01.000. Preface

This Volume is not one which needs a Preface. It unfolds itself without any introductory explanations.

Like the life which it records, it is not meant for show, nor got up for effect. It will not startle by incident or scene, nor attract by sentimentalism or romance. It trusts to the reality, the intense reality, which comes out in all its pages, for the interest it may awaken.

If, indeed, the most original man be he who acts out what he thinks, and lives all that he believes, there may be something found here which may deserve to be called fresh and new. But, whatever may be thought of it in this aspect, there will be no difficulty in recognising in it the image of one to whom Christ was truly "all;" in whom He had taken a place which dispossessed inferior objects, and to whose eye the glory of this unseen Saviour had eclipsed the world’s brilliance and the creature’s beauty. For various private reasons, the names of persons and places have not, in general, been given. This, however, will be no hindrance to the usefulness nor detraction from the interest of the volume.

KELSO, December 1852.