Let humanity learn that those that have laid down their earth bodies are not dead. Let the earth claim but her own. The life Of that body continues to live as before. Here I find myself employed in my former business, even with all the enthusiasm I ever felt, writing my own books. Freed from care; freed from the cold neglect of man. That was my experience when I fell beneath the scourge of disease. The hour has come when I can denounce hypocrisy and deceit, fearing not the wicked tongue of slander, or the criticism of false friends. May light fill the earth, fearless of those that fear the light. My friends are friends that have been made my friends through the sympathy Of my writings; therefore it is the sympathy of the soul without any selfish motives; therefore that makes us friends forever. She that inscribes for me has begun a work for humanity. I can assist in the writing, yet all the ideas are as new to me as they are to the reader. This work is to be free from fiction, and it is the first that has ever been given relative to the first-born of Joseph and Mary — Jesus of Nazareth. The in?uences are all from that age in which he lived, and will give humble truths as they were. He is beside me hoping to bless humanity, if they will be blessed by facts. A book has made its appearance, entitled The Life of Jesus of Nazareth. Every careful reader will feel that it is an emblematical history instead of life facts that actually occurred. This work before me is full of interest to every human creature. Reader, I acknowledge myself a heretic toward the mystified God, incarcerated in the ?esh. May my friends in the ?esh believe I dictated this preface in order that they may know I am still beside them; still living in their midst. I will inscribe my own name. George lippard.