Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1831, by

JONATHAN LEAVITT, in the Office of the Clerk of
the Southern District of New-York.

R. & G. S. WOOD, PRINTERS, 265 PEARL-STREET.

INTRODUCTION.

THE Author of the following pages is a stranger to the American Churches: and should this brief notice of his work introduce it to some by whom it might otherwise remain unknown, the subscriber will feel that he has performed an act of kindness, not to the writer alone, but to the readers of this interesting volume. The subject of which it treats is presented in a manner unusually attractive. If it does not in every instance animadvert upon fashionable amusements with unsparing severity, the attentive reader will find in the end, that the author is no apologist for the arguments by which they have usually been defended. There is a candour and ingenuousness in his discussion, which may perhaps prejudice a few, but which will commend the work to others, by whom, but for this circumstance, it would probably be neglected. Christian parents and Christian families would do well to be familiar with this little volume. They will find no intemperate zeal, no railing and invective, in these pages; but a dispassionate and courteous investigation of the true tendency of customs so unfavourable to the cultivation of piety. Our children and youth are naturally far enough