ferent seasons, notes its inhabitants, its culture, and its productions. The astronomer, who would describe a planet, follows it through its wonted course, and depicts it in all its phases. The demonstrator in anatomy shows the joints, bones, nerves, and muscles of the animal man, both separately and in their mutual connexion and dependance. The accomplished physician, in descanting upon any viscus or organ, exhibits it in its healthful state and in its derangement; in the regular discharge of its appropriate functions, and in its morbid action. My object is to give a graphic description, a faithful chart, of the spiritual region within; to show the different phases of a spiritual but too erratic planet; its darker and its brighter aspects, as it recedes from or approximates towards the sun and centre of light and life; to lay open and exhibit the framework and texture of the inner man, so "fearfully and wonderfully made;" to place before the reader the moral heart, in its soundness and its unsoundness; as it now, with perfect regularity, sends the warm current of life and health through the system, or again as it labours under its occasional and fearful maladies. The several states or conditions under which the heart will be presented are such as have been "noted in the Scripture of truth." These, it is trusted, will give a clear view of the subject, and, at the same time, be connected with sacred associations in the minds of the pious. It is a fair presumption, that "He who formed" the heart, who "knoweth what is in the heart of man, and needeth not that any should tell him," best knew what are its leading peculiarities, and by what terms they should be designated. In following, then, the divisions, and adopting the terms of Him" who spake by the prophets," we cannot greatly err. Even a superficial reader of the sacred volume must be struck by one great distinction which there obtains-the distinction between THE HEART AS IT IS BY NATURE and THE HEART AS RENEWED BY DIVINE GRACE; leading to an analogous arrangement of all mankind UNDER TWO GREAT CLASSES, the UNRENEWED and the RENEWED. On this scriptural and stronglymarked distinction is based the main division of the present work. In addition to this primary distinction, there will be recognised some of those minor peculi arities which the Spirit of God has deemed worthy of specification. Each heart has its own moral or spiritual peculiarites; and even the same heart differs widely from itself at different periods. It is well, therefore, that these specific traits should be faithfully described, so that each reader may, in some portion of the work, as from a glass, see his own image clearly reflected. It had been easy to have thrown this little work into the narrative form, or to have given to it the attraction of fictitious incident, the embellishment of a fancy dress; but the author, from principle, was unwilling to minister to what he has long deemed a vitiated public taste, or to swell the number of those sacred fictions which tend, he is persuaded, to enervate the youthful mind, to diminish the reverence of the youthful heart, and to clothe the hallowed form of religion in too light and loose attire. Having on other occasions publicly expressed his conviction of their injurious tendency, and awakened some attention to the necessity of a change in public taste and practice, he is disposed consistently to act upon his expressed opinions, and to hazard the experiment wheth er truth may not be popularly and attractively presented, though it come in its own simple form, and rest only on its intrinsic merits. Should the experiment succeed, and the present work be favourably received, it will probably be followed by others not unsuited to the Sunday-school Library, yet especially designed for the private reading of the Christian closet, and for the social reading of the Christian family circle, and intended to form a connected series, having reference to the discipline of THE THOUGHTS, THE LIPS, AND THE LIFE of the Christian, that he may be prepared for THE DEATH of the righteous” and “THE RESURRECTION of the just." 66 The work now offered has its origin in the strong promptings of duty; in deep solicitude for the proper culture of hearts, whose sanctification is essential to present happiness, and whose affections and habits will go with them to THE ETERNAL WORLD. May it be perused by you, reader, in that "honest and good heart," which "receives the truth in the love of it," under the solemn conviction that the eyes of THE SEARCHER OF HEARTS" are upon you, and that all the secrets of your heart shall be made 66 |