nize here and there passages on which I have sought your advice, but whatever I may have written, if it was not my own originally, I have at least made it my own by adopting it. In truth, I seek no protection. If my teaching has been in accordance with that of the Church of England, the Church itself will give me all the protection I want. If I have exceeded or fallen short of that, I neither desire nor deserve it. I have the honour to be, Your Lordship's Faithful servant and friend, HENRY NEWLAND. PREFACE. My object in writing this book is to afford to my younger brethren in the Ministry a guide in preparing their flocks for Confirmation, and to their catechumens a summary of Christian doctrine. I make no claim whatever to originality. All modern literature, says one who is himself a very eminent modern author, is but the pouring of the same liquid out of one vial into another; and if this be true generally, as in a great measure it is, more especially is it true of theological literature. As with the kaleidoscope, the combinations are infinite, but the material which produces them all is limited. Truth is one, present it as you will. Nor will I take it upon me to say that my book is altogether free from actual plagiarisms, I believe it is, I have looked over it carefully. But the sermons and lectures which it contains are the accumulations of years, they are selections from whole heaps, and I have always availed myself of any materials that came to hand, provided only they suited my purpose. I am not aware that I have adopted any thing without acknowledgment, but if I have, it matters not; my object is to present, not original ideas and new methods, but tested ideas and tried methods. I am giving to the rising generation of Ministers the results of five and twenty years' experience, two and twenty of them as Rector of this parish; what I give them, therefore, is not what I think or theorise, or what others have thought or theorised, but what I have tried and reduced to practice. If this book has any value, it is simply this, that it is the record of so much hard work. The sermons have been preached, the lectures have been delivered, the catechetical meetings, public and private, have been held; and, if the words and sentiments recorded in the conversations are not the very words and sentiments uttered, as manifestly they neither could be nor ought to be, still they are specimens, showing what these conversations were like, and how the Christian doctrines and duties were taught in them. My younger brethren may feel perfectly certain that every thing they meet with in this book can be done, for the simple reason that it has been done. I do not go quite so far as to say that every thing has been done by me, much of it has, but at least every thing I write about I have seen done, and have tested in its practical working. The first idea of this book was suggested by a most useful department in the English Churchman, called "Parochial Work." Parochial work is precisely that for which my book is intended to be a guide. It will be seen that, in this present work, the general plan of preparing catechumens for Confirmation and First Communion, is adapted for Lent and Easter, and for many reasons, doctrinal as well as practical, Lent and Easter are the very best seasons that can be chosen for those ordinances; but Lent Confirmations are very rare things to meet with. At that time of the year Bishops are generally more overwhelmed with Parliamentary business than they are at any other, and it requires a good deal of self-denial on their parts, and some arrangement also, to enable them to appoint that season. We of the diocese of Chichester have great reason to be thankful to our own Bishop, that we are able to present the public with a specimen,-I think it is a solitary one,-of a Lent Confirmation. |
