the afternoon, because they have no time on any other. By precept and example, they ought to be encouraged to it from their very infancy: the wilful neglect of it ought to be counted scandalous; and if downright compulsion to what I urge might seem too harsh, and perhaps impracticable, all diversions at least ought strictly to be prohibited, and the poor hindered from every amusement abroad, that might allure or draw them from it." If the arguments I have made use of are not convincing, I desire they may be refuted, and I will acknowledge it as a favour in any one that shall convince me of my error, without ill language, by showing me wherein I have been mistaken: but calumny, it seems, is the shortest way of confuting an adversary, when men are touched in a sensible part. Vast sums are gathered for these charity schools, and I understand human nature too well to imagine, that the sharers of the money should hear them spoke against with any patience. I foresaw, therefore, the usage I was to receive, and having repeated the common cant that is made for charity schools, I told my readers, page 165. "This is the general cry, and he that speaks the least word against it, is an uncharitable, hard-hearted, and inhuman, if not a wicked, profane and atheistical wretch." For this reason, it cannot be thought, that it was a great surprise to me, when in that extraordinary letter to Lord C. I saw myself called "profligate author; the publication of my tenets, an open and avowed proposal to extirpate the Christian faith and all virtue, and what I had done so stunning, so shocking, so frightful, so flagrant an enormity, that it cried for the vengeance of Heaven." This is no more than what I have already expected from the enemies to truth and fair dealing, and I shall retort nothing on the angry author of that letter, who endeavours to expose me to the public fury. I pity him, and have charity enough to believe that he has been imposed upon himself, by trusting to fame and the hearsay of others; for no man in his wits can imagine that he should have read one quarter part of my book, and write as he does.