A plan for establishing a charity-house, or charity-houses, for the reception of repenting prostitutes. To be called the Magdalen Charity / [Anon].

  • Jonas Hanway
Date:
[1758]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A plan for establishing a charity-house, or charity-houses, for the reception of repenting prostitutes. To be called the Magdalen Charity / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/80
    C via ] will men, who pretend to believe in him, be idle fpedators of the vio¬ lation of it? Or, (hall he offer conditions of pardon, and we not counte¬ nance and recommend fuch conditions ? How melancholly is the fituation of that chriftian country where vaft numbers of the common people have worn off all fenfe of their religion, and adopted notions and cufloms which Mahommed would have been afhamed of. Indeed there appears to be fuch a negled of this divine prohibition, that the word of God feems to be of no effeSt. Is there not reafon to fear from hence, that the facred records in general, will grow into contempt ? Is there any better authority for Thou fait not murder, than that Thou fait not commit adultery ? Vice is now become fo cheap, and the fpirit of modefty at fo low an ebb, among the common people, that it is hard to fay how far thefe ads of uncleannefs may be carried ; nor what mifchiefs they may produce. As wifdom begins with the fear of God, the want of this fear has in¬ troduced fuch ignorance, that many feem to have loft all fenfe of their duty, particularly in this article of incontinency. Let us then try if we can pre¬ vent, at leaft fome of the calamitous effeds of this excefs, in which both the fexes, and the virtuous as well as the vicious, are too frequently involved. \ It feems to be acknowledged, that the common people, inhabitants of London, are more abandoned than their fore-fathers were; and among the higher claffes many refinements in vice, and methods of carrying on the trade of lufi, are introduced, to which our anceftors were ftrangers. It is granted, that the propofed Magdalen-Houfe may be fubjed to fome abufes: but is there a ftngle charity but what is in fome meafure aftually abufed ? Whoever {hall argue from hence that there fhould be no public charities, will expofe himfelf to be ftoned to death as an enemy to religion and