The Life of Archibald Alexander

Quch are the cares and interruptions incident to an extensive pastoral charge, that he who considei them will not wonder that this publication has been somewhat delayed. It was a work from which I would gladly have shrunk; but it was laid upon me by the highest human authority I ever knew; as he who is the subject of the narrative expressed on his death-bed the desire, that whatsoever should appear in the way of public memorial might proceed from two of his sons whom he named for this purpose. For reasons not interesting to the general reader, the task has devolved solely on me. I girded myself for it under all the disadvantages of a conviction long since formed, that in many respects a son is not the proper biographer of a father. Though his knowledge of facts and character may be supposed to be

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intimate, he is in danger either of writing a panegyric, or of falling “below the truth in attempting to avoid it. In almost every page I confess myself to have been haunted by the apprehension of overstating overcolouring, and giving undue importance to domestic traits. If this evil has been incurred, it has not been from wilful suppression of truth, but from the warping influence of a loving veneration. It would have been as natural as it was consonant to my feelings, to speak of my dear and honoured father under that tender appellation; but the wish to avoid obtruding my own person everywhere as thus connected, has led me to name him as he was known by others.

One of the difficulties of the performance ought to be clearly stated. The two ordinary and most copious sources of a religious biography, are a private diary and epistolary correspondence. As it regards the former, my father, after his years of boyhood, kept no personal journal. His letters, it is true, were numerous; but they were to a remarkable extent bare letters of business. Of hundreds now in my hands, the greater part contain no passage which admits of being extracted, and most of the remainder

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furnish only scattered sentences. My hearty thanks are due to those pupils and other friends of my father, who have sent me letters received from him; the number of such favours has prevented distinct and private acknowledgment. Some of these arrived too late to be inserted in the text. In the absence of the materials just named, I have had to rely upon two classes of authorities. In the first place, my father, after the middle of his life, threw upon paper large reminiscences of his own career, and the history of his early friends and acquaintances. Greater use would have been made of these manuscripts, if he had not expressly forbidden them to be made public in their original form. I have gone to the utmost limit of his supposed permission, in these autobiographical extracts. Unfortunately, they do not extend at all into the second and more conspicuous half of his life. The other source has therefore been the chief reliance, as to this period; namely, my own personal recollections, aided and corrected by those of his family and friends.

In those parts which are made up from his manuscript records, I have once or twice allowed myself, rather than mutilate his account, to repeat the same

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events and opinions, as expressed by him in different connections. In some few instances, I have been constrained to return to topics already treated and apparently dismissed, thus disturbing the arrangement; because new matter on these points came in while the book was going through the press. The excellent steel engraving which accompanies these pages is from the best representations which art has been able to produce. But it ought to be added, that no likeness has been other than a failure, in respect to the animation of his features and the liquid brilliancy of his eye.

It is my humble prayer, that this memorial of one who devoted his best powers, for a long period, to the service of truth, of the Church, and of the Lord Jesus, may be made conducive to the interests of religion.

New- York, March 13, 1854.

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