Notes of a sermon preached by the Rev, C. E. Darwent in Union Church on Sunday evening, December 13, on behalf of the China Tract Society.
Revelation 9 "And I went unto the angel saying unto him, that he should give me the little book. And he saith unto me, Take it and eat it up, and it shall make thy belly bitter, but in thy mouth it shall be sweet as honey."
The Harleian Manuscripts are 8 collection of manuscripts and pamphets made by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, who lived from 1661-1724, There are 8,000 MSS., 30,000 printed books in it and 400,000 pamphlets It is so valuable—unique in fact—that the British Government gave £10,000 for it in 1783 for the British Museum, The number of pamphlets in it, 400,000, is enormous. I have, however, called your attention to this collection because the great Samuel Johnson wrote a preface to and its title was "the origin and importance: of small tracts and fugitive pieces." I wish indeed that I possessed the complete works of Johnson, so that I might annex a few of the arguments used by that great man in favour of tracts. His eminence as a literary man and as a vigorous and virile thinker, who hated cant, might convince those who become sarcastic when tracts are named, that they do not know what they are talking about. For we know that there are people who do regard tracts as the smallest of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.