PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION

AT the request of several parties, who have been for some time applying for copies of the present work, I have ventured on a third and enlarged edition, the second having been exhausted for some years.

I would have long since complied with the request so kindly urged, were it not that any spare time I had on hands, after the discharge of multiplied and varied duties, some of them, at times, of a distracting nature, was almost wholly engrossed, in preparing an Exposition of the Gospels, now ready for Press. It is humbly hoped, that the Exposition in question may prove of some service, not only to our intelligent laity, but to those also, not the least important of whose arduous and absorbing missionary duties it is, to secure that special crown in store for such as “instruct many unto justice”—that justice of which the faith of Jesus Christ, which comes from hearing those, and those only, who are legitimately sent, is the root and foundation.

The present differs from the preceding edition in no way, save that the notes which form the Commentary are, in some passages, considerably enlarged by some additional matter.

Such as it is, it is once more submitted to the kind indulgence of the reader.

X JOHN MACEVILLY.

Galway, April 12, 1875.