Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by

GOULD, KENDALL, AND LINCOLN,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts

STEREOTYPED AT THE

BOSTON TYPE AND STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY.

PREFACE.

THE author of the following work avows his creed in a brief formula, as follows:

First, he believes in Jesus Christ.

Second, he believes in no one else, as having the slightest authority over the personal freedom and religious rights of mankind.

Christ came into the world to redeem it, by the power of a beneficent life and vicarious death. He was born at the base of the pyramid of society, where the masses are densest, widest, and most oppressed; mingled with every class; endured every wrong; mitigated every form of suffering; sympathized most with the most abused; denounced political and spiritual tyranny in the strongest terms; and, finally, fell a victim, mangled by that malignant pride and power which, in the persons of high priests, crafty scribes, and official Pharisees, ever stand ready to inflame the popular mind with cruel prejudice, leading the multitudes to spare a robber and murder their greatest Benefactor, so that oppression may yet flourish, and their own ungodly immunities remain secure.

In the first part, we have attempted to portray the human, as well as the divine career of Christ. Viewing him at five different stages of his progressive work, we see how he lived out the diversified

experience of all the injured, before he came to the consummation of his mission, and that this preparatory discipline fully qualified him gloriously to accomplish the salvation he came to perform.

In the second part, an examination is entered upon touching the character of the primitive church. The author believes that Jesus Christ, eighteen centuries ago, gave our race a perfect model of republicanism; and that this was not only exemplified in his life, and confirmed by his death as the highest gift to all men, but that it was strikingly imbodied in the original formation of the Christian church. The analysis of the argument on this point, as well as the authorities by which it is fortified, are before the reader, and he may judge with respect to the correctness of the deduction. It will be seen that the author nowhere offers a direct defence of the views held by his own denomination, but presents data from standard writers, which can easily be verified. If any persons are dissatisfied with the statements adduced, they need not long doubt with whom to quarrel.

In the third part, premises laid in the character of Christ, and illustrated in the constitution of the primitive church, are applied to existing evils, showing the legitimate influence of Christian doctrine. The author is aware that this is a delicate matter; but he would hope that the topics involved in the discussion have been handled in a way adapted neither to exasperate the passionate unnecessarily, nor make the judicious grieve. With prayerful solicitude, and, he thinks, true conservatism, he has written under the influence of no sectarian feeling or sectional prejudice, expressing as plainly as possible what he sincerely believes, and fawning for no favors. Herein are thoughts and emotions which have haunted the author for years; and they are now sent forth to stir