TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
TO
THE FIRST LONDON EDITION.
It is equally proper for a Translator, as for an Author, to give some explanation (not apology, for surely a generous public will require none, when the dissemination of virtue is evidently the purpose) of the production which he obtrudes upon the public.
This Translation was at first undertaken merely for the recreation, during illness, of the Translator. His admiration of Massillon’s abilities increasing as he went on, he was induced to continue, far beyond his first intention. That animation, that unction, as D’Alembert says, which flowed from his pen on every subject, — that gentle, yet feeling address to the hearts of his hearers, and to which the most indifferent could not refuse attention, struck him so forcibly, that he could not reflect without surprise that no translation of his works had as yet appeared in English. Impressed with a conviction of their moral tendency, he determined, in consequence of the approbation of some respectable clergymen, his friends, to publish a selection of such as, unconnected with local or temporary events in France, would, in his opinion, be an acceptable present to Christians of every denomination. He now offers the present volume to the Public; and so impressed is he with a sense of its merit, that he is convinced, that
