it was great matter of satisfaction to our hearts, when the Lord turned us to his Truth, that we found it to be no new thing, but that which we had witnessed in the days of our former profession. For, we well remembered, that we had been acquainted with it then; and God now gives us the true and certain sense, that all the prayers, and knowledge, and understanding of the Scriptures, faith, love, zeal, meekness, patience, humility, and whatever we then had, which was dear unto us, and precious in the eye of God, came from this Spirit of life, this principle of life which God hath now manifested to us, and turned our minds unto."-Penington's Letters, 2nd edit. p. 9. By such individuals, above alluded to, as well as by the Society of Friends, the several valuable epistles and other documents interspersed through their history, will doubtless be viewed as so many lively tokens of the condition of this portion of the Church of Christ; and may, I trust, be accepted as forming no unsubstantial addition to their stock of religious reading. On the other hand, those who are much strangers to us, and have been under misapprehensions as to our early proceedings or character, may very probably find many obstructing clouds cleared away from their minds by a candid perusal of these pages.
I have only, in conclusion, to add,-my sincere and earnest prayer has been unto the Author and Giver of all good, that, through his Divine blessing, which can give success to the feeblest efforts, this collection may, according to the abundance of his grace in Christ Jesus, our Redeemer, redound to his own praise!
Croydon, 2nd month, 1833.