effect is like that of thinning some crowded and overgrown forest. There is gain in every respect; gain in what is taken away, gain for what remains so at least it has seemed to me, when on more than one occasion I have used the axe of excision. Great as is the length to which these prefatory words have run, and much as they have obliged me to speak, which I would willingly have avoided, in the first person, I yet cannot conclude them without giving utterance to this as my earnest prayer, that there may be nothing found in these pages to minister to error, or with which wise and understanding children of our own spiritual mother might be justly displeased. If I have attained this, I shall abundantly be rewarded for some anxious and laborious hours, which the preparation of this volume has cost me. ITCHENSTOKE, Jan. 1849. |