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170 mighty rising up and rejoicing, all of which made a very strong impression on my mind.

"I am going to make a most thorough examination into these things to see if they are so — if God has provided an easier and a better way to save the souls of men than the Jewish economy. I feel that the subject is worth looking into; for of long time it has seemed to me (and my father saw and spoke of the same) that the ways of God's service were exacting, and apt to make men become indifferent, and almost to look on God as a haughty tyrant; while Peter's illustration shows Him in such a lovely light it makes me love Him."

Second Letter.

"After having viewed our present condition, it may be well for us to look back and review our former history, and get a knowledge of the state of the world in former times. If we look at the world from the pages of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Haggai, the last of God's prophets upon earth, we will see a period of nearly five hundred years to the present, during which time the world underwent greater changes than ever before. We will see our nation returning from a seventy years' captivity, recommencing their national existence after having been overrun and absorbed in the first great monarchy that swept over the earth. Our acquaintance with the rest of the world was very limited, extending only to the Chaldeans, the Phœnicians, the Egyptians, and a few