With the appearance of this volume, our survey of western religious thought in the nineteenth century is concluded. We take this opportunity to thank all who contributed to its successful completion. We thank especially the authors of individual articles for their co-operation, patience and support at every stage of production. We are grateful to colleagues at Lancaster and to former colleagues at Dartmouth in particular for helping to read and evaluate some manuscripts; for their assistance with matters bibliographical, we thank Paul Morris of the department of religious studies and R. M. Bliss of the department of history at the University of Lancaster. We also wish publicly to acknowledge our indebtedness to the more than sixty scholars from around the world who encouraged and advised us especially in the early stages of the project. We cannot list them all by name here, but we can record that their expert judgment proved invaluable in planning the shape and scope of the three volumes now published.

Our delight in seeing the final volume appear is necessarily tempered by our deep sorrow that the distinguished American historian Sydney Ahlstrom did not live to see the publication of his last article in the field to which he contributed so much. His early enthusiasm for this project was much appreciated by the editors.