Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/192

176 modern, if not ancient, literature; but who are certainly impostors in just the same degree as they assume more than they know.

All those pretenders cheat ou out of every mouthful you permit them to devour; out of every shilling you may advance them by way of loan, or as payment for you own or your childrens' improvement, (if the becoming mere jargonists be improvement.) There is too much of argument in all our conversations, male and female, now-a-days, in consequence; and those were the sources of the hateful use of question and answer in the commonest occurrences of life.

Fellows who, without any previous preparation, or even the laying on of hands (so much vaunted) contrive to ingratiate themselves into the good graces of the daughters, wives, and widows of our more wealthy citizens, who would fain persuade you (as they have persuaded themselves) that their mission is from above, whereas nothing is better known, than that some few of them had pretty extensive dealings below. Every one must have heard of the Reverend John Church! Here I hope the truly pious clergyman will