NINETY SHORT SERMONS for family reading: FOLLOWING THE COURSE OF THE BY THE AUTHOR OF A PLAIN COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPELS. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. OXFORD AND LONDON: JOHN HENRY AND JAMES PARKER. MDCCC LV. PREFACE. THE object which the writer had in view when he took in hand the following Sermons, is almost sufficiently explained by the title prefixed to his Work. Many who observe the practice of occasionally reading a sermon aloud to their household, are heard to declare that they can scarcely find anything quite suitable for that purpose. The length of most Sermons is a fatal objection. Some are thought too abstruse; and some, too polemical. Other Sermons, because they were written for large and mixed congregations, are found unsuitable for private use. For whatever reason, discourses written for pulpit delivery seldom seem to be altogether in harmony with the calm tone of a Christian man's fireside. It appeared therefore to the present writer that he might be rendering a useful service if he attempted a series of plain, practical Sermons for the Sundays and Saints' Days of the Sacred Year, of about half the length of ordinary Sermons. |