Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1836, by HILLIARD, Gray & Co., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. CAMBRIDGE PRESS: METCALF, TORRY, AND BALLOU. THESE two volumes contain the greater part of my contributions to periodicals during the years 1829, 30, 31, and 32. They are miscellaneous in their character, and were written without the slightest reference to each other. Each one presents the thought with which my mind was engrossed at the time; and, in each case, the thought fashioned for itself the form in which it should appear. Hence the diversity of styles of composition in these pieces, and their proportionate inequality of merit. Hence, also, the classification which is exhibited in the table of contents; a classification intended only for convenience of reference. On looking over these pieces, after an interval of four years, during which they were wholly forgotten, it is evident to me that one presiding idea must have been in my mind during the composition of the whole; dawning over the first, and brightening up to the last. One piece bears the name of The Progress of Worship. This name might, with equal propriety, be given to the tale called Solitude and Society; to the parable of the Hermit who went out to his matins ; to the verses headed The Three Ages of the Soul; and to the 2d No. of the Sabbath Musings: and I am finally tempted to give this title to the whole book. Its application, however, might not appear so clear to others as to myself; and I shall therefore confine myself to indicating it by a second classification in this Preface. The Religious Sentiment, in its early periods, may be weak or strong, steady or wavering; but its operation is, in each case, imperfect. Not having gone through the process of tribulation, experience, and hope, it cannot have so much of love in it as to make it, what it may afterwards become, the perpetual feast of the spirit. It has so much of fear as to induce it to bind itself strictly to forms; and it alternates with other sentiments, instead of intermingling with them all. God is then the object of intermitting regards. Religion is then a yoke; easy and light in comparison with slavery to Chance and Passion; but still a yoke. This is the state of the child who hides his face in his pillow while relating to his mother the transgressions and self-conquests of the day. This is the state of the youth whose heart leaps up at the golden sunrise, but who lets the gorgeous moments pass away because he dares not indulge himself with them till he has gone through his form of prayer; on rising from which, he finds the glow departed alike from his spirit and from the sky. This is the state of the man who excludes his worldly interests from his mind on Sundays, and finds trains of sweet thoughts arising, and ancient kindly emotions stirring within him, as the choir sings rest to tormenting cares, and the voice of the preacher tells how the dead rest from their labors. He wonders why he did not think of these things during his week-day troubles; and resolves, for his own sake, to think oftener of God. This is the state of the aged when the experience of life has taught them nothing more than that here there is no abiding place; that they must soon go to some strange region, where they suppose they shall be taken care of. Their highest hope concerning this new place probably is, that there they shall not have to be afraid any more. Such, whether in the child or the sexagenarian, is the early stage of the religious sentiment; a condition of fear, forms, and intermitting regards. Of the following pieces, none were written under the idea of the religious sentiment at this stage. The materials are too few, and have too little life in them to afford any inducement to brood over them. That such is the beginning of worship is barely matter of inference from what follows. From occasionally remembering God, the worshipper proceeds to search for him, particularly by self-inquisition. Now he takes upon him his burden of self-consciousness, and is carefully, and often painfully, employed in settling points of belief and of conduct, fixing methods of observance, watching for manifestations (that is, virtues and vices) in others, and treating these manifestations with anxious approbation or reprobation, as ultimate facts. He probably draws out in his own mind some such table of virtues as Dr. Franklin ruled and lettered down upon paper, and is surprised to find that as often as he makes progress in the one on which he is most intent, improvement in others seems to follow of course. This state is far superior to the former; for, though the love of manifestations is far below that of principles, it is far above that of forms. Many of the following pieces were written under the idea of this condition of the religious sentiment. Some encourage self-inquisition; as the Essays on the reciprocal Operation of Feelings and Habits; on the Uses of the Retrospective and Prospective Powers; and the 1st, 3d, and 5th Nos, of the Sabbath Musings.* * It can scarcely be necessary for me to explain that I am speaking throughout of my idea of the progress of the religious sentiment; |