Dear reader, let me ask you to read the scriptures referred to in the various passages that come before you in this little publication, whether referred to in the way of illustration or of proof. With this, (and prayer for God's wisdom,) what you read will be plain; without it there is but little hope of your understanding it. Whatever can be understood without attention will be read without profit; but what may
seem difficult on a first reading, will ordinarily be easy on the second.: and be assured that what is presented to you in these pages was never intended to be read as a newspaper, and then thrown aside. It only remains for me to commend you and this little volume to the blessing of God, who has permitted it to be brought to that measure of completeness, in the first year of its publication, of which such a work is susceptible.
EDITOR.