The opening of Dedication
[In The Third Edition]
To His Grace
Edward, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.
MY LORD ARCHBISHOP,
Nearly forty years ago, under encouragement from your venerated predecessor Archbishop Howley, and with the friendly help of his Librarian Dr. Maitland, I entered upon the work of collating manuscripts of the Greek New Testament by examining the copies brought from the East by Professor Carlyle, and purchased for the Lambeth Library in 1805. I was soon called away from this employment—ἑκὼν ἀέκοντί γε θυμῷ—to less congenial duties in that remote county, wherein long after it was your Grace’s happy privilege to refresh the spirits of Churchmen and Churchwomen, by giving them pious work to do, and an example in the doing of it. What I have since been able to accomplish in the pursuits of sacred criticism, although very much less than I once anticipated, has proved, I would fain hope, not without its use to those who love Holy Scripture, and the studies which help to the understanding of the same.