PREFACE. No apology is surely needed for writing the life of James Hannington. If it be true that every life which has been lived conveys to the world some message which should not be lost, much less can we afford to lose the record of a life like his-a devoted life crowned by a heroic death. With regard, however, to my own part in connection with this work, a word or two of explanation may be necessary. It seemed to his relatives and friends to be especially desirable that his Memoir should be entrusted to one who had known him personally and intimately. Without this knowledge, his biographer must have failed in presenting him in any recognizable form before the public eye. A mere enumeration of his acts, such as might be easily culled from his diaries, letters and published articles, or from printed notices regarding him, would convey scarcely any idea at all of the man himself. A verbatim record of his sayings would probably produce an impression utterly false, except to those who knew the speaker and understood the moods in which he uttered them. The materials of which Bishop Hannington was formed were not run into the mould in which ordinary men are shaped. In few things was he just like the majority. Almost everything he said or did was stamped with the impress of his own distinct individuality. That individuality his friends now treasure among their most precious memories. They can never dissociate his words from the tone of the voice which accompanied them, or from the sly twinkle, or it might be, the impatient flash of the grey eyes which introduced them. They can never think of his acts without recalling the active, energetic figure, so full of life and movement, which carried through with an inimitable enthusiasm of forceful purpose whatever was uppermost in his mind. They would not have had one thing about him different; but his ways were his own, and his words were his own, and nothing would be easier than that a stranger, by separating his words and his ways from himself, should be perfectly accurate in every statement, and yet represent him to the world in a manner which would not only be unsatisfactory, but even misleading and unfair to his memory. When, therefore, his widow requested me to undertake the editorship of his Life and Work, I accepted the responsibility, trusting that my own intimate knowledge of the man might more than compensate for any want of skill which I might display in the treatment of my subject. Perhaps, also, hoping that my own love for him might enable me to make an appreciative study of his remarkable character. It only remains for me to say that, in the compilation of this Memoir, the Bishop's diary has been quoted whenever it has been possible to give the narrative in his own words. I have also to offer my warmest thanks to the Hon. Secretary of the Church Missionary Society, who has placed the |
