Before Practical Christianity came out in 1797 Hannah More had published a series of incomparable statements of political Christianity in defending her country against the destructions of the French Revolution. This was a signal service to the great cause, and to the nation if her friends were right in considering her the chief agency in checking the flood of philosophy, infidelity and disrespect for inherited privilege that poured fearfully across the Channel from 1790 on.

The honour of raising Mrs More's pen to this task was Bishop Porteus's. In casting about for means of combating that tide of evil he struck on the idea of some cheap literature that would urge piety and subordination in an attractive form suitable to the people. It occurred to him that Hannah More was peculiarly qualified to write such works because of her knowledge of the inferior orders gained in the Somerset schools.