Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1844, BY WILLIAM OSBORN, In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Southern District of New-York. NEW-YORK: 83 WILLIAM-STREET, 3653 622 PREFACE. THIS work attempts to trace the footsteps of a great circumnavi-, gator in the Divine Life, somewhat as an open boat might follow in the wake of the ships of Columbus into a New World. And yet it is not new, but as old as the Grace of God in the heart of sinful man; and now, so many have crossed the sea, and prepared charts and maps of their passage for the use of others, that there is scarcely a league, over which some compass has not been drawn, or into which some fathoming line has not been let down ; though there is scenery still hidden, and there are depths never yet sounded, nor ever will be, inasmuch as the grace of God in the heart of man is unfathomable; and in sailing over this ocean, we can often do no more than cry out with the Apostle Paul, O the depths! There is always much that is peculiar with every individual mind in crossing this sea; and likewise in following the traces of so experienced and wise a navigator as Bunyan, every individual will find something new to remark upon; so that these lectures, though on an old subject, will not necessarily be found common-place, or monotonous, or superfluous. It ought probably to be mentioned that a former essay by the author, printed in the North American Review, has been, in one or two of these lectures, worked up anew. A greater space also is occupied by that division of the work on the life and times of Bunyan, than was originally contemplated; but in the Providence of God, Bunyan himself, in his own lifetime, furnished as much matter for profitable meditation and instruction, as his own Pilgrim, in his beautiful Allegory. Of course the first division is |