This book never had any public dedication. It was the work of the best years of a life offered to God. What was not done for the first edition will not be done now; but let these few lines of the author’s son be an offering to the glory of God—to the memory of his father—to the self-devotion of his mother.

In one of the author’s poems is the following verse which is strangely appropriate at this place:—

Let us toil on—the work we leave behind us,

Though incomplete, God’s hand will yet embalm,

And use it some way; and the news will find us

In heaven above, and sweeten endless calm.

Wycliffe Vaughan.

Littlemore, near Oxford,

November, 1879.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.