Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by

GOULD AND LINCOLN,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

ANDOVER:

ELECTROTY PED BY W. F. DRAPEX.

AMERICAN PUBLISHERS' NOTE.

IN introducing GOTTHOLD'S EMBLEMS to the American public, the publishers feel assured it will receive a cordial welcome from Christian readers. It is, indeed, a matter of surprise, that a work of such preeminent merit should have circulated in German homes for nearly two centuries, without finding an English translator. Its popularity in Germany, on its first appearance, was not inferior to that of the best productions of Luther, in the previous century. More than twenty editions were rapidly issued, to meet the eager demand; and when at length it had fallen into a temporary oblivion, the extraordinary value attached to stray copies by the families in which they were heir-looms, made it difficult for an editor to obtain a single copy, even for use in preparing a new edition. The publishers are not aware that any work of its precise character is to be found in the English language, and they feel assured it wil supply an important defect in our devotional literature. It will

IV

AMERICAN PUBLISHERS' NOTE.

aid devout Christians to look with open eye on the wonderful works of God, which need to be "sought out of all them that have pleasure therein." The inspired writers found a stimulus to profound Christian feeling in the contemplation of the works of nature; and the psalmist and prophets soared to their sublimest flights of devotion, when listening to the mystic strains in which the heavens and earth and the great deep chanted the praises of God. Every thoughtful Christian ought to see, like them, in his daily walks, convincing proof that the God of nature is also the God of the Bible, and find his soul quickened to praise by beautiful and suggestive emblems of a wise and loving and omnipotent Creator.

The volume has been prepared from the English edition in two volumes. The order of the English translator has not, in all cases, been strictly adhered to; and a few of the "meditations," which seemed less freighted with devotional feelings, and whose subjects or mode of treatment might be thought objectionable by some fastidious readers, have been omitted.

If the work shall be received with that favor which the publishers anticipate, it will be followed by a second volume, compiled from other "meditations," some of which have not yet been translated.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

The work which is here presented to the English

reader belongs to a class of which the import

ation from Germany into this country has been comparatively small. We have received large supplies of her scientific theology, in the shape of expositions of Scripture and histories of the Church and its doctrine. We have also received a few admirable specimens of her practical divinity, such as the Sermons of Krummacher. But, with her strictly devotional literature, we are, as yet, with the solitary though noble exception of Bogatzky's “Golden Treasury," almost entirely unacquainted. This, however, is just the field in which the deep sentiment which forms the prominent feature in the character of the nation, and lends so powerful a charm to their poetry and music, seems peculiarly to fit the Germans to nay, it is the field in which they have in fact

excel,

excelled.

Their literature is rich in works addressed to

the religious affections, and designed to feed the lamp

VI

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

of faith, and fan the flame of devotion in the heart, and which occupy, in their pious families, the place occupied in our own by the "Saint's Everlasting Rest," Doddridge's "Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul," Flavel's "Token for Mourners,” and Hervey's "Meditations." For instance, Dr. Tholuck's Stunden der Andacht stands preeminent among all modern productions of this class. It is a work without a rival in any language, and loudly calls for some skilful pen to transplant it worthily into our own. And here is another, nearly two centuries old, but still instinct with the vigor and freshness of youth, which reäppears, like the spirit of a departed saint, and claims audience, while, in accents strangely sweet and solemn, it discourses to us of eternal things.

To satisfy the natural curiosity of the reader, the following particulars respecting the author and his work are premised. They are borrowed from the twenty-eighth edition of it, which was published at Barmen in 1846, and is the one from which the present translation has been made.

Christian Scriver was born on the 2d January, 1629, at Rendsburg, studied at Rostock, was appointed deacon at Stendal in 1653, pastor of the Church of St. James', at Magdeburg, in 1667, and court preacher and consistorial councillor at Quedlinburg in 1690, where, on the 5th of April, 1693, he departed this life.