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PREFACE.

HE following pages will sufficiently explain the manner and order of their

suggestion. Their object will be abundantly attained if therein may be found a word in season for him that is weary; or if some interwoven thread of promise may by them be brought home to any heart with the fresh force of personal application.

The chronicles of our lives are two-fold: that outer record of words and deeds which lies open before the world; and that other which contains the secret history of an inner life, written in a cipher whereof God and the soul, only, possess the key.

Yet has this latter full often way-marks without; associations such as David's with "the land of Jordan and of the Hermonites, and the hill Mizar," and such as Nathaniel's with his retreat beneath the fig-tree— hidden memories linked with places of our sojourning, whereof God knows, and we.

David raised his memorial pillars in psalms of everlasting prayer and praise: Jacob, in monuments of stone, consecrated by the way-side.

Beside these we linger, taking into our consideration, not the records of his life concerning whom we speak, but rather the rock-hewn memorials which are for us too. In other words, we shall find that our path, if it be pilgrimage, will in all probability lead to Bethel, Mizpah and Ephrath; and that we shall be found to inscribe our names on Israel's pillars there.

FIRST COMMUNION.

"And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar."-GEN. xxviii. 18.

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