SKETCHES OF WESLEYAN PREACHERS

The author of the following sketches has occasionally felt no little surprise at the many points of difference in the practical working of Methodism in America and England. Especially has he wondered, considering that the two countries are in such constant intercourse, that comparatively so little is known of even the more prominent ministers of the English Wesleyan church. Having had peculiar facilities for acquaintance with some of these great and good men, it occurred to him that a series of pen-portraits, if drawn with truth, might be acceptable to the American reader. He was the more willing to write such sketches because it would afford an opportunity of incidentally illustrating some of the points of difference referred to. The sketches were originally commenced in the Christian Advocate and Journal, and were continued through several numbers. The whole of those thus published are, with two exceptions, embodied in this volume; having been rewritten, that they might be more worthy of this more permanent form. A considerable portion of the volume, however, now appears for the first time; and the author believes that the additional sketches will be found as true to the original, and as interesting, as those previously published. He cannot desire that they should be received with more general kindness and approval.
A more imposing style might have been adopted in the composition of these portraits, and more criticism indulged in, had the writer been so disposed; but he had another and higher aim -- to familiarize the Methodist Episcopal church in the United States with the pulpit and pastoral character of the Methodist ministry in the "fatherland;" the working of Methodism itself, its institutions, &c. If he has done anything to strengthen the bonds of union between the two large and influential churches, or to stimulate the one to emulate the other in anything which may more effectually carry out the designs of Methodism's honored founder, he has attained the end he was most desirous to gain.