"Samaritanus sit, custodiens et observans quando oleum misericordiæ, quand LONDON: W. SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., PATERNOSTER ROW. -- 1883. FI11627 SEP 3 1883 Soc 20252 Walker fumt. KPF 2 256 Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury. INSCRIBED, WITH CORDIAL REGARDS, TO THE REV. F. T. SWINBURN, D.D., VICAR OF ACOCK'S GREEN, WHO, IN HIS PARISH AS ELSEWHERE, HAS ALWAYS PROVED HIMSELF A "GOOD SAMARITAN.' PREFACE. THE HE stern critic from his Rhadamanthine chair has of late been pleased to fulminate against what he stigmatizes as "compilations;" yet I put forward the present volume as avowedly a "compilation" only,-I hope as one which will have some interest and attraction for the general reader. The number of persons who will have the leisure and means to refer to original sources, or, referring to them, will have the tact and skill to use them properly, must always be limited, and if "compilations" are to be prohibited, a very large class of readers will be deprived of all facilities for acquiring knowledge on a vast variety of subjects. The work of the compiler, if humble, is by no means easy; he must be able to analyse and compare, and to place the facts he collects in a lucid order and agreeable form. In truth, he does not so much compile as condense, and in a single volume is often called upon to present the results obtained from the patient study of half a hundred. However this may be, I am ready to acknowledge that in the following pages I have been indebted to a considerable number of authorities, from whom I have endeavoured to glean what would best serve my object, and enable me to place before the reader some striking illustrations of Christian chivalry, of heroic effort and enterprise in the fields of religious progress and the charities of civilization. I have brought together a goodly |