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Published by J. Soule and T. Mason, for the Methodist
Episcopal Church in the United States.

A. Paul, Printer.

Southern District of New-York, ss.

BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the fourth day of August, in the forty-third year of the Independence of the United States of America, J. Soule and T. Mason, of the said District, have deposited in this Office the title of a Book, the right whereof they claim as Proprietors, in the words following, to wit:

"Religion recommended to Youth, in a Series of Letters, addressed to a Young Lady. To which are added, Poems on various Occasions. By Caroline Matilda Thayer."

In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled" An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies, during the time therein mentioned." And also to an Act, entitled "An Act, supplementary to an Act, entitled An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching Historical and other Prints."

JAMES DILL,

Clerk of the Southern District of New-York.

ilice Elwood. 1-19-39

PREFACE.

IN

presenting the following little work to the public, the Author is sensible it is in many respects deficient, both in matter and style; but as it is not written to gratify the fastidious taste of the critic, nor for the amusement of the gay and fashionable; of them she has no favour to ask.

To the candid and pious, of whatever sect, it is inscribed, with the ardent prayers of the Author, that it may be beneficial at least to some of its readers.

Sensible that much of the frivolity, discoverable in the manners and fashions of modern females, arises from an improper course of reading, the Author has endeavoured, in the following little volume, to present the youth of her own sex a succedaneum to the fascinating page of Romance, and the dangerous luxury of Novels.

The following letters were originally addressed to an affectionate young friend in New-England, whose kindness has proved a solace in many trials the Author has been called to encounter.

Sanctioned with the approbation of a highly valued literary friend, she has ventured to transcribe them for the press. Deeply impressed with the importance of being in early life guarded against the poisonous influence of infidelity, she feels a peculiar solicitude that the rising youth should be rationally convinced of the divine authenticity of the precious system of Christianity.

To do all in her power to counteract the effect of infidel sentiments on the youthful mind, she feels particularly impelled, from having once drunk of this poisonous fountain, and thence imbibed sentiments that have since caused the blush of conscious shame, and the tear of heartfelt contrition; and while she acknowledges it among the wonders of sovereign love, that God has ever manifested his pardoning grace to the vilest of rebels, an anxious wish arises in her heart, to devote her abilities, such as they are, to the interests of religion.

With such views, she has resumed the pen, after a long interval; and while she trusts the following compositions are the

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offspring of a sincere desire to do good, according to the small measure of her abilities, she cheerfully submits them to the candour of a generous public.-And should this little work be honoured by the perusal of the critic or the scholar, she trusts its inaccuracies will not be too severely censured by such as duly estimate the motive of the Author, and the design of the publication.

To represent Religion in its true light, as altogether worthy of universal acceptation, and excite in the youthful mind a taste for its divine enjoyments; to magnify the riches of redeeming grace, and endeavour to do something, if ever so little, in the best of all causes; these are her objects.

A few of its divine allurements may be faintly enumerated; but its sublime raptures are incommunicable by human language. It is a bliss large as our desires, and immortal as God.

When all other enjoyments fail, when transitory pleasures fade, when human passions sleep, even friendship expires, and love and hatred are lost together in the grave, Religion will survive the dissolution of nature, live to immortality, and smile on the ravages of time.

The poems found in this little volume, were chiefly written to abstract the mind

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