PREFACE.

THIS Volume is an offering to the cause of religion and literature. Mrs. HALL occupied a wide space in the eye of numerous literary friends, and of such also as were eminently endowed with spiritual graces. She was admired and beloved for her intellectual qualities, and the bland influence of her unostentatious piety.

Although her pen was always busy in familiar correspondence, and in contributions to the leading literary periodicals of her day, she published but one volume,-the "Conversations on the Bible." The merit of this work (a duodecimo of 365 pages) has already carried it through four

large editions, the third of which was published in London, with eminent success.

Pleasing recollections of the rare genius and great worth of Mrs. Hall, induced her friends frequently to ask for a volume, composed chiefly of her unpublished papers, and accompanied with at least a brief Memoir of her Life. It is the aim of the present work to respond to this twofold requisition.

All those who had the happiness to associate with Mrs. Hall, in the circle of domestic life, or in society, will discover in this volume some of her characteristic traits. The great variety of subjects recalls her versatility of talent. The many changes of the style in composition, each costume appropriate to its purpose, display her happy faculty of adaptation. And the frequent, sudden interchange of topic, from the serious to the sprightly, (although here a casual result,) is expressive of the ease with she was known to pass

“From grave to gay, from lively to severe.”

While she lived, it was her happiness thus to please and edify, entwining entertainment with instruction, the flowers of literature with the evergreen of piety. In the memory of her friends, this is her wreath of honour, formed by her own hands. Among the gifted women of America she is surely entitled to appear crowned with her own appropriate wreath.

THE PUBLISHer.

MEMOIR

OF THE

LIFE OF MRS. SARAH HALL.

MRS. SARAH HALL, was born at Philadelphia, on the 30th of October, 1761. She was the daughter of the Rev. John Ewing, D.D., who was for many years, Provost of the University of Pennsyl vania, and Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, at Philadelphia; and was herself a lady of distinguished talents and attainments. Having been brought up during the troublesome times of the Revolution, and when it was not customary to bestow much cultivation upon the female mind, she enjoyed few of those advantages in early life which are now within the reach of young ladies. She was carefully initiated into all the arcana of household duties, by a mother, who was remarkable for the prudence and activity, with which she ma