PREFACE. IT is the prevailing disposition of the times to consider every thing which has been long established as not merely capable of amendment, but as absolutely requiring reform; and in that unlimited toleration which it is the boast of this country to extend to all religious opinions, it was not to be expected that the Established Church should altogether escape the influence of such a feeling. There are, indeed, many persons who openly avow their opinion that she, in every way, stands in need of a great and A 3 end is answered. For this purpose he has made a simple story, in many of its parts founded on truth, the medium through which high and momentous points of doctrine are brought under familiar discussion, with a view of gaining, more particularly, the attention of those who would fly from works of a professedly serious and theological nature; and he indulges a hope, that such an attempt to beguile his readers into a consideration of matters intimately connected both with their present temporal, and future eternal, welfare, may be the means of leading them on to the prosecution of a deeper and more enlarged enquiry into these most important subjects. 3 THE SOLDIER. Ir fell to my lot to sustain the misfortune of losing my parents at an early stage of my life, and though at that period I was little sensible of the calamity, every succeeding year brought with it a poignancy which increased until I arrived at maturity, when, as I began to feel my independence, it forsook me, and finally left upon my mind a sensation of indifference towards myself, and a disinclination to sympathize with the feelings of others. In comparing my situation and circumstances with those around me, I found a void that I could not fill. There was a chasm caused by the breaking up of filial and parental affection that nothing, now connected with me, could close; and the happiness in which I saw others placed with regard to their relatives, and the strong interest which each of these seemed to feel in the concerns of the others, created a disappointment that rankled in my heart, and at length produced the evil passion of envy, ultimately terminating in misanthropy. At |