FRIENDLY VISITOR.

No. LII.

JANUARY 1823.

Price one penny, or 7s. per hundred.

VOL V.

PRINTED AND SOLD BY A. FOSTER, KIRKBY LONSDALE;

And sold by Seeley, Fleet Street, London; Timms, Grafton Street, Dublin; the Religious Tract Society, at their Depository in East Register Street, Edinburgh; and by all other Booksellers:

Of whom may be had, in stiff printed covers, the four first Volumes; 13. 4d. each: also the numbers for the four first years, bound in two volumes, sheep and lettered, 3s. 4d. each.

HISTORY OF A RELIGIOUS TRACT.

I am the child of a numerous family; and we ean trace the honours of our pedigree backward, for at least three or four centuries.

When I contemplate the manner of my existence, I am compelled to say that, like man himself, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." The primitive atoms of my frame were formed into letters by the skill of the founder-these letters were combined into syllables by the skill of the compositor; and then, by the powerful arm of the pressman, I was squeezed into the world, and honoured with the title of a Religious Tract. Much indeed do I resemble man, not only in the variety of my members; but in the delicacy of my constitution. As human "life contains a thousand springs, and dies if one be gone," so the loss or misplacing of a word sadly disorders me, and the fraction of a page is death.

To return, however, to my history. Very soon after I came into the world, I was sewed up into a

A

book, and sent to a certain shop in Fleet Street, where I was exposed to sale, with as little remorse as cattle in Smithfield, or negroes in a slave market. Here I was purchased with about 50 of my brethren, by a young man, teacher of a Sunday school; who crammed us into his pocket till the next morning, when we were distributed among the scholars. It was my lot to fall into the hands of a lad who, being fond of reading, cheerfully carried me home to his parents. His father heard me read with great coolness, while he smoked his pipe; and when he knocked the ashes out, would have burnt me to rekindle a fresh pipe, had not the mother interfered, and rescued me. I now rested securely in her pocket till next morning; when she took an opportunity of fixing her spectacles on her nose, and very attentively perused me; and I perceived was much affected with some things that I observed. Poor woman, she was in some domestic trouble; and she found her only comfort in religion; and as she could read, but had no books, a godly tract, as she called it, or the leaf of a Bible or Prayer Book, was as valuable to her, as a curious manuscript to an antiquarian.

While,

however, I was left in the window, and some duty called her to another part of the room, a sudden gust of wind carried me out into the high road, where I was picked up by a passenger at the corner of an inn, who was just setting out upon a journey.

I was now introduced into the company of a stage coach, by my new master, and was favoured with the criticism of the several passengers. One called me a Methodist; another laughed; but the young man who read me appeared seriously affected; and an old gentleman, who sat in the corner, said, Friend, thy tract contains very good advice." At night I was taken to the inn; and after supper,

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my new master gave me a second perusal, and fetched a heavy sigh. It seems he had been religiously educated; but having been led by his line of business into gay company, his religious habits were nearly worn off; for which his conscience now reproached him; and he was compelled, for that night at least, to pray before he went to sleep. In the morning, however, whether from neglect, or from the hope of my benefitting some other person, he left me on the table in his room, where I was found by the chambermaid, when she came to do her work. At first she thought she had found a prize, as she supposed I contained some diverting story. When she had read, however, a page or two, she said to herself, "this is just what my mother (poor soul) used to preach to me; but if I read on I shall be melancholy:"-and so saying, she threw me down again, and went singing to her work. I was therefore left upon the table.

The next night, the chamber was occupied by a sportsman. "Yo, ho!" said he, "what game have we got here?" So he read a few lines, and then threw me contemptuously on the floor, calling me "a stupid Methodist."-" Alas!" thought I, "what a pity is it that men, who glory in being rational creatures, should be afraid to think! neither the servant maid in the morning, nor the 'squire at night, dare venture to think, lest they should be melancholy. Do not these persons know that they must die? and would they wish to plunge into eternity without thought ?" It was this word ETERNITY, that so frightened my last reader. The word, however, followed him, and he repeated it several times in his dreams. In the morning he picked me up again, and read till he came to the same word Eternity-he dared not to proceed any further; for pleasure-takers are the most unhappy beings upon