In 1999 the Church of England Record Society published its first miscellany volume under the title From Cranmer to Davidson.The appearance of that volume reflected a decision by the Society's Council that the time was appropriate to provide a forum for the publication of shorter documents which could not form volumes by themselves. In putting it together a deliberate decision was made to include material from the reformation to the twentieth century, illuminating aspects of the Church's history across the full chronological range of the Society's remit. In the Preface to that volume I made it clear that the Society was committed to publishing further miscellany volumes, but I also stated that these need not necessarily take the form of From Cranmer to Davidson.The present volume is the Society's first ‘themed’ miscellany volume, focusing on a particular period or issue in the history of the Church. I am particularly glad that it has been possible to put together a volume on evangelicalism in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as it enables us to give some coverage to a period - the nineteenth century — and a theme - evangelicalism, which hitherto have not received the attention that they merit in the Society's publications. If this volume suggests to any of its readers ideas for further miscellany volumes, the general editor will be very pleased to discuss them.

Over the years I have often found editing to be one of the most enjoyable and rewarding aspects of academic life. This volume has been no exception. I am particularly grateful to Mark Smith - the original idea for this volume was his and it has been an enormous pleasure to co-operate with him in putting the volume together. John Walsh, without doubt the most influential historian of eighteenthcentury evangelicalism over the last fifty years, was as generous as ever with advice when the project was at the planning stage and has remained supportive throughout. Mark and I have also enjoyed working with an excellent group of contributors, all of whom produced texts which were models of both scholarship and professionalism. They met often tight deadlines without complaint, have been unfailingly helpful in answering queries and kindly generated indexes to their contributions. I am once more grateful to Meg Davies for relieving me of the burden of copy editing the text.