PREPARATION FOR THE HOLY COMMUNION. THE DEVOTIONS CHIEFLY COMPILED FROM BY MISS SEWELL, = AUTHOR OF "THOUGHTS FOR HOLY WEEK," ETO. WITH The Communion Service. + BOSTON: E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY. CHURCH PUBLISHERS. 1868. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 770 Sewell Widener-2 RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. HIS little manual of instruction THIS pre paratory to the reception of the Holy Communion, from the pen of one well known and widely esteemed, will commend itself to those into whose hands it may fall, by its simplicity, its directness, and the deep earnestness it displays. We have many works similar in design, but the most of them are too mechanical in their structure, and too exacting in their requirements. It is not so much the repetition of many prayers, or the spending of many hours in selfscrutiny, that will give us the needed preparation for the Lord's Table, though both prayer and examination are most necessary. It is rather the deep consciousness of need and glad acceptance of Christ the Saviour, as the Helper of our needs, the Source of every strength. Plainly does this little volume point us to Christ visibly crucified for us in this sacred ordinance, and in its presentation of the story of redemption it cannot fail of arousing within us feelings of grateful love to Christ, and of touching our hard hearts with the remembrance of His most precious death. Addressed to the baptized members of our Mother Church as this manual is, there are in it some expressions and some trains of thought rendered inappropriate by variations in our service from that of the English office, and by differences in the condition of those to whom this work may come, from that of those for whom it was originally prepared. Allowances can be readily made for the verbal differences between our own and the English Prayer Book. But with respect to the many among us who have received neither the regeneration by water nor the renewing of the Holy Ghost-whose youth has known no "sweet restraint of Holy Baptism," whose maturer years have been spent without God in the world, there is need that the earnest, practical words of our author should have serious heed. To such there should come the call to repentance, the summons to immediate and effectual amendment of life. It is not the mere outward partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ that will save such. There must be the changed existence, the new heart and life, the thorough conversion, the passing from death unto life. This step taken, this change effected, this decision made, this new life begun, and the sacrament will be found indeed a means of grace as those who duly feed upon its holy mysteries are united close and closer unto Christ their only Saviour. |
