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NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY ROBERT SEARS, 122 NASSAU STREET.

SOLD ALSO BY THE PRINCIPAL BOOKSELLERS.

1341

11-10-60

Gift of Widens

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COPIED FROM CELEBRATED PICTURES, PRINCIPALLY BY THE OLD MASTERS:

THE LANDSCAPE SCENES

MADE FROM ORIGINAL SKETCHES, TAKEN ON THE SPOT,

WITH INTERESTING LETTER-PRESS DESCRIPTIONS,

CHIEFLY

EXPLANATORY OF THE ENGRAVINGS, AND OF NUMEROUS PASSAGES CONNECTED WITH
THE HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, natural HISTORY, AND ANTIQUITIES OF THE

SACRED SCRIPTURES.

BY ROBERT SEARS.

FOURTH EDITION.

NEW YORK:

ROBERT SEARS, 122 NASSAU STREET.

BOSTON SAXTON & PIERCE, 133 WASHINGTON STREET.
PHILADELPHIA: R. S. H. GEORGE.-BALTIMORE: W. N. HARRISON.
AND SOLD BY THE BOOKSELLERS GENERALLY,

1841.

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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1840,

BY ROBERT SEARS,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.

STEREOTYPED BY J. S. REDFIELD.

346 5439t

PREFACE.

"ANOTHER PICTURE-BOOK!"-exclaims the reader, as he casts his eyes upon our frontispiece and titlepage. Some good people, we know, object to pictures, especially in religious works; assigning as a reason, that they only amuse the reader, while others object to them on the score of their expense. Without entering into a lengthy controversy, we would simply remarkwhile we have labored in this way to make the present volume attractive, we intend much more. They are all designed to be strictly illustrative of the work-many are new and beautiful and they are introduced under the idea that visible representations are in many cases better, to convey correct impressions, than written descriptions, alone, can be. We go a step farther, and say that engravings of a superior character, may be even made to do something more than merely ILLUSTRATE -we believe they may be made to cultivate the mind, chasten the imagination, develop taste, and benefit the heart. Shall the teachers of vice find engravings an important aid in accomplishing unworthy endsin vitiating the taste and imagination? and shall the teachers and professors of a HOLY RELIGION, neglect to turn them to a good account, in the promotion of USEFUL KNOWLEDGE, and the best interests of man ?*

* Objections have also been made to the pictures commonly introduced into our Bibles, as being mere creations of fancy and the imagination, often unlike nature, and frequently conveying false impressions. This objection, however, cannot, in truth, be urged against our pictorial illustrations. In the language of a celebrated divine"Here the fine arts are made subservient to utility, the landscape views being, without exception, MATTER-OF-FACT views of places mentioned in Scripture, as they appear at the present day;" thus, in many instances exhibiting in the most forcible manner to the eye, the strict and literal fulfilment of many remarkable prophecies. The cities of Babylon, Nineveh, Petra, &c., in their present ruined and desolate condition, are astonishing examples, and so completely exemplify, in the most minute particulars, everything which was foretold of them, in the height of their prosperity, that no better description can now be given of them, than a simple quotation from a chapter and verse of THE BIBLE, written two or three thousand years ago.

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