PREFACE. THE following little stories are mostly founded on real incidents which occurred in the parish where the Writer resides, and were printed many years ago, singly. Numerous applications having been made for them, they are now collected, with some additions, in one small Volume. Their object has been, not merely to counteract, in an age of louder obloquy, the effects of certain Village Dialogues, written, as it should seem, to throw an odium on the Parochial Clergy, but to show, by familiar examples, the miseries of infidelity and vice among the poor, on one side, and the unchristian, undisguised, Antinomian fanaticism, on the other. LUCY SMITH; OR, THE YOUNG MAID AND HER MOTHER'S BIBLE. To record the passing events that occur in humble life, is not, I trust, without utility, particularly in these times, when books and tracts of a dangerous tendency are circulated with a perseverance almost incredible, among the labouring poor. The sad effects which the distempered views of religion had upon the mind of a young and artless girl, it will be my business to record in the following pages. Lucy Smith was the only daughter of respectable parents, whose little all consisted in a neat cottage, surrounded by a few acres of land, which, after some years of indefatigable industry, they were enabled to call their own. The house was pleasantly situated on an eminence, sheltered from the north wind by a screen of aged trees, whilst a sloping little garden to the south showed the extreme neatness of the possessors. Here were to be seen the first early spring flowers in the village; and, as summer advanced, the crocus and the pale primrose were succeeded by the honeysuckle, the pink in many of its varieties, the rose, and various other flowers, which perfumed the air with their fragrance, and rendered the appearance of the cottage, which opened into the garden, so neat, |