Such, my readers, are the causes which brought this interesting work before your notice: pardon me if I extract from my other preface the reasons which induced me to appear before the world at all; and if I should prove a help to the mere naturalist to lead him to his God or a guide to the Christian to point him to a new source whence he may draw materials for contemplation, my volumes will not be waste paper, nor my aim prove to have been wrongly directed.