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J. C. Ryle (1816-1900) seemed destined for Parliament: an Eton and Oxford man, a champion cricketer, heir to a banking fortune. Then the fortune collapsed, and the ruined heir entered the ministry of the Church of England. He spent thirty-eight years as a country pastor, writing tracts and commentaries so clear that they circulated in the millions, before Prime Minister Disraeli named him the first Bishop of Liverpool in 1880. Charles Spurgeon called him "the best man in the Church of England." His books have never gone out of print
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