HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY MRS HORATIO LAMB June 13, 1940 Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1832, by Samuel G. Goodrich, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. Stereotyped by Jenkins & Greenough, ADVERTISEMENT TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. A KNOWLEDGE of the customs and manners of the East is absolutely necessary to a right understanding of the Scriptures. Most persons can recollect, when they were young, how singular and difficult some parts of the Bible appeared, which, from their enlarged information, they now regard as very simple and beautiful. It was not possible that a volume of this size could include the whole of those customs to which there are manifold allusions in the Sacred Writings; it however comprehends many of the most interesting and instructive, and such as are amply sufficient to prove that the Scriptures are accurate in their representa tions, and worthy of respect, even where, at the first sight, the sense does not immediately appear. It is hoped, that the ensuing pages will be permitted to occupy a place among those useful volumes which the young will be allured to read on the hallowed hours between the intervals of public worship on the Lord's Day; and that some of the instructors of the rising generation will employ them in their labour as conducive to that variety which is so exceedingly agreeable and necessary to their enlarged suc cess. SOUTHAMPTON, 1831. |