ON A LAY MINISTRY; PARTICULARLY ON THAT OF Wesleyan Local Preachers : WITH OBSERVATIONS DESIGNED TO EXHIBIT THE CAPABILITIES AND SESSED BY THAT CLASS OF MINISTERS: BY WILLIAM ROBINSON. LONDON: SOLD BY J. MASON, 66, PATERNOSTER-ROW; SIMPKIN 1832. PREFACE. THE paper on "Punctuality in attending Appointments," was the original of the present Volume.The idea of writing that was suggested by some instances of indefensible negligence, which at the time. fell under the Author's notice: some of the other matters on which he has ventured to write, occurred to his mind while meditating on the above subject, and the rest at subsequent intervals. The Author sincerely avers, that he has never intended to write for the educated, and those who enjoy leisure and superior helps. But he believes there is a class of young men, who have just entered or are about to enter the Ministry in the capacity of Local Preachers; and whose qualifications and means of improving them are slender, to whom his humble production may not be altogether unsuitable; or read entirely without advantage. The numerical importance of this description of young preachers, their individual and collective capabilities for improvement and usefulness ;the inadvertence of some of them to the extent of their capabilities, and the need which others have of some stimulus to their efforts were the impressions under which the following work was commenced. The writer undertook his task with a strong conviction, that a work of this specific kind, was greatly needed, a conviction which experience and observation had combined to produce. He is sensible that considerable learning and experience were necessary to do the subject justice ;-but while his pretensions to the former are very moderate, he is not wholly destitute of the latter; having had to struggle with most of the difficulties he has described, and resorted to most of the expedients for their conquest which he has recommended. Rainton, June, 1832. W. R. |