As a writer of church history, his first great claim to gratitude is on account of the living pulse of faith and love which beats through all his pages. He traces the golden thread of Christian life through the darkest centuries. He does much to save the church of God from reproach, and God's own gracious promise from contempt, by showing how much there has been of Christian grace and truth under the worst forms and in the worst ages. He has thus made his History what he said it should be, "a speaking proof of the Divine power of Christianity, a school of Christian experience, and a voice of edification and warning sounding through all ages for all who are willing to believe." Of the original sources of history, particularly for the earlier centuries, his knowledge was profound, and his use of them masterly. How thorough and how fair he is, can be fully appreciated only by those who explore for themselves the fountains from which he drew his materials. His chief defect is in the matter of form. He had but little dramatic power. He gives us the inward life, but not the outward stir and shock of history. Nor is he remarkable for analytical sharpness in his delineation of the growth of Christian doctrine. It is in the sphere of experience and life that he succeeds the best. His own doctrinal views were not, at all points, quite up to our English and American standards of orthodoxy. But these points were of minor importance. All that is cardinal was precious to him. With peculiar fidelity did he cling to the Head, which is Christ, and was full of that faith which conquers the world and saves the soul.