expression of religious thought and feeling, as was no other. But even in a strange tongue, this is what one, competent to speak, says of Scripture quotations:

The charm which Scripture quotation adds to writing, let those tell who have read Milton, Bunyan, Burke, Forster, Southey, Croly, Carlyle, Macauley, yea, and even Byron, all of whom have sown their pages with this orient pearl and brought thus an impulse from Divine Inspiration to add to the effect of their own. Extracts trom the Bible always attest and vindicate their origin. They nerve what else in the sentence in which they occur is pointless; they clear a space for themselves, and cast a wide glory around the page where they are found. Taken from the "Classics of the Heart" all hearts vibrate more or less strongly to their voice. It is even as David felt of old toward the sword of Goliath when he visited the high-priest and said: There is none like that, give it me.(Gilfillan.)

As the number of flyers from sermons is exceptionally large in these latter days, I thought it labor well-bestowed, carefully to select " verses which seemed to me to possess that heartsearching power. I have been equally solicitous in the choice of the poetical quotations, avoiding mere rhymed platitudes, or metred inanities, or spiritless and hollow Wortgeklingel, but have aimed at conveying, in the artistic form, a poetical thought akin to the ideas presented in the prose portion. I did not think it necessary to add the poets' names to these fragments, partly, because I would not cumber the pages with names by which the reader's attention is often lured from his text; partly, because such brief quotations are mostly given by all writers without mentioning the poet's name. Only where a whole poem is inserted, I deemed it my duty to both, author and reader, to subjoin the name of the "Happy Rhymer."

I may not close these prefatory remarks without acknowledg

ing my obligations to my publishers, who not only (as I have already stated) took the initiative in the preparation of this book, but have foreborn with me when I could not help, from want of time, to put their patience to severe tests, and who never stood back at any suggestion by which the usefulness of the book could be increased and its outer garment made more pleasing to the eye; so that it is as much for their sakes, as for my own, that I desire to see these pages fulfil the mission for which they were intended. And let this be my last word to the gentle Reader: Brother, Sister, whoever thou be who enters this “little sanctuary” which I have reared with more labor and more anxious thought than appears to the eye-mayest thou indeed here "meet with God" and may the words, heard in its stillness, ever prove to thee "words in season," lighting thy way to that special grace thou standest in need of; and mayest thou, thereby, be helped to fulfil thy highest obligation to hallow the name of God and receive, what our sages call: the seal and confirmation of all blessings: peace!— I beseech God so to prosper the work of my hand, mind and heart.

GUSTAV GOTTHEIL.