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DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, TO WIT:
District Clerk's Office.

Be it remembered, that on the sixteenth day of April, A. D. 1830, in the fifty-fourth year of the Independence of the United States of America, JOHN BAKER of the said district, has deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words following, to wit:

"Discourses, Reviews, and Miscellanies, by William Ellery Channing.”

In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, "An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned':" and also to an act, entitled, "An Act supplementary to an act, entitled, An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned; and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and etching historical and other prints."

JOHN W. DAVIS,

Clerk of the District of Massachusetts

STEREOTYPED BY LYMAN THURSTON AND Co.

BOSTON.

PREFACE.

THE present volume, is, with the exception of one discourse, a republication of various tracts, which were called forth by particular occasions, and which were never intended to appear in their present form. The reader cannot be more aware than I am, that they need inany and great changes; but they would probably have never been republished, had I waited for leisure to conform them to my ideas of what they should be, or to make them more worthy of the unexpected favor which they have received. The articles, in general, were intended to meet the wants of the times when they were written, and to place what I deem great truths, within reach of the multitude of men. If the reader will bear in mind this design, some defects will more readily be excused. The second review, in particular, should be referred to the date of its original publication.

Certain tracts, which drew a degree of attention on their first appearance, have been excluded from this volume. My reasons for so doing are various. Some have been omitted, because they seem to me of little or no worth; some, because they do not express sufficiently my present views; and some, because they owed their interest to events, which have faded more or less from the public mind. In their present form, I wish none of them to be found in a collection of my writings.

I esteem it a privilege, that my writings have called forth many strictures, and been subjected to an unsparing criticism. I know that in some things I must have erred. I cannot hope, that even in my most successful efforts, I have done full justice to any great truth. Deeply conscious of my fallibleness, I wish none of my opin

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