BY THE LATE

REV. DAVID MERRILL,

PEACHAM, VT.

WITH

A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.

WINDSOR, VT.

PRINTED AT THE VERMONT CHRONICLE PRESS.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by

MRS. MARY G. MERRILL,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Vermont.

PRICE, ONE DOLLAR.

882 M5715e 1855

PREFACE.

IMMEDIATELY after Mr. Merrill's death, his numerous friends and admirers, both at the East and at the West, expressed a very earnest desire that a volume of his sermons might be published. Various hinderances arose; but the lapse of time caused an increase rather than a diminution of the desire mentioned.

The difficulties attendant upon the preparation of this volume have been even greater than is usually the case in regard to posthumous publications. Mr. Merrill's hand-writing is exceedingly obscure, so that nothing could be printed until copied; and of many minor matters, demanding attention in preparing copy for the press, he was remarkable regardless.

More than half the sermons were selected by Samuel Merrill, Esq., and several of the others were inserted by special request. The portrait accompanying the volume was engraved after a daguerreotype of Mr. Merrill in his fifty-first year.

THOMAS SCOTT PEARSON.

PEACHAM, VT., 30 Dec., 1854.