s and
unction to our conversation and sermons, and zeal, energy, and
perseverance to every department of our work; and the result was soon
apparent in the wide-spread and glorious revival.

It can almost be said, therefore, that the main sentiments of this
volume have received the impress of the Divine approbation.

In the fall of 1837, I was constrained by family afflictions and the
failure of my own health, to embark for the United States. As I began to
breathe the bracing air of Cape Horn, my strength in a measure revived,
and having no other employment on board ship, I sketched the outlines of
most of the chapters of this little volume. My heart was full of the
theme in the discussion of which I had taken part before my embarkation,
and I penned my thoughts freely, amidst the tossings of the ship and the
care of two motherless children.

On my arrival in the United States, I revised and filled up the outlines
I had sketched, and delivered them, in connection with various historical
lectures, at several places, as Providence gave me opportunity. Now,
having returned to these islands, I have thought best to give the
chapters a second revision, to dedicate the whole to you, and with the
help of the press to send you each a copy, accompanying it with my
prayers and my most affectionate salutations. And may I not expect,
beloved classmates, that you will read the book with candor, weigh well
its arguments, admit its entreaties to your hearts, as those of your
former associate, and act in accordance with the convictions of duty?

Among the considerations that have prompted me to the train of thought
contained in this book, as well as to the views interwoven in my history
of the Sandwich Islands, I may mention, as not the least weighty and
prominent, a dutiful respect and filial obedience to the instructions
delivered to me, in connection with others, by the wise and devoted
EVARTS, on the eve of our embarkation for the foreign field. The
delivery of those instructions was his last effort of the kind, and they
may therefore be regarded as the parental accents of his departing
spirit. On that occasion of interest, to which memory can never be
treacherous, a part of the charge to us was in the following words:

"From the very commencement of your missionary life, cultivate a spirit
of enterprise. Without such a spirit, nothing great will be achieved in
any human pursuit; and this is an age of enterprise, to a remarkable