OURSELVES.

A Picture,

SKETCHED FROM THE HISTORY OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL.

BY

BROWNLOW NORTH, B.A.,

Magdalen College, Oxford: Registrar of the Diocese of Winchester and Surrey.

LONDON:

WILLIAM HUNT AND COMPANY, 23, Holles Street, Cavendish Square.

2866

100. $. 128.

Preface.

BOUT eight years ago, when the course of my daily Scripture-read

ing happened to be in Exodus, I delivered an address in Free St.

Luke's Church, in Edinburgh: the subject"Israel in Egypt." Several persons came to me after that lecture saying they had derived benefit from it, and earnestly requesting me to publish it. To do this then was quite out of my power, for I had spoken, as I always do, extempore, and had not even a note of what I had said. The address however has not yet been forgotten by some, and the request has been continually repeated; so that I at last gave a promise that I would preach from the same subject when I had an opportunity-have a reporter to take down what was said-look it over, and publish it.

The first part of the promise I redeemed in the spring of this year, delivering three lectures

in St. James' Hall, London, from the textExod. i. I-" The Children of Israel;" but on reading over what had been taken down by the reporter, I found that it needed a little more than "looking over;" and I have learned this lesson, that the gift of "speaking with power," and "writing with power," are two very different things. The end of the matter, however, has been the production of this little. volume, every part of which is, I am quite aware, open to criticism, except in its doctrinal statements. I do not think there is one word in them which is not in accordance with "the truth as it is in Jesus." On the contrary, I believe every statement I have made to be the clear teaching of the Word of God; and I must confess that I have laboured at a task for which I feel little qualified-writing for the press, not only to oblige my friends, but that I might circulate the truths contained in this little book, in plain and unmistakeable language.

These truths or doctrinal statements, how

ever, I am only too sure will be by many not only criticized but absolutely rejected—for it is written (1 Cor. i. 18), "The preaching of the cross is to them that perish, foolishness." If, therefore, I have in any measure succeeded in what has been my endeavour, to set forth the doctrines of the cross: or, in other words -Salvation by the Blood and Righteousness of Jesus Christ, and its invariable consequence -"Sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience;" then either has the offence of the cross ceased, or my words will be foolishness "to them that perish."

I send the work forth with earnest prayer that God will allow no error of mine to do any harm but will, by the power of the Holy Ghost, so bless His own truth, that it may do good exceeding abundantly above all that I can ask or think. And this I beg in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ.

The Knoll, Elgin, 1865.

BROWNLOW NORTH.