Transcribed from the 1823 R. Weston edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org [Picture: Public domain book cover] THE FOUNDLING; OR, THE CHILD OF PROVIDENCE. In Two Parts. * * * * * WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. “He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness: he led him about; he instructed him; he kept him as the apple of his eye.” DEUTERONOMY xxxii. v. 10. * * * * * London: PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, AND SOLD AT THE SURREY TABERNACLE. 1823. * * * * * R. WESTON, PRINTER, CROSBY ROW, BOROUGH. * * * * * INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE. _Investigator and Friendly_. INVESTIGATOR.—Good morning, sir. FRIENDLY.—Good morning. INVESTIGATOR.—How is your health, and your mind? FRIENDLY.—Why, sir, much as usual; God has blessed me with tolerable health and spirits, which I consider great mercies, amidst so many exercises of body and mind: I am, at times, weak in my nerves, but most wonderfully upheld, and sometimes dejected in mind, through the variety of inward and outward conflicts which God has given to me, to be exercised with beneath the sun: both body and mind are affected with the fretting leprosy, and though often healed by a look from the Great High Priest, and by the application of his all-cleansing sacrifice, and the oil of his comforting and sanctifying spirit; yet the plague frequently breaks out again, and it will be the case, I suppose, till this leprous house is pulled down, the stone, the timber and the mortar, and carried to the grave.—_Leviticus_, xiv. But may I be permitted to ask the reason of your calling this morning? INVESTIGATOR.—Why, sir, I hope I am not intruding on your time, but I have long desired an interview with you; for having occasion to travel much, for many years, I have frequently heard your name mentioned, both in public and private, sometimes with credit, honour, and pleasure with pity and commiseration. I have also met with some persons who are, I believe, very spiritual and consistent, God-fearing persons, who have heard you preach, both in town and country, and read your publications with profit and pleasure; but, alas! I have also heard your name treated with the utmost scorn and contempt, stigmatized as the vilest miscreant, the most abominable wretch, advancing the most dreadful antinomianism, living the most dissolute life, and as industriously circulating the most licentious doctrines, _totally subversive of all morality and common honesty_.