k on my own feelings, or, by the relation of them,
to work on the feelings of others. My friend's house resembled the
reign of some pacific sovereigns. It was the pleasantest to live in, but
its annals were not the most splendid to record. The periods which make
life happy do not always render history brilliant.

"Great passions, therefore, and great trials growing out of them as I
did not witness, I have not attempted to delineate. Love itself appears
in these pages, not as an ungovernable impulse, but as a sentiment
arising out of qualities calculated to inspire attachment in persons
under the dominion of reason and religion, brought together by the
ordinary course of occurrences, in a private family party.

"The familiar conversations of this little society comprehend a
considerable portion of this slender work. The texture of the narrative
is so slight, that it barely serves for a ground into which to weave the
sentiments and observations which it was designed to introduce.

"It may not be unnecessary to anticipate an objection to which these
conversations may sometimes be thought liable. In a few instances, the
speeches may be charged with a degree of stiffness, and with a length
not altogether consistent with familiar dialogue. I must apologize for
this by observing, that when the subjects were serious, the dialogue
would not, in every instance, bend to such facilities, nor break into
such small parcels, as may easily be effected in the discussion of
topics of gayer intercourse.

"But it is time to meet the objections of the more pious reader, if any
such should condescend to peruse this little performance. If it be
objected, that religious characters have been too industriously brought
forward, and their faults somewhat too severely treated, let it be
remembered, that while it is one of the principal objects of the work to
animadvert on those very faults, it has never been done with the
insidious design of depreciating the religion, but with the view, by
exposing the fault, to correct the practice. Grossly vicious characters
have seldom come in my way; but I had frequent occasion to observe the
different shapes and shades of error in various descriptions of society,
not only in those worldly persons who do not quite leave religion out of
their scheme, but on the mistakes and inconsistencies of better
characters, and even on the errors of some who would be astonished not
to find themselves reckoned altogether r