Teachings of experience; or, Lessons I have learned on my way through life. Author's ed

do I thank God that I was brought back to Christ while in health and strength,-that I have been permitted to labour in His cause for so many years, and that so many have been benefited by my labours. I should like, if it be consistent with God's will, to be permitted to labour in His cause for many years to come. I desire no higher honour; I covet no greater bliss. I can bear pain if allowed to preach and teach the religion of Christ, and to be the means of "turning men from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God." May God in His infinite mercy preserve me by His mighty power through faith unto eternal salvation.

Amen.

JOSEPH BARKER.

P.S.-I ought to have named Mr. Birtwhistle, bookseller, Halifax, Mr. Bastow, Primitive Methodist minister, Mr. Lynch, Congregational minister, of London, and one or two others, among the friends who helped me back to Christ.

I also meant to have given quotations from a number of influential authors, containing testimonies to the worth of the Bible, the excellency of Christianity, the mischievous and miserable tendency of unbelief, the evil effects of substituting theological theories for simple Christian doctrines, the necessity of plain, practical preaching and writing, the employment of none but sound and honest arguments in support of Christianity, etc., etc. But all these things I must reserve to some other time.

PREFACE TO FIFTH EDITION.

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T was MR. BARKER'S habit to do the best he could, proposing to do something still better. Of his own work he was the severest censor, but it is not for us to judge it with his eye. Possibly, had he achieved his ideal, it might have pleased us less. Let us be satisfied with what we have, and in these records of experience, chequered with good and evil, we shall surely find much to instruct and strengthen us in our several ways through this difficult and bewildering world.

EIAN LIBRA

5 AUG05

OXFORD