Inscribed, With all reverence and all affection, to the memory of the ever-lamented wife whose hearty interest in this book was, during many years of preparatory toil, my best support; whose judgment as to its merits or its faults would have been my most trusted guide; whose sympathy my truest encouragement; whose joyous welcome of the completed work I had long looked forward to as my one great reward: whose nature, combining in rare union scientific clearness with spiritual depth, may in some slight degree have left its impress on the page, though far too faintly to convey an adequate conception of one whose religious zeal in the cause of truth was rivalled only by the ardour of her humanity and the abundance of her love. RAVENSCROFT, November 1875. 219892 |