The writer has ventured upon this work at the suggestion of many whose opinions and wishes are greatly valued. The brief history of the Church in earlier years will, it is believed, be of interest. By very many throughout the Anglican Communion the name of John Medley, the first Bishop of Fredericton, is well known, and held in high regard. His life and work are worthy of enduring record.

The writer had the opportunity, in his early years, of personal knowledge of much to which he has referred in those pages. He was a Divinity Student at the time of the Bishop's arrival in the Diocese, and was the first Deacon he ordained. For fourteen years, with rare exceptions, he was associated almost daily with the Bishop. As Secretary of the Diocesan Church Society, for more than forty years, he was present with him at all the meetings of that Society. In later years, in charge of a Parish at some distance from Fredericton, the writer was favoured with frequent visits.

In further justification of this undertaking, the following extract of a letter is subjoined. It was written shortly before that attack of illness from the effects of which the Bishop did not recover: "I cannot let your letter pass without a few words of thanks and of hearty return of most affectionate regard. Your home has always been to me a resting place in all the troubles and cares which of necessity fall on the head of the Bishop of the Diocese, and I know not when I have been more entirely able to shake off those cares than when under your hospitable roof, and in those happy services we have enjoyed together. assured of your firm affection..... I need not ask your prayers and those of all your household. They are mine, I know, before I ask them."

The writer desires to express his great obligations for much assistance in his work, and for the use of documents by which he has been enabled to exhibit the life and character of the Bishop, as far as possible, in his own words.

He is especially indebted to the Rev. W. O. Raymond, M. A., Rector of St. Mary's, St. John, for the use of old S.P.G. reports, and other works which supplied important information, as well as for valuable assistance in other ways.

THE RECTORY,
St. Andrews, N. B., Canada,
May 25th, 1893.

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