TO THE REVEREND

JAMES STONHOUSE, M. D.

RECTOR OF

GREAT AND LITTLE CHEVEREL,

WILTSHIRE.

REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,

Ir is with great pleasure I take this opportunity, of paying a tribute of public refpect to you. Twenty years have now nearly elapfed fince our friendship firft began: which has been a delightful fource of pleafure and improvement

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improvement to me. Mr. ORTON brought us together at firft, foon after I began my clerical career, and from the kind offices of you both, it received an happy direction-both having advised, counselled, cautioned, and encouraged me.* In your parish, SIR, I spent some of my happiest and most useful days; in a fituation favourable to ftudy and self-improvement, among an affectionate, and in general, a tractable people. The fcene has fince been confiderably changed: but the refpect and good-will, which I found among your farmers and cottagers, no length of time will be able ever to efface from my memory.

* Witness these Letters, and your Curate.

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Hints to a

The greatest part of the Letters, contained in this volume, were written by Mr. ORTON to me whilst I refided at CHEVEREL; which I found of confiderable ufe to me there, and to the parishes to which I afterwards removed. I had felected most of them from a large number, with which he had favoured me, to be a kind of Memorial of their honoured Writer, and as a Manual for my future use. When

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"For that pattern which I saw in him, and for that conversation which I had with him, I know how much I have to answer for to God. And though my reflecting on that which I knew in him, gives me just cause of being deeply humbled in myself, and before God; yet I feel no more sensible pleasure in any thing, than in going over in my thoughts all that I saw and observed in him."-Bishop BURNET concerning Archbishop LEIGHTON.Pastoral Care, page 221, Fifth edition.

When I fhewed them to You, you were pleased to speak of them as Letters you much efteemed; and when I expreffed an inclination of publishing them, for the fervice of my younger Brethren in the Miniftry, the defign

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* An eminent PRELATE, to whom these Letters were presented, was pleased to make the following remark on them." They may edify more than the younger part of the clergy, for whom alone you intend them."

And says ANOTHER:- -" Accept my thanks for the pleasure I have received from the perusal of Mr. ORTON's Letters. The good sense, warm piety, becoming zeal for the promotion of christian virtue, and rendering the pastoral character respectable and useful, which run through the publication, make it worthy the attention of the parochial clergy of all ages."

Other testimonies of a similar kind might be adduced, were it deemed necessary, which shew the great candour and moderation of their writers.

met with your approbation and encouragement. Mr. ORTON hath already appeared in the world under the refpectable characters of a commentator, a fermon-writer, and a biographer and if I introduce him in a new light, as that of a correspondent, I hope, I fhall not leffen his merit; the general contents of the following Letters being on subjects of considerable importance; the advice given in them, with respect to the Paftoral Care, having been found practicable, (especially in Country-Parishes ;) and which was the refult of his own experience and obfervation.

To you, SIR, I am inclined, from various motives, to INSCRIBE these Letters of our common Friend; which you will be pleased to confider as a Testimony