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PARVARD COLLEGE

SEP 20 1920

LIBRARY

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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by CARLTON & PHILLIPS,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New-York.

PREFACE.

I HOPE that some of the pictures which I have "hung up in the hall of memory" may be sketched with sufficient power to be also seen by my young readers. If so, they will thank me for bringing scenes before them which have often cheered and consoled my own spirit. It is inexcusable to walk with closed eyes through a world so full of beauty. Thus did not the sacred writers. They saw 66 the wonderful works of the Lord," and rejoiced therein. What a picture of the universe is presented in the hundred and fourth. Psalm! Nothing in the heavens or the earth escapes the notice of the inspired writer; nothing is too minute for his admiration. He calls upon his soul to bless the Lord for "the grass for the cattle" and "the herb for the service of man," as well as for the cedars of Lebanon, with their bold and graceful outline. He de

scends from the mountain summit to the little hills, and his eye glances from the springs in the valleys to "the great and wide sea." Let us, in his spirit, make the beauties of creation a medium of communication with their Author, like the ladder of the patriarch's dream, which, while resting upon the earth, yet reached up unto heaven. And, while rejoicing in God's visible creation, let us not forget the greater display of his love, which is offered to us through his Son. The spiritual eye sees God everywhere, but turns most eagerly to the cross which sets forth a death that has given him eternal life, and shows fully the height and depth of the love of God.

My sketch of Wilderstein came from the heart. Many lines are expunged, because it is to meet the eye of the public. Yet those who know the place and its inhabitants will feel that the picture, far from being overdone, is only colored too faintly, and will wish that the rapid sketch had been more distinctly drawn. NEW-YORK, June, 1855.

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