I have sought to represent that spirit as penetrating the gloom of the prison and the death-bed, bearing "healing on its wings" to the agony of parting love—strengthening the heart of the wayfarer for "perils in the wilderness"—gladdening the domestic walk through field and woodland—and springing to life in the soul of childhood, along with its earliest rejoicing perceptions of natural beauty.
Circumstances not altogether under my own control have, for the present, interfered to prevent the fuller developement of a plan which I yet hope more worthily to mature, and I lay this little volume before the public with that deep sense of deficiency which cannot be more impressively taught to human powers, than by their reverential application to things divine.
F. H.
