Buhr Grad

BX

9178 C88 A4

GIFT

** The classic reader may perhaps excuse this acknowledged love of mottoes, if good ones, and possibly be so liberal, or so obliging, as to render the little but important monosyllable re central to one of them, in a quasi Christian way—of which its author had no conception, in his piercing and wonted irony, as piety, durable riches and righteousness, or the authentic hope of salvation consciously radiant in the bosom, the bright and the morning-star; unless rigorous to insist that there, in plain fact, it merely means money, cash, opulence; since the same author elsewhere designates an almost poverty by vir exigua re. One might be allowed to enhance infinitely the value of the sentiment, native pagan as it is, by christianizing it, even were we to yield to the temptation, seriously felt, to substitute sp for r in that biliteral word of a justly satirical hexameter line. It would then teach that neither race, though honored in ancestral fame, nor wealth ever so abounding, nor general virtue itself, however collauded and illustrious of its graceless sort, or all of these in monopoly combined, could ever begin to be a proper substitute, or a tolerable succedaneum, or a fitting compensation, or, in any sense, a decent apology for one moment, even in thought, for the divine good, substantial, supreme, eternal; which is at last identified forever with HOPE IN JESUS CHRIST, OUR REDEEMER AND OUR SAVIOR. This, in connection with THE TRUTH OF THE GOSPEL as related to hope, that precious truth in its integrity and its unity preserved, as the only proper medium of hope, as God gave it to us-not to alter, but to cherish and obey, to appreciate, and enjoy, and diffuse, this is properly the normal sentiment of this volume, as it should be the normal sentiment of every human being! It is for us the normal sentiment of God.

ET GENUS ET VIRTUS, NISI CUM SPE, VILIOR ALGA EST.

Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, by

HARPER & BROTHERS,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.

1935

V. WITH A FASHIONABLE LADY AT CALAIS, FRANCE..

301

PRECEDED BY REFLECTIONS MISCELLANEOUS, IN AN INSCRIPTION TO

TWELVE RULING ELDERS IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH........

5

INTERVIEW S.

INSCRIPTION

-PRELIMINARY REFLECTIONS.

To the following named RULING ELDERS, in different congregations of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America:

Hon. JOSEPH C. HORNBLOWER, LL.D. Ex-Chief-justice of the State of New Jersey,

Hon. DANIEL HAINES, Ex-Governor of the same,

Hon. WILLIAM JESSUP, LL.D. Pennsylvania,

HONORED AND BELOVED BRETHREN:

Permit the liberty taken by no unfriendly pen, in this ar

ray of your names in the portico of my humble building; even if it should prove that the vestibule is better than the edifice, to which it ought to be only a fitting introduction.

My estimate of you as Christians, and as officers in the Church of Christ, is such as to account for the distinction, I hope not inglorious, which I have spontaneously, and without all knowledge of your own, ventured to award you.

This volume I inscribe to you, but dedicate it to God and

6

ESTIMATION-A JURY.

our country; respecting and esteeming you too much to flatter you, and myself too much to be self-degraded by the attempt. But what is here said will be more acceptable as the fruit of brotherly kindness, saluting you as Americans, as Presbyterians, as ecclesiastical officers in my own beloved Church, as fellow-Christians, and as personal friends, honored and beloved.

All the favor I ask of you is, to give my work a fair perusal; and, if you think it of any value, be its friends, its patrons, if you please, only so far as a sense of duty, and the pleasure of a good conscience, will allow. Be as lenient as

you can toward its imperfections and its faults. More I dare not ask or desire-unless it be the boon of your prayers to God for me, that in all I do, in these residuary terms of an extended public life, and in this present enterprise, I may be favored with the incomparable good of his own benediction, however greatly, very greatly, undeserved!

In this impanneling of a jury-not a coroner's-in the matter, the number twelve was reached without any particular design-certainly with no reference to the twelve patriarchs, or the twelve apostles; nor to the twice twelve Presbyters, sitting on as many subordinate thrones, round about THE THRONE, clothed in white raiment, and having on their heads crowns of gold. Other dozens, single and double, recur to my thoughts, by the wonderful law of suggestion or association; but I dismiss them as useless to my purpose, and say, that, viewing you as the honorable representatives of that general class of my countrymen for whom more especially this is written, I commend the production to your favor, as well as your notice; in the full persuasion that if, in the main, it wins the approval of such a BENCH OF RULING ELDERS in the Church, the writer may be much consoled with the hope that its mission and its ministry, in other spheres of our social and even of our national community, may hereafter prove both acceptable and beneficial.