The excellence of his plan, to which he faithfully adheres, might atone for more faults than Milner is guilty of.  We may well bear with a few shortcomings in a Church history which, instead of perplexing the mind with the interminable disputes of professing Christians, makes it its main business to detect the spirit of Christ wherever it can be found.  It is a real refreshment, no less than a real strengthening of our faith, to turn from Church histories which might be more correctly termed histories of the abuses and perversions of Christianity, to one which really is what it professes to be—­a history of the good which Christianity has done.

Joseph Milner died when his history had only reached the middle of the thirteenth century; but his pen was taken up by a hand which was, at least, equally competent to wield it.  The fourth volume of the history, carrying the work down to about the middle of the sixteenth century, was compiled by his younger brother Isaac, of whom we may now say a few words.

Isaac Milner (1751-1820) was the one solitary instance of an avowed and uncompromising adherent of the Evangelical school, in the last century, attaining any high preferment in the Church.  Indeed, his claims could not have been ignored without glaring injustice.  He was the Senior Wrangler of his year, and First Smith’s Prizeman, and the epithet ‘incomparabilis’ was attached to his name in the Mathematical Tripos.  He continued to reside at the University after he had taken his degree, and was appointed Professor of Mathematics, President of his college (Queen’s), and finally, Dean of Carlisle.  Isaac Milner’s services to the Evangelical cause were invaluable.  Holding a prominent position at Cambridge, he was able to establish a sort of School of the Prophets, where Evangelical ministers in embryo were trained in the system of their party.  But, besides this, he helped the cause he had at heart by becoming a sort of general adviser and referee in cases of difficulty.  For such an office he was admirably adapted.  His reputation for erudition, and his high standing at Cambridge, commanded respect; and his sound, shrewd sense, his thorough straightforwardness and hatred of all cant and unreality, his genial manner and his decidedness, made his advice very effective.  He acquired a reputation for conversational powers not much inferior in his own circle to that of Dr. Johnson in his; and this, no doubt, added to his influence.

There was only one man at Cambridge whose services to Evangelicalism at all equalled those of Isaac Milner.  It need scarcely be said that that man was Charles Simeon, the voluntary performer of that work for which, of all others, our universities ought most carefully to provide, but which, at least during the eighteenth century, they most neglected—­the training of our future clergymen.  As Simeon’s work, however, is more connected with the nineteenth than with the eighteenth century, it need not further be referred to.