LETTERS AND PAPERS BY THE LATE THEODOSIA A. VISCOUNTESS POWERSCOURT. EDITED BY THE REV. ROBERT DALY, A.M. Rector of Powerscourt, in the Diocese of Dublin. THIRD EDITION. DUBLIN WILLIAM CURRY, JUN. AND COMPANY. SAMUEL HOLDSWORTH, LONDON. FRASER AND CO. EDINBURGH. 1839. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. IN offering the following Volume to the public, it is, perhaps, necessary that I should prefix a few words to state, what the reader is to expect, and what he is not to expect, in these Letters and Papers. He is not to expect any thing in the character of religious gossip; any anecdotes of, or remarks concerning living persons, with whom the writer had intercourse. Those who had the privilege of receiving Letters from the late Lady Powerscourt, know well that she delighted to dwell on much higher subjects than the actions or opinions of her fellow-men. If every thing she ever wrote was submitted to the public eye, it would be, perhaps, a subject of surprise to some, how very little was said about other persons in her extended correspondence. But, in the following selections, I have studiously omitted every thing in the least degree personal. Those, therefore, that shall take up this volume with the hope of reading Lady A 2 Powerscourt's opinions of this person or that person -of this or the other movement, in or out of the Church, will be disappointed. I trust that these pages will furnish no food that would gratify such appetites. Had the correspondence, from which it has been my part to make selections, afforded such materials, I should never have been the instrument of making them public. But that eminent disciple of our blessed Lord, whose Letters are now printed, with a hope and prayer that they may tend to the edification of the Church, lived in a higher atmosphere; inhaled herself, and breathed forth, a purer air. She, of all the Christians I have been privileged to know, came nearest to that which she has, in such strong, uncommon terms, stated to be her idea of a Christian: "Not one who looks up from earth to heaven, but one who looks down from heaven on earth." She appears to have ascended a high and holy eminence, and from thence to have looked down upon those earthly scenes, with which too many are entirely engrossed, living up to that high spiritual requirement of the apostle, "Set your affections on things above, and not on things on the earth, for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." Those who take up this Volume may expect to find the language of a heart thus lifted up above the world, the free and unrestrained breathing of a soul whose "conversation was in |