Excerpt from The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell, Vol. 4: Late Professor of Theology in the Theological Seminary at Columbia, South Carolina This volume contains all its author's writings, so far as we have been able to collect them, on the subject of the Church. It completes the number originally proposed for those of his works which are more or less strictly of a theological character. There are two things connected with the remarkable providence of Dr. Thornwell's death at the comparatively early age of fifty years, which, in our human dialect, we say are to be deeply regretted. The first is, that many of the priceless treasures accumulated by sanctified genius quickened into energy by extraordinary industry, which in the judgment of all who knew him he was best prepared to pour forth just when he was summoned to die, are irrecoverably lost to us. Mighty thoughts, for which he had wrestled, as in agony, in the sleepless hours of night, went unuttered with his spirit into the eternal sphere. He took more with him than he left behind, great as is the legacy which he has bequeathed the Church. The second cause of regret is, that he did not live to perfect what he had written and to reduce it to systematic form - a task as easy to his logical mind as desirable to the completeness of his works, but one which, from the nature of the case, no survivor could attempt to execute. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.