so in the present, cannot be too widely known; nor will the man whose labours have been happily crowned with success regard with jealous eye the comrade who judiciously adopts, or enlarges upon, his ideas and follows closely in his footsteps. At any rate, let it be urged that the Church is a body—a brotherhood, if you will—working together for good—not of individuals but of the Cause, the Cause Rh