Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by

L. P. CROWN AND COMPANY,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

PREFACE.

I OFFER you, dear reader, only humble chronicles. They are of the quiet and still life of a country parish. I have set them down without any attempt at fine writing, trusting to nothing more than their truthfulness and simplicity to interest you.

You will find in these pages the observations of one whose walk has been for a long time in rustic quietudes-among those earnest and sincere souls that gather, every Sabbath, in simple country churches. You will find, too, as you read on, that human hearts are essentially the same under all conditions- the same motives, whether of ambition, love, selfishness, or hatred, swaying them within the precincts of a village circle as within the walls of a wealthy and populous town.

Whatever may be the moral of the whole, the sympathizing reader will find it stamped plainly enough on every page. If, however, any one feeling is intentionally inculcated above any other, it is that of love one for another. Without this there is no charity; and without charity we are destitute of all the virtues that are really worth possessing.

That the book may succeed in awakening the interest of even a few, and, still further, in warming ever so little the better natures of all, is the single and sincere wish of

THE AUTHOR.