THE STRAIT GATE AND THE BROAD WAY.
THE GRAND ASSIZES, ETC.; OR, GENERAL JAIL DELIVERY.
THE SERVANT MAN TURNED SOLDIER; OR, THE FAIR-WEATHER CHRISTIAN.
Tales for the Common People.
Page
The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain 7
The History of Tom White, the Post Boy 119
The History of Hester Wilmot, being the sequel to the Sunday School 166
Tawney Rachel, or the Fortune-Teller; with some account of Dreams, Omens, and Conjurers 230
Stories for Persons of Middle Rank.
Page
The History of Mr. Fantom (the new-fashioned Philosopher), and his man William 245
The Two Wealthy Farmers; or the History of Mr. Bragwell 276
Allegories.
The Pilgrims 423
The Strait Gate and the Broad Way 444
The Grand Assizes; or General Jail Delivery 470
The Servant Man turned Soldier, or the Fair-weather Christian 479
TALES
FOR THE COMMON PEOPLE.
"Religion is for the man in humble life, and to raise his nature, and to put him in mind of a state in which the privileges of opulence will cease, when he will be equal by nature, and may be more than equal by virtue."—Burke on the French Revolution.
Advertisement.
To improve the habits, and raise the principles of the common people, at a time when their dangers and temptations, moral and political, were multiplied beyond the example of any former period, was the motive which impelled the author of these volumes to devise and prosecute the institution of the "Cheap Repository." This plan was established with an humble wish not only to counteract vice and profligacy on the one hand, but error, discontent, and false religion on the other. And as an appetite for reading had, from a variety of causes, been increased among the inferior ranks in this country, it was judged expedient, at this critical period, to supply such wholesome aliment as might give a new direction to their taste, and abate their relish for those corrupt and inflammatory publications which the consequences of the French Revolution have been so fatally pouring in upon us.
The success of the plan exceeded the most sanguine expectations of its projector. Above two millions of the tracts were sold within the first year, besides very large numbers in Ireland; and they continue to be very extensively circulated, in their original form of single tracts, as well as in three bound volumes.
As these stories, though principally, are not calculated exclusively for the middle and lower classes of society, the author has, at the desire of her friends, selected those which were written by herself, and presented them to the public in this collection of her works, in an enlarged and improved form.
THE
SHEPHERD OF SALISBURY PLAIN.
Mr. Johnson, a very worthy charitable gentleman, was traveling some time ago across one of those vast plains which are well known in Wiltshire. It was a fine summer's evening, and he rode slowly that he might have leisure to admire God in the works of his creation. For this gentleman was of opinion, that a walk or a ride was as proper a time as any to think about good things: for which reason, on such occasions he seldom thought so much about his money or his trade, or public news, as at other times, that he might with more ease and satisfaction enjoy the pious thoughts which the wonderful works of the great Maker of heaven and earth are intended to raise in the mind.
As this serene contemplation of the visible heavens insensibly lifted up his mind from the works of God in nature to the same God as he is seen in revelation, it occurred to him that this very connexion was clearly intimated by the royal prophet in the nineteenth Psalm—that most beautiful description of the greatness and power of God exhibited in the former part, plainly seeming intended