The following letters, written at the earnest request of a truly benevolent lady, by the first penitent who was received into the Magdalen Hospital, now make their appearance in print.

            They have many years been read with pleasure and entertainment by the circle of that lady's acquaintance, and by many of them thought worthy of the public eye. It is presumed their authenticity will not invalidate them in the opinion of that public, to whom they are now candidly submitted, and it may at least be presumed, they will afford equal entertainment, with the generality of the books of amusement, which have lately been published; at least they will be found on perusal to inculcate that necessary caution, which the younger part of the fair sex, confessedly stand so much in need of.

            The reality of a tale of woe, and of the greatest distress, it must be owned affects us much more sensibly, than that which we know to be fictitious:–or in the words of an elegant periodical writer,

            "Our passions are therefore more strongly moved, in proportion as we can more readily adopt the pains or pleasure proposed to our minds, by recognising them at once our own, or considering them as naturally incident to our own state of life.

            "Those parallel circumstances, and kindred images, to which we readily conform our minds, are, above all other writings, to be found in narratives of the lives of particular persons; and therefore no species of writing seems more worthy of cultivation, since none can be more delightful or more useful, none can more certainly enchain the heart by irresistible interest, or more widely diffuse instruction to every diversity of condition.

            "I have often," says he "thought that there has rarely passed a life of which a judicious and a faithful narrative would not be useful; for, not only every person has, in the mighty mass of the world, great numbers in, or possibly may be in the same condition with themselves, and to whom the mistakes and miscarriages, escapes and expedients, would be of immediate caution or apparent use, but there is such an uniformity in the state of man, if it be considered apart from adventitious and separable decorations and disguises, that there is scarce any possibility of good or ill, but is common to human kind. A great part of the time of those who are placed at the greatest distance by fortune, or by temper, must unavoidably pass in the same manner; and though, when the claims of nature are satisfied, caprice, vanity, and accident begin to produce discriminations and peculiarities, yet the eye is not very heedful, or quick, which cannot discover the same causes still terminating their influence in the same effects, though sometimes accelerated, sometimes retarded, or perplexed by multiplied combinations. We are all prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure."

            The authentic narrative, or history which is here submitted to the public, is the history of one of those unhappy women, who would have continued virtuous and innocent, blameless and easy, but for the arts and insinuations, of one whose rank and fortune furnished him with means to corrupt and delude her. Let the libertine reflect a moment on the situation of that woman, who being forsaken by her betrayer, is reduced to the necessity of turning prostitute for bread, and judge of the enormity of his guilt by the evils which it produces. It cannot be doubted that numbers have and do follow, this dreadful course of life, in the same manner she herself experienced, with shame, horror, and regret; but where can they hope for refuge? "The world is not their friend, nor the world's law." Their sighs and tears and groans, are criminal in the eye of their tyrants, the bully, and the bawd; who fatten on their misery, and threaten them with want or a gaol, if they show the least design of escaping from their bondage.

            She was the first who by an immediate application, on the opening the humane, the laudable, the benevolent institution of the Magdalen Hospital, convinced the world, that there needed only a place of refuge for such a number of unhappy and miserable creatures, to impel them to an early application, before a long course of libertinism had taken such entire hold of their minds, as to render every virtuous effort abortive. What pity it is, that so useful an institution, is not made more general, by larger donations, and more universally subscribed to: but the novelty of the undertaking being at an end, it continues to dispense its salutary effects, under its original limitations, but under those limitations it has been, and continues to be the means, under the blessings of the almighty, of relieving great numbers of unhappy females from wretchedness, want and misery, and of placing them once more in the world, as useful members of society. This would eventually have been seen in the history of the Magdalen before us, who though the first received into its charitable foundation, is not the only instance that can be produced, of having afterwards rose to an elevated rank in life; the particulars of which it is not permitted us to relate.

            Let the youthful mind of both sexes, have ever in contemplation: "That we rise in the morning of youth, full of vigour and full of expectation, we set forward with spirit and hope, with gaiety and with diligence; and travel on a while in the straight road of piety towards the mansion of rest. In a short time we remit our fervour and endeavour to find some mitigation of our duty and some more easy means of obtaining the same end

            "We then relax our vigour, and resolve no longer to be terrified with crimes at a distance, but rely upon our own constancy, and venture to approach what we resolve never to touch. We thus enter the bowers of ease, and repose in the shades of security. Here the heart softens, and vigilance subsides; we are then willing to enquire whether another advance cannot be made; and whether we may not, at least, turn our eye upon the gardens of pleasure. We approach them with scruple and hesitation: we enter them, but enter timorous and trembling, and always hope to pass through them without losing the road of virtue, which we for a while keep in our sight, and to which we purpose to return. But temptation succeeds temptation, and one compliance prepares us for another; we in time lose the happiness of innocence, and solace our disquiet in sensual gratifications. By degrees we let fall the remembrance of our original intention, and quit the only adequate object of rational desire. We entangle ourselves in vice, immerge ourselves in luxury, and rove through the labyrinths of inconstancy, till the darkness of old age begins to invade us, and disease and anxiety obstruct our way. We then look back upon our lives with horror, with sorrow, with repentance; and wish, but too often vainly wish, that we had not forsaken the ways of virtue. Happy are they, who shall learn from such examples not to despair, but shall remember, like the penitent, the particulars of whose early life is here depicted; that though the day is past, and strength is wasted, there yet remains one effort to be made; that reformation is never hopeless, nor sincere endeavours ever unassisted, that the wanderer may at length return after every error, and that they who implore strength and courage from above, shall find danger and difficulty give way before them, Go then, my child, commit thyself to the care of omnipotence, and when the morning calls again to toil, begin anew thy journey and thy life."

            The lady who is the subject of the following sheets, (for kind providence has now raised her to an elevated rank in life) availed herself of this admirable lesson; and though it will from her own relation appear, that she passed some years a drudge of extortion and the sport of drunkenness; sometime the property of one man, and sometimes the common prey of accidental lewdness; at one time tricked up for sale by the mistress of a brothel, at another begging in the streets to relieve from hunger and wretchedness herself and a beloved infant, without any reflections at night, but such as guilt and terror impress upon such wretched and unhappy creatures, yet if those who pass their days in plenty and security, could visit for an hour the dismal receptacles, to which the prostitute retires from her nocturnal excursions, and see the wretches that lie crowded together, mad with intemperance, ghastly with famine, nauseous with filth, and noisome with disease: it would not be easy for any degree of abhorrence, to harden them against compassion, or to repress the desire which they must immediately feel, and like the patron of this once wretched female, attempt to rescue such of their fellow human creatures, from a state so miserably dreadful.

            To restore them to peace and virtue, and render them not only happy in themselves, but make them, as members, again useful to society.

Prev Next