PREFACE. IT will be seen at once from the title-page that by no means all the Companions of the Lord are dealt with in the following pages. Under that name might have been included the family at Bethany, the women that ministered unto him, with many of the minor characters in the gospels; whereas it was from the first intended to confine attention to the original group of ordained apostles. A partial exception has been made in favour of the Lord's brethren whom, though the writer cannot think them to have been of the number of the Twelve, it has yet seemed well to treat in supplementary notes on the same plan with the rest. This plan is to gather up scattered threads of reference both from the New Testament and other sources of information, and weave them into a connected history of each disciple, in the hope of being able to illustrate some of the phases of the Christian life and of the ways whereby men are led to the Redeemer and trained. for his service. A certain amount of repetition is unavoidable where the same scenes have to be revisited in order to study the parts played in them by one actor and another; but the effort has been made to keep the lines of biography distinct and to light up the path with the more interesting results of modern travel and research. All direct aid has, it is believed, been acknowledged in the text; of indirect aid no man can give adequate account. WARMINSTER, September, 1873. |