"THE CROSS." BY FRANK STARR, NORWICH, AUTHOR OF "TWENTY YEARS OF A TRAVELLER'S LIFE," "HOPE was glad in the beginning, and fear was sad midway, LONDON: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM MACINTOSH, 24, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1866. 141. j. 34. N.B. The readers of this volume are requested to observe that the Publisher is in no way accountable for its contents. The Author alone takes the entire responsibility. London, May 25, 1866. ***"The Author" refers the reader to page 9 and third line of the Prefatory Chapter, also to the Note, pp. 219-221, at the end of this work, and then to the 21st. Chapter of Luke, verse 26. (Extract from private correspondence of Publisher.) "I must confess, however, that I am so startled with some of your statements that I must by some means be quite free from the contents. The delay has been caused by the desire not to be too hasty in a matter of so much moment." Norwich, May 28, 1866. DEDICATION. TO MRS. JOHN HURSTWAITE LEETE. DEAR MADAM, I FEEL it no ordinary gratification to be allowed to dedicate these few chapters to you, notwithstanding your very natural desire to remain as you have always been, a follower of our blessed Master in the humble quietude of your position in life, and the wife of a consistent member of the Church, to which we all profess to belong-Christ's Church on earth. I have many reasons for entertaining this feeling; in the first place I may say with the Apostle of old, "From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus," and that from the first outset I have made in the way of authorship my writings have been familiar to you. In the next place, although you boast no ancient pedigree of rank and station, albeit, for aught I know to the contrary, can trace your descent from a line of kings, by this dedication I keep within the pale of that sphere I have marked out for myself in which to act, viz., the "commercial" world; for although both your beloved husband and his dear brother, Wm. Leete, Esq., of West Winch, have long since retired from the active life of commercial travellers, they both held honourable position amongst that important class of men, and both distinguished themselves so as to gain the confidence of their employers and the esteem and friendship of their brother travellers; if for no other reason these would of themselves be a sufficient amount of gratification to me for your setting aside any objections you might have to being identified, in a measure, with a work of a controversial character, but as this dedication does not necessarily call upon you to endorse indiscriminately all the work contains, the permissive spirit you have in this matter exercised only shows yours to be of that Catholic nature I would that many more professing Christians entertained towards each other. I have but one object in writing at all, viz., to bring before a class of men, for whom I always have entertained, and shall do so to the day of my death, an affectionate regard amounting to brotherly love, a subject they, as a class, hear less of and think less upon perhaps than any other body of men, who in their daily walk of life are necessarily led to think more upon the things of time and sense than they do of a "second coming of Christ" and "the close of the present dispensation;" therefore to have sought for a high sounding title, or even one identified with these subjects in his study and teaching, would have been travelling out of the record. I have another very strong reason for expressing my sincere thanks to you in granting me the permission, and it is this, but for your dear husband, my old and much-loved valued friend, in all probability I should have remained in the Egyptian darkness Satan had bound me to this very hour, but in the order of God's Providence it was he who was the instrument to set me on the road to see "whether these things be true or not," for I can say with certainty that until he awoke in my mind a spirit of inquiry I felt myself free to act and free to think, and therefore if there be any distinguishing mark of respect and esteem in a dedication, to you and to yours it is essentially due. With these few remarks, and with the earnest prayer that which I have written may be to God's praise and glory, I am, my dear Madam, Norwich, April, 1866. b Yours faithfully, F. STARR. |