PREFACE.

Nor much need be said by way of preface to the collection of sketches and stories now presented in a new and improved form to the reader. Like the former volume of this series, the separate papers of which it consists were written at considerable intervals of time, and appeared in several successive volumes of the "Tract Magazine;" and the writer, while expressing his gratitude to God for having enabled him through so many years to advocate in this way the interests of evangelical piety, ventures also to hope that the present republication of some of his occasional contributions may give pleasure and profit to many of his unknown friends.

It is a serious and responsible thing to use the pen for religious purposes, and especially so, perhaps, to call in the aid of what may be

termed the art and machinery of lighter literature, in any feeble attempts to exalt the Saviour and to illustrate the glorious doctrines of the Cross. The writer has felt this responsibility sometimes pressing heavily upon him: but he has not shrunk from it. He does not shrink

from it now. He trusts he has never written a line certainly he has not wilfully done soto lower the standard of Christian morality, to misrepresent the proper and legitimate effects of heart religion, of faith, and love, and hope, or to pander to false tastes and puerile fancies. And he thinks that even those who are "fathers" and "of full age" in the family of Christ, and who have their senses exercised so as to prefer the "strong meat" of the Gospel, will not turn with utter distaste from the mental diet, which, perhaps, is more suited to the capacities of others who are "babes in Christ," and "have need of

66 THESE FORTY YEARS."

PART 1.

"THESE forty years." "Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.

One, whose head was sprinkled with gray hairs, and on whose brow were marks of mature age, and care, and thoughtfulness, sat with his Bible before him in the twilight of a spring evening, and read these words; and then he rose and walked slowly to the window of his apartment, and looked out.

In the dim light his eyes rested on a pleasant scene-a grassy lawn-a belt of shrubbery-a walled garden-parterres of flowers beneath his window-the turnpike road in the distance-green fields beyond.

Within was comfort: a fire burned brightly in the polished grate; the carpet was soft beneath his feet; the furniture of the room was almost rich;

* Deut. viii. 2.

B