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hand that rules the storm. And I write it to allay, in some measure, (if the Lord will,) the petty clamours which are raised against those men of God, who in all sincerity, though encompassed with our common infirmity, are doing the work of our heavenly Father.

With respect to the spirit in which the present volume is written, I have only to say, that my design has been to avoid any approach to either of two extremes. On the one side, I detest that whining affectation of tenderness, which libels while it imitates the chastened manly sympathy of true Christian feeling. And on the other side, I equally abhor levity, or sarcasm, or jesting: such modes of speech being delicately yet powerfully stigmatized by an apostle, as not convenient---OVK ávñкovта. (Eph. v. 4; compare Rom. i. 28.) It has been my anxious desire and prayer to exemplify the scriptural characteristics inculcated upon Titus, uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity. How far I have succeeded, it is not for myself to judge. If I have failed, my infirmity, and not my will, consented.

The argument urged in the Introduction is familiar to every student of the evidences of Chris

tianity yet I deem it far from unseasonable to give a brief, popular statement of it, with a somewhat varied form of illustration.

The third Lecture of the series has been already published as a separate pamphlet ; but is long since out of print. And I refrained from printing a second edition of it, in the design of the present publication.

Albury Rectory, June, 1830.

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