Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/14

vi destroying their reality, and adds a charm to perusal which every writer is bound to afford, to the best of his ability, who solicits the attention of the reading public. As to his own deductions from the facts and events recorded, these he well knows will be canvassed as all other personal opinions are; but if the result shall eventually tend to further the object which he has in view in publishing these researches, he will feel that he has not written in vain, and will be satisfied.

Now, although the author, for the reasons aforesaid, is debarred the pleasure of recognizing an extraneous help in the compilation of this work, yet he is in duty bound to acknowledge the kindly interest which our late venerable Primate and the present Lord Bishop of London took in the personal welfare of the agents engaged in the mission to the Nestorians, and in the progress and success of their labours. It was chiefly owing to their influence that the enterprize was undertaken, and its short duration and untimely end must be referred rather to the unprepared state of the Church at home rightly and adequately to fit her for the pious task of reforming the Christian communities of the East, than to any want of zeal on the part of their Lordships to promote and to support it. Similar acknowledgments are due to the Lord Bishop of Gibraltar, to the Rev. Ernest Hawkins, and to the Committees of the two Societies which provided the funds for the mission, for their uniform kindness and generosity towards those who were commissioned to carry out the benevolent design of their instructions.

The author would furthermore be guilty of unpardonable neglect, were he to omit mentioning his coadjutor, Mr. J. P. Fletcher, now an ordained missionary of the Gospel Propagation Society in India, whose ready co-operation in the work to which both were appointed, and brotherly sympathy in seasons of sickness, weariness, and fatigue, he will ever recall to mind with feelings of lively gratitude.