ADVERTISEMENT.

A REFERENCE to the names of Authors whose works have been made use of, will furnish, it is conceived, the best guarantee for the principles of this compilation. The Editor has usually remarked two (to his mind) decided drawbacks to the utility of works of this nature; the one arising from the brevity and consequent incompleteness of the passages quoted; the other from the hastiness of transition from one subject to another that has no connexion with it. These two faults he has endeavoured to avoid; and he trusts that the reader will find in the following pages a sum of practical Christian wisdom, borrowed, indeed, from lights that have shone in several ages, but so arranged as to present a well-digested and continuous treatise. In two or three instances, where he could not lay his hand upon a passage that fell in exactly with his arrangement, he has ventured to supply the deficiency from his

own resources.

T. C.