PREFACE. No species of literature is more interesting than the scattered gems which glisten here and there amid the "wood, hay, and stubble," which crowds the columns of the religious press. How often do we wish to retain some precious fragment which we have read, but we hesitate to despoil the sheet of its treasures, and ere we are aware it is soiled, torn, and lost beyond recovery. In conducting a monthly paper* from which all fiction, controversy, sectarianism, politics, puffs, pills, and patent medicines are rigorously excluded, much matter has been prepared for its columns which has been thought worthy of preservation. Accordingly, in compliance with the requests of many readers, we have gathered up the fragments, that nothing may be lost, and have embodied them in a series of volumes under the titles of "Anecdotes for Family Reading; "The Family Circle;" "The Guiding Hand, or Authentic Records of Providential Direction; " to be followed, if the Lord will, by "Fireside Readings; "Miscellanies; ""Ebenezers, or Records of Prevailing Prayer;" and other volumes similar in style and character. To the numerous readers of THE CHRISTIAN, these books will need no introduction. To the religious public they are committed in the hope that they may minister to that Godliness which hath the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. H. L. HASTINGS. BOSTON, Mass., August, 1871. *THE CHRISTIAN, a sixteen-page monthly paper, published at THE SCRIPTURAL TRACT REPOSITORY, 47 Cornhill, Boston, Mass. Terms, $1.00 a year. |