TO THE REV. RICHARD KING, M.A. This little Work, SUGGESTED BY THE PLEASING CONTEMPLATION OF THE EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY, ON A SERIOUS AND BENEVOLENT MIND, DURING AN UNINTERRUPTED UNION OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS, IS INSCRIBED BY HIS GRATEFUL AND AFFECTIONATE WIFE, F. E. KING. ADVERTISEMENT. the THE favourable reception which this Tract has met with, induces the Author to offer a Third Edition to the Public. She concealed her Name in the first instance, from the natural diffidence of a Female, and a fear of being thought presumptuous in taking up subject of a Prelate of such distinguished Piety and Learning, as the Bishop of London. -She now relies on the candour of the Public, to admit as her excuse, an anxious desire to engage the attention of a Class of Females to whom a more learned and enlightened Work would be less interesting. Since publishing the Second Edition of this Work, the Author has had to lament the severe and heavy affliction, of losing the beloved Husband to whom it is dedicated; him, from whom "she took sweet counsel," and with whom she walked in domestic comfort for twenty-eight years. Under such a deprivation, she trusts she has felt the blessing of those precepts, she has presumed to suggest to others; and that in her present widowed and bereaved state, she can with pious submission, and perfect trust, commit herself to the care of Him, "who is a Father of the Fatherless and defendeth the cause of the Widow;" grateful for the many blessings his mercy has still left her, and humbly hoping, that the union dissevered in this world, will be ere long renewed and perpetuated in a better state. |