I need hardly say, considering the many other engagements devolving upon the vicar of a parish of 20,000 people, that I have been obliged to make a somewhat slow progress with the work, short though it may appear, and when I had come to the close of it, I could not but feel that the book was worthy of an editor who could have devoted more time, attention and talent to it, than it was within my reach to do.
I would acknowledge here, with a feeling of deep gratitude, the assistance given me towards the close of my editorial duties, in connection with the book, by a gentleman whose name I am not at liberty to divulge. This gentleman introduced the manuscript to the publishers, and he has most kindly cast his eye carefully over the whole work, correcting or rescinding where he thought it advisable. Perhaps there are few men in England who know more than he does on the subject of English sisterhoods. He has lectured with ability on the subject, and is likely to become ere long a well-known writer. Since I made him acquainted with the work I was editing, and had had some conversation with him upon these matters, I only wished he had taken my place as editor.
I think that those who read through this book will readily acknowledge that Miss Povey has done her work well, and I feel sure she will receive the hearty congratulations of a great number of persons. She has been obliged to write under some considerable disadvantages, arising from the nature of her employment, which does not allow a very wide margin of time for writing; consequently, as she reminded me, she has had no time to look over and correct what force of circumstances compelled her to write somewhat hurriedly.
“I shall be much obliged,” she has written to me, “for any improvement you think fit to make, in correcting, revising, rescinding, in all the manuscript.” Any excellence that may be found in the book must be wholly due to the authoress; none could have written in the forcible and graphic way she has done, who had not herself passed through so strange and painful an experience.
I have only had one interview with Miss Povey, and _that_ when the book was well nigh finished. But before then I took great pains to find out the thorough trustworthiness of her antecedents and statements. God forbid that I should ever venture to send before the public a work of such deep import, were I not perfectly convinced that ex-sister Mary Agnes was in a position to write, and actually was writing, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.