LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, IN EXETER HALL, FROM NOVEMBER 1852, TO FEBRUARY 1853. CRLID LONDON: JAMES NISBET AND CO., BERNERS STREET HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO., PATERNOSTER ROW. 1853. PREFACE. THE favour with which the publication of the Lectures delivered annually before the YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, in Exeter Hall, has been received from time to time, renders a Preface unnecessary in regard to its ordinary uses. On this occasion the Committee desires simply to explain to those who were not present at the delivery of this (Eighth) Course of Lectures to Young Men, that the Rev. Samuel Martin and Mr. J. Sheridan Knowles were each prevented by severe illness from affording their promised aid. Instead of the Lecture on "Oratory," by Mr. Sheridan Knowles, the Committee was enabled to secure the valuable paper on "Irish Eloquence," by the Rev. George Croly, LL.D., Rector of St. Stephen's, Walbrook; while in the place of the discourse on 66 Opposition to Great Inventions and Discoveries," which Mr. Martin was unable to prepare, it is through the kindness of the Rev. James Hamilton, D.D., F.L.S., permitted to publish a Lecture delivered by him on the jubilee of the British and Foreign Bible Society, entitled, "What Fifty Years have done for the Bible; and, What the Bible can do for ourselves." The Committee feels it to be a grateful duty to record its thankfulness to the distinguished friends of truth who have again rendered to the Association their valued assistance; and it humbly commends this permanent record of their labours to the blessing of Him for whose glory they were undertaken. T. HENRY TARLTON, HON. SECRETARY. Young Men's Christian Association Library and Offices, 7 Gresham Street, City, March 19, 1853. |