The first known published source of the comic-inspirational story of a pack of cards being used as a prompt to Christian prayer is “Of a Pack of Cards” in Brett's Miscellany by Peter Brett, 1748, p. 27. In Brett's rendition, a servant, accused by his master of playing card games, tells how he uses the deck for religious meditation. By 1762, the protagonist had changed to a soldier. This version was recorded on April 20, 1762, by Mary Bacon, the wife of a British farmer, in the family's account and common-place book; see Mary Bacon's World: A Farmer's Wife in Eighteenth-Century Hampshire, by Ruth Facer, 2010.