the reader may have before him to some extent the story from the beginnings of our knowledge. There are three great converging lines of preparation in the way of materials, tendencies and events, which under providential guidance conspired to start, in the age immediately following the Apostles, that series of causes and effects which we are to study under the name of the history of preaching. These three elements of origination, named in the ascending order of their immediacy and importance, are
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