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itations and encouragements, I might have wanted confidence, under the lassitude of feeble health, to attempt the little which I have done for the cause of religion and freedom.

I will only add, that whilst I attach no great value to these articles, I still should not have submitted to the labor of partially revising them, did I not believe, that they set forth some great truths, which, if carried out and enforced by more gifted minds, may do much for human improvement. If, by anything which I have written, I may be an instrument of directing such minds more seriously to the claims and true greatness of our nature, I shall be most grateful to God. This subject deserves and will sooner or later engage the profoundest meditations of wise and good men. I have done for it what I could; but when I think of its grandeur and importance, I earnestly desire and anticipate for it more worthy advocates. In truth, I shall see with no emotion but joy these fugitive productions forgotten and lost in the superior brightness of writings consecrated to the work of awakening in the human soul a consciousness of its divine and immortal powers.

W. E. C.

Boston, April, 1830.

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REMARKS

ON THE

CHARACTER AND WRITINGS

OF

JOHN MILTON

1826.

JOHN MILTON.

A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, compiled from the Holy Scriptures alone. By JOHN MILTON. Translated from the Original by CHARLES R. SUMNER, M. A. Librarian and Historiographer to His Majesty, and Prebendary of Canterbury. From the London Edition. Boston. 1825.

2 vols. 8vo.

THE discovery of a work of Milton, unknown to his own times, is an important event in literary history. The consideration, that we of this age are the first readers of this Treatise, naturally heightens our interest in it; for we seem in this way to be brought nearer to the author, and to sustain the same relation which his cotemporaries bore to his writings. The work opens with a salutation, which, from any other man, might be chargeable with inflation; but which we feel to be the natural and appropriate expression of the spirit of Milton. Endowed with gifts of the soul, which have been imparted to few of our race, and conscious of having consecrated them through life to God and mankind, he rose without effort or affectation to the style of an Apostle.-JOHN MILTON, TO ALL THE CHURches of CHRIST, AND TO ALL WHO PROFESS THE CHRISTIAN FAITH THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, PEACE, AND THE RE

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