respect as the hour of nine was reached. By this arrang ment I have secured the time which I have employed i preparing the Notes on the New Testament, on Job, o Isaiah, on Daniel, and now on the Psalms, without entrench ing on what I felt might properly be required of me in m pastoral labours; and, at the same time, I have secured t myself personally the inestimable benefit of commencin each day with the contemplation of a portion of the Wor of God.

In the long period which has elapsed since these Note on the Psalms were commenced, I have been frequentl compelled to interrupt my studies by the condition of m eyes; and, in more than one instance, the work has bee wholly suspended for more than a year at a time, with littl hope that it would be resumed again. Some apology, trust, may be found in these facts for the manifold defect which I have too much reason to suppose will be observe by all who consult these volumes. I have performed m work as well as I could; but I have not accomplished my own cherished hopes in regard to it. It is not what I fondly trusted it might be; it is not what a work on the Psalm should be. Some of the reasons for the failure I have state at length in the Introduction, § 8.

It is of more interest to me than it can be to the publi to say that I cannot close these labours, continued throug so many years of my life, without deep emotion. The very fact that any work of life is ended, however humble or un important it may be in itself, is fitted to suggest solem reflections to a man's own mind. The nature of the worl in which I have thus been engaged is such as to give great additional solemnity to these reflections. He undertake: a work of great responsibility, who engages in the task o

endeavouring to explain the Word of God, and who may thus give direction to the views, perhaps, of thousands, on subjects that may affect their destiny for ever.

In looking, now, at a labour of this kind continued for nearly forty years, and entered on with no expectation of the results which have been reached, while I am grateful for the patronage extended to my efforts in this country and abroad, I cannot be insensible to the responsibility of having in that time sent forth to influence my fellow-men more than half a million of volumes of Commentary on the Scriptures in my native land, and perhaps more than this number in England, Scotland, and Ireland; and of having been permitted, to a limited extent at least, thus to speak in the French and Welsh languages, in the languages of India, and in the language spoken by the millions of China.

With such feelings of gratitude, and with, I trust, some proper sense of my responsibility, I now close this part of the labour of my life, and commend these volumes, as I have endeavoured to do those which have gone before them, to the blessing of God.

ALBERT BARNES.

[ERRATUM.-Vol. I, page 250, line 16,-head read heart.]