'I habe used similitudes."—Hosea xii., 10. STRAIGHT STREET; OR, THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD: A History and an Allegory, IN WHICH WILL BE FOUND NUMEROUS SKETCHES OF MEN AND SOCIETIES, AND INSTITUTIONS, GODLY, GODLESS, GOD AND TRUTH. BY SERJEANT LAVERACK, AUTHOR OF "A Methodist Soldier in the Indian Army"; "Seventeen Years in India"; "The Good Fight Fought "The Blind Fiddler"; "The Red Defaulter's Sheet," &c. BLIOTHECA MAY 1878 BODLEIAN London: F. E. LONGLEY, 39, WARWICK LANE, E.C. T HE writer, who is often engaged in preaching the Gospel in different parts of the country, was led to deliver a discourse on the "Street which is called Straight" (Acts ix., 11). The text was, throughout the entire address, spiritualised, and used to explain and illustrate the actual relationship existing between the Church of Christ and the world outside. This idea, upon further reflection, seemed capable of almost indefinite extension, and as it admitted of the introduction of a great variety of topics, was by the preacher adopted as the plan of a work in which much useful matter, new and old, might be introduced in a manner which seemed at once entirely original, and likely to be useful. The following, amongst other topics, are touched upon, and in some cases treated at great length in its pages:-Scepticism, Evolution, Ritualism, Popery, Religious Equality, the Liquor Traffic, Christian Experience, Denominations, Forms of Prayer, with illustrations of Christian life in its many forms and phases. The book, in its style, will be found to vary 'from grave to gay, from lively to severe.' One object, however, is paramount, namely, the denunciation of all that is socially and morally crooked, and the encouragement of every one who seeks the road to heaven through the Straight gate of true repentance and the narrow way of a godly life, whether in the Pool, Square, Grove, Villa, Mount, Nook, Castle, Terrace, Mansion, Cottage, Lodge, Crag, Vale, Park, Incline, Buildings, Ridge, Fields, View, Lawn, Home, Alley, or Friends' Meeting Place. Descriptive allusions to the various persons, localities, and objects, in the Crooked City and Straight Street, will be found in the following pages. |