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much explanation or apology, beyond those which the candour of indulgent readers might suggest on behalf of any author attempting to carry such object into effect. That in the simple, touching, and beautiful narratives, recorded in Holy Writ, are many scenes and incidents calculated most powerfully to appeal to the best and purest feelings of a child's heart, is a position which every pious and affectionate parent, as well as every judicious and experienced preceptor, will readily admit; in truth, the repeated recurrence to them, as themes of interest and instruction, is the best proof which could be adduced of the estimation in which they are held for such purposes. The humblest effort, therefore, to give them, by novelty of form or manner, any probability of additional attraction to a child, may at least be pardoned.

Such being the plan and object of this unpretending little volume, it is respectfully submitted to the appreciation of those most deeply concerned in the welfare of that large and interesting class of readers for whose use it was designed, with the distrust natural to a first attempt in so important a field of labour, on the part of its author; and on that of her father, with an equally natural feeling of solicitude for its indulgent reception; but with a still more earnest wish that its tendency and influence may, through the Divine blessing, prove that indulgence not to have been misplaced.

Woodbridge.

BERNARD BARTON.

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Who made, who marr'd, and who has rausom'd man;
Points which, unless the Scripture made them plain,
The wisest heads might agitate in vain."

COWTER.

I.

"THOSE Bible days! those Bible days!" I hear some reader say;

"What themes for wonder, love, and praise, Their Chronicles display!

It must have been like heaven on earth,
When angels talk'd with men;
Who but might fondly wish his birth
Had been allotted then?

11.

"For then, in EDEN's garden fair
Our earliest parents dwelt,
And on its flowery turf, in prayer,
At night and morning knelt:

There bird and beast around them played,

In gentleness and glee;

And glorious beings, in its shade,

Their guests were said to be.

III.

"But Disobedience, like a blight,
Came o'er those golden hours,
And drove them from the peaceful site
Of Eden's blissful bowers;
Yet Mercy temper'd Judgment's ire,
Their sorrows to assuage,
And left to love and to admiré,
The PATRIARCHAL AGE!

IV.

"Then PATRIARCHS led within their tent, And SHEPHERDS on the plain,

A life so glad and innocent,

When will such come again?
Then ABRAM sent to seek a bride
For ISAAC far away;
And Isaac walk'd at eventide,
To meditate and pray.

V.

"Then JACOB for the blessing strove
Through darksome hours of night;
Or saw, from earth to heaven above,
That ladder's steps of light

By angels trod. Then JOSEPH, sold
To Egypt for a slave,

Fulfil'd the visions he foretold,
And good for evil gave.

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