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THE

VISITOR.

By SEVERAL HANDS.

Published by

WILLIAM DODD, M. A.
Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

Printed for EDWARD and CHARLES DILLY,
in the Poultry, near the Manfion-House.

M.DCC.LXIV.

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THE

VISITOR.

NUMBER XLIII.

In religion

What damned Error, but fome fober brow
Will blefs it, and approve it with a text,
Hiding its groffness with fair ornament!

SHAKESPEAR.

SIR,

A$

To the VISITOR.

S you appear to be a gentleman of humanity, as well as to have a regard for the honour of religion; I have not the leaft doubt, but you will give a place to my melancholy tale, in your excellent paper; which, I hope, may prove of great service to mankind. At least it will tend to display the pernicious tendency of fome religious principles, which are daily propagated with the utmost zeal and affiduity; propagated amongst the lower class of the people, where they are certainly moft dangerous and deftructive; and where the more they prevail, the more must licentiousness prevail; and every foVOL. II.

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cial and moral duty be neglected. Sir, I speak, by woeful experience. I fpeak with an aching heart, a weeping eye, and a trembling hand. And I speak truth, which is not to be controverted, and which I am ready at any time to atteft in the most folemn manner. Not long fince, ftrong in health, and found in mind, I was able to fulfil the bufinefs of my station, and to get my bread with chearfulness and peace: I had a wife, very dear to me; beloved children around me; a comfortable house to receive me, and content to foften my pillow. But now, alas! afflicted even beyond the affliction of Job. —I am deprived of each, of all these! My body is diftracted with an intolerable nervous diforder; and I have no reft night or day my mind is in torments infinitely more dreadful than those I endure in body, though they are intenfe, and without intermiffion; I am no longer able to get my bread, but languish in poverty and diftress: I have no wife to comfort me, fhe has abandoned me in my fore calamity; and with her I have no children are gone: my where to hide my head; my goods have been feized by the cruelty of her, who ought to have been my comforter ; and as I am not a native of this kingdom, (where the poor may remain unnoticed, in the most exquisite fufferings for ever,)-I have neither friend nor counfellor ; nor any to alleviate; though I have many to ag

gravate

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