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Street thoughts. Dexter, Henry Martyn, (1821–1890).
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A MALE IRISHMAN.

STREET THOUGHTS BY REV. H. M. DEXTER PUBLISHED BY CROSBY, NICHOLS, & CO. BOSTON, 1859.
page: (TitlePage) [View Page (TitlePage) ]

STREET THOUGHTS.

BY

REV. HENRY M. DEXTER,

PASTOR OF PINE STREET CHURCH, BOSTON.WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY BILLINGS.

BOSTON: CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY, 117 WASHINGTON STREET.

1859.
page: iii[View Page iii]

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by CROSBY, NICHOLS, & Co., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. CAMBRIDGE: ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY METCALF AND COMPANY.

Εγω δε ωμην την παιδιαν ανεσιν τε ειναι της ψυχης, και αναπαυδιν των Φροντιδων

JULIAN.

Ad minora me demittere non recusabo.

QUINTILIAN.

  • We'll wander through the streets, and note
  • The qualities of people.

SHAKESPEARE.

  • Think naught a trifle, though it small appear;
  • Sands make the mountain, moments make the year,
  • And trifles, life. Your care to trifles give,
  • Else you may die ere you have learned to live.

YOUNG.

It ought to be the endeavor of every man to derive his reflections from the objects about him; for it is to no purpose that he alters his position, if his attention continues fixed to the same point.

DR. JOHNSON.

  • These struggling tides of life, that seem
  • In wayward, aimless course to tend,
  • Are eddies of the mighty stream
  • That rolls to its appointed end.

BRYANT.

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INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

AMONG my earliest memories of literature is that of a sentence—out of a review of Mrs. Sedgwick, by the poet Bryant, if I am not mistaken—like this: "He who goes about among men with his eyes open, will learn something better than the lore that is hidden in books." The remark made a deep impression upon my child-mind, and has verified itself with the experience of every succeeding year. Many a knot of thought, which obstinately refused disentanglement elsewhere, has been loosened in the street; and many a face, inexplicable at the dinner-table and in the drawing-room, has been comprehended in the involuntary revelations and cross-lights of the sidewalk. Consequently, crowded thoroughfares have become favorite thinking-places with me; and as a parish and a pulpit well up toward one end of Washington Street, and an editorial chair far down toward the other, necessitate many miles of weekly transition exercise, I have not page: vi-vii (Table of Contents) [View Page vi-vii (Table of Contents) ] been, of late years, without abundant opportunity to gratify my taste in this particular.

The following "notes" of this kind of "travel" were written, from week to week during the last year, to fill a small space in each issue of the religious journal with which I am connected. Having been asked for in the form which they now assume, I have not refused to comply with the request,—though deeply sensible of their inconsiderable claim to favorable regard,—partly because it is believed that they have already exerted some slight influence for good, as they have been read in their original form, and partly because my heart is set upon the great work of securing, in connection with the future of my own Church, a place of worship in Boston where the masses of the people may hear the Gospel at a cost within their means; and should a generous public so far patronize this unpretending volume that any profit shall accrue to its author from its issue, that little rill will help to swell the stream "of many littles," which—if God please—may float our enterprise, and make it a success.

H. M. D.

HILLSIDE, ROXBURY, December 9, 1858.

CONTENTS.

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