AND SKETCHES OF SERMONS. BY THE REV. JOHN SUMMERFIELD, A.M., LATE A PREACHER IN CONNEXION WITH THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE REV. THOMAS E. BOND, M.D. "Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give every man according as Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1842, by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York. LIBRARY OF THE UNION SEMINARY NEW YORK JUN 28 1944 * WWIO 5957 S 184065 DEDICATION. TO THE REV. JOSHUA SOULE, ONE OF THE BISHOPS OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. REV. AND VERY DEAR SIR, Many considerations impel me to dedicate this volume of Sermons and Sketches of Sermons to you; but the chief are, that you were among the first who cordially welcomed the Author to this country, and into the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church; to no one was he more indebted for counsel and direction during his brief sojourn among us; and to no one did he more implicitly yield his entire confidence. He was wont to speak among his friends of your kindness, as being little less. than parental, and to express for you a filial regard. The bereaved relatives of the deceased unite in the desire to embrace this opportunity of expressing publicly their high esteem for you as a man and as a minister of our holy religion, and their grateful remembrance of the kindness so generously extended to one whose memory is so dear to them; and by none of them is the occasion improved with more real gratification than by, Reverend sir, Your most obedient humble servant, Port Chester, April, 1842. JAMES BLACKSTOCK. rock. INTRODUCTION. Ar length the public are presented with a volume of Sermons, and Sketches of Sermons, from the preparations for the pulpit of the Rev. John Summerfield; a preacher who, for a brief space, enchained his immense audiences by the more than magic influence of an eloquence, as peculiar in its character, as it was universal in its control over the minds of men. The question will naturally arise in the mind of the reader, "Why have they been so long withheld?" The answer is, that those who possessed these precious remains, were made diffident of the favour with which their publication would be received, from some indications of disappointment when the life of Mr. Summerfield was presented to the public, written by one who, all agree, was eminently qualified for the task, and who certainly spared no pains to fulfil the expectations of the numerous friends, and admirers of the deceased. In fact, Mr. Holland accomplished all that could be done, in regard to the biography of one whose brief career, though it blazed with unexampled brightness, was nevertheless marked with a sameness of incident, from which no writer could educe the variety which is necessary to give interest to narrative, whether of a general or an individual character. In the life of Mr. Summerfield there was nothing very peculiar. We mark, indeed, an early development of those strong mental endowments, which were so strikingly exhibited even in his first pulpit efforts; but these were associated with the common waywardness of genius, and the concomitant premature relish for the vices of manhood. The process, by which the Lord of the Harvest called such an instrument into his service has been so often witnessed, that, though it still astonishes by the exhibition of omnipotent power, as do all the works of God, yet, like the firmament above us, being constantly in view, it no longer surprises by its novelty. His conversion was attended with no extraordinary circumstances. The instruments were such as to humble human pride, by showing that "the excellency of the power was of God, and not of man." Even the abiding, indelible impression made on his mind by the wholesomeness of parental precept, and the piety and uniformity of parental example, is so far from being a new exhibition of truth, that we are taught to look for it by the Old Testament Scriptures; and it has been con # |