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    ^ Tig hten the boy into penitence , * ' the expedient was devised of procuring a child about the size of the one murdered * and similar in

    feature and drexs , whom two clergymen unexpectedly led between ti'em , hi ; the hands , into the celly where he laid sulkily chained to ike p-round . ' Good heavens ! A

    gho .-t scene , to terrify the dying joung wretch ! A child dragged into a goal ? to carry on a cruel imposture ! Clergymen acting ( literally so , ) in a condemned cell , the part of *! All this in England , in the nineteenth * century !—•——The effect of this scheme ( worthy of inquisitors ' )

    oa the prisoner , may be easily conceived , * On the approach of the clergymen with the child , Jie started , and seemed so completely terrified that he trembled every limb , cold drops of sweat profusely falling from him ^ and was almost momentarily in such

    a dreadful state of dotation , that he entreated the clergy ma n " ( the cheat being no doubt discovered , ) "to continue with him , and from that instant became as contrite and penitent as he had before been callous and insensible .

    Jn this happy transition he remained till his execution on Monday morning the 13 th July , having fully confessed his crime and implored by fervent prayer the forgiveness of his sins from a merciful God . " ^ The artifice thus succeeded

    the boy was converted by a conspiracy ; and the clfcrgy and magistrates of Wisbeach have the

    "featistaciion of reflecting that in their wisdom and through their dexterity they sent a lad , hardly u \ rived at years of understanding ,

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    out of the world in a fright ! Fq * my part , I confess that I regard this imposture , considering all the circunistances attending it , the time , the place , the years of the criminal , and the agents in it a child and two clergymen , with not less horror than the murder itself which put the boy in the power of the Wisbeach

    clergy . They it may \ ye said devised the plot in mercy ; but this is only an additional proof of what requires not to be provedthat the tender mercies of zealots

    are cruel . Had the boy died under the hands of these spiritual operators , on whose head would the guilt of ipurdpr have rested most heavily ? The attempt to convert a sinner by ^ virtual lie is one of the abominable artifices of the basest

    fanaticism ; and it is possible that the two clergymen , as they are called in the account I have made use of , were no other than two of the vagrant enthusiasts , who under pretences of divine inspiration have infested certain parts of the country , to the terror of

    women and Children , and the grief of sober Christians of all parties ; and that the story was intended , particular and minute as it is , to expose the inhumanity and folly of . the methodistic practice of shaking dying men otcr the pit of hell ) in order to save them from falling into it .

    You have , I perceive ^ correspondents in Wisbeacb . I ear * nesily entreat their attention to this communication , and beg of them to inform me whether the facts as quoted from the XqwAn . Keg . did really take place . If that should prove to be the case

    • Your readers will fill up this blank , remembering that the spirits vvho usually : attend dyin $ sinners , are ( according to Mr . Hervey , ) «• not beneficent angels . "

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    $ 8-4 Gogmagogf * Ani ? nadt ) ersions on a horrid clerical Faroe *

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1808, page 384, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2394/page/32/