DIRECTED TO

THE WIDOW'S GOD;

BY

JOHN ANGELL JAMES.

"Let thy widows trust in me."-Jer. xlix. 11.

LONDON:

HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.

BIRMINGHAM: B. HUDSON.

1841.

372.

PREFACE.

ONE of the errands on which the Son of GOD came from heaven to earth, was to bind up the brokenhearted, and to comfort all that mourn: and during his sojourn upon earth, the tenderest sympathy was one of the virtues which adorned that holy nature, in which dwelt, as in its temple, "all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."

Like their Divine Master, the ministers of the gospel ought to be sons of consolation, and to perform the functions of a comforter, as well as those of an instructor: for if pure and undefiled religion, as regards the professors of christianity, consists, in part, of visiting the widow and fatherless in their affliction, how much more incumbent is it on its teachers, to cherish and to manifest the same tenderness of spirit towards this deeply suffering portion of the human family. A group of children gathered round a widowed mother, and sobbing out their sorrows, as she repeats to them, amidst many tears, their father's loved and honoured name, is one of those pictures of woe, on which few can look with an unmoistened eye.

Is it not strange, then, that with claims upon our sympathy, so strong and so generally acknowledged,