A Gift for Children. [Two lines from John]

The second edition of this catechism and collection of moralistic tales designed for the benefit of children and printed by a Connecticut Baptist Minister. It was assembled “by the ministers of the blessed Redeemer,” likely in Norwich, with the hope that those who read it would be “a blessing to your parents…useful and happy on earth…and…go to dwell in heaven.” The tales include a “Story of the Two Cocks,” “The Lamb,” and “The Story of a Young Cottager.”

Printer John Sterry (1766–1823) was a pastor of the Baptist Church of Norwich, Connecticut. Born in Providence, as a young man he studied at Brown University and had given his “undivided attention to the study of mathematics…at…18 with his brother the late Consider Sterry [he] had printed and published a work titled the American Youth [Being a System of Arithmetic and Algebra, in Two Books], which…gave the strongest marks of genius” ("Obituary”). During the 1780s, Sterry taught mathematics and natural philosophy in Providence. By the 1790s he had established himself in Norwich, where he and Consider also published numerous hymns, sermons, and orations throughout the turn of the century. John became a pastor in 1800 but due to the poverty of his church he continued to operate his bookshop. It was evidently quite successful, as the Sterrys regularly advertised their need for apprentices and “sheep and lamb skins suitable for bookbinding” (”Wanted”). 

Unlike the first edition published in 1796, this edition is particularly scarce, with only two institutional holdings, one at the Harry Ransom Center and the other held by the American Antiquarian Society.

REFERENCES: Evans 49075; Welch 435.2; “Obituary,” Norwich Courier (Connecticut), November 12, 1823; “Wanted,” Connecticut GAZETTE (New London, Connecticut), March 23, 1797; “Sterry, John,” at McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia online.