OF MRS. SARAH L. HUNTINGTON SMITH, LATE OF THE AMERICAN MISSION IN SYRIA. BY EDWARD W. HOOKER, D. D. THIRD EDITION. PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 150 NASSAU STREET, NEW-YORK. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, By T. R. MARVIN, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. Right of publishing transferred to the American Tract Society. PREFACE. IN preparing a new edition of the following Memoir, the compiler has availed himself of the suggestions of reviewers and readers, for its improvement in some points. It being his plan to devote the first five chapters to the delineation of Mrs. Smith's character, in some of its prominent and most interesting features, rather than to give a history, in the order of time; dates of years were omitted, in those chapters, to avoid giving perplexity to the reader. In the narrative of her missionary life, which commenced with her engagement in the Mohegan enterprise, the order of time is observed, and dates are given in full. In relation to the ancestry of Mrs. Smith, all the information is given in the present edition, which is well authenticated. Her supposed descent from the venerable John Robinson, of Leyden, is not ascertained with certainty. It has been traced no farther back than to William Robinson, who was in Dorchester, near Boston, in 1641, and whose relation to the ven erable Puritan is still matter of tradition. Some additions have been made from the correspondence of Mrs. Smith; partly from letters not received till after the publication of the first edition. A few passages have been added from the original history of her disastrous voyage to Smyrna; and from the notes of her last days, by her husband. To make room for these, it has been necessary to omit some valuable passages of the first edition. From the materials in hand, a volume much larger could have been prepared, with much less labor of selection; and it has been the wish of many friends that more might be published. The compiler has, however, preferred to limit the Memoir to a duodecimo of four hundred pages, that it might contain only the choicest of the materials ; and that its price might be such as to admit of its more extensive and useful circulation. With the present edition is given a new engraved likeness, from the original portrait in the possession of her father. The work is commended to the God of Missions, whom the subject of it so fervently loved and served; with the prayer that it may long be instrumental in advancing the spirit of piety and of Christian benevolence, and in promoting the kingdom of Christ Jesus on the earth. BENNINGTON, VT., August, 1840. |