Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand

eight hundred and fifty-three, by

HARPER & BROTHERS,

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

сх 179.

609726

Let not thy heart be hasty to utter any thing before God; for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth.-Ecclesiastes, v., 2.

Quand on ne serait pendant sa vie que l'apôtre d'un seul homme, ce ne serait pas être en vain sur la terre un fardeau inutile.-La Bruyère.

PREFACE

BY THE TRANSLATOR.

We began to read this work for our own advantage; but soon received an impression of its excellence, which led us to wish that it might have the free circulation which a faithful translation and an American edition would secure to it. A further acquaintance with it deepened this impression, until at length this translation became almost a natural result.

The work of translation is generally thought to be irksome; but, in the present case, the communion which it has occasioned with the beautiful, earnest, and holy spirit of the author, has changed labor into the highest pleasure. The minute attention which must be given to every sentence and word in translating has this advantage, that it obliges us to perceive every delicate shade of thought and feeling which the author expresses; and as there have been very few as pure, as discriminating, as imaginative, as spiritual minds as that of M. Vinet, it could not but be that in a treatise on a subject which he had so thoroughly studied, and which was so congenial to his character

and temperament, there should be found a rich, varied, and full exhibition of sentiment and feeling: Adding to this the intrinsic excellence of the subject itself, PASTORAL THEOLOGY, whose sphere is that which was filled by the Chief Shepherd and Bishop of souls, it afforded a fund of enjoyment and profit, to which it was truly an unusual privilege to have such familiar and intimate access.

M. Vinet, among the gifted men of his times, was in the first rank. The editor of his "Études sur Blaise Pascal," we think, with no more than justice, classes him, in the most important respects, with that great man. "The general direction of his labors, the nature of his mind and temperament, gave him ready access to this noble and astonishing genius. A penetrating analysis of the human soul, a strong attachment of heart to truth and an imperious demand for evidence, a natural melancholy, an inclination to serious irony, a strict and sometimes transcendent dialectic, passion in reason, a comprehensive and powerful imagination-these traits are common to the author of Discours sur quelques Sujets Religieux and the author of the Pensées. We may say, making due allowance for circumstances, that Pascal and Vinet resembled each other. Pascal, moreover, inspired the Protestant apologist of the nineteenth century, and served as his model. If natural affinity, sympathy, and interest are of any aid to the understanding, M. Vinet as