Specially forcible and beautiful were the impressions we derived touching the life of Christ; we felt how toilsome were his journeys as He _walked_ along the rough and rugged pathways from Jericho to Jerusalem, over which we _rode_. How humiliating must have been his intercourse with the poor, who, no doubt, then lived in wretched mud hovels, such as we saw, not only in Palestine, but in Egypt; types of domestic habitation for the lower classes in ages past! We thought: Through such collections of “houses of clay” did He pass! Here did He tarry, and within such abodes! Not one of them was His own; He had not where to lay His head.
IN the year 1867 I published the first volumes of my “Ecclesiastical History of England”; this calls for explanation of what preceded and prepared for it.
Immediately after I left college, and settled at Windsor, I commenced the study of Church history with much earnestness; and the first fruit was a course of lectures on the subject to my congregation, delivered on week evenings. When I had completed them they were sent by me to my revered tutor, Dr. Henderson, for criticism and advice. He encouraged me to pursue my studies in that direction, with the hope and intention of making use of them in after life. I followed his advice, and during the remainder of my Windsor ministry devoted all the time I could spare from pulpit and pastoral duties to researches into early annals of Christendom. In my investigations I was kindly allowed to use the Dean and Chapter’s library. After I left Windsor, I turned attention to ecclesiastical affairs during the Puritan period. This happened just as I was about to pay a visit to my native county—Norfolk—where I commenced studying original records in Norwich. Proceedings _against Nonconformity_ and other records there came within my reach, that part of England being somewhat rich in this department of history. “Spiritual Heroes” was the title of my first volume, which not long after was revised and enlarged in a second edition. The Congregational lecture on “The Ages of Christendom,” was delivered and published in 1856. This led, in 1867, to the “Ecclesiastical History of England, from the Opening of the Long Parliament to the Death of Oliver Cromwell.” “The Church of the Restoration,” forming two volumes, appeared in 1870, and “The Church of the Revolution” in 1874. To complete the list of works on English Ecclesiasticism, there followed other volumes on the reigns of Queen Anne and the Three Georges. Afterwards came “Religion in England from 1800 to 1851.” I state all this, because some confusion has arisen from a fragmentary publication of the original works and of successive editions.