ended his preaching no more. I
had some years before compos'd a little Liturgy, or form of prayer, for
my own private use (viz., in 1728), entitled, Articles of Belief and
Acts of Religion. I return'd to the use of this, and went no more to
the public assemblies. My conduct might be blameable, but I leave it,
without attempting further to excuse it; my present purpose being to
relate facts, and not to make apologies for them.

It was about this time I conceiv'd the bold and arduous project of
arriving at moral perfection. I wish'd to live without committing any
fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination,
custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew,
what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the
one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of
more difficulty than I bad imagined. While my care was employ'd in
guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit
took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong
for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative
conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous, was not
sufficient to prevent our slipping; and that the contrary habits must
be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have
any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. For this
purpose I therefore contrived the following method.

In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my
reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different
writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance,
for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by
others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure,
appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our
avarice and ambition. I propos'd to myself, for the sake of clearness,
to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annex'd to each, than a few
names with more ideas; and I included under thirteen names of virtues
all that at that time occurr'd to me as necessary or desirable, and
annexed to each a short precept, which fully express'd the extent I
gave to its meaning.

These names of virtues, with their precepts, were:

1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid
trifling conversation.

3. ORDER.