A short memoir of the Rev. Robert Alfred Suckling

Preface

The letters in the Memoir are arranged, for the most part, according to the order of time, with the exception of those to school-children. They thus serve to afford a continued narrative, which the Editor has always preferred, if possible, to furnish in Mr. Suckling's words, rather than his own ; supporting them, where necessary, with the testimony of others, and introducing such remarks as appeared desirable to illustrate the life and character of his friend.

Whatever the opinion of the generality may be, if the Editor is not greatly mistaken, there are some by whom this little volume will not only be read with interest, but never again altogether set aside ; who will find therein a friend to whom they will be glad often to recur, a companion in the hour of affliction and solitude, with whom it will ever be a relief to converse ; and that among these will be"

PREFACE.

numbered, not only such friends and acquaintance as saw his face in the flesh, but some also who have never yet heard of a name which will hereafter be among the dearest which they know — that of Eobert Suckling.

Stinch combe.

July ISth, 1852.

From the First Edition.

Many intimately acquainted with Mr. Suckling have written to acknowledge the fidelity of the portrait which the following pages exhibit. Perhaps it could scarcely have been otherwise, consisting as the account mostly does of varied testimony, and such letters of his own as express the inner mind of the writer with a singular transparency.

But the Sermons have in some degree proved an exception to this ; those who first put them into the Editor's hands apprehended that they might not be entirely his own, or which he could have published as such, but in a posthumous publication of papers never intended to be so used, it is almost impossible to ascertain this, and the Editor was obliged to relinquish all hope of doing so. But he was led by degrees to abandon these his appre-

PBEFACB.

t hensions, by finding them to bear so strongly the marks of Mr. Suckling's own character and feelings, as both illustrating them and illustrated by them. In the progress of publication he was induced to allude to this fact, and adduced them as such. He has since learned that four out of the number were in a great measure derived from printed sources ; one from Bishop Home, another from Archdeacon Manning, and two from a late Minister of the Free Kirk in Scotland. Yet, notwithstanding this, they have been so selected by him as expressive of his own mind, and appear to have been so adapted by him, and interspersed with passages unmistakeably his own, as not materially to lessen what was stated of them as evidences of his character and ministerial progress. They speak himself. And many who have been well aware of these circumstances, have requested that the Sermons which they so much valued both for his own sake— as modified by him and made so much his own — and also from their intrinsic usefulness, might not be altogether withdrawn. It is intended therefore to republish most of them in a separate form. It seems not to have been Mr. Suckling's custom ever to have transcribed entirely the Sermons of another ; but not unfrequently to have altered them for his own use. It. has been indeed suggested that the only ones which he has not destroyed may be of this kind, and retained by him as such, while his own were not. But his habit latterly was that of preaching extempore.

Dm 8<frW &c vi

PREFACE.

Some letters which, before were added in an Appendix have now found their appropriate place in the body of the Memoir, together with six or seven additional ones, which were not before published.

Stinchcombe, Dec. 12th, 1852.

Second Edition.