Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1855, by PUTNAM AND BROTHER,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

51

3463 dym

1856

PREFACE

TO THE REVISED EDITION.

THE work which is now presented to the public in a revised form, was originally written about six years since. In looking it over, the author finds it marked by the florid and redundant style of a young man, and has found it necessary to leave out many words, to alter the construction of many sentences, and to omit many passages altogether. This, with a few additions, constitutes the revision which characterizes the present edition. The author would have been glad to present, instead of a revised, a re-written edition of this book; to have broken up the very mould, and re-casted the whole work; and thus he might have rendered to the topics which he has here discussed, the justice of more mature thought, as well

as of a more sober style. present this must suffice.

But for the He trusts that

those to whom the work is familiar, will find it much improved from the first edition; and that they who shall read it for the first time may find profit from the perusal. His heart's prayer to God is that it may be a minister of good, especially to the class to whom it is addressed, and that it may do something, however little, in advancing the kingdom of Christ in the world, and the glory of the Father. And he concludes nearly in the words of the preface to the first edition: "This book may reach some corner of our land where it will do good-it may arouse some heart to obey the impulses of duty, and to follow the right. With this hope, and invoking the blessing of God upon it, it is left to accomplish its destiny.”