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MRS. HANNAH MORE.

MADAM,

WHEN I was informed by a mutual Friend, whose worth you have long known, that I might venture to place at the head of the following Discourses, a name ever to be cherished in the annals of the Redeemer's Kingdom, I was somewhat encouraged to present them to the public eye; feeling secure that they would at least be considered as containing nothing which would tend to injure that cause to which your Life and Talents have been so successfully devoted, and that, possibly, they might serve, in some humble degree, to promote it. Most of them were delivered while I was prosecuting in Paris, under the

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auspices of the venerable Abbè Sicard and his interesting Pupil Clere, my present fellow-labourer, the object of qualifying myself to instruct an unfortunate and too long neglected portion of my countrymen, the Deaf and Dumb. Several of your Nation and my own, taught in their own lands to hallow the Sabbath of the Lord, felt a desire to do this in the splendid and voluptuous City where they had assembled, as their surest safeguard against its fascinating seductions; and, at the request of this little flock of Strangers, I became their temporary Preacher in the Chapel of the Oratoire, to which we were very kindly allowed access.

You were once pleased, Madam, to express a lively interest in the object which carried me to Europe, and it may afford you some pleasure to know, that it has so far been crowned with the smiles of a kind Providence, that within the course of six months after the commencement of the Asylum with which I am connected, it has begun to impart its benefit to thirty pupils.

In such a sphere of action, I shall deem myself truly happy in being made the instrument of leading one immortal mind to that Saviour in whose service your labours have been blessed with such a rich harvest of success. That He may long continue this your extensive usefulness, and shed upon your declining days the choicest consolations of His presence and His grace, is, Madam, the earnest prayer of one, who, with thousands of his Countrymen, has long been taught to venerate your name and character.

THE AUTHOR.

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