MEDITATIONS;

OR,

A SERIES OF REFLECTIONS

ON VARIOUS PASSAGES OF

Holy Scripture and Scriptural Poetry,

FOR

EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

THE RETROSPECT, MORNING MEDITATIONS,

&c. &c. &c.

·BIBL

OTH

LONDON:

JAMES NISBET AND CO. BERNERS STREET.

M DCCC XXXVIII.

171.

J. Dennett, Printer, Union Buildings, Leather Lane.

PREFACE.

FROM the favourable reception which the Author's little book of " Morning Meditations" found at the hands of many pious and tried christian readers, he has been encouraged to send forth the present sister volume. It will at once be seen that this is not a work calculated to amuse the thoughtless, or to interest the giddy and dissipated portion of mankind; but that, on the contrary, it is expressly intended for those who are desirous of setting the Lord always before them, for individuals who consider themselves as standing on the confines of time, and expecting shortly to be launched into eternity. Many of its little papers were written in seasons of pain, depression, and illness, when it was at once a duty and privilege to entreat a sanctified use of these afflictions, and to divert the mind as much as possible from them, and those feuds and agitation that distracted the writer's parish and grieved his heart. He ever found it good to turn aside from these strifes and contentions, and to direct the meditative eye of faith to happier and holier things, and thus, by frequent contemplation, to realize the divine presence, and the events of

death, judgment, and salvation, together with other subjects connected with the Christian's warfare on earth, and with his eternal rest and glory in heaven. Hence these solemn and important topics have been again and again brought forward for the evening's meditation. Should the reader find as much interest in thinking over them as the writer has frequently done in committing them to paper, they certainly will not go forth in vain.

There will be found a few extracts from Baxter, Watts, and Dwight, which having deeply impressed his own mind, he believed they would be edifying to his readers also. That the Lord may graciously own this humble work to his own glory, and to the comfort and spiritual advancement of his children, is the writer's earnest prayer.

GREAT MISSENDEN,
Sept. 1838.

R. M.