DELIVERED BEFORE THA YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, IN EXETER HALL, FROM NOVEMBER, 1856, TO FEBRUARY, 1857. OR LIE LONDON: JAMES NISBET AND CO., BERNERS STREET. 1857. PREFACE. THE Lectures contained in this volume have been published separately, and have met with such general acceptance as to make a Recommendatory Preface needless. The Committee of the Young Men's Christian Association commend this Twelfth Series of Lectures to the continued support of those by whose exertions the former volumes have been so widely circulated, and have become so generally useful. They also renew their grateful acknowledgments to the Lecturers who have delivered this Course-some of them under circumstances which have placed the Committee under special obligation and to the Noblemen and Gentlemen who presided at the delivery of the Lectures. : The promotion of the Rev. Robert Bickersteth to the See of Ripon deprived the Association (they trust only for a season) of his promised Lecture on Christian Missions. But the Committee feel it to be due to the Bishop to state that the reasons which led his Lordship to relinquish his engagement were in perfect accordance with the kind and earnest solicitude he has at all times manifested for the best interests of the Society It has been the privilege of the Association to illustrate in various forms the practical unity of the Churches of Christ, but in none more happily than in its Annual Series of Lectures, delivered by men of all shades of ecclesiastical opinion, and of nearly every variety of public function, who have cordially joined in an effort to bring the labours and the recreations of every-day life into subjection to the authority of God and to the teaching of His Word. The Committee send forth this volume in the earnest hope that it may combine with those which have preceded it in leading Young Men to the realization of the power and privileges of that Godliness which is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. W. EDWYN SHIPTON, OFFICES OF THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, 165, ALDERSGATE STREET, LONDON, 31st March, 1857. |