Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by President of the Brooklyn Institute. In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. STEREOTYPED BY THOMAS B. SMITH, 82 & 84 Beekman-street, N. Y PRINTED BY E. O. JENKINS, 28 Frankfort-street, N. Y. GRAHAM LECTURES: ON THE POWER, WISDOM AND GOODNESS OF GOD, AS MANIFESTED IN HIS WORKS. VOLUME I. PUBLISHED BY THE BROOKLYN INSTITUTE. HISTORICAL PREFACE. IN publishing this, the first course of GRAHAM LECTURES, delivered at the Brooklyn Institute, it appears proper give the public some account of the Institute itself, and of the origin of the lectures to be delivered on Sunday evenings, as provided for in the will of the late Augustus Graham, on the "Wisdom, Power and Goodness of God, as manifested in his works." In the summer of 1823, some gentlemen, among whom were Augustus Graham, Robert Snow, and Alden Spooner, met at Stevenson's Hotel for the purpose of establishing a Free Library for the apprentices in the city of Brooklyn. After several meetings, they adopted a constitution, in which they expressed themselves as "desirous of extending the benefits of knowledge to that portion of our youth who are engaged in learning the mechanic arts, thereby to qualify them for becoming useful and respectable members of society;" and also, "of collecting and establishing a library for the benefit of apprentices." They issued an eloquent circular "to the citizens of Brooklyn," in September; in which they solicited donations of books and maps, with pecuniary assistance, to enable them to spread before the rising generation the stores of knowledge, and the means of men |