CONTENTS. Page On Strained Interpretations of the Doctrine of Faith or Con- On Suspicions that Faith may not be Genuine, induced by the On the Despondency arising from a Sense of Great and Mul- PREFACE. THE remarks prefixed to those "Thoughts ou Private Devotion," for the acceptance of which the writer has been and continues grateful, are in great part so applicable to the contents of the present volume, that, for readers possessing the former, nothing prefatory may here be needful. The title implies, that this work is designed, principally, for such as endure distress, discouragement, or sadness; but it is well to add (what the brevity of a title could not distinctly indicate), that, within this large division of society, they will be found most appropriate, by those who, in prefacing that former work, were designated as "the reflective and questioning class;" who might, with perhaps equal propriety, have been termed,-the pensive, doubting, and, in some sense, speculative class. Several modes, it is true, of adversity and disappointment, are both incidentally and expressly treated of, common in a great degree to every order of minds, and every rank of the community. Still it will be found that the prevailing character and drift of these papers is most adapted to the class now mentioned. "Distress, discouragement, or sadness," are, indeed, often the effects of such a mental constitution. Doubt and dejection on the great points where all real hope is at issue; and other pains or fears, of a quality which some minds can but conjecturally, and therefore but obscurely estimate, are among the "manifold temptations" which that class encounter. We should thank God that there are Christian writers, in our own as in former days, who think chiefly for another class; who possess that enviable energy and confidence, which breathe an eloquent vigour through their pages, and doubtless bear forward kindred spirits in the same high career, with a |