PREFACE.

NEARLY six years have elapsed since the death of my revered friend whose memoirs are now committed to the press. The question may very naturally be asked, why if the intention were entertained of making them public it has not been fulfilled before? The truth is, that the intention was originally entertained and subsequently abandoned.

Shortly after a commencement had been made with the compilation, my public duties

multiplied beyond all my former experience; and both demanded so much thought and occupied so much time, as to leave me little opportunity for carrying it on. The papers put into my hands were however examined at intervals, selections were made from them and transcribed, and though slowly, the narrative nevertheless proceeded; yet rather with the hope that it might be retained in manuscript as a family document, than with the design of publication.

When at length however it was completed, and had been read by a few of those who knew Mr. Gutteridge most intimately, the desire was revived in their minds that the Christian church or that portion of it, at least, in the communion of which he had spent his life, should have the opportunity

of reviewing his character, and the benefit to be derived from the contemplation of his example.

Mr. Gutteridge lived to so great an age that he survived almost all the contemporaries of his earlier years, and the circle has grown rarrower since his decease. But few remain who will read these pages with personal recollections of what he was in the meridian of his manhood, and fewer still in his manhood's prime. The number, however, is not small of those who have heard of him as a Christian, distinguished in his day by his eminent position and usefulness, and it may not be without its advantages if some who never knew him, except by reputation, should form a posthumous acquaintance with one so worthy, in many respects, of their imitation.