The Life and Letters of John Angell James

Having left England before the first edition of this “Life” left the printers, the second edition appears without the corrections and improvements which would probably have been suggested both by public and by private criticisms. Many slight inaccuracies have caught my eye in a hasty revision; many others, I fear, have escaped my notice.

MoNTAUBAN, May 18, 1861.

It was at your earnest request that I undertook to prepare this Memoir; allow me to present it to the public through you.

That these pages should exhibit a perfect image of your father’s excellence is impossible. The impression his goodness produced on his chUdren, and on the friends who knew his daUy life, no language can adequately represent. I shall be satisfied if you think that strangers will find here a faint outUue of his true character.

The gratitude I feel to your father’s friends, who have aided me in various ways, will be shared by yourself. To the Rev. Dr King of Glasgow, whose communication on the early history of the Evangelical Alliance has been of great service to me; to the Rev. William Guest, who has written an interesting paper on your father’s influence on the Spring-HiU Students; to the Rev. Dr Patton and the Rev. Dr Sprague, who have sent me a large number of valuable letters, — my thanks are especially due. The judgment of my friend and neighbour, the Rev. G. B. Johnson of Edgbaston, has saved me from many mistakes, and would have saved me from many more had his health and engagements permitted me to consult him more frequently.

The interest in my work which has been manifested by yourself and Mrs James, and by your sister, who has often forgotten her sufferings while recalling pleasant passages in her father’s history, has greatly eniv

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couraged me. From the Kev. Thomas James of London, and from other members of your father’s family, I have received important information. For the Supplementary Chapter, written by yourself, I know not how to thank you.

For permission to insert the Photograph prefixed to this volume, I am indebted to Mrs Whitlock.

Conscious of how impei’fectly I have fulfilled even my own idea of what this Life ought to be, I rejoice that your father’s reputation cannot suffer from my inefiiciency. His usefulness has won him the noblest and most enduring fame. The brightest creations of art must perish, and the glory of literature must become dim; but the tens of thousands whom he taught to trust in the mercy of Christ and to keep His commandments, will regard him with immortal love and reverence.

With very sincere affection and respect,

I am, yours faithfully,

E. W. DALE.

Edgbaston, April 1861.

The Antobiograpliical Fragment found among the papers of the late JoKN” AyoF.T.L James was commenced in the autumn of 1858, and laid aside before the end of the year.

Let the reader imagine himself in a square room of moderate dimensions, comfortably furnished but without ostentation, a blazing fire on the hearth, the dark heavy curtains drawn, and candles lit for an evening’s work The wall on your left is covered with engravings of well-knowoi ministers: you will recognise at once the majestic form and the ardent gaze of Dr M’All, the most brUliant of modern preachers; the quaint, kindly countenance of William Jay; the rugged face of Chalmers; and the robust form and ample brow of Robert Hall, who in genius and scholarship, vigour of judgment and splendour of imagination, surpassed them all. Facing you are two large oil-paintings, one on each side of the fire-place; that on the right is an early portrait of Mr James, the other, of his second wife, who has been dead now for seventeen years. Two or three other faces which are dear to the old man writing at the table, look down upon him from above the mantelpiece; and on a bracket fastened to the opposite wall stands the bust of his tutor, Dr Bogue.

There is a couch on one side of the fire, and on it there lies one whose sufferings, protracted through many weary years, have had much to do with her father’s sanctity. Now and then, as he looks up from his writing to speak a kind word to his child, you see in his countenance a massive strength and a winning gentleness, the simplicity of childhood blended with manly shrewdness and no-LIFE OF JOHN ANGELL JAMES.

bility. The mouth was made for eloquence; the broad and amyle chest below is what you like to see in a popular orator. His eyes are of the light blue so uncommon now in England, and brighten as he speaks till they shed a positive illumination over his face. But the light passes away, and he turns again to the page before him, writing swiftly and yet surely, hardly ever pausing for a word or turning back to cancel or correct. He writes like one who has written much, and who has small anxiety about the refinements of literary art. If he can make his meaning clear, if his sentences run smoothly, and are tolerably accurate and vigorous, he is satisfied. And now, having shewn you the writer, I leave you for a time to the manuscript which is growing rajoidly under his hand. It is the record of his long and laborious life.

Autobio- I have been many times solicited to prepare for posthumous giaphicai. piyga^jQy yjj autobiography. To this I have many, and, as they appear to myself, strong and well-grounded objections. I am quite aware that on some accounts, most men are their best and most competent memoriahsts, provided they have preserved, as life went on, the matter of which such a history should be composed, and have suflScient courage and honesty, and freedom both from false shame and self-love, to write the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth concerning themselves and others; and at the same time enough of candour, perspicacity, and discrimination in judging of events and characters with which they have been mixed up. Nor ought I to omit as another qualification for an interesting and instructive autobiography, a consciousness on the part of the writer that his life is of sufficient importance to be committed to record.

Of many of these pre-requisites I am deficient.

1. I have never kept a diary. I now regret this, for although I should not have had many things partaking of the marvellous, or strikingly novel and interesting to relate, yet in a public life of fifty-three years, and carried on in a rather public situation, some occurrences must have happened which would have furnished subjects of information and reflection which would, had they been

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recorded at the time, have been worth notice. I was led to this Autobioneglect partly by a constitutional indolence; partly by what yp*”*^*^ considered, incorrectly, want of time; but perhaps still more by a fear of being tempted to write imder the influence of self-love what was hardly a faithful transcript of the events that occurred, I thought I could hardly trust myself as a narrator of what belonged to myself. I feared that I should be tempted to write for the eyes of others, and thus give features and a colouring to the portrait which were not in the original

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