Page:Notes of Meetings of the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Worcester March 1857.djvu/6

 Independently, however, of that reason for holding these Meetings, I shall always remember them with pleasure and thankfulness. They have elicited many valuable suggestions. They have brought to light the concurrence of many minds on certain important points. They have proved that intense earnestness may declare itself without a word of party spirit, (of which not a trace was discernible from the first day to the last) and that this charity may be maintained without any compromise or suppression of honest convictions. Above all, I am thankful to remember that they have witnessed to the lively and more general appreciation of the spiritual wants of our Country, and to the distinct recognition of this great truth,—That the conversion of sinners ought to be much more zealously and faithfully sought after by all possible means, and supplicated continually from God.

I made Notes at the Meetings, and possibly it may be pleasant and useful to some of my brethren to have a Digest of them. There are hints amongst them, which need not wait for any new organization, in order to their being carried into effect.

In arranging these Notes, I am not conscious of having omitted a single suggestion; neither have I allowed myself to be influenced by considering whether or no I concurred in what was recommended. I have only attempted to throw them into a sort of, order, and so leave them to be estimated according to their real value.

In such a form, however, they are only dry skeletons, and I heartily regret that some of them are not clothed with the life and energy in which they were first presented to us, instinct with "thoughts that breathe and words that burn."

No attempt is here made to mark what appears to myself to be the comparative worth of these numerous and sometimes conflicting suggestions, of various and independent minds. Some of them were both reiterated, and hailed with expressions of approval; others were solitary recommendations, with which concurrence was at least not expressed. I undertake no more than to