Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, By CORNISH, LAMPORT & Co, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. Stereotyped by Vincent Dill, Jr. 17 Ann Street, N. Y. Alvord, Printer, 29 and 31 Gold Street. 34X4.00 INTRODUCRION. 66 THE Publishers, in preparing an Offering" for that great body of the People so distinguished for its love of order, peace and good-will towards men, have aimed to give to it the highest features of excellence, both literary and artistic. In order to accomplish the first, they have chosen an editor whose name is known throughout the literary world by his able advocacy of the cause of temperance as well as by his popular and useful. works in the department of moral fiction. No writer has accomplished more in the temperance cause; and his success has not been the result of accident, but of intelligent and well-directed efforts, with a high moral purpose. His versatile and eloquent pen is always employed in a good cause. His aim is always to elevate the moral sentiments of his countrymen, and to furnish new motives and excitements to unswerving moral rectitude in the conduct of life. His character, well known and established in public estimation, has inspired such wide-spread confidence, that a parent or guardian or friend may present an Annual, edited by him, to a wife, a daughter or a most cherished friend, without previously reading or examining it; because he knows there will be nothing in it to offend the most fastidious moral sense. With such an editor for this "Offering," the Publishers come before the Order-and all friendly to the cause of literature, temperance and morals, with a feeling of entire confidence, that their efforts to produce a good book has been entirely successful. The pictorial and typographic departments of the work speak for themselves. All must pronounce them beautiful, and worthy of the Order for which they were designed. It is the intention of the Publishers to continue, annually, the Offering," and to give to it, in each recurring year, new features of beauty and excellence. To make it, in fact, in every way worthy of those for whom it is intended. 66 |