USI U S 1 3 6 1 2, 4.11 Entered according to act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred thirty-three, by THOMAS WHITTEMORE, in the Clerk's Office of the District of Massachusetts. BOSTON: JAMES B. DOW, PRINTER, 122 WASHINGTON-ST. PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION. THE pages which compose the volume now presented to the public, were originally designed only for the eye of a tender and beloved friend. They were written at the earnest request of one to whom the author was endeared by many years of intimate friendship, and still more by those divine and soul-soothing tenets, of which it was his distinguished lot to be ordained the promulgator. For those who, like this individual, have dwelt with rapture upon the blessed assurance of the boundless and enduring love of a redeeming God, as powerfully exhibited by those lips which rarely opened but to expatiate upon the glad tidings which was the theme of the angelic song: for those who loved the philanthropic, the inspired preacher, for the sake of the glorious inspiration; these sheets will possess the strongest · and most important interest: to such, and to such only, they are addressed. It is in compliance with their solicitations that they are sent into the world; and it is not even expected that those who turned a deaf ear to his consolatory message, and who knew not the powers of his mighty mind, or the pure and exalted benevolence of his heart, will have any interest in inquiring, What manner of man was he who told these things, nor what spirit he was of?' Boston, May 2, 1816. |