unction of faith and power consecrating his radically German character, the entire truthfulness of his being, and his wondrous childlike candour and naïveté, once more unfolded themselves in their glory to my eye, I was constrained to turn to him again with the most entire and unmingled affection, and to exclaim, His foibles are so great only owing to the greatness of his virtues !

Poetry speaks to the heart in quite another dialect than prose. It was therefore my intention to introduce an abundance of choice extracts from our old hymns; but it cost great labour to find them, and frequently I could not find at all such as I wished and required; I therefore spoke in the language of poetry myself. Very few of the verses dispersed throughout the work are by other authors. I am aware how much it thereby loses in pith and in ecclesiastical character; but there has also been a gain in originality, which is no inconsiderable advantage for a devotional work. As for tone and language, I could have wished for the power of speaking with the tongue of a Luther or a Claudius to enable me to speak to all; but at least I have endeavoured to learn from these masters.

The title chosen for the work will be disapproved by many. Some will wish not to be reminded in any way of the well-known "Stunden der Andacht;" others will at once perceive in it a sentence of condemnation of that widely-circulating work. The reason why this title was selected was simply in order that they who are pleased with the cooking of the food in the "Stunden der Andacht," but doubt of its wholesome and nutritive qualities, might be at once informed that there is something here which is intended to supply their wants. I am not of the number who, the moment they see that book in any person's hands, would snatch it away, as I am aware that in many cases it has fostered the seeds of good; but I certainly consider much of what it contains to be pernicious, and, most pernicious of all, the abundant nourishment it supplies to the conceit of self-righteousness. Besides, in works of this sort much depends not only upon what they give, but likewise and not less upon what they withhold. Now, what the "Aarau Stunden der Andacht" withholds is nothing less than what the Evangelical Church declares to be the only true way of salvation. The object proposed by the following meditations is to show what that way is. They claim to be an impartial and healthy portraiture of the Gospel life of faith, and in that respect are calculated to reconcile all such honest admirers of the former

work as are courageous enough not to shrink from the pain of selfknowledge. There is an inexcusable want of conscience in the way in which some men are now calling others Mystics and Pietists, while they wish to have it believed that these sectarian nicknames do not strike with equal force the Evangelical Church (I except Dr Bretschneider, who has the merit of speaking out, and who represents Luther and Melanchthon as the ringleaders of the Pietists). I therefore call upon all who may publicly express an opinion of this work, and feel disposed to characterise it as pictistical, to show so much at least of a sense of justice as expressly to state whether and to what extent they find the delineation it contains of the Gospel life of faith to be morbid; or whether, with Bretschneider, they denominate this form of piety pietistical, just because it does delineate what the life of faith is, according to the view of the Evangelical Church. Considering the blind party zeal of the opponents, and the reiterated acts of crying injustice which they commit, it were to be wished that none of them would enter the polemical field without seriously taking to heart the words of our Lord in Matthew, vii. 12.

Such are the remarks with which I desire to preface these 'Hours of Christian Devotion.' May so much of divine truth as they contain find its way into the heart, and to God be the glory and the praise. A. THOLUCK.

HALLE, 29th September 1839.

PREFACE TO THE SEVENTH EDITION.

HOWEVER little I could have expected it, I have had the gratification of emitting a sixth edition of this work, originally the fruit of hours of sorrow. It has been my endeavour to approximate the language to that simplicity, without which devotion can never reach its proper depth, more than was the case in the first edition. Since then many similar voices have been raised; among them may this of mine still for a while retain its youth.

HALLE, 25th October 1859.

A. THOLUCK.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE

ENGLISH TRANSLATION.

IT

T is a gratification to me to see those Hours of Devotion translated into the English tongue, and presented to the nation by whom so many of my other works have already met with so kind a reception. The hindrance to an earlier translation of the work, as I anticipated from the first, and have now learned as a fact, has been its peculiarly German character. The texts of Scripture are cited and explained as they stand in Luther's version of the Bible; numerous passages are quoted from the writings of that reformer, and of other godly German authors; and a text is occasionally taken from the Apocrypha. Above all, however, I must here refer to the poetry prefixed as mottoes to the several meditations, and appended to them at the end. To meet this last obstacle, the translators of different countries have adopted different methods. The Swede has inserted hymns of his own Church; the Dane poetry of his own making; and the French translator has omitted the poetry altogether, and generally abridged even the prose text. The esteemed friend who has executed this English translation has not allowed himself to be deterred by any of these difficulties, and, as it appears, has even van

quished with some success the last of them—that, namely, presented by the poetry.

I deem it of little importance that one of the parts of the book is not included in this translation; I hope that, in spite of that omission, it contains a kernel which may take root and grow up in the heart of the readers. I have had the satisfaction of finding in a remote Waldensian valley a pious soul to whom the book, even in the extremely abridged form of the French translation, had become a source of happiness and edification. The hope I entertain for it rests upon the fact, that in place of being composed, like other works of the kind, I believe I can say of it with truth that it was rather an effusion. It was the fruit of a mind which sought to reap good to the Church from hours of sorrow as well as of joy, for it originated in a season of heavy trial, when, owing to the weakness of my eyesight, I was prevented in the winter evenings from prosecuting my learned studies. Like the pious Tersteegen, I then thought with myself: "If my God does not will as I do, I will as He does, and thus we always keep on friendly terms." I also sought to extract a gratification from those hours of bitter suffering by presenting to Christian souls a fruit of the heart in place of a labour of the head. And the Lord has been pleased to bless it, as I know by testimonies from the Churches of various countries which have reached me, and made me ashamed. I therefore indulge the hope, that in that Christian land, which above most others has been blessed with a riches of devotional books, this one also, in its own peculiar style, will find minds and hearts which will feel its attraction. It has a specialty adapted to the present religious wants of Britain; for while it edifies it seeks to instruct, and that

1 This refers to the twelve Meditations on the Fasts and Festivals. These form an independent work.

on the practical duties of the Christian life. This, no doubt, it does exclusively upon the ground on which alone the fruits of life ever grow-I mean, the ground of faith, I have been young, but now am old-I have spent a whole lifetime in battling against infidelity with the weapons of apologetical science, but I have become ever more and more convinced that the way to the heart does not lie through the head; and that the only way to the conversion of the head lies through a converted heart, which already tastes the living fruits of the Gospel.

A. THOLUCK.