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TO THE

PRESIDENTS,

VICE-PRESIDENTS,

AND OTHER

GOVERNORS

Of those well-intended Charities, and benef cent Inftitutions

The Afylum-Mifericordia-Magdalene-and Lock-Hofpital.

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HE AUTHOR of the following Treatife cannot fix on a more proper patronage for a work of this kind, than that of those noble and honourable perfons, whose compaffion on the miseries of the female fex, has led them to inftitute public charities for its prefervation

and relief.

As our laws are at prefent framed, women are exposed to seduction, prostitution, and ruin, almost without controul ;

--they

-they feem to be looked upon as lawful prey to the luft, treachery, cruelty, and mean artifices of licentious and profligate men, who can feduce and then abandon them at their will.

That a want of good government among us in these respects, is one source of all thofe evils, which your difinterefted and humane endeavours are intended to prevent or remedy, is furely apparent on the flightest confideration.

A fyftem of laws which leaves the horrid crime of adultery not only out of the lift of its capital punishments, but even exempts it, as a public offence, from any animadverfion whatsoever in our courts of criminal judicature, must be attended with all those mischiefs that arife from the encouragement which impunity affords to vice.

The fame may also be obferved, with respect to the defencelefs ftate, in which the weaker fex in general is left against the fronger; fo that any man may feduce,

3

...and

and abandon at his pleasure, the unhappy and deluded objects of his brutal appetite.

To exhibit a system far different from this to fet forth the divine law as the contrivance of infinite wisdom, for the security, peace, preservation, and protection of the female fex, is the purpose of the following pages.-Were this to be made the bafis of our municipal laws, it would prove an adequate remedy for all those mischiefs, which, in comparatively few inftances, can now only find a partial palliation, from benevolence like yours, but which must, in general, be ftill the portion of thofe, whom God's law formed to protect.

Many of you, my LORDS and GENTLEMEN, are members of the LEGISLATURE; and if, from what fhall be faid on the matters treated in this book, they should become the fubjects of your ferious confideration in your legislative capacity, the author will gain one desirable end of his labours.

VOL. I.

This

This furely muft be allowed-that, in point of fact, the alarming increase of female proftitution and ruin, calls loudly for fome remedy: the felf-evidence of this, is the very foundation of those benevolent designs, which distinguish the several public charities to which you fo generously contribute.

Let Government adopt the fyftem of heavenly wisdom, which adorns the pages of the SACRED VOLUME, and it will find a remedy in its own hands-what that fyftem is, it has been the author's moft ferious endeavour to enquire, and to recommend it to all, but more especially to the confideration of thofe, whofe care, expence, and vigilance, for the good of their fellow-creatures, has occafioned them the trouble of this address from

Their moft humble fervant,

And ardent well-wisher to their good defigns,

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

TH

HE fubjects of the following treatife, being of the utmost importance, have been confidered with the most serious attention, and are laid before the reader on the highest authority, that is to fay, on the authority of the holy fcriptures.

Nothing less than this ought, or can, determine on the points herein treated, because they concern, not only the prefent, but future welfare of mankind: thefe, as taken in connection together, must depend, first, on knowing, and then on doing the will of GOD. What His will is, can only be known from the feveral revelations, or difcoveries, which it hath graciously pleafed Him to make of it, by men, who fpake not of themselves, but as they were moved by the Holy Ghoft. 2 Pet. i. 21.

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