00.01 Introduction

INTRODUCTION. In giving the present volume to the press, the author has little to say but that which is suggested by the importance of the subject of which it treats. Christians should often call to remembrance those truths which remind them of their high relation to Jesus Christ. Such truths are fitted to give vigor and freshness to their hopes, and enforce their obligations not only to avoid bringing religion into reproach, but to hasten its predicted supremacy in the earth.

It was the original design of the writer to make the present work the sequel and counterpart to his last published volumes, entitled " First Things." In arranging his thoughts for this purpose, he found the topics so allied to the glory of his Divine Master, that he selected rather the present title, because without excluding " Last Things," it would furnish him a wider range of useful topics.

It has not been his desire so much to suggest new thoughts, as to illustrate and enforce those that are old. A Christian minister is never warranted, even when writing for the press, to forego the opportunity of addressing the conscience. It may be there is in some of these chapters a redundancy of practical remark; and even a reiteration of thought in urging those obligations and inducements to godliness which result from different truths. Nor could this be well avoided. It is difficult to prevent the same light from being reflected from different reflecting surfaces. When he first announced his topic, some of his friends kindly intimated that the train of thought suggested by it might too closely resemble that which he had already presented in the work entitled " The Attraction of the Cross." He felt at the time, that there was weight in the suggestion; nor has he felt it less in the progress of the work itself. He can only say that he has endeavored to avoid a recurrence of the same illustrations even upon the topic which would most naturally offer them. The theme and the service have been delightful ones to his own mind; fitted to humble and stimulate it, to remind him of his responsibility, and " so much the more as he sees the day approaching." Should this prove his last service of the kind, he is thankful that it has been employed on such a theme. If the reader be interested and profited, he will share in the pleasure with which the work has been prepared, and the gratitude due to the Father of lights in allowing it to be consecrated to the glory of his great name.

G. S.

Brick Church Chapel, New York, March, 1852.