Introduction

This book is a part of a collection of ministry by Alfred J Gardiner not previously gathered like this in book form. Several volumes of our brother’s ministry were produced formerly (and are listed at the end of this book), and second-hand copies can be found of most if not all of these. A lot more of his ministry, however, was published in various other forms which are not generally accessible.

A main purpose of this collection has been to bring together nearly 250 articles from dis-continued periodicals, and other sources, including books of other servants’ ministry. The list at the end of this book gives more information about the resulting books.

This book contains sets of notes of three special three-day meetings held between 1951 and 1959, which were not made into books such as those still in circulation second-hand. These sets of notes were simply published in duplicated form. They are presented as having been revised before publication—and I assume that the author was able to do this himself. I have read every one carefully, without doing my own revision. The surviving notes I have of the meetings in Nottingham are incomplete, so the third reading, on the Lord’s day reading—which was on a different subject to the others—cannot be included here. The address our brother gave at the meetings in Ealing was included in Volume 2 in this collection, but is reproduced here for completeness.

In my early years, I attended the meetings in Streatham where Mr Gardiner broke bread; and remember him with great affection and regard. He was, of course, very active in ministry, and often travelling away, but he never forgot his local meeting—either in his prayers or his attention to our practical and spiritual welfare. As the sorrow falls within the period over which the ministry in this book was given, it might be recorded that Mr Gardiner was widowed at the beginning of 1958.

Mr Gardiner gives good advice on page 232 of the first volume: ‘Read the ministry by all means, dear brethren. If the Lord is giving ministry to the assembly, we ought to be diligent to follow it up. Thank God for the ministry … but let us not think we shall get into it merely by reading books’. May reading of these books nevertheless be to God’s glory.

ANDREW BURR

2020