ADVERTISEMENT. THIS Advertisement is not in the nature of an apology. If the Work be good it needs none, if bad it deserves none. But it is to intimate the reasons of the Author's engaging so soon again in a similar Publication with the former.* They were, the peculiar acceptance "The Morning Exercises for the Closet" have met with; the many testimonies of their usefulness he has received; and the various applications addressed to him by Christians and Ministers exciting him to send forth a companion to them for the Evening. He is fully aware that "the importunity of friends," so frequently urged by writers for their appearing before the Public, is a justifica tion perhaps never sufficient, and not always very true-Yet it is certain, that, but for this provocative, the following reflctions had never seen the light. The Author hopes, however, that this second series of three hundred and sixty-five Exercises to aid the retired Christian "at evening-tide to meditate," will be no less approved and useful than the preceding * At first the Evening Exercises were published in two volumes, separate from the Morning Exercises; and two years after them. number. He has not paid less attention to the selection and execution of the subjects-But that attention has been paid amidst the numerous engagements of an extensive charge, and, through the greatest period of the Work, also under the anxieties of the most trying domestic affliction. He has no doubt, but in seven hundred and thirty Exercises of this kind, the same thought and illustration sometimes, and perhaps nearly in the same words, may occur. But they occur in new positions and connexions; and the prevention was almost impossible. Many of his readers will perceive marks of that haste which was also inevitable: and they who are accustomed to composition themselves, will know how hard it is to write on any interesting and fertile topic, under the restraints of a great and prescribed brevity; and how unfriendly to ornament is perpetual effort at condensation. "If I have done. well, and as is fitting the story, it is that which I desired: but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto." Percy Place, Bath: Dec. 10th, 1831. TO WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, Esq. MY DEAR SIR, I AM not certain that my motive was quite pure, when I felt a very powerful desire that, in a way of some little publicity and continuance, I might appear associated with One so esteemed and illustrious as the Man whose name dignifies this page, and at whose feet I presume to lay this Volume. A writer of judgment and wit has somewhere said, that "there are good persons with whom it will be soon enough to be acquainted in heaven." But there are individuals with whom it is no common privilege to have been acquainted on earth. It is now more than forty years since the Writer of this Address was indulged and honoured with your notice and friendship. During this period (so long in the brevity of human life!) he has had many opportunities of deriving great pleasure and profit from your private conversation; and also of observing, in your public career, the proofs you displayed of the Orator, the Statesman, the Advocate of enlightened Freedom, and the feeling, fearless, persevering, and successful opponent of a traffic that is "a reproach to any people." But he would be unworthy of the ministry he fills, and be ashamed of the age he has now reached, as a professed follower of our Lord and Saviour, if he could not increasingly say, with Young, as "A CHRISTIAN is the highest style of man." All other greatness is, in the view of faith, seducing and dangerous; in actual enjoyment, unsatisfactory and vain; and in duration, fleeting and momentary. "The world passeth away, and the lusts thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." The expectation of the man who has his "portion in this life" is continually deteriorating: for every hour brings him nearer the loss of all his treasure; and, he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand." But the "good hope through grace," which animates the believer, is always approaching its realities; and therefore grows, with the lapse of time, more valuable and more lively. As it is spiritnal in its quality, and heavenly in its object, it does not depend on outward things, and is not affected with the decays of nature. Like the Glastonbury thorn, fabulously planted by Joseph of Arimathæa, it blooms in the depth of winter. It "brings forth fruit in old age." "At even-tide it is light"-"For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." And this, my dear Sir, you are now happily experiencing, at the close of more than "threescore years and ten." And I hail you, not as descending towards the grave under the applause of nations, but as an heir of immortality, "looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." Attended with the thanksgiving of the truly wise and good on your |