Twenty-four Discourses

Perkins, Nathan, 1748-1838Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.5

Word count: 819K words
Chapters: 82

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Twenty-four Discourses by Nathan PerkinsAuthor: Perkins, Nathan, 1748-1838,Language: English, Class: BX: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion: Christianity: Churches, Church movements, Release Date: Sep 1, 2018

Editor's review

Twenty-four Discourses is a collection of twenty-four sermons left by Nathan Perkins (1748–1838), classified under Christian churches and church movements, now offered as a free ebook by Project Gutenberg. The value of such texts lies not in narrative interest but in their complete preservation of the sermon structure and theological concerns of a clergyman at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: the discourses usually begin with a scriptural text and proceed layer by layer through doctrinal exposition, moral exhortation and the practice of faith, in solemn language and clear logic, with a distinctly period rhetorical style. For readers studying New England religious thought, church history or the early English sermon form, it is useful primary material; for general readers, it is better suited as a sample for understanding how Christian discourse worked in that period than as casual reading. Read it as both historical source and stylistic object—attending to its theological positions and also to its strategies of exhortation and assumptions about its audience—and you will gain more concretely from it.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers studying Christian church history and religious thought
Literary scholars interested in the style and rhetoric of English sermons
Academic writers who need eighteenth- and nineteenth-century primary religious documents
Collector-type readers interested in public-domain religious texts from Project Gutenberg

Not a good fit for

Fiction readers hoping for a continuous story or character plot
Readers seeking contemporary practical life advice and self-help psychology
Beginners with limited English reading stamina who need light reading

Reading tips

Read the table of contents first and select a few discourses related to your research for close reading; there is no need to read the whole book.
Before each discourse, confirm the source of the scriptural text cited, and note how the argument transitions into exhortation.
Keep pen and paper to record recurring core concepts for cross-comparison of positions across discourses.
If citing in academic work, verify the original page numbers and edition information; avoid citing secondhand summaries.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a collection of sermons?

It is a collection of sermons, consisting of twenty-four independent discourses, each expounding doctrine and offering moral exhortation around a scriptural text. It is not a continuous narrative novel, so it should not be read for plot.

Can I read it without a theological background?

You can, but patience is required. The language is eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English, and the arguments rely on scriptural and doctrinal terminology. Readers without background should start with introductory material or select only the more general topics.

Is the electronic edition suitable for academic citation?

The Gutenberg edition is convenient for searching and reading, but academic citation should verify the original publication information and page numbers. Use the electronic edition for initial reading and locating passages, and check an authoritative edition before formal citation.

Why is there no author biography in the book?

The Gutenberg edition mainly presents the text; the introduction gives only the author's birth and death years and the classification. For biography and historical background, consult church history or biographical sources rather than inferring from this book.

Comments

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About the author

Perkins, Nathan, 1748-1838 Author

Perkins, Nathan (1748–1838) is an author about whom little biographical information is available. Only one of his works is held in this collection, Twenty-four Discourses. His nationality, education, professional career, and social standing cannot be reliably confirmed from publicly available sources, so no unverified details have been added. Judging from the surviving work, he adopted the genre of the “discourse,” addressing religious and moral themes in a style that emphasizes argument and exhortation, clearly structured and aimed at general readers of his time. Such works were common in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English publishing, often serving parish preaching or public moral instruction. Twenty-four Discourses gathers more than twenty such pieces; didactic and reflective in character, it can serve as a reference for the study of religious writing and moral discourse of the period. Overall, Perkins’s profile as a writer rests mainly on this single work, and his historical influence awaits further documentation.