THE FOOLS' PENCE, AND OTHER Narratives of Every-day Life. BY CHARLES B. TAYLER, M. A., AUTHOR OF "Records of a Good Man's Life," &c. WITH DESIGNS BY A. H. FORRESTER. LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON & CO., 47, LUDGATE HILL. 1859. 249.4.176. ΤΟ The Earl of Shaftesbury, THE ENLIGHTENED AND DEVOTED FRIEND OF ALL CLASSES This little Volume is Dedicated, WITH THE AFFECTIONATE RESPECT OF The Author. PREFACE. It has been well said by Professor Sedgwick,* that "the men of no nation can be maintained in honour and happiness without a recognition of religious principle. Heathens," he adds, "have taught this lesson; and I once heard it affirmed by one of the greatest philosophers of France, who, at the time that he uttered this great moral truth, was himself an unbeliever in the religion of Christ." I am glad to introduce what I wish to say to my reader, with the remarks of one who is not only a man of genius, but of masculine strength of mind, and who is far better—a humble-minded disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ! If there is one thing that strikes me more than another in many of the members of our legislature, and in some of our popular authors, it is that there is no recognition of religious principle either of its need or of its importance in the speeches of the one party, or in the writings of the other. It is indeed a sad reflection upon a Christian nation that many of its distinguished legislators should be either ignorant of their own religion, or ashamed of it, and that the few brave men who openly declare their holy faith in that adorable * See Professor Sedgwick's Prefatory Letter to Dr. Livingstone's Cambridge Lectures. |