The initial purpose of the volume was to record the subscription for shares in the Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Company. The volume itself is a blank book purchased from Van Kleeck & Clark, stationers, printers and lithographers, 19 Nassau Street, New York. The cover of the volume is stamped with the title "Subscriptions to the Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Company." The first eight pages were printed and include a statement on the construction of telegraph lines followed by lists of the directors, trustees and subscribers. The subscribers are listed geographically and include some additions in ms. The next two pages of the volume completed in ms. record the conditions under which shares could be purchased and for what price followed by what would have been a list of subscribers names, amount paid and shares purchased; however, the remainder of the volume was never used for that purpose. The bulk of the volume was used to record prayers and meditations on "Christian Union," "Prayer of the Aged," "The Blessings of Religion," "Zion's Peace and Prosperity," "Christian Sociality," "A Religious Spirit Highly Rational," "Church Fellowship," "Man's Ignorance of the Future," "Zion's Travellers [sic]", "The Triumphant Believer," "The Deceitfulness of Sin," "The Value of Experience," and "Former Iniquities Depreciated." The name "J.T. Lynn" is inscribed on several parts of the volume and is assumed to be the author of at least this portion of the volume.
