The letters found in this work were commenced without any expectation that they would pass beyond the inspection of private friendship. In the course of the investigation of which they exhibit the results, the writer was more and more impressed with a conviction of the truth and importance of the theory contained in them. So deep and strong did this conviction become, that he was led to reflect seriously upon the expediency and propriety of presenting his views to the religious public in a more grave and systematical form, than is appropriate to private epistolary communications.