The Principles of Courtesy - With Hints and Observations on Manners and Habits #227454

The author is not aware that any work of this kind, ih tended for the perusal of Christians in general, has hitherto been attempted. He has happened to enter what is, in some sort, untravelled territory: for while some writers have touched upon it here and there, none have gone far beyond the secular customs of polished society. He has one time or another read many of the works on manners, which have been written during the last four hundred years, and knows not how widely they may have diffused their spirit over these pages. Two or three of them have afforded him direct aid: yet the work is substantially the result of independent observation and thought. Many of the following rules were suggested while studying the sacred statutes and the Observances of primitive believers. Some very valuable precepts, however, have been derived from contemporary examples of courtesy, who, while they were unaffected-1y obeying the refined dictates of evan gelical love, were unwittingly furnishing matter for these pages.