VENERABLE custom and the formalities of book-making seem to call for prefaces with some show of authority; yet it is not so imperative the long ones should be written. Although complying, then, with venerable custom in this matter, we do not propose writing a long preface to this Volume.

In presenting to its patrons, completed, the Seventh Volume of the Journal of Discourses, we do not deem it necessary to descant largely on the merits of this work, and the future value of a complete set of volumes of Discourses of the First Presidency and leading men of the Church. A bare reference to that fact will suffice to bring it out to the appreciation of its subscribers, and they will readily see how much the importance and value of their libraries in Zion will be enhanced in years to come by a complete series of the Journal of Discourses. Moreover, independent of these considerations, their present value and present interest far transcend their cost, or the pains of a careful reading.

In offering the Seventh Volume of the Journal of Discourses to its patrons, we shall leave it to declare its own intrinsic merits to those who have read its contents, while of the future volumes let it suffice to affirm that there is abundant reason to expect that, in the eventful times to come, the Discourses of the First Presidency and leading authorities of the Church will increase in their importance and add to the richness of their treasures.

THE PUBLISHER