BX9843 1873 Entered according to Act of Congress. in the year 1847, BY C. S FRANCIS & CO in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New-York 1519223 PREFACE. I HAVE collected into these Volumes, most of the Ser mons and Essays that have been published with my name; and have added some Sermons not before printed, together with Articles from Reviews, and Occasional Discourses. A new arrangement is made, in order to bring the Discourses under certain heads. The title of the Volume first published, "Discourses on Various Subjects," is dropped. The first Series in this Edition, "On Human Nature," embraces several of those Discourses; others are omit ted; and others, placed under another Head. Discourses on "Human Life," follow; and then, a number of Discourses, for which I could find no more definite title than "The Nature of Religion." In the first Sermon of the suc ceeding series, on "Commerce and Business," I have attempted by a revision of the Argument, to reply to an objection sometimes urged against its main doctrine, with regard to the use of superior knowledge, power or opportunity. I have met with those who argued thus: "We have a right to take every advantage of each other; it is perfectly honest to do so, because we have agreed to do so. It is a matter of compact, whose chances and risks we mutually agree to take." Now I maintain that the general moral policy of trade foroias such compact. The remainder of the Second Volume is occupied by a Miscellaneous Collection of Discourses on Politics and Society, and by reprints of Reviews and Occasional Sermons and Addresses. The Third Volume, or the one which is to occupy that place in the Edition, is already published—as it has been some time out of print, and was called for--under the title of "Discourses and Reviews upon Questions in Controversial Theology and Practical Religion." My apology for these details is, that they seemed to be necessary to explain to those who have purchased my publications, the character of the present Edition.* Let me add, that no attempt is made at a full discussion of any of the subjects embraced in these Volumes. I suppose that a Treatise is not usually expected in a Volume of Sermons. Pulpit Discourses are, from the nature of the case, more like separate Essays, than successive portions of a regular Treatise. I have now said all that is necessary, perhaps, in a Preface; and yet, in sending forth a revised Edition of my Publications, I am disposed to add one or two remarks. I have sometimes regretted that it has been my fortune to communicate with the Public through Sermons. I doubt whether there is any one vehicle of communication—Art, Literature, Poetry, Fiction, the Journal, or the Newspaper -in the way of which public opinion has thrown so many obstructions and difficulties. In the first place, it has laid a jealous restriction upon the topics of the Sermon, the style, the modes of illustration-the whole manly freedom of utterance. In the next place, having thus helped to make it tame and common-place, it has branded what is partly its own work, with that fatal epithet, dull. In fact, |