INSCRIPTIVE SONNET, To the Memory OF SAMUEL ALEXANDER. Dear friend, and christian father! unto thee, Few months gone by, my grateful thoughts were bent These unelaborate verses to present, For long, unwearied kindness shown to me : But it hath pleased Him, who doth not see As mortals do what most with good is blent, Let this, then, GRATITUDE'S MEMORIAL be! Nor needs thy cherish'd memory praise of mine; ་ Yet may thy bright example prayers engage And every gift of grace so richly thine. B. B. PREFACE. It was at one time the Author's intention to have published the following Devotional Verses without any prefatory Address: his choice of plan and subjects appeared to himself so plain and unpretending, that it seemed scarcely necessary to deprecate for his little volume the criticism, that a more elaborate performance might naturally be expected to elicit, but which a manual, so unassuming as the present, might, he hoped, quietly escape. It has, however, been suggested to him, that his choice itself, both of plan and subjects, requires some prefatory explanation, if not apology; and that, as both may differ widely from those anticipated by some readers, he is bound to state, briefly, what his aim and object have been. The Author is far from denying, that a volume, bearing the title of "Devotional Verses, founded on Select Passages of Scripture," may excite expectations which the following pages are little adapted to realize. In the many affecting and striking incidents recorded in holy writ; in the numerous glimpses afforded in its earlier pages of pastoral and patriarchal life; in the imposing pictures so graphically painted in its historical parts, of events as sublime as marvellous; in the gorgeous splendours of the Jewish ritual; as well as in the simple, touching beauty of the narrative |