C 





PREFACE 



TO THE THIRD ENGLISH EDITION. 



IN preparing this edition of the SCRIPTURE NATURAL HIS- 

 TORY for the press, the author has carefully revised it through- 

 out, and made such alterations in style and matter as will, 

 he hopes, render it more worthy of public acceptance than the 

 former edition. In doing this, he has borne in mind a sug- 

 gestion put forth in a favorable critique upon the first impres- 

 sion in the ' Eclectic Review,' and by divesting the work of some 

 of the dryness and tedium of criticism, and making it less 

 diffuse, he has sought to give it a more ' popular,' though not 

 a less useful character. These alterations have enabled him, 

 without omitting any thing of real value and utility, to bring 

 the volume into a smaller compass, and publish it in a more 

 attractive form. 



Since the publication of the former edition of this work, 

 the author has been driven, by the force of circumstances, and 

 a deep sense of moral responsibility, to devote much of his 

 time and attention to objects of an apparently different aspect 

 to those pursued in biblical literature, and which are regarded 

 with considerable jealousy and suspicion by a large proportion 

 of the religious public. This is not the place to justify the 

 course he has taken, or to defend the motives by which he has 

 been actuated, It is enough to say, that his attachment to 

 biblical pursuits is as strong as ever, and that his conviction 

 of the paramount importance and infinite value of pure and 

 undented religion grows with his growth, and strengthens with 

 his strength. To assist in removing out of the way some of 

 those impediments to the spread of religion, which the sullen 

 discontent and reckless profligacy produced by the inordinate 

 and inadequately remunerated labor, combined with the super- 

 induced ignorance, of the manufacturing population almost 

 every where present, he has encountered the perils and priva- 



