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PREFACE.

THE Plan of the following work, as the titlepage bespeaks, was originally formed by the late Mrs. Brunton, the celebrated author of "Self-Controul" and "Discipline." In the Memoirs of her Life, published by her husband, Dr. Brunton, he expresses the wish, that

some one of judgment as sound, affections as warm, and piety as ardent, may complete the Selection which she began;" and notwithstanding I feel the deepest sense of my own inferiority in every one of these respects, I have been induced, from the pleasure I took in reading the Posthumous Works of this pious and most excellent woman, in which some examples of

her design are given, to try how far I could succeed in filling up the outline she had sketched. I hoped, too, that, with the Sacred Volume for my guide, I could not greatly err. How far Mrs. Brunton's intention has been realised, it is for others to determine. There are some slight deviations from her plan, which, on a comparison, I fear, will not be thought improvements; but, as they are more in the letter than the spirit, I trust they will not be found materially to affect the character of the work, of which I acknowledge, without any false humility, that the merits belong entirely to the highly-gifted person who is no more, while the faults are all my own. But however defective the execution may be, the hours devoted to it have been among the happiest, and, I may add, not the least profitable, of my life.

Frome, December, 1821.

PART I. PRAYERS.

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