communication with Mrs. Corsbie, the daughter of the late Mr. Alexander Haldane, one of his most intimate friends, with whom for thirty years he had been in almost daily correspondence. To her careful and valuable assistance in reading the proofs for the press, and for the kindness which placed at my disposal the voluminous letters of Lord Shaftesbury to her father, I am under the deepest obligation.
The sources from which much of the information in this work has been drawn have been extremely various, and I have to express my hearty thanks to the Secretaries of Societies with which Lord Shaftesbury was connected; to co-workers with him in various departments of labour; to personal friends and others, who have given me ready access to whole libraries of reports, minutes, pamphlets, and other records, and have rendered me important service in many ways.
It has been my endeavour to let the record of Lord Shaftesbury's whole life-work be told, as much as possible, in his own words; and in doing so I have not added to his opinions or founded conjectures upon his plans. My aim has been to present him as he was: a Christian gentleman first, then a patriot, a statesman, a social reformer, and all that is implied in the word he liked so little-a philanthropist.
"I have no desire whatever to be recorded," he wrote shortly before his death; "but if I must, sooner or later, appear before the public, I should like the reality to be told-be it good, or be it bad-and not a sham.”
I have made no endeavour, therefore, to tone down his strong Protestantism, or his unshaken and unshakable belief in Scripture, in dogma, and in prayer.
He was a man with a single aim; his labours in the field of politics sprang from his philanthropy; his philanthropy sprang from his deep and earnest religious convictions; and every labour-political, benevolent, and religious-was begun, continued, and ended, in one and the same spirit.
21, CRAVEN PARK, WILLESDEN, N.W.,
