The Obelisk Parson, John Church, was found, when an infant, on the steps, or near the porch, of a church, (some say that of St. Andrew, in Holborn): and the overseers of the parish not being able to discover who were his parents, or by whom he was thus abandoned, had him sent to the Foundling Hospital, where he received that name, which bears the nearest analogy to the place near which he was found. Here he remained until he was nine years old, when a complaint to the Governors having been made against him by the nurses, that he was addicted to improper and disgusting practices, it was thought prudent to apprentice him out at that early age, to obviate the possibility of the contagion spreading among the rest of the boys who partook of the bounties of that charity. From his evident illiteracy, and from the badness of his writing, it is certain that he must have quitted the Hospital at an earlier age than usual, because, in general, none leave it who are not good scholars. He was accordingly placed out as an apprentice to a gilder, in Black friars’ Road. Before the expiration of his indenture, he was married to his present wife, and he quitted the service of his master. Shortly afterwards, he worked for a composition ornament maker, in Tottenham Court Road. This immaculate Minister of the Gospel here commenced his religious career, and, under the assumed garb of sanctity, took upon him the office of a teacher to the Sunday School, at that time established at Tottenham-Court Chapel. It was here too, that he first became acquainted with Mr. William Webster, who has been under the necessity of holding him to bail, to appear at the next Middlesex Sessions, where an indictment will be preferred against him for attempts too shocking to be related in print. Thinking that preaching was a better trade than that which he was employed in, this _precious_ teacher, together with two other young men, who were candidates for the gown also, hired a garret in Soho, where they used to learn the method of addressing themselves to a congregation. An old chair was the substitute for a pulpit. He now began (to use his own expression,) “_to gammon the old women_.”—Good fortune happened at length to procure him the notice of Old Mother Barr, of Orange-street, who, being interested in his behalf, allowed him the use of a room of her’s, in which he treated her and a few other choice labourers in the field of piety, with his rapturous discourses. From this he used to hold forth more publicly. His virtues and acquirements now recommended him to one Garrett of notorious memory, who obtained him a _living_ at Banbury. It was at this place that he first became obnoxious. Having made several violent attempts upon some young men while at that place, he was