passions and feelings which sway the heart of man: how I have done so I leave you and my readers to judge. I know, if the book have some claim to public attention, it will be read; if it have not, let it be sent to tie up tea and sugar for old women-it will serve me right for coming forward as an author. My illustrations, I fear, have been too generally of a dark and gloomy character, and I rather regret it. I am aware that I shall be censured on this account: there are so many persons who hold that maxim of—what I must call morbid feeling, "That they meet with too much of the dolorous in daily life, and therefore cannot bear it in fiction." It seems to me that serious contemplations are good for man in such world as that which we inhabit. thoughtful man who hath learned to search his own heart must be accus The X tomed to what the thoughtless will call mournful subjects: but I do hold that his manly familiarity with what worldlings deem terrific will beget a calm and steady cheerfulness in him. Ignorance and uncertainty can make many mirthful in society who are otherwise sad cowards. I love the spirit which starts not at the shadows of fear, which is all occupied by a high and holy fearfulness of Him who hath forewarned us not to give way to vain fears, but to fear Him who, after He hath killed, hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, fear Him!" We are too apt, in speaking of death, to forget that, by the dissolution of the flesh, the soul is born to glory. "The world is too much with us"-we have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! How seldom do we meet with the man that can feel such lines as these; "This is the dormitive," saith the noble-spirited Sir Thomas Brown, "I take to bedward: I need no other laudanum than this to make me sleep."Alas! whither am I rambling? Remember this is not the book itself, but a letter to you, in which I let my pen wander as it will. We will return again to the title. The Human Heart is, we are told in Scripture," deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:" and so the heart must be, if man himself be ever desperately wicked, for the heart is the well-spring of human actions. But though out of the heart proceed evil thoughts and all that defileth a man, God himself hath said, "My son, give me thine heart." "With the heart, man believeth unto righteousness;" and every good and perfect gift which cometh from above" may take up its abode in the human heart. 66 You will surely deem this letter rather tedious. You shall read no more of it. Turn over a few leaves-God bless you! heart's prayer. is my |