FROM

NEW YORK.

33283

BY L. MARIA CHILD,

AUTHOR OF THE MOTHER'S BOOK, THE GIRL'S BOOK, PHILOTHEA, HISTORY
OF WOMEN, etc.

We receive but what we give,

And in our life alone does Nature live:

Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud!
And would we aught behold of higher worth
Than that inanimate cold world, allowed
To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd,

Ah, from the soul itself must issue forth
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud,
Enveloping the Earth:

And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element !

COLERIDGE.

Second Edition.

NEW YORK:

C. S. FRANCIS AND COMPANY, 252 BROADWAY.

AND

JOSEPH H. FRANCIS, 128 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON.

M DCCC XLIV.

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1843,

By CONVERS FRANCIS,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Printed by
MUNROE & FRANCIS,

Boston.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

In less than four months, an edition of fifteen hundred copies of this book has sold, and several hundred more have been called for. This is great success, at a period when the world is so deluged with cheap publications.

I cordially thank the public for the hearty welcome they have given this unpretending volume. I rejoice in it as a new proof that whatsoever is simple, sincere, and earnest, will find its way to the hearts of men. It is these characteristics, and not the amount of talent in its pages, which have made the book popular; and therefore I frankly say that I rejoice in its popularity. May it continue to perform its destined mission of helping human souls to be truthful and free.

L. MARIA CHILD.