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PUBLISHED BY JOHN HATCHARD, BOOKSELLER TO HER MAJESTY, 190, PICCADILLY;
TO WHOM COMMUNICATIONS (POST PAID) MAY BE ADDRESSED; AND OF WHOM
MAY BE HAD THE PRECEDING NUMBERS OF THIS WORK, EITHER SEPARATELY,
OR BOUND UP IN VOLUMES.

SOLD ALSO

IN LONDON, BY SEELFY, FLEET STREET; AND SHERWOOD, NEFLY, & JONES, PATernoster row: AT
OXFORD, BY HANWELL & PARKER, AND COOKE: AT CAMBRIDGE, BY DEIGHTON, AND NICHOLSON:
AT BATH, BY HAZARD. AT BRISTOL, BY MILLS, AND BULGIN: AT EDINBURGH BY OGLE, AND OLI-
PHANT, WAUGH, & INNES: AT GLASGOW, BY OGLE: AT DUBLIN, BY COLBERT:

AND BY ALL OTHER BOOKSELLERS, AND BY THE NEWSMEN,
THROUGHOUT THE KINGDOM.

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PREFAC E.

IN closing the Thirteenth Year of their labours, the Conductors of the Christian Observer deem it no longer necessary to enter upon the vindication of their principles, or the defence of their conduct. Their principles must now be well understood; and the growing demand for their Work leaves them no room to doubt that the manner in which those principles have been asserted has met with the general approbation of their readers. To them, and especially to the numerous Correspondents by whose contributions the Christian Observer has been enabled to maintain its ground in the estimation of the public, the most cordial acknowledgments of its Conductors are due. And although they have to mourn the untimely loss of more than one of those dear friends, who were wont in time past to aid and animate their course, yet with the help of God they will persevere, in devoting their best energies to the cause to which they are pledged-the cause of pure and vital Christianity.

Having given their readers this prospective assurance, they wish to turn for one moment to the past. God has blessed us with peace. The chain which bound so many of the nations, and which seemed destined to encircle half the universe, has been broken. Heaven has recalled the ministers of its vengeance, who were spreading misery and desolation over the fairest portions of the earth. That individual to whom many had been led to point the strongest notes that have been flung from the harp of prophecy; whom they represented as "sitting as God in the temple of God,' as "ascending into heaven, and exalting his throne above the stars" has been burled from his guilty elevation; has been divested of his terrors; and is now pilloried within the rocks and waves of a paltry island, as a living example to the potentates of the earth. May the lesson have its due influence!

But the joy which the Conductors of the Christian Observer have felt in this mighty deliverance, has not been unmixed with sorrow. Would to God that the overflowing cup of our blessings had not been mingled with the tears of Africa! But the British Nation has felt, on this melancholy occasion, as it ought to feel. Its voice has been raised as the voice of one man, in behalf of that unhappy continent; and we cannot believe that such a voice, when exerted in such a cause, can plead in vain at the bar of assembled nations.

They cannot conclude this Preface without briefly adverting to another topic, dear to their hearts,-the subject of their earnest

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