THE REV. Newman Hall, successor of Rowland Hill in Surrey chapel, London, committed the English edition of this work, comprising nearly five hundred pages, to the American Tract Society, to be abridged as judged best for its widest usefulness. It has been curtailed by omitting Mr. Vine Hall's more extensive records of his labors for criminals and prisoners and of his applying Perkins' electric or "metallic tractors" for the relief of suffering, and by dropping many of his letters and sundry other details. The vital aim to strengthen the great principles of the Temperance Reformation, in the origin of which he was indeed "a burning and a shining light," sometimes presenting himself to assembled thousands as one hopelessly lost, but rescued by Divine grace from the depths of ruin; and his aim to magnify that grace in the writing and marvellous success of "The Sinner's Friend," have been scrupulously cherished and sacredly regarded. TENOX LIBRARY .TO THE AMERICAN READER. On the lip of the Mediterranean, in an obscure street, stands a small, gloomy chapel. In itself uninteresting, it attracts multitudes of pilgrims from all quarters of the world, and of all sects. The secret of its attractiveness is, that it enshrines three pieces of unique and beautiful statuary, each of life size, and of exquisite workmanship. So highly are they esteemed as specimens of art, that their weight in silver coin, it is said, has been offered for their purchase. The subject represented by one of these is a dead Christ, just taken from the cross. The anatomy of the figure perfect; the expression in the features of placid and grateful repose, blended strangely with the traces of recent agony, wonderfully impressive; the whole covered with a veil, but figure and veil alike chiselled from the same block of marble. Another figure, which is specially to the present purpose, and which is also created from an entire block, represents a young man enveloped by a net. Despair and hope are as mysteriously blended in this countenance as are repose and agony in the other. The captive is in the act of struggling for escape. Every nerve is strained. He has grappled frantically with his toils, and one or two of the meshes have given way. But behind him, away from his line of vision, stands his guardian angel, now acting as his helper. His agency is unsuspected, but real; and every spectator, sympathizing with the captive of vice, exclaims unawares, "He will get free!" What is thus beautifully symbolized in the sombre chapel of Naples, is shown as a reality in the book here presented. The pitiless tyranny of the giant vice of our day; the horror and desperation of one conscious at last of the power that enthralls him; his wild struggles for deliverance; his despair alternating with hope; his sinking faintness; his rallying resolution, his discouragements, his relapses, his impotence, his helpers-are all depicted to the life in the marble group and in the written book. But here the parallel ends. The emblem culminates in the presence of the angel and the beginning of emancipation. But the book portrays the efficiency of the angel: the success, the exultation, the clustering fruits of emancipation, perennial through a long and peaceful life. The emblem is rich; the reality richer. The emblem, though touchingly suggestive, is mute; the reality, eloquent. The one is marble; the other, life. In that the artist bespeaks your pity and sympathy for another; inthis, the freedman tells you of himself. You have the record of his experience, the burning words wrung from his own heart, his quivering notes of thanksgiving, his fervid ascriptions of "Grace, grace!" his sad analysis of the thraldom, his subdued rapture of deliverance. And he also tells you, modestly but truthfully, of the blessed usefulness to which one may be raised even from the very mire and impotence of hopeless degradation. Many hints are incidentally given in these pages by which, if our Temperance Volunteers will seize upon and ponder them, they will be the better equipped and the better skilled for their heroic warfare. May God grant it; for if any soldiery need discretion as well as valor, surely and eminently do they. A word to those who are in the net. A word! No. Before him who though dead yet speaketh, the writer will be dumb. We only commend his words. They echo to your experience. They breathe the sympathy of a true heart for your sadness and your condition. They are big with hope. When you have read them, hope you must, hope you will. And then-and then? Act on hope? Some angel-perhaps unseen-will stand near TO HELP. God will provide. |
