Page:Life and prophecies of Mr Alex. Peden (1).pdf/22

22 audience to be liberal in giving alms for the support of the helpless persons he had there collected together. Among his constant hearers was one Mrs——, the wife of a brewer, in a small line of business, who had some difficulty to provide funds for carrying on his affairs without embarrassment. He had no time to attend the daily harangues of this ghostly orator; nor was he much pleased with the time his wife spent on these occasions, and far less with the demands she sometimes made upon him for money to be given for charitable purposes. This diversity of opinion between the man and wife sometimes produced family discord: And while the lady believed the divine was little less than an angel from heaven, the husband considered him as no better than a thief or a pick-pocket, who, under false pretences, induced simple people to throw away upon others, the means that were necessary for the subsistence of their families: nor was he, when heated in the contest, and chagrined at times for want of money, at all times scrupulous in expressing without reserve his opinion of this supposed saint. The wife, who was of a warm disposition, though not destitute of sense at bottom, was much irritated at these reflections, and thinking they proceeded from worldly-mindedness of her husband, felt a strong inclination to indulge her own propensity to benevolence by every means that should fall in her way. To get money from her husband avowedly for this purpose, she knew was impossible; but she resolved to take it when she could find an opportunity for that purpose. While she was in this frame of mind, her husband, one morning while he was writing at his desk, was suddenly called away, and, intending to return directly, did not close his desk. His wife thought this too favourable an opportunity to be missed; and opening the scruitoir where she knew the money was kept, she found about