Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1839, by THOMAS H. GALLAUDET, in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Southern District of New-York. Right of publishing transferred to the American Tract Society. PREFACE. The filling up of Scripture-narrative with the details of graphical description, is a difficult and delicate task. And yet it is very necessary, especially for the young. They delight in particulars. They want, not merely the bold and striking outlines, but the specific objects, and enlivening colors and shades, of the picture. In doing this, however, the writer should be continually on his guard. He needs, and should earnestly implore, the divine assistance. For he is in constant danger of being led by his fancy, to indulge in the embellishments of mere fiction and a poetical sentimentalism, both of which are entirely repugnant to the beautiful simplicity and truth of Scripture history. The eventful life of Moses, and the wonderful scenes through which he passed, call peculiarly for this carefulness, in portraying them. The author hopes he has been enabled to maintain it. But of this his candid and intelligent readers will judge. Where he has considered (RECAP) APR-91910 257038 his account as not fully sustained by satisfactory information, derived from the comparison of one passage of Scripture with another, from the best expositors and critics; from the lights of history, geography, and Eastern customs and manners; and from the permanent features of verisimilitude which nature and the human character present at all times, and among all men; he has qualified his statements, and described them, as mere probabilities, suppositions, or conjectures. Commending the work to the blessing of God, he only adds, what he is in duty bound to do, his grateful sense of the obligations which he is under to those who have preceded him in elucidating this portion of sacred history, for the important aid which their writings on various topics have afforded him. |