Excerpt from The Spirit of Prayer; The Saint's Privilege and Profit: The Desire of the Righteous Granted; The Unsearchable Riches of Christ; And Paul's Departure and Crowns Departure and Crown, or the Way to Live, so as to be always Ready to Die. For the first time these are combined in this order, with reference to a common aim. So far as we know, only the first has previously appeared in any American edi tion. It will be our Object in this brief Introduction to throw all the light we have been able to collect from different sources, upon the origin and character of each. The first, which is styled the spirit OF prayer, was written by Bunyan in 1663, the third year of his cruel im prisonment in Bedford jail. It seems to have been called forth by the Act of Uniformity of Charles IL, issued on Bartholomew's Day, August 24th, the preceding year - that infamous St. Bartholomew's Of England, only less cruel than the bloody St. Bartholomew's of France, a century before, because it Shed less innocent blood. (see Note, page Robert Philip justly remarks on this treatise, As extempore prayer was then a State crime, so no One can wonder, however much he may regret, that the Prayer Book came in for some of that Odium, which odious means of enforcing it created. Besides, wanton and impious prejudices were then rampant, against all avowed dependence upon the Holy Spirit for help in prayer. It is due to Bunyan' S catholic spirit, to place his work on Prayer in this light. It is full of wise and warm appeals on the spirit of prayer, and quite as severe against extempore parade, as against heartless formality. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.