........... In a Roman mouth the graceful name
of prophet and of poet was the same:
Hence British poets too the priesthood shard,
And every hallowed Druid was a barde
But no prophetic fires to me belong,
I play with syllables and sport in song.....Cowper.

NEW YORK:

PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR, AND SOLD BY GRIFFIN

AND RUDD, 189 GREENWICH-STREET.

District of New-York, ss. ( 1. s. )

BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the 19th day of August, in the

thirty-seventh year of the Independence of the United States of America, Joshua Marsden, Missionary, of the said District, bath deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as Author, in the words and figures following, to wit:

“ Leisure Hours; Or Poems, Moral, Religious, and Descriptive. By Joshus Marsden, Missionary."

..............In a Roman mouth the graceful name
of prophet and of poet was the same:
Hence British poets tvo the priesthood shar'd,
And every hallowed Druid was a bard.
But no prophetic fires to me belong,

I play with syllables and sport in song....Cowper. In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled * An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the time therein mentioned." And also to an Act, entitled “ An Act, supplementary to an Act, entitled an Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints."

CHARLES CLINTON,
Olerk of the District of New York.

gia
Tappan Presb. Assor,
1-22-1933

A

BRIEF MEMOIR

OF THE

AUTHOR'S LIFE.

WHENEVER any particular subject affords us either profit or pleasure, we are sometimes induced to inquire to whom we are indebted for the satisfaction we have felt, or the benefit we have received. But the author of these little effusions, has hardly the vanity to think they will afford much of either, save to his friends, who may admit his sincerity, and make candid allow. ance for his deficiencies. However, as his present friends are not acquainted with his past life, he deems it on the one hand a duty, and on the other a pleasure, to furnish them with such an outline as may, at least, expand their hearts with gratitude to God, and love to the bleeding Reconciler, for his boundless grace to the chief of sin.

ners.

I was born in the year 1777, on the pleasant banks of the river Mercey, near Liverpool in England; my father, though descended from a good family, was at

that time a poor man, having wasted, through want of economy, a competent patrimonial inheritance; but I forbear blame. My mother, who descended from Scottish parents, was a woman of high spirits, mixed with some fear of God. I had one brother and a sister, both older than myself. But alas ! family religion we had none : it is true, my father attended the established church, and read the word of God every Sabbath-evening in the family. My mother, who had more light, though as little, or perhaps less, true piety than my father, was nevertheless solicitous to instruct her children, at least by her precepts, in the fear of the Lord. She taught us to pray, and would reprove and correct us for doing wrong; but not being acquainted with the way of God herself, she could not lead our minds into the divine path. From my infant years the Holy Spirit darted some scintillations of heavenly light into my mind; but my disposition, ardent, passionate, and thoughtless, plunged me into a variety of boyish vices; hence I paid but little attention either to my book, my duty, or my parents, except while the rod of parental authority was brandished over my head.

When I was twelve years old, my mother became deeply awakened, and roused to a lively concern for the salvation of her soul, by reading that solemn book, Alleine's Alarm to the Unconverted. She immediately went to a pious minister of the establishment, was by him more fully instructed in the way of the Lord, joined