Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/77

Rh to Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" in number of copies printed and circulated in different languages and countries. No man in writing a book could be more deeply impressed with the conviction that he was moved by the spirit of God than was the author of this remarkable volume. That conviction seemed to be deeper at the end than at the beginning of the work. He charges its readers to "take it up with something of the awe that warns you how you touch a holy thing." Thousands on both sides of the Atlantic have taken it up in this way to all the benefit which its author hoped of it.

In addition to all the graces and strength of his faculties as a preacher and writer. Mr. James was endowed with an executive and originating mind of great tact and power. He was virtually the founder and father of the Spring Hill College. Birmingham, for the education of Independent ministers. Although few ever reached the eminence he attained with so little academic and classical culture, no one could have a greater sense of its value and necessity. It was his earnest and unwearied aim to raise the scholastic standard of the ministers of all the Nonconformist denominations, and to elevate them to the level and reputation of Oxford and Cambridge graduates. The institution at Spring Hill was, therefore, the object of his large and generous solicitude,