FOREWORD

These two volumes collect articles by Henry C Anstey that mostly appeared in a range of periodical magazines, although some were published as separate pamphlets. The editors (J B Stoney, E Dennett, E L Bevir and P R Morford, among others), and their magazines, were well respected, and it is evident from the amount of our brother’s ministry they used that he was valued among those he walked with.Harold

Henry Chisholm Anstey was born in St Thomas, Exeter, in 1843 to John and Mary Anna Anstey, and married Fanny Carter in Exeter in 1868. It is not known when they came among the brethren. They had five children and spent their married life in Kingston, where from the outset he took responsibility in the local meeting. He ran a private school—at which some of the pupils boarded. He died on
9 March 1922.

The ministry is mainly in the form of written meditations, although there are notes of some addresses, and several poems. The material covers a wide range of subjects, but has a strong practical side to it. I have found the teaching exercising and profitable; it helps that almost all of it is in the form of short pieces. I trust that the Lord will use this collection for His own glory. The period it covers is an interesting one; there was a rich vein of ministry through different ones—some now better remembered than others, but it was also a difficult time in which the number with whom our brother met was severely reduced by a succession of sorrowful divisions.

Care has been taken to use true copies of the original publications. As with other ministry published at the time, it reflects what was generally accepted and ministered then. Those familiar with later ministry will appreciate that the Holy Spirit has given further teaching from which a clearer understanding will be found on some matters both of teaching and practice. I do not think this takes away the general value of what was given previously.

Although the original text is preserved, a lot of work has had to be done on scripture quotations—it appears that none of the editors who published our brother checked the references he made, and many have had to be corrected. In addition, although the King James Version was mainly used for scripture quotations, there are also many examples of different rendering from the Darby Bible. Every quotation has therefore had to be reviewed, and those retained from the Darby Bible have been marked ‘NT’, as it was then known as the ‘New Translation’.

I found the first few pieces as un-dated pamphlets before discovering how much more material was available from periodicals. This material is arranged in approximate date order. I have left to the end (of Part 2) three pamphlets on principles of fellowship, only one of which directly touched the company our brother met with. This matter is also the subject of two articles on the purging of leaven (Part 1 p326 and 343), both published in Mr Stoney’s periodical.

Many articles were published with lengthy titles—some of these have been abbreviated in the list of contents, but all are given in full over the articles themselves. I have included all the author’s footnotes from the original publications, with a handful added by the editors of the various magazines; and have added a few of my own for factual interest (marked ‘AB’).

A list of the eleven periodicals used, with their editors, is at the end of this Part.

ANDREW BURR

2023