PREFACE.

EACH of the following little works, have gone through several editions while printed separately. Various instances of their utility have come to the knowledge of the Author, for which he feels grateful to the God of all grace. He has yielded to the advice of others, in classing them together, so as to form one volume.

It is many years since the first in this collection was sent abroad into the world. At that time, few books existed in this country professedly written for children, except such as were calculated either to vitiate the taste, or to injure the morals of the youthful reader. Indeed this scarcity of pious books for youth, led to the production of " Worlds Displayed."

The author had under his care, a young female relative, in her tenth year, Miss Mary Campbell, who was afterwards Mrs. Dr. Meikle, of Hydrabad, in the East Indies, and who died on her way to Madras for health, and in the expectation of meeting the Author at the Cape of Good Hope. Knowing of no books suited to her youthful mind, which

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she had not already read, he offered her various large treatises by worthy men, but she complained against the bulk of some, and the number of pages without one stop, in others. This circumstance led to attempt communicating instruction by way of narrative, and briefly, as most adapted to her taste.

The first life in the little work was soon finished, and put into her hand one day after dinner. She read it with attention, and without once turning her eyes from the paper till she had reached the end, when she enquired for more of the same kind, which obliged the author to write another and another, till the whole contained in the volume were finished.

These manuscript Lives being seen by several friends, by their advice they were sent to press. Her clamour for more lives, produced a second volume from the author, which was named "The Picture of Human Life," to distinguish it from the other; after which he began to feel like Solomon, Bunyan, and many more, that, of making books there is no end.

Kingsland, near London,

August 27th, 1825

JOHN CAMPBELL.