MEMOIR OF THE REV. RICHARD INGHAM, PASTOR OF THE GENERAL BAPTIST CHURCH, BELPER, DERBYSHIRE. TO WHICH IS APPENDED, A BRIEF MEMORIAL OF MISS INGHAM. SHEFFIELD: D. T. INGHAM, UNION STREE HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.; AND HOULSTON 1846. PREFACE. It is the object of the present volume to present to the personal friends of Mr. Ingham, and others to whom such a record may be a matter of interest, a brief and simple account of his life; combined with such an exhibition of his leading views and prevailing spirit as may be furnished from his private papers, and from the testimony of those best entitled to be heard with regard to them. It will be readily perceived that a life so unobtrusive as that of Mr. Ingham, and a course SO calm and even-although obviously full enough of interest and active solicitudes to himself and those about him, as every man's ought to be-could offer but little in the way of striking or remarkable incident by which indifferent readers would be likely to be attracted or entertained; or indeed furnish materials for any lengthened narrative at all. The production of a large volume, therefore, was out of the power, as it was certainly beyond the desire, of the publisher. Mr. Ingham has left nothing in the way of extended composition that could, with any degree of fairness, be put forth as faithfully representing his ripest judgment and most matured taste. The few skeletons of sermons here thrown together, while they may certainly be regarded as giving a correct exposition of his opinions on the subjects to which they relate, cannot, from their character as skeletons, be taken as examples of style. Nor, of his distinctive qualities as a preacher, can they possibly give any but the most imperfect idea. It is not chiefly in presenting the leading topics of a sermon that one preacher differs from another. Mere outlines, therefore, cannot show the peculiarities of any. If the circumstances of Mr. Ingham's life, here related, and the condensed examples given of the substance of his pulpit addresses, serve but to revive grateful recollections of departed worth, and to foster and stimulate holy desires and zealous exertions in the cause of Christ, the end of this compilation will be answered. It ought to be added, that the skeletons now published have been selected-not because they are marked by unusual excellence over a multitude of others from which they have been taken;-but because they embrace a considerA2 |