soon engraved, at the Doctor’s expense, and thousands of them printed and sent into the world. And what harm did this do me? but send crowds to hear me preach, who filled the chapel so much, that we were obliged to look out for a much larger place. The infamy of this notorious character being so fully known, his palpable falsehoods respecting my visiting his infamous house, were discredited by any reasonable being; and as his testimony would not be taken in a court of justice, there was no reason why it should be taken in the courts of the Lord’s house. I relieved him from the purest motives of benevolence, as I have many hundreds beside, who are living witnesses of it. I acknowledge I have not been so discriminating in my acts of beneficence as I ought to have been: but I could never bear to send away empty from my door the petitioner for relief, whether good or bad, if I could relieve them, remembering, the advice and example of our Divine Lord, _Acts_ xx. 35. And as to impositions, those who are kind to the poor must always expect it, both in the church and in the world. And if the most _knowing_ of the benevolent are so often duped, you cannot wonder at my meeting with such characters; for it is a well-known truth, that if there is a flat in the world, a sharper will find him out: and, supposing my holy enemies to have acted from the very best motives, it their searching out my supposed faults, in doing so have they acted agreeable to the holy law of God, or to any of the precepts of the New Testament? I believe not. If it was criminal in my relieving a bad character with one guinea, {90} was it not more criminal in my persecutors to relieve him with forty guineas; or to put themselves to the vast expense of supplying whole columns of trash, pregnant with falsehoods, for the “Weekly Dispatch.” But you know this sort of conduct is pretended zeal for that very law that curses them for their hypocrisy.—Farewell. From Christ my mercies flow, In pearly drops they fall; Lord give a thankful bosom to The sweetest pearl of all. LETTER XVIII. “He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.” To —