A DEVOTIONAL MANUAL FOR CANDIDATES FOR HOLY ORDERS. CONTAINING AN OFFICE FOR EACH DAY OF EMBER WEEK, READINGS. BY REV. E. D. CREE, M.A., STREATHAM. BONE PASTOR, PANIS VERE, IN TERRA VIVENTIUM! OXFORD AND LONDON, JOHN HENRY PARKER. M DCCC LIV. 138. d. 182. TO THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN CHRIST, JOHN, LORD BISHOP OF LICHFIELD AND COVENTRY, IN HUMBLE ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE CHURCH'S OBLIGATIONS TO THE ORIGINATORS OF THEOLOGICAL COLLEGES THIS MANUAL IS (WITH PERMISSION) DEDICATED, BY HIS LORDSHIP'S FAITHFUL SERVANT, E. D. CREE. PREMONITION. It is as much an axiom in things pertaining to religion as in merely secular affairs, that familiarity breeds contempt; but there is in the former case this exaggeration of evil, that "he that despiseth, despiseth not man but God." To be made intimate with holy things is trial enough for the most devout mind, but to the unsanctified and unprepared it is very death. Unhappily however the intruder into the ministerial office, seems to be judicially blinded both to the present and future consequences of his proceeding: he is wonderfully unconscious of the spiritual suicide he is committing; he cannot see that every holy rite and means of grace that he administers is hardening his heart into that recklessness of sin, in which, by a just, but awful judgment, the things which should have been for his health are unto him an occasion of falling. There is in fact a three-fold evil in the un B |