ild was not
at its full growth, for which they have a hidden reserve; that is to
say, the child was not at man's or woman's growth. Thus do these impious
wretches cheat the world, and damn their own souls by a double meaning,
which too often imposes on a cautious, merciful, and credulous jury, and
gives wicked murderers means to escape and commit fresh sins, to which
their acquitters, no doubt, are accessory.

I wonder so many men of sense as have been on the jury have been so
often imposed upon by the stale pretence of a scrap or two of child-bed
linen being found in the murderer's box, &c.; when, alas! perhaps, it
was never put there till after the murder was committed; or if it was,
but with a view of saving themselves by that devilish precaution; for so
many have been acquitted on that pretence, that it is but too common a
thing to provide child-bed linen beforehand for a poor innocent babe
they are determined to murder.

But, alas! what are the exploded murders to those which escape the eye
of the magistrate, and die in silence? Add to this, procured abortions
and other indirect means which wicked wretches make use of to screen
themselves from the censure of the world, which they dread more than the
displeasure of their Maker.

Those who cannot be so hardhearted to murder their own offspring
themselves, take a slower, though as sure, a way, and get it done by
others, by dropping their children, and leaving them to be starved by
parish nurses.

Thus is God robbed of a creature, in whom he had breathed the breath of
life, and on whom he had stamped his image; the world of an inhabitant,
who might have been of use; the king of a subject; and future
generations of an issue not to be accounted for, had this infant lived
to have been a parent.

It is therefore the height of charity and humanity to provide against
this barbarity, to prevent this crying sin, and extract good, even out
of evil, by saving these innocent babes from slaughter, and bringing
them up in the nurture and fear of the Lord; to be of benefit to
themselves and mankind in general.

And what nearer, what better way can we have, than to erect and to endow
a proper hospital or house to receive them, where we may see them
tenderly brought up, as so many living monuments of our charity; every
one of them being a convincing proof of a Christian saved, and a murder
prevented?

Nor will this be attended with so much charge as is imagined, for we
find