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Transcriber's note:

      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

      There are minor differences between the titles of sections
      and those given in the Table of Contents. A reference to two
      notes, at the end of the book, has been inserted in the table.





NATURAL HISTORY OF ENTHUSIASM.

by

ISAAC TAYLOR


  ... δύο ἐστὶ, τὸ μὲν ἀρετὴ φυσικὴ, τὸ δ' ἡ κυρία.


From the Ninth London Edition.






New York:
Robert Carter & Brothers
No. 530 Broadway

1859.




ADVERTISEMENT.


The belief that a bright era of renovation, union, and extension,
presently awaits the Christian Church, seems to be very generally
entertained. The writer of this volume participates in the cheering
hope; and it has impelled him to undertake the difficult task of
describing, under its various forms, that FICTITIOUS PIETY which
hitherto has never failed to appear in times of unusual religious
excitement, and which may be anticipated as the probable attendant of a
new development of the powers of Christianity.

But while it has been the writer's principal aim to present to the
Christian reader, in as distinct a manner as possible, the characters of
that specious illusion which too often supplants genuine piety, he has
also endeavored so to fix the sense of the term