PREFACE. THE aim of this little book is easy to be stated. It is to aid in the presentation of those fundamental religious truths which are nowhere else so practically recognized and so sublimely expressed as in the Semitic Scriptures known as the Holy Bible. The personal attributes of the Supreme Being, as evidenced in his guiding presence with humanity; the conscious relation of man to him, through the moral sense and spiritual affections, as evidenced in the life of Jesus; and the essential immortality of a life thus hid with Christ in God, as evidenced in its triumph over mortal conditions, these are the truths which, having in them the quality of inspiration, constitute an inexhaustible source of quickening influence upon the soul. They open forever new depths of spiritual contem plation, and forever new springs of living impulse. They are that deep well of waters springing up into everlasting life. A serious disadvantage in the reading of the Bible in the family, school, and church arises from the difficulty of making, upon the occasion, a continuous selection of passages setting forth the same general truth or lesson. The effort has here been made to provide such a selection. The method used was to gather from the entire Bible, irrespective of historical sequence, all utterances appealing to the universal religious sentiment or the Christian consciousness, and then to classify them by a natural system, suggested by the obvious. meaning of the passages themselves, rather than by any sectarian theory of interpretation. It is believed that such a book is a demand of the times, and will be eminently useful. Only as it shall prove itself so will it vindicate its claim to existence. J. C. P. WALTHAM, May, 1872. |