all men and not having been produced as task-work, but out of an earnest heart, they may possibly find a reader here and there, to whom they speak a fitting and faithful word. Should the book avail for this, it will sufficiently justify its appearance should it not, it will speedily disappear, and at least no harm be done.

No formal connexion will be found among the several Discourses in this volume. Prepared at different times, and in different moods of meditation, they are related to each other only by their common direction towards the great ends of responsible existence. The title, indeed, expresses the spirit, more than the matter, of the book; which, endeavors' to produce, rather than describe, the essential temper of 'the Christian life.'

The Author would have introduced a larger number of Discourses having direct reference, in word as well as in spirit, to the divine Ministry of Christ, did he not hope to follow up the present volume by another devoted especially to this subject, and a third on the Christianity of Paul. In the mean while, he trusts that those who, in devout reading of books and men, look for that rather which is Christian, than which talks of Christianity, will find in this little volume no faint impression of the religion by which he, no less than they, desires to live and die.

Liverpool, June 20, 1843.