Author's Address to the Reader.

hristian Reader! in the name of the Lord

Jesus, I here present to you a collection of de

vout thoughts, which suggested themselves on various occasions to a fellow-pilgrim, called Gotthold, and which I received from his mouth, and have taken the pains to write down.

For this I desire no other praise save that which it well becomes a Christian preacher and minister of the Word to seek the praise of faithfully and diligently promoting the glory of his God, and the good of his neighbor.

My object in this book was to make the creatures converse with thee, or rather to expound and interpret their secret language, and, according to my poor ability, show how all kinds of objects, incidents, and events, may be made to remind thee of thy God, and to promote thy comfort and growth in Christianity. We read with won

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der how Balaam's ass spoke; it seems to me, however, that the irrational, and even the dumb creatures, all speak to us, from day to day, and from hour to hour, if only we have ears to hear, and hearts to understand them. How otherwise could Job say, "Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee: and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee; or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee; and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee"?1 or David aver that "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork"?"

Long ago it used to be said that there was a nobleman in France, in whose domains all the wood and stone, when split or hewn, bore the owner's coat-of-arms, depicted upon them by nature. I shall not inquire into the truth of the story; but at least it is certain, that the man of piety and observation finds in all the creatures the mark, name, and arms, of his benign and merciful God, and, in these, occasions more fervently to love and praise Him. The Book of Nature.

--

to say the same thing in other words has many thousand leaves, upon all of which the finger of God has inscribed His goodness, and He scatters them in every place, that we may

TO THE READER.

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never want the opportunity of contemplating the height and depth of His love. Happy the man who reads, and devoutly meditates upon them!

It appears to me as if every morning I beheld for the first time this vast theatre of the Divine miracles, the world. Every morning His mercy is new to me. I am never satisfied with beholding the displays of His glory alike in the mighty firmament, the spangled heavens, and other such immense bodies, as in small and humble objects. It happens to me like the hen, who frequently finds a grain of wheat, even upon a dunghill.

Let no one imagine that by compositions of this kind I introduce a novelty. No; the devout contemplation of nature, and "Incidental Devotions," are as old as the world. Even Adam, the first whom the Most High enfeofted into the possession of the globe, read upon all its objects the name of His Creator, and, like the bee, tasted the sweetness of His love in every little flower. The Lord Himself set up the rainbow in the clouds for the contemplation of Noah, and brought Abraham abroad in the night, and bade him look to the starry heavens, And, doubtless, it was no superficial glance which the holy patriarchs took of the creation; doubtless they,

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too, found in it themes for devout reflection of all

kinds.

King David, as it appears, composed the forty-second psalm while listening to the lowing of the deer in the wilderness, to which he was forced to flee for shelter and concealment. Even He who was the greatest and most exalted of all teachers, has not only directed us to contemplate the creation, but Himself endeavored from every casual object to reap instruction for His hearers, and, by the things which perish, to acquaint them with the things which endure. As He sat upon a well, He began to speak to the Samaritan woman of the water which springeth up unto eternal life. While walking, as is supposed, out of the city of Jerusalem, He observed the vineyards and clusters by the wayside, and took occasion to compare Himself to a vine, His heavenly Father to the husbandman, and His followers to the branches.2 On the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, He saw the Jews drawing water from the fountain of Siloam, and began to testify to them once more of spiritual and living water; and, being invited to a feast, He embraced the opportunity to discourse of the great

1 John iv. 6, etc.

2 John xv. 1, etc.

TO THE READER.

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Gospel Supper.

In the same way, the Apostle Paul took the hint from the altar of the Athenians to preach of the one living and true God.

In subsequent and even more recent times, many able, pious, and learned divines have trodden in the footsteps of those forerunners, as might be exemplified by instances, were it not superfluous.

No one

surely will censure the attempt to prevent evil thoughts, and supply their place by promoting, on every occasion, serious and devout reflection upon God and divine things. My hope at least is, that the reader of this book, when he afterwards meets with any of the objects here made the theme of meditation, will recall more of the thoughts. Perhaps, too, even the

one or

preacher may learn from it, when in company, or at a feast, in his walks, or on his travels, how to entertain those around him with the same kind of pleasant, and yet profitable discourse, and so help to make them better He has but to erect his pulpit, as I have

Christians.

done, wherever necessity or duty demands, remembering that it is possible to speak the truth to every one in particular without, as well as within, the walls of a church;

Luke xiv. 16.